3 Ways to Cultivate Self Compassion

People love to throw out catchy phrases like “Don’t believe everything you think” and “How you talk to yourself matters” when touting the power of positive thinking. While oversimplified perhaps, these sentiments do hold great truth. Many of us are walking around all day with an inner critic running around unsupervised. We can’t control the first thought, but we do have some influence over the second and third.

One way I work with clients on this is to cultivate their self compassionate or self parenting voice. This can be a lot harder than it sounds! Even for people who are parents themselves. While the process is different for everyone, here are three strategies for cultivating self compassionate:

1. Notice your compassionate voice for others

   Ask yourself these questions: How would you respond to a friend if they were sharing these thoughts? What would you do to comfort a loved one? How would you validate a friend’s feelings without agreeing with their negative belief? What would you a tell a child who was feeling this way? What would you have wanted to hear as a child?

   There is a good chance you are far more understanding and empathetic with other people in your life, even strangers! If you have the language for them, that is where you start with yourself! You are not an exception.

2. Create a nurturing figure or gentle parent voice

   Close your eyes. Feel your feet on the ground. Take a deep breath from the bottom of your diaphragm, up through your chest and hold for 5 seconds. Release slowly, allowing your body to settle and release tension. Repeat 3-5 times. Allow your mind to notice what image, color, shape, animal or person you associate with feelings of being nurtured or parented. Once you have an image that evokes a positive and calm feeling, picture it in your mind in great detail. Pay attention to how it looks, feels, or what it sounds like. Notice all your five senses. This may take several minutes.

   Next, pay attention to what this figure says to you and how it makes you feel. Ask it a question or advocate for what you need. Notice its response. Once you’ve spent enough time with it, open your eyes and notice how you feel in your body. 

   Next time you hear that inner critic starting up, picture that figure. Imagine what it would say to you in this situation. Allow it to provide care, empathy and support.

3. Get clear around your values and beliefs

   A value is a core principle or belief you hold that remains fairly consistent over time. Some examples are; kindness, justice, independence, financial stability, spirituality. So what do values have to do with self compassion? 

   Let’s say you truly believe every person deserves to be able to buy and wear clothes that it their body, yet you are denying yourself new clothes because you feel ashamed of needing a different size. Your behavior would be out of line with your value system. If intelligence is a value for you, yet you are calling yourself stupid and treating yourself like an imposter every day, that doesn’t match with your value system.

   When we’re not living aligned with your values an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance can occur. Your beliefs about the world and other people should apply for YOU first and foremost.

Shame doesn’t motivate positive behavior change. If there are goals you have for yourself start with how you’re talking to yourself. Self compassion is a skill we cultivate and maintain throughout the life span.

What does self compassion sound like for you?