Unlocking Self-Compassion
By Andrew Bryson
“I’d be nicer to myself if I didn’t suck so much.”
Until my late 20s, “self-compassion” struck me as an inaccessible feeling reserved only for rare people who really, really deserved it: people who had resolved their issues, had perfect work-life balance, were successful and hard-working, had healthy savings accounts, and were outstanding members of their communities, all while somehow living carbon neutral lives. Folks whose tireless work earned them love from self and others.
For most of my life up to that point, my inner narrative had been dominated by constant criticism and comparisons to these imagined people who were smarter, more successful, wiser, more handsome, more loveable, and just plainly better than me. My adamant inner critic lobbed abuse at me for hundreds of reasons and dominated my self-talk. As a result, I remained fairly depressed and muted. Who wouldn’t if they were caught up in such a cycle of abuse within themselves? For many years, my emotional highs and lows could be mapped out onto a cycle that nearly mirrors the cycle of abuse in relationships:
On good days, I pleased my inner critic, and thus was afforded some calm. On bad days, I came short of his expectations and fell (or was pushed) into shame and despair. Eventually, I’d rally and try to be perfect again, until I inevitably slipped up. Many years went by without me noticing that I was caught up in this cycle. Given the endless stress of living this way, something had to give.
One day, while sitting on a favorite park bench overlooking the foothills, I felt a pang of sadness for my sorry state. Perhaps the hardships of this time had pushed me to a breaking point, and my unconscious attempts to shove down tender feelings of sadness and hurt had finally failed. I let these emotions arise, and they began to swell. I started to weep, alone, on that bench. The tears were warm, soothing, and foreign. Up till this point, I had not known what it felt like to look at my life with compassion, and suddenly here I was, crying on a park bench, thanks to the sheer sense of relief that came from feeling compassionate towards myself.
Without even meaning to, I had stumbled into a feeling of care for myself, rather than more criticism and contempt. For many months after this, I sat on that bench nearly every day and let that feeling of care arise and sooth the many wounds I had accrued in a lifetime of service to my inner critic. I called these new thoughts and feelings “the gentle voice,” and over the next few years, the gentle voice gradually moved into the lead role in my inner monologue. Eventually critical voices stopped running the show.
Without radically changing my life through effort or determination, I accidentally discovered something that opened the door to healing: self-compassion. What a relief it was to finally walk through that doorway.
What is self-compassion?
My discovery of self-compassion was sudden, but integrating it happened slowly. The emotional opening on the bench revealed that I cared about myself and my suffering (this was news to me). What unfolded over time was something like a loving parent’s ability to comfort their beloved child, to reassure him and show him that he is safe and loved. By returning to this gentle attitude, I began discovering how to regulate myself, soothe my anxieties, and feel more at ease. Eventually, self-compassion became a trusted, reliable bedrock, one that I could return to, even when I lost my footing for a while.
Self-compassion started to showed up in a few important ways for me:
Caring about myself the way I cared about others
Being kind in my inner monologue, rather than believing harsh judgments about myself (or others)
Accepting and understanding myself, rather than judging, denying, and repressing
Prioritizing my wellbeing, rather than self-erasing or self-sacrificing
Kindly attending to whatever cames up in my experience, even the painful things
(This is just my take. Lots of folks have defined self-compassion more academically.)
Perhaps most importantly, self-compassion appeared as a welcome feeling of relief. It felt like a soft landing place inside, like a home I could return to and feel safe in. It felt like a warm bath that restores sore muscles and soothes aches. It felt like an embrace from someone kind and trustworthy.
To have compassion for yourself is to cease fighting with your own mind and finally rest. A preferable alternative, to the cold hovels of self-hate and self-denial.
The care that is already there
In my experience, self-compassion is not something we need to develop; it is what we embody naturally when we are unburdened by trauma’s enduring aftershocks. The trick, then, is to learn how to intentionally access this dormant self-compassion. The good news is that we do not have to be fully healed to access it. To the contrary–I think healing begins once we discover this compassion. Which begs the question: how do I uncover it in the first place?
For those of us who are entrenched in harsh attitudes towards ourselves, it’s doesn’t seem possible to suddenly flip a switch and embody self-compassion. For those who suffer in this manner, I’ve come up with a few pointers that may help you open the hatch to the care and gentleness that are lying dormant within you. I’ve organized the list according to the type of approach, as people differ in how they access deep inner experiences. See if any of these items stir something in your heart.
(Before any of these exercises, sit quietly and take a few minutes to calm down. Pay gentle attention to your breathing until it feels natural and gentle. Begin these exercises once you’re settled.)
The imaginative approach
When you’re grounded, access your imagination. Imagine that you are watching the movie of your life, and it is directed in the style of your favorite movie, by your favorite director. For the first scene, imagine something challenging you went through, something harmful that stuck with you. Pick something mildly to moderately distressing; save the most challenging memories for another exercise. Watch the scene unfold, with the camera focused on you. Notice how the movie captures exactly what you were feeling, and how you suffered. Let the camera follow you after the event, as the movie shows the effect this event had on you. How does the movie display your suffering, your sadness, your pain?
Now, you get to edit this movie. You get to change the scenes, the camera angles, the soundtrack, everything. Arrange the scene again, so that the movie conveys compassion for the main character. What moments from the event do you capture? Are there any flashbacks to earlier scenes? What about soundtrack? Is a song playing that conveys compassion for the main character?
Edit this movie with your imagination until it stirs some feeling. Think back to movies that moved you, if you need inspiration. Stay with anything you imagine that is poignant or resonates and stirs warm feelings. When you begin to feel your heart soften towards the main character, you know you’re going in the right direction. Once you’ve gone through the exercise, remember the event again, but watch the new movie that you’ve imagined. Let the feeling of compassion towards yourself grow, as much as it wants to.
The somatic approach
Follow these instructions slowly, line by line. Pay attention to the sensations that arise in your body as you contemplate the instructions.
When you’re grounded, turn your awareness towards your body. Notice the mundane sensations that arise, such as the feelings of your legs on the chair or your hands on your lap. Then, notice the sensations that have an emotional quality. Where are they located? Heart, head, gut? Explore the sensations as if it is your first time meeting them. Notice the quality of the painful emotions; are they sharp, hot, cold, dull, aching, etc.?
Now, remember the intention to be gentle with yourself, and then notice what uncomfortable sensations arise in your body. If the sensation is uncomfortable, stay with it. If it is too painful, try focusing on a less distressing sensation. Allow these distressing sensations to be there without trying to change them.
Next, invite the feeling of gentleness into your body. What does gentleness feel like in the body? How does gentle breathing feel? If you are reading this, what does it feel like to gaze at the screen gently? Do muscles need to be adjusted? Postures changed? If you are sitting with your eyes closed, what does it feel like to sit gently? Take time with this until the felt experience of gentleness has settled into your body.
If you’d like, take this outside with you on a walk. What does it feel like to walk gently? To wave at your neighbor across the street gently? If it’s hard to access, just stay with your breathing. Practice gentle breathing, until your breathing itself feels pleasing and soft.
Once this feeling has permeated your body, return to the painful emotions, and deliver this felt sense of gentleness to them. Feel the sensation of gentleness slowly approaching these wounds. Notice how the wounds feel relief and release some tension as the warm sensation of gentleness meets them. Allow these two energies to intermingle in your body, for as long as they need to. If the emotional pain increases, merely allow the sensations of gentleness to hang out nearby, without advancing on the emotional wounds. Simply let them coexist. If sadness, grief, sorrow, or other tender feelings arise from these wounds, meet them with the felt sense of gentleness, too. Let this play out exactly how it wants to; your body and sensations are the guide. (If the emotional discomfort gets so intense that the feeling of gentleness is completely overwhelmed, take a break to soothe yourself and return to baseline).
Return to this practice next time a self-hating or self-judging thought takes hold. Remember the intention to be gentle, find the sensation of gentleness, and then bring that feeling towards the areas of tension or pain. When these areas start to soften (which may be accompanied by tears, or at least a feeling of relief), you know you’re going in the right direction.
The intellectual approach
Mental health professionals often turn to neuroscience (the study of the brain and nervous system) to answer questions about mental illness. Most modern approaches to treating trauma exist thanks to this field of research. For example, we can now articulate how states like general anxiety and depression can be explained by dysregulation of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, and therefore we know to target nervous system regulation in treatment.
Self-hate (or lesser versions like self-judgment) can be understood as a kind of “dysregulation,” which means that the homeostasis of a biological system is out of whack. In terms of treating trauma, a regulated nervous system is one in which stress responses are balanced out by the ability to rest and feel at ease, and a dysregulated nervous system is one in which stress responses run chronically, nearly or totally eliminating the restful and easeful states.
Self-hate disrupts the ability to feel at rest, as it is a type of relational hypervigilance. This means that the biological systems that monitor threats to relationships (humans are uniquely and intensely motivated to protect social safety) are unbalanced, and therefore threat to one’s relationships is perceived in nearly every social situation, real or imagined. Self-hate is merely a symptom of the more biologically pressing feeling of threatened social safety (the sense that one’s social group is safe, reliable, and consistent).
The self-hating individual has internalized narratives and beliefs about self that allowed them to have social safety with an abuser(s). For example, a harsh parent may have only accepted and shown affection for a child who reliably bent to the whims of their mood and judgment. Or a school environment may have been accepting only if one effortfully altered themself to fit in, despite their true wants and preferences. Therefore, a child internalized that it was literally unsafe to be in a restful state, because being unguarded and spontaneous resulted in losing their social safety. So, it was adaptive and necessary that a child hated themselves, because hating themselves allowed them to get their relational need met. For children especially, this relational need trumps nearly every other need, shy of nutrition.
This explanation of self-hate allows us to see self-hate as a neutral and temporarily adaptive state that allowed for the primal need of social safety to be met. Methods for undoing self-hate, then, can be imagined in a few ways:
Meeting the core need of social safety in a new context, with individuals who do not implicitly require that self-hate. This will allow the feeling of social safety to take root, and therefore protective mechanisms such as self-hate will relax.
Realizing that the internalized reasons for self-hate come from self-compassion; we maintain self-hate because we cannot help but desire to protect ourselves and get our needs met (“If I hate myself, I will be safe. I prioritize safety because I care about myself”). This will allow one to deconstruct the self-hate program, as the impulse to hate oneself will be reconnected to the more innate impulse to feel care for oneself.
Practice the feeling of safety and regulation through other means (meditation, therapy, group therapy, yoga, massage, the exercises above, or one of the thousands of programs that teach this). This will allow one to feel self-compassion, because the feeling of threat that shuts down self-compassion will be soothed, and the innate feeling of care will return to the forefront.
There are hundreds of similar action steps that can help achieve the same end. Using this information, you can craft a personal strategy to reclaim a feeling of social safety, and therefore a feeling of self-compassion. Refined treatment strategies can be crafted with the help of a licensed, trauma-informed mental health professional.
Best wishes to you on your journey. My hope is that these ideas, action steps, and reassurances help you unlock the compassion for yourself that is already present. It is there.
Embrace the courage to change and contact Elliant Counseling Services to schedule a free confidential consultation today!