Self-Compassion

We've developed the mindful self-compassion program which has 37 practices, so 'how would I treat a friend' is just one of a whole plethora of different techniques. You can take it online at the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion (https://self-compassion.org/events/category/short-workshops/) or buy the workbook available from Amazon (https://self-compassion.org/mindful-self-compassion-workbook/).

My latest work has been differentiating between tender and fierce self-compassion, which are the two faces of this desire to alleviate our own suffering. Tender self-compassion is more about self-acceptance. It's more of a gentle nurturing energy. Fierce self-compassion is about taking action to relieve our suffering. Sometimes that means protecting ourselves by saying no, drawing boundaries and standing up to injustice. Sometimes it means saying no to others and yes to ourselves. Taking your own needs seriously and doing what you need to do to be happy, whole, authentic, and motivate change. Although we accept ourselves, we may not want to accept all our behavior, so to help ourselves, we may need to change our behavior or our life situations. I call that fierce self-compassion. So one type of compassion is like a tender mother, and the other is like a fierce mama bear.

Gender socialization in most cultures places us into little boxes that make us only half-human. Everyone needs both fierce and tender self-compassion regardless of gender identity. But individuals who are raised to be boys are told to be fierce but not tender. They get called names if they display "feminine" qualities like tenderness or sensitivity, which harms boys and men. People who are socialized to be girls are told they need to be tender, sweet and soft to others, but not to themselves. They need to be self-sacrificing to be a good girl. Be tender and nurturing to others, but not fierce. If a girl gets angry, it's not acceptable. This cuts women off from their fierce side and also from their self-compassionate side.

Women have less self-compassion than men because men are raised to feel more entitled to meet their own needs. Women feel less entitled, so they have a harder time being self-compassionate and feel less comfortable getting angry or fierce or asserting themselves because they are disliked for doing so. I focused the book on women to counter this gender socialization, which is designed to subordinate women and keep them in their place. Men also need the balance between the two, but their barriers are different. Their obstacles are more to being tender and sensitive, so I'd have to write a different book to address imbalance from the male perspective.

At this point, there are almost 4000 studies and dissertations on self-compassion. The vast majority of them show the benefits of self-compassion. It's linked to less depression, less anxiety, less stress, less shame, less post-traumatic stress syndrome, less suicidal ideation, less alcohol abuse and fewer eating disorders. It's also linked to positive things like more happy happiness, more hope, more motivation, better physical health. Probably due to things like better immune function and better sleep quality, which come from supporting yourself. If you go on my website self-compassion.org, I have a lot of original research articles.

I think there are a couple of reasons. One is cultural. We have a lot of cultural myths that stand in the way of being self-compassionate. Our culture encourages us to be compassionate to others, but in many cultures, we believe that if we're self-compassionate, it'll make us weak. It'll make us complacent. It'll undermine our motivation. It's selfish. And also that it means wallowing in self-pity. The research now shows all these are false. Self-compassion makes us stronger, not weaker. It's a powerful source of coping. It makes us better in relationships. We have more to give, and we're less likely to burn out from giving to others, as with caregivers, if we're self-compassionate, so it's not selfish. It makes us more motivated, not less motivated because we use the motivation of encouragement. It makes us less self-indulgent, less complacent because we care about ourselves. Our culture doesn't tell us that, so that's one reason.

The other reason is just our physiology. What happens when we feel threatened is that we go into fight, flight or freeze mode. So when we feel threatened, we turn that in on ourselves. We try to whip ourselves into shape so we'll be safe and won't make mistakes. Or we flee into shame from the perceived judgments of others, or we freeze and get stuck. When other people fail or suffer, we aren't personally threatened. So instead of the threat defense response, we go into our tend and befriend response. This system evolved between family members and group members to help each other feel safe and cared for. With self-compassion, we're going against nature a little bit in that we're using the system designed to care for others, for ourselves. Because it's more instinctual to go into the threat defense response when we feel threatened, being self-compassionate feels a little awkward at first, but the brain is neuroplastic. We can learn new habits and learn to respond with the tend and befriend response to ourselves.

This is very common. When we criticize ourselves, it's a safety behavior. If we feel threatened, the anxiety is more heightened. Everyone has this, but people with anxiety feel more threatened because they're anxious, which amplifies it. We criticize ourselves as a way to think that we're going to be able to control the situation, control ourselves, and control circumstances so that we feel safe. So with self-compassion, one of the things we need to do is have compassion for self-criticism. Don't beat yourself up for beating yourself up. You don't want to shame your son for shaming himself. Try to help your son understand that he's just trying to stay safe and well. Tell him if you criticize yourself, it will make you more anxious and less able to make decisions. Say a more effective way to keep yourself safe and a more effective way to get things right is to encourage yourself like a friend instead of beating yourself up. It works better. And then you can help your child try it out. See if you can encourage yourself to reach your goals. What happens is when you're anxious, it undermines your ability to do your best. And also, give yourself compassion as a mother, for it's tough to have an anxious, self-critical child. I know that because I have one too.

Constructive criticism, yes. But harsh criticism and belittling criticism, the research shows very clearly that it doesn't work as well. It does kind of work. Some people have gotten through med school and law school through harsh self-criticism. But it works using fear as a motivator. "I better get it right; otherwise, I'm going to hate myself. It's going to be so painful. I'm just going to study harder, work harder." But what it does is raise your anxiety, which undermines your ability to perform. It also makes it a lot harder to learn from failure. When you shame yourself for failing, it's hard to learn from your failure because you're lost in the shame of it. Then it shuts down your ability to learn. If you are kind to yourself when you fail, realizing, "Hey, everyone fails, everyone makes mistakes. It's okay. What can I learn from this mistake? How can I grow?" This is more effective in the long run. So, does self-criticism work as a motivator? Kind of. It has a lot of unintended negative consequences. Self-compassion works much more effectively.

Some people think that self-compassion means just giving yourself a break, going easy on yourself. It doesn't. Fierce momma bear self-compassion might be like, "Hey, you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you need to work harder, but not because you're unacceptable as you are, because I care about you, and I want to do well." It's like a parent who loves their child unconditionally but also wants him to succeed.

You start where you are. Pema Chödrön wrote a book called Start Where You Are (https://www.amazon.com/Start-Where-You-Are-audiobook/dp/B077VMJVZX/). You start having compassion for your self-doubt. You're feeling like, "I don't know If I'm worthy of compassion, I don't know if I can do this self-compassion thing." You can start with tuning into the pain of that. It's painful to feel that you aren't worthy of compassion, that you don't know if you can do it. You bring in the three elements of self-compassion for whatever you're feeling. First is mindfulness. Just be aware that it's painful to have self-doubt. Then you bring in some common humanity. It's so human to have self-doubt. Most people have self-doubt. Many other people feel the way you do; you aren't alone. That feeling that everyone is self-confident and has no self-doubt is a fallacy. Self-doubt and insecurity are part of the human experience. Use some words of kindness like what you would say to a friend who has many self-doubts? What would your natural response be to someone you cared about in that situation, and then you can try using some of that language.

One of my favorite sayings is, "the goal of practice is simply to become a compassionate mess." What that means is with self-compassion, we don't aim to get it right. We aim to open our hearts and be open to whatever is painful in the moment. So, in other words, if you made some mistakes that led to an accident that caused you harm and that hurts, the goal is not to get rid of that pain or try to fix it, but rather to hold the whole mess with compassion. Can you open your heart to the pain of having caused an accident? Can you open your heart and hold that just like you might hold a little child who's crying? Can you hold yourself in the pain of having caused the accident and having harmed your body? Everyone's a mess in their own way. So can you practice just holding the whole mess with compassion and give up the agenda of trying to avoid pain? That will help begin the process of healing.

For therapists, we have a book called Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program (https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Mindful-Self-Compassion-Program-Professionals/dp/1462538894). My colleague Chris Germer, the first author of the book, is a therapist, and he talks a lot about resistant clients and how you might deal with that.

A lot of people are resistant. And for some clients in therapy, especially if they have early childhood trauma, what may have happened is that their early experiences of care got fused with fear. When they try to give themselves love they immediately think of all the ways they're unloved, and it can be almost re-traumatizing. You don't want to force it on anyone, and you want to go slowly. Sometimes just being a compassionate presence is the first place to start. You can model compassion for the client. It may be too much for them to pick up the mindful self-compassion workbook (https://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Self-Compassion-Workbook-Yourself-Strength/dp/1462526780 ) and do it themselves. It may need to be approached gradually and slowly. You can't argue someone into it. They have to be ready for it.