The Benefits of Self Compassion
Consider the word: compassion
The English noun, compassion literally means “to suffer together with”. In other words, it is the feeling that arises inside of us, when we see someone else suffering and we offer ourselves to “be with” the sufferer, to accompany them, to help alleviate their suffering in some way by the gift of our presence. Think Mother Teresa.
It is a relational act that binds people together in the face of suffering. It has been associated with kindness, grace, benevolence, love, tenderness, and a helping attitude.
Compassion appears to require a relationship with someone else and this may be one reason why self-compassion almost seems like a contradiction in terms; as if we should not be wasting time sitting, being nice to ourselves when what we should be doing is being out there, helping the world!
But what this ignores is that we all, for better or worse, do have a bona fide relationship with ourselves. It’s just not a very pretty one.
Think for a moment of the last time you made a mistake that you felt embarrassed about. What did you say to yourself or how did you treat yourself when that happened? Did you berate, or criticize yourself or were you kind and gracious with yourself? Were you harsh or tender? From my experience, as a physician and therapist, almost all my patients have told me that they were far harsher, more demanding, unforgiving and downright mean with themselves than they would ever be with another individual.
So self-compassion, as perceived and operationalized by its foremost researcher, Dr. Kristin Neff, is the activity of treating oneself, especially in the face of pain and suffering, with the same qualities of kindness, grace, benevolence, love and encouragement that one would express towards any good friend that is suffering.
Treating ourselves in the same way that we would treat a good friend seems like a modest goal, yet experience shows it to be extremely rare. Why is that? Is there anything that truly separates us from anyone else? Are we made differently, that being mean to ourselves yet gracious to our friends is somehow justified?
Being gracious and kind in our relationships with ourseves does seem to have a lot of positive effects.
In the 25 years of research that Dr. Neff initiated, there have been over 3000 articles and research studies on self-compassion. The results have been nothing short of staggering:
Firstly self-compassion can be taught. In fact, Dr. Neff developed a program that I have been trained in to administer, that reliably teaches the skill to those that have never experienced it in their lives.
Secondly, those taking the program in randomized controlled trials not only had increases in compassion for themselves but also increases in compassion for others, decreased anxiety, depression, rumination and fear of failure. There were associated increases in social connectedness, life satisfaction, resilience and general happiness. Incredibly, all of these gains were maintained 1 year after taking an 8 session program, administered weekly!
Thirdly, it has been taught to various specialized groups with meaningful and positive results. Here is a small sampling: Diabetics had statistically meaningful improvement in their blood sugar control; adolescents had increases in mindfulness, social connection with reductions in anxiety; there were large effects on reducing burnout in healthcare workers.
In summary, self-compassion is an easily taught skill that can have profound positive effects on physical and mental health. Why not give it a try?
