Cultivating Kindness for Yourself | Psychology Today Australia

Compassionate Self-Expression

by Josh Bartok with permission

Both psychological science (e.g., Neff 2023) and the world’s wisdom traditions point to self-compassion as an important source of equanimity and wellness. Although people often worry that being kind to themselves rather than self-critical will undermine their motivation and progress, studies show that people who practice self-compassion actually respond more effectively to failure and recover better from mistakes (e.g., Breines & Chen, 2011). When we descend into self-criticism, it can lead us to avoid the source of that criticism and intensify our distress, reducing our ability to learn and grow. We can likely see this in our own experience.

And yet, exhortations to practice self-compassion can sound like a demand to feel other than we feel—and we know that trying to get rid of our feelings intensifies them. Or such exhortations can become another stick with which to beat ourselves (“Why can’t I be kinder to myself? I’m doing it again and beating myself up—I’m so bad at being self-compassionate!”)—which can lead us to spiral into more self-criticism and frustration.

In our self-help workbook Worry Less, Live More, Sue Orsillo and I offer some suggestions, drawn from experts in the field and our own experiences, to help us all to add more self-compassion into our lives, regardless of how we are feeling in the moment. Without imagining you have to somehow remove or suppress any part of your experience, consider which of the following suggestions may help you to add in some amount of self-compassion.

Some ways to add self-compassion to our lives

• Engage in acts of care for ourselves, regardless of how we feel. Doing things that are kind and nurturing toward ourselves, such as drinking a cup of tea, dancing, lighting a candle in the bath, reading for pleasure, observing nature, or engaging in spiritual practice, can create a sense of compassion no matter what other thoughts and feelings arise. Getting in the habit of including caring acts in our day helps us to build the muscle of self-compassion so it’s more readily available for us. Consider making a list of acts that you find nurturing that you can add into your life. You might call to mind things that other people have done for you that felt caring, or things you do to care for others and think about how to add them into your life.
• Physical soothing. Psychology Today blogger and book author Toni Bernhard, as well as psychologists Chris Germer and Kristen Neff, all suggest physical acts of soothing as ways to cultivate compassion. Putting a hand on your heart, or gently stroking your own cheek, arm, or hand while you feel whatever is arising can create a sense of care and nurturance. Again, we can engage in these actions regardless of the thoughts and feelings that are arising for us (for instance, even though we might feel silly doing this, we can still do it and experience benefit).
• Noticing our thoughts and feelings as they arise through mindfulness or other practices. Instead of trying to feel differently, when I take time to notice my thoughts and feelings as they arise, I often find that a sense of compassion arises on its own. During mindfulness practice, I may spontaneously think, “My mind is so busy! I am feeling so much tension in my body.” And then I may feel care and loving concern for myself just as I might for someone else who shared such thoughts and feelings with me. And when this response doesn’t arise at first, I can continue to observe thoughts as they arise, including any self-critical thoughts. Sometimes it is compassion for my lack of self-compassion that arises!
• Use imagery to add in a compassionate perspective. Sometimes when I am having a challenging time with my own mind and I don’t have the energy to generate kind thoughts or feelings, I picture my late father and the way he responded to me when I was upset about something. If you have or can imagine people in your life who offer that kindness, you can practice generating images of them during difficult times; it can also be helpful to imagine compassionate figures from books or movies. Imagery naturally generates emotional responses, so just imagining these figures can affect us.
• Choose a soothing term of endearment for yourself. Psychologist Kristen Neff suggests calling ourselves something like “Sweetpea” or “Dear one” as a way of countering the more critical ways we may talk to ourselves. Sometimes I call myself “Lizzy” in my head, because only people who love me call that, and it helps to evoke that feeling of being loved when I’m not offering it to myself.
• Practice self-compassion exercises. Many mindfulness practices aim specifically at cultivating compassion. The exercise “Inviting a difficulty in and working it through the body” (from psychologist Zindel Segal and colleagues) on our website provides guidance in gently allowing whatever sensations arise in relation to difficult emotions, which can help us to have an open, compassionate response as difficulties arise. Other practices are available here.

The connection between self- and other-compassion

Psychologist Shelly Harrell notes that the focus on self-care, self-love, and self-compassion can overlook our inherent interconnection with other beings, particularly if we hold an individualistic view of self. In this wise post, she highlights the ways that our self is inherently in relation so that care for others is also care for ourselves and care for others is care for ourselves. Recognizing this interconnectedness allows us to broaden our practice of compassion so that it includes both other beings and ourselves. Our acts of care for others can remind us to act with care for ourselves and vice versa. Strengthening our ability to care, understand, nourish, and nurture in either domain can be expanded to be more inclusive of the other. For me, sometimes care for others (people in my life, people I don’t know, or the birds that land on our deck) helps me to reconnect to a sense of care for myself as another living being, doing her best to navigate this difficult business of being human.

Note: With appreciation to Josh Bartok for editing help.

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