Sarah was raised by her mother, who was a perfectionist. It didn’t matter what Sarah did or how hard she tried. Her mother always had an idea of how it could have been done better, and she frequently shared these critiques with Sarah.
Sarah often struggled with feeling like she wasn’t good enough as an adult. She regularly looked at her life and saw everything she was doing wrong. She felt guilty when she stepped on a wooden block and yelled at her son.
She felt ashamed for not keeping her house cleaner and being the mom who brought a packaged treat to the school bake sale. She worried she worked too much and wasn’t a good mother to her children.
When she shared these concerns with a friend, the other woman gently pointed out that Sarah was very harsh with herself. “You’re so focused on what you’re doing wrong. What are you doing right?”
The question stopped Sarah in her tracks and caused her to look at where she was succeeding. Her friend encouraged her to begin practicing self-compassion and gave her a few suggestions on how to do it.
If you aren’t familiar with self-compassion, the idea is that you give yourself the same compassion and kindness you would extend to a good friend or a beloved family member. There are many benefits to leaning into self-compassion including…
Benefit #1: Self Compassion Boosts Your Mood
The first benefit of self-compassion is that it can boost your mood. When you’re not constantly looking for how you’re failing yourself, your kids, or others around you, you’re free to look at what you’re doing right. Recognizing these little wins can be a massive boost to your mood.
Benefit #2: Increase Your Mindfulness with Self Compassion
When you’re self-compassionate, it causes you to become more mindful. Instead of zoning out and focusing on the destination, you’re free to enjoy the journey. That’s because you acknowledge that at this moment, you’re doing the best you can, and you accept that this is enough.
Benefit #3: Self Compassion Fosters Creativity
When you’re self-compassionate, you can be curious and explore new things. That’s because there’s freedom with compassion. Giving yourself grace means taking risks you wouldn’t usually take.
These risks might be in the form of trying a new type of dance class, experimenting with your art or going on a new travel adventure. It doesn’t matter what they look like, as it only matters that thanks to self-compassion, you’re now aware of your incredible creativity!
Benefit #4: Encourage Resilience with Self Compassion
Resilience is the ability to face a setback or obstacle and come out on the other side stronger and better for the experience. Those who regularly practice self-compassion often have an easier time developing resilience.
The reason for this increased resilience is that you’re kinder to yourself during the challenging moments. Instead of despairing of ever losing weight after regaining five pounds or instead of berating yourself for yelling at your kids, you acknowledge your mess up and look for ways to do better in the future.
Benefit #5: Self Compassion Helps Release Negative Emotions
It’s easy to hold onto your mistakes and flaws when you lack compassion toward yourself. Maybe you even regularly review everything you feel like you’re doing wrong and why you’re not worthy of love.
Choosing self-compassion helps you to release negative emotions. It gives you the freedom to say, “I did the best I could at the moment with the information I had.”
Benefit #6: Improve Your Body Image with Self Compassion
Another benefit of self-compassion is that it can improve your body image. It’s essential in a world that’s constantly flooded with images of models who airbrushed to the point of perfection.
With self-compassion, you can remind yourself that even models get cellulite, and no one has the perfect body. After all, if the models were flawless, they wouldn’t need to be airbrushed in the first place.
Benefit #7: Self Compassion Decreases Stress
Self-compassion decreases your stress. The more stressed you are, the more cortisol is released into your bloodstream. Over time, high levels of cortisol lead to serious health problems.
But you can defeat stress by choosing self-compassion. Forgive yourself for your past mistakes and current choices. A new moment, and you can make fresh choices that reflect the person you want to become.
Benefit #8: Increase Your Motivation with Self Compassion
One of the best ways to increase your motivation is with self-compassion. Some people use fear to motivate themselves, and while this is temporarily effective, it can lead to long-term anxiety and stress (more cortisol!).
But self-compassion is a much more effective tool when it comes to motivation. Not only does it work just as well, but it also decreases your stress and allows you to focus on the things that truly matter.
Benefit #9: Self Compassion Fosters Personal Growth
If you want to grow as a person, there’s nothing more thoughtful than focusing on developing self-compassion. This trait encourages you to see yourself not just as you are at the current moment but also as the bright, beautiful woman you’re becoming!
Benefit #10: Improve Your Self Esteem with Self Compassion
Having self-esteem is not the same thing as self-compassion. Self-esteem is all about thinking positive thoughts about yourself and seeing your good qualities. Self-compassion is all about giving grace to you and cutting yourself some slack when you’re overwhelmed.
That said, self-compassion can improve your self-esteem. The reason for this is that self-compassion leads you to reevaluate how you see yourself and what your truth is.
Benefit #11: Self Compassion Gives You Grit
Grit is the ability to stick with a task or chore until it’s done completely. Although it may seem unrelated to self-compassion, you need both to accomplish a difficult task. Think about a big goal you had once and how you used self-compassion to find the strength to get it done.
For Sarah, she had tried for years to learn another language. She struggled despite her best attempts until she started her self-compassion journey. She didn’t suddenly master the language in a day, but she did find it easier to get through her lessons. That’s because she focused on giving herself the space to learn instead of obsessing over everything she was doing wrong.
Benefit #12: Understand Why You’re Amazing with Self-Compassion
Perhaps one of the most significant benefits of self-compassion is that it helps you look at yourself differently. You can begin to catch glimpses of why you’re amazing, which can lead you to fall in love with your authentic self.
You Deserve Compassion, Too!
For many people, it’s easier to show compassion to others than to embrace it for yourself. But the truth is that you need compassion just as much if not more than the ones you love.
You are the only person that will be with you through every moment and every phase of your life. You are worth celebrating and praising right now, just as you are. Don’t wait for someone else to deem you worthy of compassion. You already are!
Your Thoughts
Self-compassion embraces both challenges and wins in our lives. How do you express self-compassion towards yourself?
Women’s Group Topics
I’ve been in many groups, and the talk ultimately gravitates towards what we are not doing, how we are not meeting our expectations, how we disappointed others. Yet, we rarely express a genuine love for who we are and do the best we can at the moment—giving ourselves room to be loving towards ourselves.
A great topic to share is how to add more compassion for ourselves and others in our lives.
Be well,
Pat
“To fully enjoy the ‘richness’ of our lives, we need to stop long enough to visit with ourselves.”
(Pat Brill)
Other Topics You May Be Interested In
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