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Practicing self-compassion can create positive impacts on our mental health and in our relationships with others. I think of self-compassion as a way of acting like a friend to myself. We all wish we could see ourselves through the eyes of the people that love us and think highly of us, and self-compassion is one act that can bring us closer to that goal.
A large part of the mental health journey is reflection however, when we think about our own struggles, shortcomings, and mistakes, it can be easy to spiral into negative self-talk and judgment. Practicing self-compassion can help us acknowledge where we’re at and accept that we’re human and will struggle and make mistakes. We can all benefit from treating ourselves more gently — just as we would with those we care about the most.
According to this article from Psychology Today, “Having self-compassion means being able to recognize the difference between making a bad decision and being a bad person. When you have self-compassion, you understand that your worth is unconditional.”
We all face issues and make mistakes, and self-compassion is a proven method of confronting our shortcomings and treating ourselves kindly as we work through them. Rather than indulging in negative self-talk and judging ourselves, self-compassion helps us acknowledge our humanity with gentleness and love.
How Self-Compassion Can Benefit Our Mental Health
Practicing self-compassion can provide multiple benefits to our mental wellbeing. Some of these positive impacts include:
- Strengthening emotional resiliency
- Reducing feelings of shame, anxiety and depression
- Boosting self-esteem, self-worth and happiness
- Improving healthy emotional connections with others
- Cultivating a greater understanding and compassion for others
Practicing self-compassion can bring impacts that reverberate not only through other aspects of your mental health but also in the relationships and connections you have with other people.
Self-compassion involves finding harmony between both our desire to improve and accepting ourselves and requires practicing a lack of judgment or unhealthy criticism. Self-compassion can be a way of truly seeing ourselves and caring for every part of who we are. Rather than thinking of it as complacency, self-care is actually one of the most fundamental steps in growing into who we want to be.
Putting ourselves down about the things we don’t like only causes those pain points to fester and grow larger, but self-compassion is one way we can love ourselves because we’re human. We make mistakes and struggle, rather than loving ourselves despite these things.
Ways to Practice Self-Compassion
One of the most impactful ways to practice self-compassion is to acknowledge your own humanity, knowing that we will make mistakes and face hardships. Being kind to ourselves through those mistakes and tough times is how we grow from them. So practicing self-care is about showing ourselves kindness and understanding, rather than unhealthily judging ourselves.
Some of the ways to practice self-compassion are:
- Give yourself permission and support yourself through mistakes or hardships
- Pretend you’re someone you care about and think about how would you support them
- Treat yourself like you would a loved one or a young child
- Practice mindfulness with verbal meditations focused on self-love
These practices are meant to help ward off the hurtful parts of our minds that lead us to judge ourselves and are also meant to help us accept our shortcomings or problems without inducing feelings of shame. Meditation, especially, can be a helpful practice. Meditation involves observing our thoughts without judgment, which is a key element of self-compassion.
Self-compassion is a way to care for ourselves, tend to our emotions and combat problematic self-talk.
There’s a popular proverb: Treat others how you want to be treated. So, in practicing self-compassion, we also have to remember to treat ourselves how we want others to treat us.
