Self-compassion is about noticing when something is difficult and responding to ourselves with some of the kindness and understanding we might naturally offer to somebody else. It also means recognising that getting things wrong, struggling and sometimes not coping as well as we would like are all part of being human.
It sounds quite simple. In practice, being compassionate towards ourselves can be surprisingly difficult.
How Do You Speak to Yourself?
Imagine you’ve left your phone at work and don’t realise until you’re already halfway home. What happens in your mind? Perhaps it’s something like, “I’m so stupid. Why can’t I remember anything? Now I’ve got to go all the way back. What will people think?”
Now imagine somebody you care about tells you they’ve done exactly the same thing. You might sympathise, laugh with them about it or ask whether they managed to get their phone back. You probably wouldn’t decide that forgetting a phone tells you something terrible about who they are.
The mistake is exactly the same. The difference can be how we respond to the person who made it.
Why Are We Often Kinder to Other People?
It can be much easier to offer compassion to somebody else than to ourselves. We may be patient, considerate and forgiving when someone we care about is struggling, while holding ourselves to a completely different standard.
If a friend is exhausted, we might tell them to rest. When we’re exhausted, we tell ourselves we should be coping better. If somebody else makes a mistake, we can see everything that was happening around them and remind them that everybody gets things wrong sometimes. When we make the same mistake, we may criticise ourselves for not trying harder or knowing better.
We can end up expecting things from ourselves that we would never expect from somebody we love.
Self-compassion isn’t about pretending that everything we do is okay or avoiding responsibility. We can recognise a mistake, apologise, repair something or decide to do things differently without needing to punish ourselves in the process.
Where Does That Critical Voice Come From?
Sometimes the way we speak to ourselves has a history. If we’ve spent time around criticism, shame, very high expectations or relationships where our feelings weren’t given much space, some of those messages can become familiar ways of thinking about ourselves.
Over time, we may not even notice how harshly we’re speaking to ourselves. “I’m useless”, “I should be able to cope”, “I’m too sensitive”, “I’ve messed everything up again.” These thoughts can feel less like opinions and more like facts.
Simply replacing them with positive statements doesn’t always help. If “I’m amazing and everything is fine” feels completely unbelievable, forcing yourself to say it probably isn’t going to create much compassion.
A gentler response might be more realistic: “I’m really frustrated that I got that wrong, but getting something wrong doesn’t tell me everything about who I am.”
When Compassion Feels Uncomfortable
For some people, being compassionate towards themselves doesn’t just feel difficult; it can feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar or even unsafe. If criticism has been one of the ways you’ve learned to motivate or protect yourself, you might worry that being kinder to yourself means becoming lazy, making excuses or letting yourself off the hook.
Sometimes compassion needs to be experienced from somebody else before it becomes easier to offer it to ourselves.
This is something that can happen in counselling. Initially, part of my role may be to offer and model a different response. Something a person expects to be met with criticism or judgement might instead be met with curiosity, care and understanding. At first, that can feel surprisingly uncomfortable, particularly when it is very different from what they have known before.
Over time, that way of responding can become more familiar. Someone might begin to recognise what I would say when they are being particularly hard on themselves, and gradually they may begin to offer some of that same understanding to themselves. What initially came from another person can slowly become something that belongs to them.
Practising Self-Compassion
Self-compassion doesn’t need to become another thing you’re supposed to get right. It can begin simply by noticing.
When you make a mistake or something feels difficult, you might notice what you’re saying to yourself and how you feel in response. You might wonder whether you would speak in the same way to somebody you cared about, and if not, what is different about the standard you’re applying to yourself.
You don’t have to immediately replace criticism with kindness. Sometimes just recognising, “I’m being really hard on myself right now” creates a little bit of space.
With time, perhaps another response becomes possible: “This is difficult.” “I’m disappointed, but I did what I could.” “I made a mistake.” “I’m struggling today.”
Self-compassion doesn’t mean difficult things stop hurting or that we never criticise ourselves again. It is something we can develop gradually: noticing our experience, becoming curious about how we respond to ourselves and perhaps beginning to offer ourselves some of the understanding we so readily give to other people.
And if being compassionate towards yourself feels particularly difficult, perhaps that difficulty deserves some understanding too.
Cover image courtesy of Tim Mossholder.