After training in the Compassionate Mind approach (Gilbert 2006) several years ago, I became somewhat evangelical about it and immediately started applying the principles in the therapy room. Compassion focussed therapy teaches skills of self compassion and this has been linked to greater wellbeing, reduced depression and anxiety and increased feelings of connectednes and calmness. On first glance you might roll your eyes or shake your head and say, “What’s running myself a bath really going to do for my mental health?” There’s a common misconception that self compassion is just about “me time” and being nice to yourself when in fact this is a ground breaking approach to mental heath that is rooted in neuroscience and attachment theory. Here’s five things that self compassion really is and isn’t….
What compassion is…
- Awareness / attunement – firstly in order to be compassionate to yourself, you need to develop self awareness. Mindfulness has become a bit of a buzz word in recent times and again there are misconceptions about it but essentially being mindful, means bringing your attention to your mind, your thoughts, feelings and body responses, to be able to start to notice your stress response and how you are when you are calm. Being mind-ful, not mind-less enables us the opportunity to take a side step from our thoughts and feelings and to notice them. To be self compassionate here we need to notice them in a non-judgemental way. We can simply label our thoughts or feelings as one way to do this e.g. “I’m having anxious thoughts”. This can help to disentangle us from the thoughts and allow us to observe them. We learn to adopt the curiosity of a good and wise friend which counteracts self criticism.
- Empathy – Empathy is different to sympathy. Empathy is being able to understand and share the feelings of another. This means really connecting with those feelings. Whereas sympathy is more like pity for another, from a distance. If we are aware and have noticed our feelings and observed them, this makes it a little easier to empathise with how we are feeling. It can be useful to imagine a past self – either a child self, teen self, insecure self, as a way to slightly separate from the feelings we are having, to then bring feelings of care and empathy towards the self. To practice generate feelings of concern and care you can remember a time when you have felt moved to want to help someone and hone in on these feelings. All of these skills are worked on in Compassion Focussed therapy.
- Kindess – to be compassionate towards yourself, you need to consider relating to yourself in the same way as you would to a good friend who is in need. If a friend comes to you and they pour out their heart, I very much doubt that your response would be, “Get a grip, sort yourself out, there are people with far worse problems than yours”! and yet this is often the language that internally we use towards ourselves. Once we are attuned and start to notice our thoughts and feelings, we can then choose to respond with kindness to ourselves. Some people find it helpful to visualise an other talking to them to generate feelings of warmth and care. Remembering a kind teacher or friend or developing an image of a “perfect nurturer” to attach these feelings of care to. To make a start, simply pause and make an effort to change your response to yourself. Notice the self criticism or emotion blocking that might normally kick in, and try to stay with the thought or feeling for just a moment. Placing a hand over your heart and internally saying “It’s ok to feel this / think this, I offer myself some care in this moment”…. What happens when we do this is magical in our bodies and our brains. Research has shown that self compassion increases our parasympathetic nervous system response. This is the part of the nervous system that regulates our stress response. So our heart rate calms down, our breathing evens out and our muscles unclench and soften and this sends a message to our brain that we are safe. This is bidirectional because once our brain detects safety, it shuts off the stress response. So used in combination with breathing, visual imagery and compassionate self talk, we can calm our chaotic brains down and soothe our bodies.
- Wisdom – If you have children then you’ll know that sometimes the thing that is best for them, is not always what they want. Being compassionate to yourself sometimes means doing what is in your best interest, not doing what you feel like. You might feel like cancelling the plans is the best thing to do because you are feeling a bit fragile and you don’t want to be upset in front of your friend. There might be another part of you though that is saying, “It would do you good to see them. It might lift your mood. I’m sure they would want to listen if you do feel like talking”. This inner voice is our compassionate self. It’s not pushy or critical, but it’s wise and understanding. You can grow this part of yourself by tuning into it and developing its tone, its language and its feeling. If we grow this part this can help us when life gets tricky. Our inner wisdom will lead us towards what will enable us to grow, if we apply the same compassion and kindness that we would give out so easily to others.
- Courage – being compassionate to yourself means pushing through fear and being brave and strong. It means asking yourself what matters and what you want, setting your sights on that and keeping going even when it gets tough. Again this might mean that you don’t take the easier road because you know what’s best for your overall well being. This could be so many different things to different people. It might mean exploring a new hobby, that you’ve previously written off because you’re scared to fail or meet new people. It might mean asking someone out or asking for a pay rise that you believe you’re entitled to. It’s about looking after yourself, because we are all equal. So often we minimise our own needs, ignore them or put others first. We also might take the passive not assertive route because we’re afraid we might sound cheeky or might upset someone else. To be self compassionate we must have the courage to stand up for ourselves, not over and above others but in equal amount to others.
What compassion is not……
- Letting yourself off the hook. This is a response I have heard time and time again when I have raised the concept of self compassion as a balance to self criticism. “If I stop keeping myself in check then I’ll get nothing done”, “I’ll turn into a lazy, good for nothing!” Self compassion is not about making excuses, not showing up, not exercising because you don’t feel like it, it’s about holding yourself accountable, but in a kind way. Imagine two teachers. They both want the same for their student. They both want the student to succeed. They have different approaches however. One rules with the stick, points out all of the mistakes and puts the student down shouting at them “You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t work hard!” The other has a kinder approach, they remind the student that it’s okay to make mistakes as this is how we learn and grow and to look forward and keep trying their best, “Start today, just do a little of what you can manage and you’ll start to build on it.” Which teacher do you think will get the better results? This is like the difference between our critical (default) self and our compassionate self.
2. Selfish – another common reaction to working on self compassion; “but I can’t just focus on myself, that will make me arrogant and selfish”. That’s correct – a core principle of the compassionate mind approach is our common humanity. We all struggle, we all hurt we all need compassion – towards each other but often we neglect ourselves. So we don’t over-focus on the self, but we just top up the self compassion so that it is equal to what we give out to others. We can also grow our compassionate self by intentionally being more compassionate to others, because it is like a muscle – many different exercises help it to grow. CFT emphasises compassionate behaviour towards others, including acts of kindness and practicing warm facial expressions and gestures.
3. Weak – you will not lose your strength if you choose to try to be more compassionate towards yourself and others. In fact this is a brave thing to do because it means challenging your default setting – which is often self criticism – which you have used to feel safe and stay on track. Being compassionate towards yourself means facing your fears and moving towards your goals not avoiding them which requires courage and strength. Think about some of the most compassionate people you know and in history and ask yourself if you would call them weak? Allowing ourselves to become vulnerable and experience our most difficult emotions is one of the bravest things we can do.
4. A quick fix. Developing a compassionate self is like physiotherapy for the brain. It requires practice and commitment, but once you have mastered the basics, you can fall back on this when you notice yourself going off track or reverting to default ways of relating to yourself. It is an attitude, an approach to life and well being and therefore there is no quick and easy way to do this. Some find self help useful and if you do, you will find more aspects of CFT in my blogs. Others need a therapist to help them through the skills and application of compassion through Compassion Focussed therapy. You can start anytime though! Simply taking a moment to slow your breathing, nice deep breaths to slow down the auto pilot and switch on awareness and calm down the body and brain.
5. It’s not less effective than giving yourself a good talking to, or burying your head in the sand or buying yourself a new top! These things might help in the short term, and are completely understandable as they are quick fixes (give me a dopamine hit from a new t-shirt any day!), however afterwards we can end up feeling the same as before, or sometimes worse, depending on whether we feel guilty about our coping strategies. Self compassion offers freedom and an antidote to guilt. Again – it doesn’t let us off the hook, but kindly reminds us what is best for us, but not to beat ourselves up and move on. Self compassion offers a longer lasting sense of calm and safeness that doesn’t wear off like the quick fixes do.
Find out more
https://www.compassionatemind.co.uk/: Self compassion – 5 things it is and 5 it isn’t
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