Nurturing our self-compassionate voice
Self compassion involves being aware of our own pain and suffering, and understanding that while feeling this pain is hard, it is a normal human experience. Directing feelings of kindness and care towards ourselves, and focusing our attention and energy on how we might alleviate our pain, are also crucial components of self compassion. Self compassion is a way of thinking, feeling and behaving with ourselves that is similar to how we might care for a loved one or friend that is suffering or in pain.
However self-compassion doesn’t come easily to us humans. Our bodies and minds are wired to survive which is where self-criticism comes into play. Imagine a sabre tooth tiger coming towards you and what you need is your body to step into threat mode where the sympathetic nervous system protects you using the fight, flight or freeze response. In this response your thoughts are saying things like “ Watch out, run!” “Hurry up, I must move fast"!” These are helpful responses to a dangerous situation. However in our modern day world, self-criticism is often not useful for keeping us safe. Instead the messages are mostly unhelpful such as “I look fat in that! I’m hopeless. I’m so stupid. No one likes me”
I am sure many of you can relate to these critical messages. They are often very familiar messages we have heard as children, sometimes from parents or cruel peers. Often these messages have become so internalised that we believe there is no other way to think.
Learning to be self-compassionate takes practice and a belief that all humans suffer and no one is perfect. Nurturing a self-compassionate voice might be like imagining how a caring parent talks to a child in pain. For example, imagine you are struggling with feelings of anxiety about attending an upcoming social gathering. Some self-compassionate thoughts might be: “It’s OK to feel anxious, lots of people feel anxious in social situations. I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. It’s uncomfortable feeling anxious, however I know I will get through this.”
I have recently been working on my own self-compassionate voice through journalling. This has entailed writing to myself in kind, caring words at the end of each day. I have written words such as “I know things feel really difficult right now, but I’m here for you. I love and care for you and want you to know you are not alone in these feelings of pain. No matter how hard things seem, I know you will get through this. You have so many strengths that you can use to cope. You know what you need to nurture and take care of yourself.”
It can feel very strange writing these thoughts down on paper, however it is a simple, effective way of nurturing our self-compassionate voice. Give it a try, you might be surprised at how nice it feels to hear these kind, caring and compassionate words from yourself!
If you are interested in reading more about self-compassion, the following websites are worth checking out.