As busy as everyone is these days, people are looking for “life hacks” and ways to be extra efficient. I’m going to suggest that you consider self-compassion as one of yours. The practice of self-compassion leads to multiple benefits, including increased resilience, better physical and mental well-being, and greater success. To my mind, that’s a huge payoff for one practice.
Compassion is recognizing suffering and desiring to alleviate it. Self-compassion, then, is noticing our own suffering and wanting to relieve it. Most of us have little problem being compassionate towards friends and loved ones, but most of us also struggle to be self-compassionate. Instead of self-compassion, we are often harsh and judgmental about and to ourselves. We may call ourselves names or be unkind to ourselves. The good news is that research shows that self-compassion is a skill which can be increased in mere weeks with practice.
I highly recommend Kristen Neff’s The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook which will explain how and why self-compassion works and what it is (and what it is not, such as making excuses for yourself). This workbook will help you develop your own self-compassion skills.
To get an idea of your own self-compassion levels, you can take a quick, free, online assessment at Dr. Neff’s website: https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-test/
After you’ve been working on increasing your self-compassion, you can take the assessment again and see where you have made gains and where you might want to continue working.
Many of the people I work with, people with difficult childhoods of neglect and abuse, struggle with self-compassion. If this describes you and you would like to meet for a free 15-minute consultation, I invite you to call or text me at 816-226-4678 to schedule one.
