How to Be Your Own Valentine

Self-compassion. We’ve all heard of it, but are you living it? There are very good reasons for why it is such an important topic talked about by therapists around the world.
You can learn about what it is (and isn’t!), why it’s so powerful and how we can improve it in the following blog.

What is self-compassion (and what isn’t it)?

Do you often linger on negative feedback longer than on positive feedback? Are you upset with yourself for making mistakes? Do you struggle to accept compliments? If you’ve answered some, or even all three of these with yes, you might have difficulties with self-compassion.

So, what is self-compassion?
Dr. Kristin Neff describes it as follows: “…self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with your failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?” To put it even more simply, self-compassion means you are kind to yourself, even when you make mistakes. What that doesn’t mean is that you do not try to grow. It is very much possible to strive and become better at certain things and be kind to yourself.

“Where we think we need more self-discipline, we usually need more self-love.”
-Tara Mohr

You might have learned that the only way to achieve greatness or even just improve, is to kick yourself in the butt and have some gosh-darn self-discipline!
What if I told you that often that is not the case? What if I told you that one of the best ways to give up on your goals (or at least make very little progress towards them) is to regularly be mad at yourself for not making progress? 

Our brains are complex structures, but they function on some fairly simple principles. Our brains like rewards. We are more likely to do an action again, when we have previously been rewarded for. On the other hand, we are less likely to do an action again that we have previously been punished for. Think: “A burned child dreads the fire”.
Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Now consider how you approach your goals. Often we dismiss progress as if it is expected, and focus on the parts that we lack instead. Thoughts such as “Yes, I’m glad that is done, but it was the bare minimum.” or “There was nothing special about doing this, anyone could have done it.” are frequent ways people who struggle with self-compassion think about their achievements.

Here is why that makes staying motivated difficult:

Imagine you are back at school; Did you prefer the teacher who encouraged you and was curious, or the one that had already dismissed and compared you constantly to higher performing pupils? Most would answer that they would prefer the first rather than the latter.

And yet, we often treat ourselves like the latter teacher.

Here is a thought experiment for you:
How would you approach your own goals differently, if rather than judging yourself for what you lack, you became curious about what you needed to succeed next time? 

As a result of this approach, how would your daily life change? How would your thoughts about your routines and difficulties make it perhaps easier to overcome them, if rather than admonishing yourself, you became curious and open for experimentations with new approaches.

When I was a child I would watch TV and would be often annoyed at some of the characters in cartoons (Well, yes, I was a bit odd. Why are you asking?). It seemed that so often they would give up too soon after only trying once with a chosen strategy to overcome their struggles. Instead, I wanted them to keep trying, because success seemed so close, if they only had tried for longer.

I want you to be better than a cartoon character. I would like you to stop and consider what would help to increase your odds of success next time you try. 

How do you build self-compassion?

To the readers who have been following along with the blog for a while, the topic of self-compassion is not new. In fact, I even wrote a blog post at the very beginning on how you can become your own best friend. 

Here are some ways that you can work on becoming more self-compassionate. 

1. One way to notice that when you are in fact not being very self-compassionate is by applying a perspective change: Ask yourself what you would say to your best friend in that same situation. In most cases you’d probably be quite a bit kinder and less strict with what you expect of them, am I right? See how you can treat yourself, like you would treat your best friend in that same situation.
   
2. Sometimes your own thoughts about your own (seemingly lacking) behaviour can be a clue as to where you should put the focus. What do I mean by that?
   How do you react when you notice you’ve made a mistake?
   For many people making a mistake feels than doing something good feels good. Self-compassion means accepting that sometimes we make mistakes and thinking about our own faults in a more kind way. This might look like turning “I am such an idiot!” into “I make mistakes, but I can try and prevent this from happening again by doing… in the future.”
   To change the way you think about your own mistakes I recommend first taking some time (this can be several weeks) to notice what thoughts come up when you get things wrong. Take note of them.
   Once you’ve collected some examples, pretend your favourite friend is telling you this as their thoughts to the same mistake. What would you tell them? Try course-correcting in the direction of what you would tell a friend, to yourself.
   
3. Actually do what you decide to do for yourself, even if nobody is watching. One really good way to prove to yourself that you are worth being taken care of, is to show yourself that you are capable of following your plans for yourself. So if you have wanted to spend more time reading, actually create a routine to read. This will not only allow you to do the thing that you want to do (Duh!), but you’ll grow your own self-confidence, because you are experiencing how you do what you say you will. Experiencing yourself being reliable, even when no-one is looking, is a powerful reminder that you can trust yourself. 

Ok, now that you’ve read the post, you can start working on becoming more self-compassionate. It might take some time, and there will most likely be some ups and downs, but soon you will notice how you feel better about yourself, and how external events have less of an impact on how you think and feel about yourself.

If you found this useful, consider subscribing to receive future monthly blog posts in your inbox. I am also available for online sessions, in case you want to jump start your self-love journey with some professional help (contact me here).

Photo by De’Andre Bush on Unsplash