“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the
barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I
can change.” Carl Rogers
Kindness and compassion are at the core of almost every meditative tradition
including mindfulness.
Self-compassion involves treating oneself with the same kindness and understanding that someone would offer a friend.
Kristin Neff – Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion more than twenty years ago.
Self-Compassion has been found to increase the motivation required to persist in a task after failure and seems to enhance resilience to challenging or traumatic events.
By caring for themselves, individuals can also be more present in relationships
and can sustain greater compassion for others.
Dr. Neff identified three indispensable elements of self-compassion:
Kindness toward yourself in difficult times; Paying attention to your suffering in a mindful, non-obsessive way; Common humanity, or the recognition that your suffering is part of the
human experience rather than unique to you.
Research showed:
Self-compassion correlates with important real-world outcomes.
For instance, people who score high in self-compassion are less prone to anxiety and depression.
Juliana Breines, Ph.D., Social and Personality Psychology, UCLA Berkeley:
Her research examines how social experiences shape the way people treat themselves, and how positive and negative forms of self-treatment
(e.g., self-compassion, self-criticism) impact stress reactivity, health and well-being.
Breines: Cultivating self-compassion could counter “contingent self-esteem”;
the problem of tying your self-evaluation to fluctuating factors such as academic achievement and others’ approval.
Many studies have demonstrated that this kind of thinking is not conducive to mental health or learning.
Will self-compassion undermine motivation? Her research showed the opposite:
Being kind to yourself can make it safe to fail, encourages you to try again.
“If you are low in self-compassion, you’re using too much emotional energy thinking about the bad feelings and not enough addressing the real issues.”
Mindfulness component of self-compassion leads people to acknowledge
and accept reality, without an emotional judgment.
2015 Meta-analysis of 15 studies found links between self-compassion and
health promoting behaviors related to eating, exercise, sleep and stress
management.
Research indicates that the self-compassionate are more psychologically resilient
and better able to regain emotional wellbeing after adversity.
Expert Tips for Cultivating Self-Compassion
- Realize that self-flagellation does not help you reach your goals but
actually holds you back. - If self-compassion scares you, perhaps because of past trauma,
consider turning to a counselor trained in compassion-focused
therapy. - If you are a parent or teacher, strike a balance between celebrating
- children’s achievements and helping them understand that struggles
- are normal, too.
- Everyone is different, so explore which self-compassion practices
work for you. - If you are struggling with self-compassion exercises, be patient and
forgiving with yourself—even if that means not practicing selfcompassion.
Kristin D. Neff’s Web site: http://selfcompassion.org/category/exercises.
Self-Compassion Resources:
The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life’s Challenges. Paul
Gilbert. New Harbinger Publications, 2009.
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. Kristin
Neff. William Morrow, 2011.
Self-Criticism and Self-Compassion: Risk and Resilience. Ricks Warren,
Elke Smeets & Kristin Neff in Current Psychiatry, Vol.15, No.12,
December!2016.
Metta Institute describes “Metta Meditation”:
www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html
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When I Started Loving Myself”
(A Poem By Charlie Chaplin written on his 70th Birthday on April 16, 1959)
When I started loving myself
I understood that I’m always and at any given opportunity
in the right place at the right time.
And I understood that all that happens is right –
From then on I could be calm.
Today I know: it’s called trust.
When I started to love myself
I understood how much It can offend somebody
when I tried to force my desires on this person,
even though I knew the time is not right
and the person was not ready for it,
and even though this person was me.
Today I know: It’s called letting go.
When I started loving myself
I could recognize that emotional pain and grief
are just warnings for me to not live against my own truth.
Today I know: It’s called authentically being.
When I started loving myself
I stopped longing for another life
And could see that everything around me was a request to grow.
Today I know: it’s called maturity.
When I started loving myself
I stopped depriving myself of my free time
and stopped sketching further magnificent projects for the future.
Today I only do what’s fun and a joy for me,
what I love and what makes my heart laugh,
In my own way and in my own tempo.
Today I know: it’s called honesty.
When I started loving myself
I escaped from all that wasn’t healthy for me,
from wishes, people, things, situation
and from everything pulling me down and away from myself.
In the beginning I called it the “Healthy Egoism”,
But today I know: it’s called self-love.
When I started loving myself
I stopped wanting to be always right
Thus I’ve been less wrong.
Today I’ve recognized it:s it’s called humbleness.
When I started loving myself
I refused to live further in the past
and worry about my future.
Now I live only at this moment where everything takes place,
Like this I live every day and I call it consciousness.
When I started loving myself
I recognized that my thinking
can make me miserable and sick.
When I requested my heart’s forces
My mind got an important partner.
Today I call this connection heart wisdom.
We do not need to fear further discussions,
conflicts and problems with ourselves and others
since even stars sometimes bang on each other
and create new worlds.
Today I know: this is Life!
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