Self-Compassion is being kind towards ourselves as if we were our close friend when we're experiencing difficulties.
I am practicing this right now and I want to show through my posts the steps I go through to practice this. Hopefully, readers would be encouraged to practice this as well.
I believe that a lot of the acts of prejudice and violence happening in the world are caused by a lack of self-compassion. The lack of self-kindness for the pain we experience makes us want to try to distract ourselves from the pain by lashing out at others.
If we are compassionate to ourselves when we feel unpleasant feelings and thoughts, we tend to kindly carry them as they are. We don't distract ourselves from them by acting aggressively towards others.
Components of Self-Compassion
Self-Kindness
When we have compassion for ourselves, we tend to be kind to ourselves when the going gets tough. We acknowledge that we are imperfect and gentle with ourselves when we fail or experience setbacks. We don't harshly criticize and berate ourselves when the chips are down. We coach ourselves supportively to act on our goals.
Common Humanity
We recognize that nobody has a perfect life and we all go through discomfort. We are not alone in the challenges that we experience. Even if we have specific disabilities or have experienced difficult situations, lots of people also have the same disability and have experienced the same situation.
Mindfulness
This is the process of seeing our difficult thoughts and feelings as they are and not what our minds say they are. When we are mindful, thoughts are just mental words and images. Feelings are just sensations. We see them with clarity and not allow ourselves to be too identified with them.
How I Practiced Self-Compassion Today
When I was in the process of writing this post, I was having thoughts like, "No one's going to like this post." "They'd laugh at you and think there's something wrong with you." "Might as well give up doing this because it won't get you anywhere." I also had feelings of nervousness, shame, and hopelessness.
What I did was let the thoughts and feelings be as they are. I did not try to argue with them or try to make them go away.
I just allowed them to be as they are.
I then reminded myself of the reasons why I want to write this post: I wanted to earn some money and also help readers with my post. I imagined myself as if I was writing this for a dear friend. I redirected my attention to writing. I then put my headphones and listened to music on Youtube and typed away.
The thoughts and feelings then changed to pleasant ones as I wrote. I was able to finally get to the last part of this post.
I hope you have found something useful in this post.
How about you? I'm curious to know how you practice self-compassion when you experience challenges. You can type them as a reply below.
The information in this post is not meant to replace therapy. If you need help with dealing with your thoughts and feelings, please see a licensed professional.
May you have a meaningful life.
Source: selfcompassion.org
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