Self-Compassion Helps you Achieve More.
Self-compassion was a mindblowingly transformative concept to me when I first learned about it in 2014.
Being nice to myself sounded different when put into the framework of compassion. Compassion was something that I felt in my bones for others, so trying to muster even a smidge of that for myself sounded, reasonable? That being said, the thing that struck me as most provactive about self-compassion was that it suggested that being hard on yourself actually made you less productive and typically achieve less. That bothered me, A LOT. All these years I thought that being tough on myself would get me somewhere. Given that I was well into adulthood in 2014, it makes me sad now to think that I never thought to question that methodology for achieving before I’d first read about self-compassion. I certainly hadn’t achieved as much in life as I wanted to at that point, so I instantly knew that self-compassion was something worth exploring. Ironically, the perfectionism that made me so hard on myself was precisely the thing that drove me to find the concept of self-compassion and what also made it so compelling: you mean that I might have actually found the thing that will help me achieve more? Sign me up! Besides that, I felt like I finally found something that truly resonated with me after years of therapy and self exploration.
Learning about it was such a breath of fresh air.
But what really bolstered it for me was the idea that research supports the concept. In particular, it was a research study on university students some of whom were given self-compassion coping tools and the others were not. After not doing well on an exam the self-compassion trained folks fared better by the completion of the semester. Why? Because they got over the initial failure, moved on and were able to use their energy towards studying more throughout the semester. Forgiving themselves worked by freeing themselves up to do more. It turns out that beating yourself up takes time! It takes energy! So instead of spending more time working towards your goals, you’re spending time focusing on why you’re a piece of sh*&.
So I began to explore self-compassion. I began to implement it into my life. Initially the intellectual concept was huge for me — just to consider it made on impact on how I felt about myself and how I talked to myself through hard times. For a long time I didn’t even implement the main components of a self-compassion practice.
Of course, having this realization didn’t make life easy, or simple and it didn’t cure everyting. I still struggled. I do struggle. I struggled with starting this blog because it’s still important to me to get things “right”. While we can argue the importance of being thoughtful of what one puts out into the world, there is a point where it’s your self-critic running the show vs. the part of you that really wants to put your voice out there. You know what I mean, don’t you?
What self-compassion offers is a new framework or perspective to offer you when you’re struggling. It’s a new coping strategy. For me it’s the most transformational coping strategy I’ve ever used. It’s actually quite likely one of the reasons I finally got myself to grad school to become a therapist.
During moments of stress learning new coping strategies can be overwhelming, but it is precisely the time when we need new tools more than ever. Trust me when I say that self-compassion is an impactful resource in times of stress, grief, and immense overwhelming feelings. I’ll write more in follow-up posts about the nuts and bolts of setting up a self-compassion practice, but for now, let me ask you this: have you truly taken the time to ever notice all the times you are hard on yourself in a day? Have you ever taken the time to consider the content of these thoughts? Would you ever say these things to someone else?