What Is Self-Compassion?
My technical acquaintance with this concept corresponds to September 2019. We don’t have a very long history. I hadn’t thought about these issues before; what is self-compassion or do we really show self-compassion to ourselves. However, I was always aware of how I was treating myself or whether I gave enough love and attention.
Although I am not a person who is very angry with myself and insults myself when I think I have done something wrong, I still ignored my own wishes by depriving myself of what I really wanted and pursuing the wishes of others. In fact, I never talked to myself and I thought that self-worth was all about putting off troubles and pretending everything was fine all the time.
However, self-compassion means being able to hold on to yourself, to talk to yourself, not to ignore your own wishes, not to blame yourself, to say “I am with you” instead of cursing yourself when you make a mistake, and to hug yourself when you cry and say “all will pass, you deserve the best of everything”.
My therapist sent me videos of an American psychologist named Kristin Neff to watch at the end of one of our sessions. If you want to watch, I will be sharing the videos at the end of the page. Immediately afterwards, I watched the videos of a Turkish psychologist named Zeynep Selvili, again with the advice of my therapist. Both were talking about the same thing; self-compassion.
At first, it seemed like one of the self-improvement nonsense to me and I told my therapist that I didn’t like the videos very much. However, when my therapist insisted that I should’ve search more, I watched and read some more. As a result, I realized that although I always thought I was compassionate to myself, I actually wasn’t at all. It sounds just so easy in theory, but in practice we all fail in self-compassion. Do we really love ourselves? Do we really value ourselves?
We have a voice inside our heads which seems closest to us but speaks to us like our enemy. Imagine just because you failed at something, your best friend comes to you and says: ”Stupid, what have you done in your life anyway? Why can’t you be like the others? Others are much more successful than you.” How would you react? Would we feel good? Or would we expect our friend to say these instead; ”Failure is for people. You will learn from today and become stronger tomorrow. You are a very smart and successful person. Don’t let anything discourage you”. Which one feels better? Let’s say these two sentences were told to you by two different friends. Which one is your friend? Which one is your enemy?
Now imagine saying the same sentences to yourself. Who are you? Are you your enemy or your friend?
Self-compassion is the ability to be a good friend with oneself.
Zeynep Selvili Çarmıklı
I was a shy kid and I was afraid to talk to people. My father did not like my behavior and thought I was embarrassing him to those around him. “Is it that hard to talk?” he used to say. ”Why aren’t you like other kids?” My father was trying to motivate me and correct this behavior he saw as a mistake with the only method he knew. He was unconsciously putting pressure on me and making me an even more reserved child.
So what would happen if I repeated what my father said to myself ? If I constantly told myself that my father was right, that it was a bad thing to be shy, that other children were better than me, that they deserved to be loved more than me, and that I did not deserve anything. How would I be today?
Throughout our childhood, our parents and teachers spoke to us in a harsh way, sometimes with heartbreaking phrases to either motivate us or make us work harder or educate us. We fell, they said “what a clumsy child you are”. We got a low grade in mathematics, they said “you are not very smart”. They compared us with other children. I am sure there are many different scenarios that you can think of.
They didn’t do it to offend us, they did it to make us better. But what they did not realize was that any such discourse had the opposite effect and further demotivated us. This learned way of motivation unfortunately continues by finding a voice within us and we continue to have these kinds of conversations with ourselves. But realizing this and showing some compassion to ourselves, being our closest friend may be the best thing we can do for ourselves.
How Can We Show Compassion to Ourselves ?
We can try to be friends with ourselves. If your friend who had a bad day calls you, what would you say to her? How would you comfort her?
Treat yourself as you would a good friend.
When you feel very inadequate and realize that you are being cruel to yourself, you can predetermine a few sentences to say to yourself. You can repeat the words you believe make you feel good, even if nothing else comes to mind at that moment but bad things. At such moments, I repeat to myself “Everything will be alright, you deserve the best”.
You can write down things that cause you pain in a notebook and treat what you write as if it had happened to someone else and you are now giving advice to that person. Being able to look at your problems from an outside perspective can prevent you from being ruthless towards yourself.
Below I attach the videos of Kristin Neff and Zeynep Selvili Çarmıklı.
Stay with love.
You might find this interesting too: Self-Care Tips for Body and Soul to Practice at Home
What do you think about self-compassion? Do you think you show compassion towards yourself? Let’s meet in the comments!
