10 Surprising Ways We Block Self-Compassion.
It’s really hard to be kind to ourselves. We are brought up in a competitive culture that tells us to strive harder, do better and to sacrifice our physical and emotional wellbeing in order to achieve (outward) success. Burnout, busy-ness and overload are almost badges of honour. Tearing each other down to get ahead, whether that’s in the workplace, neighbourhood, politics, academia or via a social media pile-on is simply seen as the “way things are.”
It’s no wonder that self-compassion is seen as somehow soft or self-indulgent; if we’re too busy wafting around being kinder to ourselves then someone else is going to grab that job/gadget/partner/piece of the pie and leave us in the dust.
In this blog post I explore some of the common obstacles to self-compassion and how in fact, being kinder to ourselves sets us up to function much more healthily and resist/change the toxic systems we live within.
What is self-compassion?
Dr Kristin Neff, a respected Psychologist and researcher writes:
“Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself [as you would to others] 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?
Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?”
This idea of responding to life with kindness and understanding, rather than harsh self-criticism, can be a real eye-opener for people in therapy. It may be the first time they are presented with the possibility that there’s a different option to the old habit of beating themselves up. There’s also some really good evidence that self-compassion positively impacts on the brain too. However, emotional and environmental obstacles can get in the way of us being kinder to ourselves. Dr Mary Welford, Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Compassion Focused Therapist has identified ten ways our beliefs can block self-compassion:
1. Self compassion is about self-pity
Self-compassion is often confused with self-pity and “wallowing” in our own sadness. However, self-compassion acknowledges our strengths and resilience in a situation, along with our capacity to change that situation. Self-pity can feel quite paralysing as we head under the duvet to hide from the world and sob, whereas self-compassion is closely connected with agency – acting and making changes. We still head under the duvet and sob, but we don’t give ourselves a hard time about it, we see it as the first step in making change happen
2. Self-compassion is about being selfish or self-centred
Following on from the above point, as people increase their ability to be kinder to themselves, they are more able to connect with, and help others, to be a better friend/partner/colleague, and also handle conflict. They know they are not alone with their struggles and that such problems are what it means to be a human being. Self-centredness on the other hand leads to us getting hooked into our own worries and difficulties and disconnecting from others, which in turn immobilises us, as we feel we are the only one experiencing that problem and it’s our own personal failing.
3. I don’t deserve compassion
This belief is often connected with high levels of shame and judging our actions or thoughts very negatively because of it. This is a challenging fear to have, but in therapy we can investigate the belief to see if it’s true that we don’t deserve any compassion at all. We can also dip our toes into small aspects of being self-compassionate to see if it’s a good thing or not for us, and whether the reasons we have for being undeserving of compassion stand up to scrutiny in the long run.
4. My needs are not as important as other people’s
This is an easy trap to fall into, especially if you are caring for others already, or have received strong messages from society to put others’ needs first. One problem with putting others’ needs first all the time is that we can feel taken for granted, which then leads to anger and resentment. We can also feel uncared for and this wears us out. Compassion then, invites us to keep a balance between focusing on ourselves and on others. We can also frame this as an experiment to see if keeping this balance actually makes us better at caring for others or not; if it doesn’t we can always go back to how we were before.
5. Self-compassion is about letting yourself off the hook
Actually, self-compassion could involve taking responsibility for things we have done or are currently doing, and then making a commitment to change things for the better. The opposite of letting ourselves off the hook.
6. Self-compassion is a weak or soft option.
Facing our difficulties and experiencing a wide range of uncomfortable emotions as well as drawing upon motivation and commitment to change ourselves requires courage and strength. Self-compassion (like therapy itself) involves turning towards our fears, behaving in new, different ways and speaking our truth and is definitely not a soft-option!
7. Compassion lets your guard down and leaves you open to threat
Our brain operates on a “better safe than sorry” principle, always scanning for danger, and if we’ve had some difficult life experiences too, the threat system is activated all the time making us feel constantly anxious and on edge. Self-compassion helps the threat system to operate more efficiently; so it’s switched on when it’s needed rather than offering a 24/7 stress-out. Self-compassion offers us the choice of being able to decide when it’s time to put the guard up and protect ourselves, rather than moving through the world in a constantly armoured way.
8. Allowing myself to experience positive feelings will set me up for a fall.
This is one that I particularly relate to; that if we allow ourselves to experience states of calmness or relaxation then when life does what it does – throws us an unexpected curveball – we won’t be able to cope. Alternatively, that the simple fact of feeling good will make bad things happen to “balance it up” in some great cosmic scale of justice. However, it’s through surviving life’s inevitable knock-backs and obstacles that we build up our own self-confidence, that in fact we can cope and have survived and therefore deserve credit rather than criticism for that too.
9. Self Compassion means not facing up to difficult emotions
Hopefully, if you’ve made it this far you’ll be seeing that self-compassion involves facing up to and experiencing difficulties rather than avoiding or turning away from them. Turning towards, rather than turning away from sadness, anxiety and anger. We have a choice at this point: to either bottle things up (which frankly, just makes us feel worse and worse), or owning, validating and working through it in therapy. In the worst case scenario we can always return to what we were doing before, but generally speaking, having the courage to face how we feel and what’s going on for us is usually the first step towards reclaiming our lives from anxiety and fear. This involves bravery not avoidance.
10. It will be too hard or too overwhelming
Kindness to ourselves, like kindness from others can be quite frightening for some of us. We worry that inviting kindness into our lives will lead to us losing control of our emotions as they threaten to burst out in all sorts of destabilising ways. It makes sense then, that suppressing our emotions would feel more manageable than running the risk of letting them run rampant in our lives. However, as I’ve written elsewhere, suppressing our emotions is often at the root of many of the psychological issues that bring people to therapy. Yes, it may feel uncomfortable working compassionately on our emotions in the short-term, but the long term gain will make it worth it.
Compassion Focused Therapy is a way of learning how to understand and manage the brain and body by developing skills of kindness, compassion and openness to whatever shows up. We can use the Compassion Focused approach to hack into our brain systems and strengthen our capacity to soothe ourselves when life is tough. If you feel it’s time to start being kinder to yourself, why not contact us at Rhizome Practice to see how this wonderful approach can help you?
Further reading:
Mary Welford - The Compassionate Mind Approach to Building Your Self-Confidence
Kristin Neff - Self Compassion.
