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Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind

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Turgon:
Having read this article Self Compassion: The Most Important Life Skill on SOTT several months back, I ended up buying and reading her book, coincidentally right after re-reading Trapped in the Mirror.  I found that she inadvertently wrote a book that helps confront and work through the Negative Introject.  It’s obvious throughout the book that she took a lot of concepts from Eastern Religions, mainly Buddhism and has connected it together with Western Behavioural and Neurological Sciences with a quite a bit of exercises that are both writing, meditative and observation based to help facilitate a clearer perspective on emotions and thought patterns and ways of dealing with destructive ones. 

Although, at times I got the impression of her writing being a bit new-age (she doesn’t take into account pathology whatsoever) there is still a lot of food for thought into narcissistic behavioural traits, and ways of counter-acting it through what Gurdjieff termed ‘observation and recording’ and dealing with emotions and thought patterns that arise through that process with an emphasis on being compassionate as a means to bring about change and healing. 

Interesting read, especially for those who struggle with a strong negative introject. 


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The Costs of Self Judgment

Continually feeding our need for positive evaluation is a bit like stuffing ourselves with candy.  We get a brief sugar high, then a crash.  And right after the crash comes a pendulum swing to despair as we realize that – however much we’d like to – we can’t always blame our problems on someone else.  The result is often devastating.  We look in the mirror and don’t like what we see, and the shame starts to set in.  Most of us are incredibly hard on ourselves when we finally admit some flaw or shortcoming.  "I'm not good enought.  I'm worthless."  It's not surprising that we hide the truth from ourselves when honesty is met with such harsh condemnation. 

In areas where it is hard to fool ourselves – when comparing our weight to those of magazine models, for instance, or our bank accounts to those of the rich and famous – we cause ourselves incredible amounts of emotional pain.  We lose faith in ourselves, start doubting our potential, and become hopeless.  Of course, this sorry state just yields more self-condemnation for being such a do-nothing loser, and down, down we go. 

Even if we do manage to get our act together, the goalposts for what counts as "good enough" seem always to remain frustratingly out of reach.  We must be smart and fit and fashionable and interesting and successful and sexy.  Oh, and spiritual, too.  And no matter how well we do, someone else always seems to be doing it better.  The result of this line of thinking is sobering: millions of people need to take pharmaceuticals every day just to cope with daily life.  Insecurity, anxiety, and depression are incredibly common in our society, and much of this is due to self-judgment, to beating ourselves up when we feel we aren't winning in the game of life.

Another Way

I had known that Buddhists talk a lot about the importance of compassion, but I had never considered that having compassion for yourself might be as important as having compassion for others.  From the Buddhist point of view, you have to care about yourself before you can really care about other people.  If you are continually judging and criticizing yourself while trying to be kind to others, you are drawing artificial boundaries and distinctions that only lead to feelings of separation and isolation.  This is the opposite of oneness, interconnection, and universal love – the ultimate goal of most spiritual paths, no matter which tradition.

After getting my Ph.D., I did two years of postdoctoral training with a leading self-esteem resesarcher.  I wanted to know more about how people determine their sense of self-worth.  I quickly learned that the field of psychology was falling out of love with self-esteem as the ultimate marker of positive mental health.  Although thousands of articles had been written on the importance of self-esteem, researchers were now starting to point out all the traps that people can fall into when they try to get a sense of high self-esteem: narcissism, self-absorption, self-righteous anger, prejudice, discrimination, and so on.  I realized that self-compassion was the perfect alternative to the relentless pursuit of self-esteem.  Why?  Because it offers the same protection against harsh self-criticism as self-esteem, but without the need to see ourselves as perfect or as better than others.

Compassion for Ourselves

Compassion involves the recognition and clear seeing of suffering.  It also involves feelings of kindness for people who are suffering, so that the desire to help – to ameliorate suffering – emerges.  Finally, compassion involves recognizing our shared human condition, flawed and fragile as it is.

Self-compassion, by definition, involves the same qualities.  First, it requires that we stop to recognize our own suffering.  We can’t be moved by our own pain if we don’t acknowledge that it exists in the first place.  Of course, sometimes the fact that we are in pain is blindingly obvious and we can think of nothing else.  More often than you might think, however, we don’t recognize when we are suffering.  Much of Western Culture has a strong “stiff-upper-lip” tradition.  We are taught that we shouldn’t complain, that we should just carry on.  If we’re in a difficult or stressful situation, we rarely take the time to step back and recognize how hard it is for us in the moment.

And when our pain comes from self-judgement – if you’re angry at yourself for mistreating someone, or for making some stupid remark at a party – it’s even harder to see these moments as suffering.

Many people are resistant to the idea of self-compassion, however.  Isn’t it really just a form of self-pity?  Or a dressed up word for self-indulgence?  I will show throughout this book that these assumptions are false and run directly counter to the actual meaning of self-compassion.  As you’ll come to see, self-compassion involves wanting health and wellbeing for oneself and leads to proactive behaviour to better one’s situation, rather than passivity. 

Ending the Madness

Before examining self-compassion in more detail, it’s worth considering what our more habitual, unhealthy states of mind look like.  As we begin to see the workings of our psyches more clearly, we start to recognize how much we skew our perceptions of the world in order to feel better about ourselves.  It’s as if we’re continually airbrushing our self-image to try to make it more to our liking, even if it radically distorts reality.  At the same time, we mercilessly criticize ourselves when we fall short of our ideals, reacting so harshly that reality is equally distorted in the opposite direction.

… So why do we vacillate between self-serving distortions and ruthless self-criticism?  Because we want to be safe.  Our development, both as a species and individuals, is predicated on basic survival instincts.  Because human beings tend to live in hierarchical social groups, those who are dominant within the group are less likely to be rejected and have more access to valued resources.  In the same way, those who accept their subordinate status also have a secure place in the social order.  We can’t take the risk of being outcast by the people who keep us out of harm’s way.  Not if we want to stay alive.  Surely this behaviour need not be judged – how could the desire to be safe and secure be anything other than normal and natural for any living organism?

A Means to an End

If we look more closely, we see that harsh self-criticism is often used as a cover for something else: the desire for control.  Given that parents of self-critics are usually overly controlling, the message is received early on that self-control is possible.  When parents blame their children for making mistakes, children learn that they are personally responsible for all their failures.  The implication is that failure is an option box that need not be checked.  That falling short of perfection is something that can and should be avoided.

Ironically, there is also a way in which our desire to be superior is fed by the process of self-criticism.  Our self-concept is multi-faceted, and we can identify with different parts of ourselves at any one time.  When we judge and attack ourselves, we are taking the role of both the criticizer and the criticized.  By taking the perspective of the one holding the whip as well as the one quivering on the ground, we are able to indulge in feelings of righteous indignation toward our own inadequacies.

The Way Out

Although it’s important for us to see our psychological patterns clearly, it’s equally important that we do not judge ourselves for them.  If you are a habitual self-critic, remember that your behaviour actually represents a convoluted form of self-care, an attempt to keep yourself safe and on track.  You don’t want to beat yourself up for beating yourself up in the vain hope that it will somehow make you stop beating yourself up.  Just as hate can’t conquer hate – but only strengthens and reinforces it – self-judgment can’t stop self-judgment ... The best way to counteract self-criticism, therefore is to understand it, have compassion for it, and then replace it with a kinder response.

The best way to counteract self-criticism, therefore, is to understand it, have compassion for it, and then replace it with a kinder response.  By letting ourselves be moved by our suffering we have experienced at the hands of our own self-criticism, we strengthen our desire to heal.  Eventually, after banging our heads against the wall long enough, we’ll decide that enough is enough and demand an end to our self-inflicted pain.

Fortunately, we can actually provide ourselves with the security and nurturance we want.  We can recognize that weakness and imperfection are part of the shared human experience.  We can feel more connected to our fellow life travellers who are just as flawed and vulnerable as we are.  At the same time, we can let go of the need to feel better than others.  We can see through the self-serving distortions that inflate our own egos at others’ expense.

Being Kind to Ourselves

As I’ve defined it, self-compassion entails three core components.  First, it requires self-kindness, that we be gentle and understanding with ourselves rather than harshly critical or judgmental.  Second, it requires recognition of our common humanity, feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering,  Third, it requires mindfulness – that we hold our experience in balanced awareness, rather than ignoring our pain or exaggerating it.  We must achieve and combine these three essential elements in order to be truly self-compassionate.

The Path of Self-Kindness

Self-kindness, by definition, means that we stop the constant self-judgement and disparaging internal commentary that most of us have come to see as normal.  It requires us to understand our foibles and failures instead of condemning them.  It entails clearly seeing the extent to which we harm ourselves through relentless self-criticism, and ending our internal war.

… Sadly, however, many people believe that they shouldn’t be kind to themselves, especially if they received that message in childhood.  And even among those that want to be kinder to themselves, who would happily do away with their inner tyrant if they could, there is often the belief that change is not possible.  Because they’ve developed such a strong habit of self-criticism, they don’t think they are actually capable of self-kindness.  Luckily, however, being kind to yourself is easier than you think.

We’re all in this Together

The second fundamental element of self-compassion is recognition of the common human experience.  Acknowledgment of the interconnected nature of our lives – indeed of life itself – helps to distinguish self-compassion from mere self-acceptance or self-love.  Although self-acceptance and self-love are important, they are incomplete by themselves.  They leave out an essential factor – other people.  Compassion is, by definition, relational.  Compassion literally means “to suffer with,” which implies a basic mutuality in the experience of suffering.  The emotion of compassion springs from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect.  Why else would we say “it’s only human” to comfort someone who has made a mistake?  Self-compassion honours the fact that all human beings are fallible, that wrong choices and feelings of regret are inevitable, no matter how high and mighty one is.

… When we focus on our shortcomings without taking the bigger picture into account, our perspective tends to narrow.  We become absorbed by our own feelings of insufficiency and insecurity.  When we’re in the confined space of self-loathing, it’s as if the rest of humanity doesn’t exist.  This isn’t a logical thought process, but a type of emotional tunnel-vision. 

Being Mindful of What Is

The third key ingredient of self-compassion is mindfulness.  Mindfulness refers to the clear seeing and non-judgmental acceptance of what’s occurring in the present moment.  Facing up to reality, in other words.  The idea is that we need to see things as they are, no more, no less, in order to respond to our current situation in the most compassionate – and therefore effective – manner.

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obyvatel:
   I found this book helpful too. I agree that it is a bit skewed in the direction of self-calming but  it does not detract from the overall message within the context of self-compassion. The author does describe narcissism and mentions narcissistic rage - so she does not completely ignore pathology. This book is really applicable to normal people as pathological types do not seem to have much issues with beating themselves up.

   Thanks for posting the excerpts, Turgon.

 

Zadius Sky:
Thanks for posting about this book, Turgon. I'll be putting this on the to-read list.

Prodigal Son:

--- Quote from: obyvatel on May 17, 2012, 09:35:46 AM ---   I found this book helpful too. I agree that it is a bit skewed in the direction of self-calming but  it does not detract from the overall message within the context of self-compassion. The author does describe narcissism and mentions narcissistic rage - so she does not completely ignore pathology. This book is really applicable to normal people as pathological types do not seem to have much issues with beating themselves up.

   Thanks for posting the excerpts, Turgon.

 

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I read this book, too, after reading the SotT article, and found it helpful, too, having put some of the things into practice, and agree with the above comments. 

obyvatel:
  Some more excerpts

--- Quote from: Self Compassion ---Self Esteem

William James, one of the founding fathers of Western psychology, argued that self-esteem was a product of "perceived competence in domains of importance". This means that self-esteem is derived from thinking we are good at things that have personal significance to us.
...
The dynamic that James identified suggests that we can raise our self-esteem in two main ways.  One approach is to value things we are good at and devalue things we are bad at.
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The other way to raise our self-esteem involves increasing our competence in those areas that are important to us.
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Charles Horton Cooley, a well-known sociologist writing at the turn of the twentieth century, identified another common source of self-esteem. He proposed that feelings of self-worth stem from the "looking glass self". That is our perceptions of how we appear in the eyes of others. If we believe that others judge us positively, we'll feel good about ourselves. If we believe that others judge us negatively, we'll feel bad about ourselves. Self-esteem, in other words,  stems not only from our own self-judgments, but also perceived judgments of others. Highlight the word perceived .
Research shows that self-esteem is more strongly influenced by the perceived judgments of strangers than close friends and family.
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People with high self-esteem describe themselves as being more likable and attractive, and as having better relationships with others than people with low self-esteem do.  Objective observers, however, do not necessarily agree. In one study, researchers examined how college undergraduates rated their interpersonal skills - their ability to start new friendships, talk and open up to others, deal with conflicts, and provide emotional support. Not surprisingly, people with high self-esteem reported they had these good qualities in spades. According to their roommates, however, their interpersonal skills were merely (God forbid!) average. Similar studies have found that high self-esteem people are more confident about their popularity whereas low self-esteem people assume that others don't like them too much. Typically, however, people with high and low self-esteem are equally liked by others. it's just that those with low self-esteem greatly underestimate how much others actually approve of them, while those with high self-esteem greatly overestimate others' approval. In other words, high self-esteem isn't associated with being a better person, just with thinking you are.
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  It is true that high self-esteem has one tangible, and by  no means unimportant, benefit: happiness. When you like yourself, you tend to be cheerful; when you dislike yourself, you tend to be depressed.
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Narcissists have extremely high self-esteem and are quite happy most of the time. Of course, they have inflated, unrealistic conceptions of their own attractiveness, competence and intelligence and feel entitled to special treatment.
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When narcissists receive put-downs from others, their retaliation can be fast and furious. ... The narcissist's need and demand for respect is constant. Because narcissists are always trying to hang on to that elusive feeling of high self-esteem, the wrath that descends when their precious ego is jeopardized can be truly something to behold.
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  The emphasis on high self-esteem at all costs has also led to a worrying trend toward increasing narcissism.
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Twenge recently co-authored a book called The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement with leading narcissism researcher Keith Campbell. The authors examine how the emphasis on raising self-esteem in America has led to a real cultural sickness, writing:

Understanding the narcissism epidemic is important because its long-term consequences are destructive to society. American culture's focus on self-admiration has caused a flight from reality to the land of grandiose fantasy. We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy (with $11 trillion of govt debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem), and phony friends (with the social networking explosion). All this fantasy might feel good, but unfortunately, reality always wins. The mortgage meltdown and the resulting financial crisis are just one demonstration of how inflated desires eventually crash to earth.

Self Compassion versus Self Esteem

Rather than trying to define our self-worth with judgments and evaluations, what if our positive feelings towards ourselves came from a totally different source? What if they came from our hearts, rather than our minds?
  Self-compassion does not try to  capture and define the worth or essence of who we are. It is not a thought or a label, a judgment or an evaluation. Instead, self-compassion is a way of relating to the mystery of who we are. Rather than managing our self-image so that it is always palatable, self-compassion honors the fact that all human beings have both strengths and weaknesses.
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Recently, my colleague Roos Vonk and I investigated the benefits of self-compassion versus self-esteem with more than three thousand people from various walks of life, the largest study to examine this issue so far. First, we examined the stability of positive feelings experienced towards the self over time. ................. Self compassion was clearly associated with steadier and more constant feelings of self-worth than self-esteem.  We also found that self-compassion was less likely than self-esteem to be contingent on particular outcomes like social approval, competing successfully, or feeling attractive. ............We also found that in comparison to self-esteem, self-compassion was associated with less social comparison and less need to retaliate for perceived personal sleights. It was also linked to less "need for cognitive closure", which is psych-speak for the need to be right without question. People who invest their self-worth in feeling superior and infallible tend to get angry and defensive when their status is threatened. People who compassionately accept their imperfection, however, no longer need to engage in such unhealthy behaviors to protect their egos. In fact, a striking finding of the study was that people with high self-esteem were much more narcissistic than those with low self-esteem. In contrast, self-compassion was completely unassociated with narcissism. (The reason there wasn't  a negative association is because people who lack self-compassion don't tend to be narcissistic, either. )

Motivation and personal growth

The number one reason people give for why they aren't more compassionate to themselves is fear of laziness and self-indulgence. "Spare the rod, spoil the child", the saying goes, revealing the belief that only harsh punishment can keep indolence at bay.
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If self-criticism works at all (as a motivator) , however, it is only for one reason: fear. Because it is so unpleasant to be harshly criticized by ourselves when we fail, we become motivated by the desire to escape our own self-judgment. .....This approach works to a certain degree, but it has some serious drawbacks. One of the biggest problems with using fear as a motivator is that anxiety itself can undermine performance. .........Not only does self-criticism create anxiety, it can also lead to psychological tricks designed to prevent self-blame in the case of failure, which in turn makes failure more likely. The tendency to undermine your performance in ways to create a plausible excuse for failing is known as self-handicapping. ...... Research indicates that self-critics are less likely to achieve their goals due to self-handicapping techniques.
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So why is self-compassion a more effective motivator than self-criticism? Because its driving force is love not fear. Love allows us to feel confident and secure (in part by pumping up our oxytocin) while fear makes us feel insecure and jittery (sending our amygdala into overdrive and flooding our systems with cortisol). When we trust ourselves to be compassionate and understanding when we fail, we won't cause ourselves unnecessary stress and anxiety. We can relax knowing that we'll be accepted regardless of how well or how poorly we do. But if that's true, why should we try working hard at all? .....
  Unlike self-criticism which asks if you're good enough, self-compassion asks what's good for you? Self compassion taps into your inner desire to be healthy and happy. If you care about yourself, you'll do what you need to do in order to learn and grow.
...
The Buddha referred to the motivational quality of self-compassion as "right effort". From this point of view, wrong effort comes from concern with the ego, with proving oneself, with the desire for control. ..... Right effort, on the other hand, comes from the natural desire to heal suffering.
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The ability to realize our potential depends partly on where our motivation comes from. Is it intrinsic or extrinsic? Intrinsic motivation occurs when we're driven to do something because we want to learn, grow or because the activity is plain interesting. Extrinsic motivation occurs when we're driven to do something in order to gain a reward or escape punishment.
.. Research psychologist Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, distinguishes two main reasons why people want to achieve their goals. People with learning goals are intrinsically motivated by curiosity and the desire to develop new skills. They want to achieve because they want to gain knowledge, and most important, they view making mistakes as a part of the learning process. Those with performance goals , on the other hand, are extrinsically motivated to defend or enhance their self-esteem.
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 As you might suspect, our research finds that self-compassionate people are more likely to have learning rather than performance goals. Because their motivation stems from the desire to learn and grow, rather than from the desire to escape self-criticism, they are more willing to take learning risks. This is largely because they are not so afraid of failure.

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