- This topic has 3 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
In her book, Sara talked a lot about self-compassion, and it’s a practice that I am trying to integrate more and more in my life.
I’m just curious, how do you guys practise self-compassion? What areas do you find hardest to feel self-compassionate, and how do you deal with that?
@Misstree, this is something I’m working on too. I have a tendency to be pretty hard on myself so it’s not a practice that always comes easily to me. I think for me, self-compassion has been about paying closer attention to my thoughts and avoiding negative self-talk. And in becoming more aware of my own thoughts, I’ve also come to realize that I spend a lot of time thinking about what other people are thinking and making assumptions related to that. I know it isn’t helpful or productive, so I’m making a conscious effort to notice when I’m doing that and to stop. It’s been good to see the power in that and the postive impact it’s had on my life overall.
What do I struggle with? Finding balance in how I’m spending my time, feeling like I’m not doing enough in any aspect of my life and feeling guilty when I take time to focus on myself or spend too much time on one area instead of others. Thoughts along the lines of I should be a better daughter/aunt/friend/teacher/co-worker etc. creep into my head pretty often, and while sometimes that pressure comes from other people in my life, most of the time it comes from myself. I think I struggle more to be kind to myself in this particular area compared to others.
What do you find works for you?
What helps for me if I find myself being to hard to myself is trying to take a view from the outside, like a loving friend would do or I would do with a friend. Like when I feel weak because I am suffering from being alone, I try to tell myself that it is normal to feel like this because I am a human being. Or when I am not feeling well for one day, that it is absolutely normal to have bad days as well and that I do not need to pretend that I am feeling good. Sara describes this in her book and up to now it helped very much for me.
Accepting that I am not perfect and that little flaws make a person human and lovable.Sorry I took so long to reply, but thank you so much for your responses – I really appreciate you taking time to craft thoughtful replies!
Like both of you, I’ve had days where self-kindness comes more easily and others, where it’s a real struggle. I guess the struggle is where we slip back into old patterns of thinking, and start wondering whether self-compassion is just another way of “being too easy on ourselves”. But through trial and error, I really find being patient with myself is SO much better for my wellbeing than beating myself up and pushing myself to keep going (e.g by forcing myself to go on dating apps, etc). I feel so much better just listening to my body and constantly checking in on what I need.
It’s not self-indulgent, is it? After all, without being cliche, life is a marathon. We can’t keep running at top speed our entire lives. We’ll burn out eventually.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.