Healing with Self-Compassion
Self-compassion and kindness toward ourselves are essential practices in life, especially during times of grief and loss. Sometimes that kindness we have for others in their struggles can be harder to come by for ourselves. Dr. Charles Glassman said, “Kindness begins with the understanding that we all struggle.”
I find that despite being already down, we tend to use grief as a time to beat ourselves up. “Why am I still struggling?” “Why can’t I just get it together?” “I should be stronger by now.” “What is wrong with me?”
I love the following explanation of self-compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff. You can find her work at self-compassion.com.
“Having compassion for oneself is really no different than having compassion for others. Think about what the experience of compassion feels like. First, to have compassion for others, you must notice that they are suffering. If you ignore that homeless person on the street, you can’t feel compassion for how difficult his or her experience is.
Second, compassion involves feeling moved by others’ suffering so that your heart responds to their pain (the word compassion literally means to “suffer with”). When this occurs, you feel warmth, caring, and the desire to help the suffering person in some way. Having compassion also means that you offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or make mistakes rather than judging them harshly.
Finally, when you feel compassion for another (rather than mere pity), it means that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is part of the shared human experience.
Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you stop to tell yourself, “this is really difficult right now,” how can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?”
We can sometimes feel that self-compassion means that we become selfish or that we then don’t give compassion to others, and that’s not the case. Psychologist Christopher Germer says, “Self-compassion is simply giving the same kindness to ourselves that we would give to others.” Brené Brown encourages us to talk to ourselves like we would to someone we love.
I like the illustration of a baby learning to walk. If the baby falls, we don’t scold her and tell her she’s ridiculous and will never get it. We don’t punish her or use harsh words with her. We pick her back up and give her loving encouragement to try again. We may not always have people in our lives who can do this for us, but we can always hold that space of compassion for ourselves if we choose to. Self-compassion is within our control and a wonderful gift we can give to ourselves.
Self-compassion is vital in grief because by treating ourselves with kindness, care, and understanding, we can better cope with the intense feelings of sadness and distress that come with grief. Self-compassion allows us to reach out for help and hope for a better future. Additionally, self-compassion can help us avoid self-criticism and self-judgment, which can exacerbate feelings of guilt and shame that often arise during the grieving process. Practicing self-compassion can promote healing and growth during our most difficult times.
For more exercises on self-compassion, I recommend Dr. Kristin Neff’s website, self-compassion.com, and of course, April’s recommended reading book How We Grow Through What We Go Through by Christopher Willard, Ph.D. My post on that can be found HERE.
