Self Compassion Blah Blah Blah

When I hear the phrase 'self compassion', I can't help but cringe.

Asking, 'Would you say that to your best friend?' is a quick and effective way of making people notice how harsh they're being to themselves.  It also risks the asker being glared at menacingly, or worse.  Because, mostly, people don't want to hear it and would prefer to carry on beating themselves up.  It's easier, and less embarrassing.  Kindness is seen as weak after all.

What is the cause of this rampant masochism?  Probably our competitive, punitive, perfectionist society.  This isn't a ground breaking idea, so instead, let's focus on how to tackle it.

We can only be sympathetic towards ourselves when we have the confidence to believe in it.  The time to practise and develop an armour of kindness is when our self assuredness is on top.  Here are some of the ways to do this.

- Amy Cuddy's TED talk on 'power poses' may boost your resolve.  These simple postures are especially helpful if you notice self doubt creeping in.  But, often, we don't notice till it's too late.

- Mindfulness exercises can help you to notice.

Power poses and mindfulness both have studies showing that you don't have to enjoy the practise for it to have a physical effect on your brain.

- A way to recover, if you don't catch self sabotaging self doubt with a 'power pose', is by listing the ways you appreciate yourself.  Although this is also cringy, it often has impressive results.

- Use a Facebook group where others can inspire you.

- Create a tool box of strategies and skills to ease difficult times.  There are many other technique out there and if we explore them when we have the peace of mind to be able to engage, we will be better equipped to cope with challenges.
 
During the throws of scepticism, however, you may as well take a break from all that.  When our hippy bashing critic is in the ascension, the best way to get over our reluctance to be nice to ourselves, is to be self compassionate about lacking self compassion.  We need to cringe about the idea of allowing ourselves to cringe and get irritated with our irritation.  As soon as we shut out our cynicism, we give it strength and it builds until we binge on our resentment.  We can experiment with soothing words and actions when we're angry with ourselves, but ultimate self compassion is when we allow ourselves to feel that anger, instead of trying to chase it away.