15 Tools for Developing Self Compassion and Nurturing Your Inner Child to Improve Self Esteem

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this video on 15 tools for developing self compassion. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, we're going to start out by defining compassion and self compassion. We'll review this research regarding the benefits of self compassion and identify two key obstacles to self compassion. And then we're going to move on to what to do about it. We'll talk about questions to help you reflect on and clarify your beliefs about self compassion and then explore 15 activities to help you develop self compassion. So let's start out with defining compassion. What is it? Compassion is simply a desire to comfort and help someone suffering based on unconditional positive regard. Compassion recognizes all living creatures are fallible and deserve to feel safe, loved and comfortable. Compassion also separates the person from the behavior. We can love a person, we can have compassion for a person, we can dislike a behavior. So we're going to talk more about these things as we go through it. But I want you to think about compassion as the recognition for all living creatures being fallible and deserving to feel safe, loved and comfortable. So the research on self compassion is actually really compelling. When I started doing this presentation, I didn't honestly expect to find a whole lot of research on it. But guess what? There is. There's a ton. Sleep is actually improved in people who are more self compassionate. Well, it makes sense if you are self compassionate. If you are kind to yourself, then you are less angry with yourself, you're less riddled with guilt, you're less stressed out and you take better care of yourself so you're able to get better quality sleep. Pain is actually reduced in people who have more self compassion. When we are stressed out, our pain threshold actually goes down. So people who are self compassionate tend to be less stressed out. They are more excited accepting of the pain that is instead of fighting with it, which reduces their HPA axis activation or their stress response and actually improves their perception of pain so they're more able to accept it, to deal with it and their pain threshold stays higher. They found people who are more self compassionate actually have low lower levels of daily cortisol. Remember, cortisol is our stress hormone and it peaks in the morning. It helps us get out of bed and then it's supposed to gradually decline throughout the day. People who are more self compassionate have less spikes in their cortisol level. Remember cortisol spikes when we get stressed and they actually have a lower level of cortisol throughout the day. So they're not as stressed about being awake, being Alive, existing. They found people who are more self compassionate and I know I'm going to start sounding like a broken record. Have improved immunity when you're less stressed, when your HPA axis isn't constantly activated, your immune system goes up. People who are self compassionate engage in adequate self care. They give their body time to rest and repair and recharge, which allows their immune system to do its job effectively and efficiently. They've also found that people who are more self compassionate have better blood sugar control whether they are diabetic or not. This again is because of that good old HPA axis. When you're stressed, your body dumps cortisol, it dumps glutamate, it dumps adrenaline, and it causes your liver to dump blood sugar in order to fuel that fight or flight reaction. If you are more self compassionate, if you you are more nurturing of yourself and more responsive to your needs, then you are less likely to have extended activation of that HPA axis, which means you're better able to control your blood sugar. They've also found that people who are more self compassionate have fewer mu mood disorders, less anxiety, less anger, less depression. They are less hard on themselves. They are better able to engage in problem focused and situation focused coping in order to address situations. Burnout prevention is another benefit of self compassion. And I have in caregivers here, burnout prevention and caregivers. And a lot of the research looked at doctors, therapists, nurses as well as people who are caregivers for dementia patients or children with significant disabilities. But it applies to anybody who's in a caregiving role. If you are not self compassionate, when you're in that caregiving role, if you are not willing to recognize and respond appropriately when you're getting exhausted, when you're feeling depressed, when you're feeling getting angry, if you're not willing to respond to that in a nurturing way, you start getting run down, you start getting depleted. Eventually you hit that level of burnout where you just don't have any energy to care, you don't have any problem solving abilities left. You're just feeling hopeless, helpless and defeated. As I mentioned, people who engage in self compassion are more able to effectively problem solve. Why is that? Back to our good old friend the HPA axis. The stress response. When you are in fight orf flight mode and you've got adrenaline and glutamate and cortisol and all that stuff coursing through your veins, your body is not focused on higher order cognitive processes and problem solving. When you're self Compassionate. When you notice distress and you respond in a compassionate way to help yourself tolerate distress, then you can move into your wise mind more effectively, more efficiently and then you can engage in more effective problem solving. So self compassion helps you take care of yourself, feel safe, so you can downregulate your stress response and get into problem solving mode instead of fight orf flight. Self compassion is also beneficial for self esteem. People who have disabilities, people who have chronic pain, people who make mistakes, guess what? That's all of us who are self compassionate tend to feel better about themselves. And as I mentioned earlier, they're often able to separate the problem from the person. And finally, and this one is fascinating, interpersonal relationships. People who are more self compassionate, passionate are also more other compassionate. Now it can go both ways. There are a lot of people who refuse or feel unable to be self compassionate, but they are immensely compassionate with others. The more people hold negative beliefs about self compassion, though often the less compassionately they reported responding in a real world event. So most of the time people who view compassion as indulgent or irresponsible project that onto others and they are harsher with other people. Instead of responding in a compassionate way, they respond with pick yourself up and let's get going. Let's, let's do this. Two key obstacles to self compassion the negative belief that self compassion leads to complacency, indulgence or irresponsibility. And we're going to talk about each one of these in depth when we get to the how to develop self compassion, compassion and indulgence or complacency, in my opinion can be seen on a continuum. We can be compassionate with ourself when we're having a bad day and we can say, all right, right now, in this moment, this is what you need. It moves over to indulgence and complacency. When you wallow in that, when it's like, okay, I feel this way and I'm not going to try to do anything about it, I am just going to sit in it for a while and do nothing. Okay, that may be more indulgent and there is a fine line. Distress tolerance teaches us that sometimes we need to just sit with the feeling and experience it for a moment and then decide, okay, how can we improve the next moment? But it's important at a certain point to move forward. So compassion does not mean saying it's okay, somebody else will do it for you or it's okay, you don't have to ever do anything. Compassion is saying, I recognize how you're feeling in this moment and I want to help you improve the next moment. And that can mean saying that to yourself. Compassion allows us to tolerate distress, get into our wise mind and improve that next moment. Think about when you were a kid and something went wrong. If you had a compassionate adult that responded to you and said okay, you know, they gave you a hug, they said I know this really sucks right now sweetie. How much more effectively how did you feel when they did that? How, how more, much more effectively were you able to de escalate and get into your wise mind when somebody was there to say I see what you're going through and I'm here for you. The other obstacle to self compassion is the negative belief that people who are imperfect or make mistakes should suffer or are not worthy of of your energy or compassion. Now remember, compassion does not have to equal tolerance or inertia. Having compassion for someone doesn't mean saying okay, that behavior was fine, you don't need to change. Having compassion for somebody, for example, a child who throws a complete tantrum about something, you may not like that behavior. You can may be able to step back and have compassion for that child and go, wow, they are really overwhelmed and respond in the moment and say okay, I see you're overwhelmed. Let's work on de escalation and you know, let me help you through this. And then what can we learn from this? How can we improve the next moment? How can we prevent this from happening again? Compassion does not necessarily mean agreement with it means having some may say pity on what's going on with somebody. Sympathy, empathy. If these videos are helpful for you, help us continue our mission of making practical tools available to everybody. Click that subscribe button, click that like button and please share the the more you share, the more the word gets out, the more videos we're able to put out. So let's start talking about ways of restructuring your thoughts about self compassion. Think first about what makes someone, anyone worthy of compassion. Think about the kid at the playground. Think about your neighbor. Think about your own child or your significant other or your best friend or what makes them worthy of compassion? Are they perfect? My guess would be no. Are they helpless? My guess would be no. So what makes them worthy of compassion? What makes them worthy of your empathy, your sympathy, your nurturance? Are you jealous of people who are self compassionate? Sometimes when we have difficulty being self compassionate, we can get angry at others who are self compassionate. It's like oh my gosh, you're being indulgent or I would have come to work, being having a fever and being sick. So I don't know why you couldn't. And it's important to examine why we hold those beliefs. Are we getting angry with them for being self compassionate because we wish we could do the same thing or because we have some very strong negative beliefs about self compassion? Either way probably needs to be looked at. Can you have compassion toward animals that do bad things? And I start with animals and we move up to adults, but think about a cat or a dog that gets scared and growls at you, or worse yet bites you. Are you going to get angry at that animal and or are you going to have compassion and go, oh wow, you know, that animal must have been really scared which caused them to do that? I'm hoping you err on the side of compassion. What about children? Think about the child that bites or hits or does something bad. Can you have compassion toward them? Can you feel empathy or sympathy for their situation? You may not like the way they demonstrate it, you may not like their behaviors, the way they act. But can you have compassion for what they must be going through that is causing them or triggering them to act that way? What about adults? Can you have compassion toward adults that do bad things? And bad is on it all on a continuum? You know, it's obviously going to be really hard to have compassion for somebody who's a serial killer. But for adults who drink and drive, for example, for adults who make bad decisions, for adults who do things that are not behaviors that you think are appropriate, can you have compassion for them in some way? Can you have sympathy, empathy or pity for how dark and unpleasant and scary or broken it must be inside? Again, it doesn't mean you have to like their behaviors, but can you have compassion for that, the inner experience of that person? Think to yourself, what is the goal of self criticism? Do you, when you criticize yourself, are you doing it to punish yourself? Are you doing it to try to improve yourself? Does it work? I mean, if you are being self critical, does that encourage you to get better? Or does that encourage you to not try anymore because you feel defeated? If it does work, if when you're self critical, it pushes you to try even harder, okay, you're trying even harder at that one thing. But what is the cost? How does that impact your health, your mood, your sleep, your relationships? Is refusal to have self compassion a way of trying to protect yourself? Sometimes we may feel like if we have self compassion then we're going to be vulnerable to to others. It's important to examine what Are my motivations or what are your motivations for a lack of self compassion? What are you afraid will happen if you are self compassionate? Do you think if you start being self compassionate, you're sudden suddenly going to become just a complete lazy slob? All right, it's a thought. How likely is it, how likely is it that you're going to go from the go getter that you are to being lazy and unproductive? And what does lazy mean to you? For some people, lazy means not making their bed every single day. For other people, lazy means staying in their pajamas for four straight days without taking a shower or getting off the sofa. You know, there, there are big differences in what lazy means, so it's important to define that as well. Some people are afraid that if they're self compassionate that they are going to be perceived as irresponsible or they're going to let other people down. This is especially true in caregivers. They may believe that if I take care of myself, I'm exhausted right now, I really need a break. But if I take care of myself, I then other people are going to suffer. I'm going to let them down, they're going to be disappointed in me, at least initially. People may get a little bit disappointed because they're used to you pushing past, pushing through and being uncompassionate with yourself. However, it's important to recognize that if you continue to be uncompassionate, if you continue to push through, you're going to hit burnout and then you're not going to be able to do anything for anybody. And then you really are going to be letting people down as opposed to pacing yourself. I remember when I took over one of my first jobs as director of a residential treatment program. I went in and I was going like gangbusters and I just, I had so much I wanted to do and I was so excited. And one of my mentors pulled me aside one day and said, don, this, this is a marathon, not a sprint. You're going to be here for a while. You don't have to do everything this week. And that was kind of a wake up call for me. Now, I still have a hard time respecting that sometimes, but I do come back to trying to remind myself there's always going to be stuff in my inbox if you it's a marathon, not a sprint. And if I am completely depleted, then I'm not going to be able to do anything and I'm going to get way behind. So I need to pace myself and finally, sometimes people are afraid of self compassion because they're afraid they're going to open the floodgates. Nobody's been compassionate with them in the past. And they have so many hurts, so much anger, so much stuff that's just shoved into that closet and locked away. If they start being compassionate with themselves, they're afraid that that stuff might start coming out, it might be triggered because they're like, oh my gosh, I've never felt this way before. And they may feel like they'd become overly vulnerable. Now, this is an activity I really like doing, and sometimes we do it. I do it in group, but I can. You can also do in as an individual activity, create this table and complete it, first for a child, then for a friend, then for yourself. And basically what you're doing is defining that continuum of responses from a compassionate response to an indulgent or irresponsible resp. Response. So for a child, if a child is in chronic pain or they have a disability that keeps them from doing things, everything the way their peers do, for example, what is a compassionate response to that child? Do you tell them to suck it up, buttercup, and move on? Hopefully not. That's uncompassionate. What is a compassionate response? A compassionate response would acknowledge their pain, would acknowledge their current situation, would acknowledge how they feel about the situation, and, and acknowledge that they are lovable despite being imperfect or despite, you know, not being able to do everything they want to do right now because of the pain and focusing on the things they can do and how they can improve the next moment. Complacency, indulgence, irresponsible responses might look like doing everything for that child. It crosses the line from being compassionate to parentifying or doing everything for that person, even the stuff they can do for themselves. So that's where we start to become indulgent. That's not compassionate. That's paternalistic exhaustion. When a child or a person is exhausted, what is the compassionate response? Again, uncompassionate. Drink some coffee, suck it up and push through it. Compassionate response. I see that you're exhausted. What has to be done? Who can help you get these things done? Because you don't have to do everything by yourself. And. And what can be let go? You know, if you're completely exhausted, maybe you don't get the laundry done this week. Complacency, indulgence, irresponsibility would be saying, okay, you're exhausted, you're off the hook, you don't have to do anything. Now that's different. You can be exhausted, but oftentimes there are things that have to be done. So making sure figuring out how to get these, those things done is important. Compassionate. By saying, all right, let's just identify the things that are the high level must dos. The irresponsible side is getting to the point of total exhaustion and saying, you know what? Screw it, let the, let the pieces fall where they may. I'm doing nothing. Physical imperfections. This is another issue that comes up for adults and children. What's a compassionate response to somebody who is upset, distressed, self conscious about physical imperfections? And what is the indulgent or complacent response? And a lot of times physical imperfections are not something you can do something about. You know, it's it. It just is. So the compassionate response acknowledges how the person feels about that and then helps them figure out how to improve the next moment. The indulgent response may encourage them to dwell on their imperfections and ignore the other things about them that are perfect or closer to perfect. When we make mistakes, when a child makes mistakes, the compassionate response is, all right, that was a mistake, and acknowledge how the child feels about it. You know, I see you feel bad about that or you feel guilty or you feel ashamed of for the mistake you made. Now what can we learn from it so it doesn't happen in the future? Mistakes. The compassionate response is one of unconditional positive regard. You are lovable, you deserve to feel safe, and you're going to make mistakes, and I will help you figure out how to avoid having that happen again. How to improve. The indulgent response would be, oh, mistakes happen, no problem, you know, whatever. The indulgent response does not help the child figure out how to avoid doing it again. The indulgent response does not encourage the child to take responsibility in a compassionate way. Anger, what's. And we'll go. Anger, anxiety, depression, grief, all of those dysphoric emotions. We're just going to do all of those in one lump right here in order to speed things along. But when people are feeling angry, distress, emotional distress, the compassionate response acknowledges the function of the feeling. Anger and anxiety are a response to a threat. Depression is a response or a representation of feeling hopeless and helpless. And grief is a response when you lose something that's important to you. So the compassionate response is acknowledging the function of that feeling, empathizing with that person, not telling them how they should feel, empathizing with them and saying, okay, what can I do to support you and help you improve the next moment or Maybe just tolerate this distress because sometimes, you know, like with grief, it's not necessarily about getting rid of it right away. It's about having somebody compassionately sit there and say, you know what, that really sucks and I can't imagine the pain you're going through. Would you like me to just sit here with you for a minute? The indulgent response for distress is to validate the person's feelings. This is how you're feeling right now and you have every right to feel that way. And you can stew on it and dwell on it all that you want. The compassionate response helps people move forward at some point. Think of five times as a child you needed compassion and didn't receive it. What did you need when whatever it was happened? Maybe your dog died. What did you need from your caregivers but you didn't receive it? Would getting that have made you lazy, weak or irresponsible? Would getting that compassion from your caregivers have made you lazy, weak or irresponsible? What did the child you learn from that experience that you should, you shouldn't feel about those things, you should just get over it. You don't deserve compassion. What did you, what messages did you pick up? Either overtly you were told them or covertly it was how you interpreted the responses of your supposed caregivers. Looking back at that situation, envisioning your inner child, envisioning little you in that situation, how do you feel for that child right now and what can you tell that child right now? You can't go back and nurture them and completely change the situation, but you can have compassion for that child not getting their needs met and you can ensure, you can reassure them that you are going to be compassionate with them, with yourself henceforth. Think of five times as an adult you needed self compassion. What did you need? Did. Were you getting burned out and you just needed a break? Were you grieving about something and you just, you needed a hug? You needed some empathy? Did you make a mistake or fail at something and really need some encouraging words? I mean, yeah, you can give all of these things to yourself. You can give yourself a hug, you can give yourself empathy. Would getting these things have made you lazy, weak or irresponsible? Would giving yourself a break to prevent getting burned out or being empathetic with yourself when you were grieving or providing positive, encouraging, cheerleading if you will, words after a failure, would that have made you lazy, weak or irresponsible? How might self compassion have improved the situation? If you had responded in a self Compassionate way. How might it have gone differently? What might have been better? How could you make amends to yourself for not being self compassionate? So looking back at that, whether it was last week or 10 years ago, what can you tell your somewhat younger self in order to make amends for not being self compassionate? More strategies for developing compassion, Consistent mindful awareness and sensitive responding to feel safe enough to tolerate distress and improve the next moment. Basically, that is a long way of saying develop a secure attachment to yourself. Start out with consistent mindful awareness of yourself. Check in with yourself. Start out maybe before every meal, three times a day. And then add in more time as you get better at being mindful, like when you're driving or when you're doing mundane tasks. But start out with breakfast, lunch and dinner. Mindfulness. Consider. Become aware of what you need. Become aware of what you're telling yourself. Observe and describe. You're just looking in and going, what is it that I need right now? Notice what you're saying to yourself and how you're saying it. I mean, we can encourage ourselves by saying something like, wow, I know you feel overwhelmed right now. Let's figure out how to break this task into chunks so we can keep plugging along to get through. Or you can say, all right, quit being lazy, get up and get it done. Okay, There two different ways. One's compassionate, one's pretty darn aggressive. When you notice how you're talking to yourself, ask yourself or think to yourself, would I say this in this way to somebody else? Most of the time we'll find that the things that we tell ourselves are much harsher and much less compassionate than things we tell other people. Radical acceptance. Once you're aware of how you're feeling, what you're thinking. Radical acceptance of the moment. Instead of criticizing how you feel or what you need, just acknowledge it is what it is. I'm tired, I'm sick, I'm in pain. I'm happy, I'm excited, I'm distracted. Whatever you are, whatever you need, it is what it is. Were mindfully, non judgmentally observing and describing and accepting the moment as it is doesn't mean you have to like it. Sometimes you're going to notice that you are in pain. For example, distress tolerance says, this will pass. Distress tolerance says, okay, I can sit with this feeling. I don't have to fight with it, I don't have to struggle with it. I can acknowledge how I'm feeling. I can be compassionate with myself and say, you know what, self I know that sucks. This will pass you can use distress tolerance skills to help yourself tolerate those feelings. And then moving on to redirection, what sometimes we call embracing the. And this can happen and I can have a rich and meaningful life. So being compassionate with yourself, saying, I know this is unpleasant, I know this sucks, I know this is not what you wanted, and you can have this unpleasant thing here as well as things in your rich and meaningful life. So being compassionate, but also encouraging, recognizing that for a lot of people things are rarely perfect. Dialectics, improving the next moment, you're embracing the. And you're saying, okay, this can be going on. I can be diagnosed with this chronic condition and have a rich and meaningful life, all right? So I can be compassionate with myself. I can still have hope dialectics, embracing the good with the bad. I can do this or I can have this situation and I can learn from it. Or maybe I can't do these things anymore because of my diagnosis, but that gives me more time to focus on these other things, these other skills, or I failed at this and that sucks. It's unpleasant, it hurts, you know, I'm disappointed in myself and I can learn from it. So embracing the good with the bad, embracing the can'ts with the cans when you make a mistake, you know, embracing the fact that you can't change it, but you can learn from it when you're depressed, recognizing some things when you're depressed, you just can't. You don't have the energy to do. You just, you can't shake it off. And there are some things you just can't do, but what can you do? And being compassionate with yourself, not pushing through, ignoring your feelings, trying to pretend like it's not there, but being compassionate, recognizing, I have this and I want to do these things, so how can I make this work? The past, you can't change the past, but you can address how it affects you in the future, how it affects you from now on. So embracing the can'ts with the cans, being sympathetic and empathetic to how you feel about the situation and providing encouragement for improving the next moment. Fact based reasoning can also help. Think to yourself, do other people feel this way or experience this too? Instead of getting down on yourself for being depressed, for being exhausted, for being burned out, going, oh my gosh, you're such a failure, you're such a lazy bum. Whatever you're telling yourself that's horribly uncompassionate, think to yourself, do other people feel depressed sometimes? Overwhelmed sometimes, burned out sometimes? Yeah, it's not just me. This is not a Character flaw. It's just a state of being. Would I hold other people to this standard? And remember I said a lot of times the things we tell ourselves are often much harsher than what we would tell somebody else. So would you hold other people to this standard? If not, then be compassionate with yourself. Hold yourself to the standard that you want to hold other people to, and have patience and permission. Give yourself permission to feel how you feel and express it in the way that you want, provided that it doesn't hurt yourself or anyone else. That's self compassion. When you're grieving, for example, people don't grieve in the same way. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. Allowing yourself being compassionate with yourself to allow yourself to grieve or feel your feelings in the way that feels right to you. That's compassion. Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of a compassionate caregiver or mentor. If they were looking at you right now, what kind of advice would they give you? What kind of things would they notice? Develop compassionate imagery toward others and toward yourself. When you envision compassion, what does that look like? If you're being compassionate towards yourself, what would that look like? Maybe you have a compassion looks like a butterfly sitting on your shoulder or whatever it looks like. But developing imagery of what compassion towards others looks like, what does it look like? If you're thinking about somebody showing compassion to another person, imagine what that looks like. Maybe somebody helping somebody else across the street or picking up their stuff that they accidentally dropped everywhere. What does that look like? The more you envision compassion, the more it starts to develop those neural networks compassionately journal or reflect daily both on what went well and what did not. So write it from a compassionate perspective. Instead of a critical perspective or a completely unemotional perspective, write it from a compassionate perspective, providing encouragement and support and kudos for things that went well. But then also compassion for the things that didn't go well and the way you felt during that day. When you're feeling bad or make a mistake, you can simply ask yourself, what is the most compassionate response I can muster right now? Practice that with other people too. When somebody cuts you off in traffic, for example, think to yourself instead of getting angry. What is the most compassionate response I can muster right now? Compassionate imagery programming, as I call it. Sometimes this is something you can do before you go to bed. Envision your yourself being compassionate with someone or something else. Whether it's an animal, like a dog or a bird or someone else in your life, you know, being Compassionate with your officemate or your significant other or your child. Envision yourself being compassionate with that person. In the future, you know, maybe tomorrow, envision yourself being compassionate with your inner child. See yourself as that wounded inner child, whatever age, 6, 2, 16, whatever age you want to pick out and envision yourself being compassionate, meeting that child in your mind and being compassionate to them. And then envision being compassionate to yourself. Envision what you're going to do tomorrow in order to be compassionate with yourself. When you get up on the way to work, when you're at work, when you get home, see yourself being self compassionate. If you spend 5, 10 minutes doing this before you go to bed, it can help start programming those neural networks for compassion. Identify your triggers, the ones that promote compassion. What things can you put in your environment that remind you to be compassionate? Maybe a picture of your younger self, maybe a picture of Mother Teresa, maybe a picture of a bunny rabbit, I don't know. Whatever it is that reminds you to be self compassionate can be very helpful. And then identify your triggers that block compassion. Maybe verbal or non verbal criticism from others. Whether it's people in in the present that are not compassionate and they tell you to just suck it up, buttercup. Or when you think you're being compassionate, or when you try to be compassionate, they give you that disapproving look. Or maybe it's not somebody in your present, but you remember somebody that was important in your past being critical or giving you that look. So now when you start to be compassionate, you see them in your mind's eye and you're like, oh no, not going to be self compassionate. That's it. That's not okay. Another trigger could be the belief that you are the only one that can do it. You are overly responsible. And this can develop if you grew up in a dysfunctional household. If you've got codependency, it can develop for a lot of reasons. Maybe you grew up in an environment where you were told that it was your responsibility, that nobody else would do it. Or you learn the hard way if you didn't do it, nobody else was. Okay, it's important to examine that now and figure out is that true? Number one, whatever it is, does it have to be done? And number two, is it true that you are the absolute only one that you can do it? And finally, conditions of worth. You're only lovable if you're the best, which contributes to people pushing through. I'm going to go to practice or I'm going to study harder. I'm going to stay at work longer because I'm only lovable if I'm the very best. So I can't afford to indulge in compassion. I need to push through or I'm not lovable. If that's a message you received, you need to examine that and think do I believe this message? Or maybe you were taught that you're only lovable if you do X, Y and Z. If you do these things, if you give until it hurts, if you constantly care, caretake, if you go above and beyond, if you're self sacrificing, that makes you lovable. I can't tell you whether you believe that or not. But it's important to examine do I believe that I am only lovable if I do these things or am I still lovable even if I engage in self compassion? Even if I pace myself so I don't burn out? Relationship Reprocessing and Boundaries Think of the people in your past who have blocked your self compassion. What did they say or communicate that told you that self compassion was bad? What was their motivation? Maybe that's how they were raised. They they're not self compassionate so they teach others that that's the appropriate way to be. Maybe they weren't trying to be harmful, hurtful, hateful. That's just how they were taught. Were they able to show self compassion? So really look at that person and go okay, they didn't want me to be self compassionate. Do they even know what it is? If they can't show self compassion to themselves then they may not have ever learned that it's okay. So they may be trying to keep me safe by keeping me from being quote indulgent or self compassionate. Do you agree with their anti compassion beliefs? Only you can answer that question. What do you want to tell yourself in future situations? So if you were at a funeral for example, and somebody told you not to be self compassionate, that you needed to put on a happy face and make sure that everybody was, you know, getting their needs met but you needed to ignore your own. Is that what you would want to tell yourself in future situations or is there a more compassionate way that you would respond? More boundaries Identify the ways you allow people to violate your boundaries. Being compassionate means recognizing how you feel and helping yourself feel safe, secure and loved. And when people are violating your boundaries, you sure as heck don't feel that way. So think about ways you allow people to violate your physical boundaries, your personal space, your affective boundaries. They tell you how you should feel or criticize how you do Feel your cognitive boundaries. They tell you what to think or what to believe and they discount your thoughts or beliefs. Your environmental boundaries. That's just your stuff. You know, how do they disrespect your stuff? They come into your space, they go through your stuff, they borrow things without asking or relationship boundaries. When people tell you how to act in relationships instead of respecting your beliefs about how to interact in relationships. So think about each one of these things and times that it's happened and how you really felt when that boundary was violated. What would be a more self compassionate or assertive response? Self compassion means acknowledging your feelings and beliefs in that situation are just as important as the other person's, but also standing up for yourself so you feel safe, you feel respected by yourself as well as the other person. What prevents you from maintaining your boundaries? A lot of times people will not put up boundaries or maintain their boundaries because they fear rejection, they fear punishment, they fear abandonment. So if those things are issues for you, how could you address that? Sometimes people don't maintain their boundaries because they just don't know how to be assertive. So if that's the problem, how could you address that? Guilt, shame and self compassion. Guilt is anger at yourself for indulging in self compassion. So examine prior self compassionate experiences. Were you being indulgent or were you being appropriately responsive? If you were in pain, if you were sick, if you were exhausted and you said, you know what, I'm calling in sick today or I'm going to give myself the day off. Were you being indulgent or were you being appropriately responsive so you could rest, recharge, rebuild and and get back onto your A game? What can you learn from that situation? Shame as opposed to guilt. Guilt is about something you do or don't do. Shame is a feeling that there is something inherently wrong with you because you desire compassion. Do you reject or shame other people for needing compassion or being self compassionate? If you don't, then why do you shame yourself for being compassionate? Cognitive restructuring is another strategy. When you have uncompassionate thoughts, write them down and then rewrite them in a self compassionate way. What if you were telling this to your best friend or your. Your child or somebody else? What would you tell them? What is a more compassionate way to communicate to them or to respond to that situation? When you engage in uncompassionate behavior, explore what you told yourself and then think about what a self compa. Self compassionate response might be. So the first one is about thoughts and then rewriting those thoughts. But the Second one is about behavior. Thoughts motivate behavior. So when you engage in uncompassionate behavior, when you force yourself to do something even though you're too tired or sick or whatever, then you need to step back and look at what thoughts did I have that motivated me to engage in this uncompassionate behavior and then again rewrite them in a more self compassionate way. Self compassionate Behavior Practice Make a list of the self compassionate behaviors that you will start doing what things you know. Pick five things that you can start doing that are more self compassionate. Things that you encourage other people to do but you don't do for yourself. Identify uncompassionate behaviors that you currently do do and self compassionate alternatives. Example includes burnout type things. Uncompassionate behaviors would include ignoring your feelings, ignoring your needs and pushing through self compassionate behaviors would be acknowledging your feelings and your needs and figuring out how you can meet your needs and minimally meet the expectations of what you're supposed to do. Another activity is comes from the self compassion scale. And the Self compassion scale is a validated scale to help people identify their level of self compassion. But I like to use it after people have taken it. We go back and on the statements on the self compassion scale that are uncompassionate, we talk about what could you do instead? So instead of dwelling on all of your inadequacies, what would be a more compassionate response? On the statements that are in examples of self compassion Then I ask people how could you actually do this in real life? So when I'm feeling bad, I try to empathize with myself. Okay, sounds great. How do you do it? An example and this. These are the positive examples. When things are going badly for me, I see the difficulties as part of life that everyone goes through. All right, sounds great in theory. How are you actually going to make that happen? Or I try to be loving towards myself when I'm feeling emotional pain. Okay, again, this is another one that's great. In theory, how can you be loving to yourself? What exactly are you going to do when you're feeling emotional pain? Self compassion reduces physical and emotional stress, encourages self care and provides a framework for the long haul. Remember, life is a marathon, not a sprint. We learn self compassion from the compassion shown to us by others. Unfortunately, many people are taught that self compassion is indulgent or irresponsible or they don't deserve compassion. So developing self compassion takes time and requires examining and altering the beliefs that you were taught about self compassion. Recognizing the benefits of self compassion and processing prior experiences and guilt about having self compassion.