The Value of Self-Compassion

The Value of Self-Compassion

If your spouse, significant other or best friend accidentally backed into a parked car and damaged both vehicles, how would you react and what would you say to them? Would you call them an idiot and berate them for their act of momentary inattention? Or would you tell them not to worry because accidents happen to everyone, that it’s only a car and, as long as nobody was hurt, it’s really not that big of a deal?

If you’re like most people, you’d show understanding, compassion and support. You’d most likely go out of your way to comfort, console and do your best to help them feel better about their unintentional mishap. Now let me turn this innocent, simple example on its transformational little head. Imagine it’s YOU who backs into the parked car, as I recently did with my daughter’s car. I bet your reaction to yourself is diametrically opposed to that described above regarding a friend or family member.

When it’s YOU, the supportive self-talk and compassionate understanding gets totally tossed out the window. In its place, you typically react with harsh judgment, self-abasement and brutal self-deprecating cruelty.

Research suggests that we’d all be better served and could actually improve both our mental and physical health if we practiced more self-compassion. Mark Leary, a Duke University professor of psychology and neuroscience, conducted 15 studies over the past seven years in this area and his results have left him with this simple conclusion: Self-compassionate people are happier people.

Three of his studies specifically targeted people over the age of 65. For these people who practice self-compassion, he found that those who accept the changes that come along with getting older and were extra nice to themselves on tough days, reported more positive emotions and coped better with the entire aging process.

The underlying message of Leary’s research is that you can teach yourself to be happier and more positive if you actively practice the art of self-compassion. If you can learn to treat yourself with the same kind of compassion, forgiveness and understanding that you would a dear friend, you can move yourself miles down health highway. You do this by focusing on the positive, being more forgiving and by not beating yourself up.

Another way to accomplish this is offered by British professor Elaine Fox, author of the new book Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain (Basic Books, 2012). To truly enjoy life and feel good, you need to actively counteract the harmful effects of self-inflicted negative thoughts and emotions by pushing back on them, she says. Fox suggests writing down your daily positive and negative thoughts in a journal, and to write four positives for each negative, in order to train your brain to look for the good in something.

I like this idea because it gets you actively involved in the process of creating a healthier mindset by actually performing acts of positive thinking and self-compassion. I might even go a step further and suggest that you not only write your four positive statements in a journal, but that you also say them out loud to a mirror. This will increase the potency of the activity by making it more real and personal.

If you’re the type of person who relentlessly beats yourself up over almost anything and would like a little relief, the remedy may just be the active practice of self-compassion. The truth is that we all occasionally make mistakes. That doesn’t mean that we’re worthless, stupid or losers – it just means that we’re human.