It is so ironic. Whenever I ask my friend Barb to write a guest post, her message always seems to be the exact thing I need to hear. I mean, if beating yourself up was a sport, I would be like the welterweight champion of the world! Where’s my belt? Not to beat myself! My championship belt!
I was just having a conversation with a few people about how we have allowed others to mistreat us in the past. We really were not being very good to ourselves in doing so, but that’s a whole other thing! I know that we are all good people, but I also know, we are all guilty of treating other folks better than we have treated ourselves. We have ALL done some pretty stupid S#@T! And then beat ourselves up over it for years. Hell, we were just beating ourselves up during that conversation. We made mistakes. Who hasn’t? That person DOES NOT EXIST.
Speaking for myself here, I have always been a bit of a perfectionist and I’m sure there are deep psychological reasons for that. When I make mistakes, oh boy! NO one can make me feel worse about screwing up than I do myself! As much as I want to be perfect, I’m far from it and that should be okay. I wouldn’t torture someone else about a mistake, so why am I torturing myself? (Okay, I might have once or twice, but they deserved it.) I’m human. Humans screw up! I have been pretty damn hard on myself. I need to stop that. And I know I’m not alone on that one. I’m pretty good about taking good physical care of my body. Now I just have to work on taking better care of the rest of me. I need to be okay, with saying no to things and thoughts that do not serve me. I need to be okay being selfish sometimes. I need to forgive myself as easily as I have forgiven others! Self-care is about more than just massages, bubble baths, and facials. I (like many of you perhaps) need to learn to cut myself a break and to handle myself with care.
Because “I is smart. I is kind. I is important!” AND “I IS HUMAN!”
Finding My Self-Compassion Barb Fotsch, LCSW
I want to be good to myself…..we all do, right? Have you noticed though……that we seem to have more understanding and forgiveness for everyone but ourselves? You make a mistake….it’s no big deal. I make a mistake, I’m an idiot. You tell me about a problem or issue you’re having….I empathize. I confront my issues and blame myself. What is this? Lack of self-compassion is the basic answer. Sheesh! Not useful. Actually, there has been a lot of buzz in the counseling field about it.
Self-compassion is treating ourselves with the same kindness that we would show a friend.
It sounds so easy, but most people find it difficult to develop. We want to protect ourselves and not look our vulnerabilities straight in the eye. Maybe we had a critical parent and can’t get that gremlin off our shoulder or maybe there just isn’t enough “something” to fill our buckets.
The August’21 issue of Psychology Today had an article entitled, “Are You Too Hard On Yourself? Alice Boyes. Ph.D. So what does being too hard on ourselves look like? Some examples are:
- Understanding others dumb mistakes but being critical of our own
- Going the extra mile for others but never for ourselves
- Allowing negative self-talk and put downs
- Judging ourselves as “never good enough”
Kirstin Neff, author of “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself” offers 3 key elements of self-compassion. It’s useful to have such frameworks to help us move along in our self journey. Keep in mind the following:
- Being imperfect is inevitable, be gentle
Common Humanity
- All humans suffer; it is part of a shared experience
Mindfulness
- Take a balanced approach, neither suppress nor exaggerate your story
Dr. Neff even talks about developing a “fierce” Self-Compassion, comparing it to a mama bear protecting her cubs. I love it. Forgiving and nurturing ourselves can reduce our anxiety and lift our depression. You might be interested in taking the 26 question self-compassion test and see how you are doing? Selfcompassion.org
This subject is worth your time. I send my encouragement.