Option B

Caring for yourself

Practice Self-Compassion: How To Be Kind To Yourself

5 minutes

Self-compassion can help you get through hard times with less pain. Learn how to practice self-compassion & be kind to yourself.

Difficult feelings travel in packs. When sadness and worry turn up, they’re likely to bring feelings like guilt, shame, and disconnection along. Those feelings might look like:

  • Being embarrassed by the strength of your emotions
  • Feeling alone in your suffering
  • Blaming yourself for something you did, said, or failed to do

Guilt and shame are powerful emotions, skilled at tricking us into harsh self-judgment and making us believe that we don’t deserve support and forgiveness. We can escape that trap by practicing self-compassion: showing ourselves the same kindness and understanding we show others.

Research shows that self-compassion helps people get through hard times with less pain. Combat soldiers who were kind to themselves ended up with fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).1 People who showed self-compassion during their divorce were less distressed after separating and were still doing better months later.2

  • Tip #1
    Show yourself the same empathy and understanding you show others

    In our hardest moments, we’re often our own harshest critics, blaming ourselves for things beyond our control or judging ourselves harshly for ordinary human imperfections. It is easy to get tricked into seeing our self-critical thoughts as an accurate reflection of reality.

    But we all fall short of our standards for ourselves. Sometimes, we are simply too stressed, sick, exhausted, or overwhelmed to be at our best. So we lose our temper, drop the ball, hurt someone’s feelings, can’t show up the way we want to, or mess up one way or another. Beating ourselves up doesn’t move us forward, it just leaves us feeling inadequate and unworthy.

    Treating ourselves with compassion instead has real power. In one experiment, people were asked to recall a failure or humiliating experience. Those who wrote themselves a letter expressing the same care and understanding they would offer a friend felt meaningfully better than people asked to write about their positive traits.3

  • How to do it

    When we reflect on the choices we made in hard times, we often regret something we did or failed to do. It’s easy to overlook the good reasons we had for the choice at the time or to blame ourselves for things beyond our control. Just as that wouldn’t be fair to do to another person, that isn’t fair to do to ourselves.

    To shift perspective, try one of these strategies:

    • Imagine someone you love sharing those same self-critical thoughts with you. Would you tell them that they’re right? Or that they don’t deserve help or support? Of course not! Instead, think about what you would say to help them feel safe, worthy, and loved. Tell yourself those things the next time a self-critical thought pops up.
    • Imagine yourself as a young, innocent child who sometimes makes mistakes or gets overwhelmed by negative feelings. Just as all children deserve understanding and unconditional love, you too deserve that kindness. Think about the words of comfort this child longs to hear and offer yourself the same words of compassion.
    • Imagine a loving and accepting person who knows all of your gifts, imperfections, and experiences. What would this wise person say to you? Now, offer yourself that same understanding and compassion.

  • Tip #2
    Recognize your connection to the shared human experience

    Hardship and loss are unavoidable parts of the human experience. Although we all know this, part of us believes things are “supposed” to go well, that ongoing health and happiness are the natural state of things. When something really challenging happens, that belief in how things ought to be can leave us feeling cheated or wondering, “Why me?”

    The unfairness of our suffering can feel especially isolating when we see “normal” life going on around us. Recognizing that the experience of pain is universal can keep us from the added suffering of feeling alone.

  • How to do it

    To feel more connected, consider the number of people in your community who are experiencing hardship right now. Or reflect on all of the people throughout human history who have gone through an event like what you’re facing. They, too, have moved through sadness, fear, or anger.

    This exercise is not about discounting your own suffering by finding people who have it worse. It’s about recognizing the interconnectedness of our experiences so you feel less alone. You might tell yourself:

    • “I am not alone in feeling alone right now—others feel the same way at this moment.”
    • “Being human comes with experiencing pain. I belong to a web of people who have survived hard times.”
    When you’re in pain, it can be difficult to be around happy people, especially if they have something you’ve lost. To navigate that challenge, try zooming out for a wider perspective on their experience. They too have faced hardships in the past and will face hardships in the future. As you reflect on the reality that every life includes difficult moments, you might remind yourself:
    • “From the outside, I can’t tell what their inner experience is. Their life looks easy, but they may also be struggling”
    • “In this moment, they seem happy, but I don’t know what their past held, or what their future will hold. Like all people, they will sometimes feel the way I do now.”

In hard times, self-compassion can help by reminding you that pain, imperfection, and regret are part of the shared human experience. You deserve to feel cared for and understood. Offering yourself the same kindness, empathy, and forgiveness you offer to others can help you to heal.

Other Lessons

Endnotes

  1. Regina Hiraoka, Eric C. Meyer, Nathan A. Kimbrel, et al., “Self‐Compassion as a Prospective Predictor of PTSD Symptom Severity Among Trauma‐Exposed US Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 28, no. 2 (April 2015): 127–33.

  2. David A. Sbarra, Hillary L. Smith, and Matthias R. Mehl, “When Leaving Your Ex, Love Yourself: Observational Ratings of Self-Compassion Predict the Course of Emotional Recovery Following Marital Separation,” Psychological Science 23, no. 3 (2012): 261–69.

  3. Mark R. Leary, Eleanor B. Tate, Claire E. Adams, et al., “Self-Compassion and Reactions to Unpleasant Self-Relevant Events: The Implications of Treating Oneself Kindly,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 5 (2007): 887–904.