Self-Compassion as a Strategy for Over-Thinking and Self-Criticism
written by Lyndsay Janzen, LPC.
Thoughts about what you said, what you did, and what the other person said and did go around and around in your mind in a loop. It feels like a desperate search for an answer. Your scouring of your mind leads you to an exhaustive list of your mistakes, your flaws, and reasons you will never be a person deserving of the friends and experiences you find meaningful and inspiring. Now you’re stuck in a loop of self-criticism and wishing you were someone else. “You sounded dumb, you should have said….”
Even just thinking about social situations, public places, and your work environment sends your body into feeling uptight, irritable, and gets your mind to worrying. You try to fight the thoughts, trying to send them to a distant place in your mind out of your awareness. They just keep coming back! You feel panicked as you think about that upcoming work meeting or get-together with your family. So you think of reasons you can give to avoid it. Your self-criticism gets harsher and louder: “I’m a loser, a failure. I’ll never be able to….”
If you can relate to this, you may be interested in how to get out of the cycle of feeling bad about yourself and avoiding things that matter to you. You’re tired of avoiding opportunities and human connection out of fear of making a mistake, and ruminating in self-criticism. You may or may not have noticed that this cycle heightens the intensity of negative emotions towards yourself over time. It can get your mind especially attuned to nit picking mistakes over giving attention to your positive attributes and successes. It may even have you perceiving some of your actions as flaws and mistakes when in fact they are just individual differences in behavior.
Self-compassion is a tool that can help you relate to yourself in a different way than the self-criticism and focus on your mistakes. Self-compassion can be a powerful tool to manage anxiety.
Self-compassion is about relating to yourself in a way that acknowledges your humanness. It is taking into consideration that to be human means to make mistakes. And in this, you offer yourself understanding for those mistakes.
You’re probably aware of the compassion that you feel for others’ suffering. You’ve been able to offer understanding and kindness to people when they’re going through a difficult time. For many, having compassion towards the self is much more challenging than having compassion towards others.
Some people hear “self-compassion” and fear that it is “making excuses” for themselves. People mistakenly believe that harshness and self-criticism are necessary to avoid mistakes and to achieve goals. While this may work in the short term, it is not a sustainable way of avoiding mistakes and achieving goals. It often leads to a cycle of shame and other negative emotions that makes functioning difficult. The shame and other negative emotions have to be coped with and overcome in order to take the action towards the goal.
Shame can also lead to decreasing self-confidence, which can lead to more anxiety and the symptoms that accompany it. Symptoms like difficulty concentrating, irritability, and feeling uptight can lead a person to make more mistakes. And then the cycle of harshness, self-criticism, and shame continues.
Self-compassion is the opposite of harshness. It can help you recognize you are not as different from others than you think. In turn, this can decrease feelings of isolation, alienation, and shame.
A practice of self-compassion can help you put mistakes into perspective. Often times with increasing levels of anxiety and shame, a person starts to feel even small mistakes are more disastrous than they actually are.
People who tend to be harsh and critical towards themselves often tend to feel less deserving of kindness than the other people in their lives. Self-compassion practices can help a person begin to show themselves kindness and change beliefs about not deserving kindness, acceptance, and love from others.
Self-compassion is a practice of giving yourself the nurturing and love you need to pick yourself up from mistakes and try again. It is a practice of non-judgment This may not be what you received when you made mistakes as you were growing up. As an adult, you have the opportunity to give yourself what you need to feel supported and nurtured.
Curious how self-compassionate you are? You can take this test on Dr. Kristin Neff’s website to find out.
Ready to give a self-compassion practice a try? Below are some statements you can practice saying to yourself to keep them front of mind. I recommend that you practice these for a few minutes each day and then also when you notice yourself being harsh or self-critical. At first, it may be difficult to receive these statements. It will get easier with practice over time. You can read more about this process from the pre-eminent researcher on self-compassion, Dr. Kristin Neff. Dr. Kristin Neff has some self-compassion practices and a self-compassion meditation available on her website.
Self-Compassion Statements:
These emotions are understandable given the situation I’m in.
I am doing the best I can with the skills I have.
Because I’m a human, I make mistakes, just like everyone else.
It’s okay to feel anxious about _________. I can get through this.
It’s understandable that I’m feeling ______________.
I’m going to show myself kindness and support through this difficult time.
I can accept myself, mistakes and all, right in this moment.
I’m going to be gentle with myself because that’s what I need right now.
Being gentle and kind with myself will help me make the changes I want to make.
Making mistakes is part of the learning and growing experience.
Making changes can be hard. I can accept where I am in this change process.
I can forgive myself for my mishap.
I’m allowing myself to let go of others’ judgments.
It’s safe to be gentle and tender towards myself.
I’m letting go of my mistakes and going into the future with kindness and courage.
I know that nobody is perfect. And neither am I.
I am not the first person to be going through this and feeling this way.
Pain/anger/sadness is part of the human experience.
I don’t have to be perfect. I can acknowledge the hurt I feel.
I’m going to treat myself the way I’d treat a loved on who is going through this.
Most people find themselves feeling defensive, frustrated, or fearful at some point or another.
I am having emotions that often accompany challenging situations.
Interested in working with me to develop greater self compassion? I offer free, 20 minute consultations to see if my practice is a good fit.
Not sure and want to know more, you can learn more about me here.
References:
Brave Therapy. (2016, May 23). Self-Compassion with Kristin Neff & Brené Brown. Retrieved May 9, 2019, from https://bravetherapy.com/self-compassion-with-kristin-neff-brene-brown/
Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-Compassion Increases Self-Improvement Motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143.
Mindful.org (2019, January 29). The Transformative Effects of Mindful Self-Compassion. Retrieved May 9, 2019, from https://www.mindful.org/the-transformative-effects-of-mindful-self-compassion/
Riopel, L. (2019). 15 Most Interesting Self-Compassion Research Findings. Retrieved from https://positivepsychology.com/self-compassion-research/#:~:text=The%20physiology%20of%20self%2Dcompassion,and%20optimistic%20about%20the%20future.
Self-Compassion.org (n.d.). About Dr. Kristin Neff, Retrieved May 9, 2019, from https://self-compassion.org/about/
