WHY COMPASSION CAN IMPROVE OUR MENTAL WELL-BEING & HOW TO BECOME MORE SELF-COMPASSIONATE

WHY COMPASSION CAN IMPROVE OUR MENTAL WELL-BEING AND HOW TO BECOME MORE SELF-COMPASSIONATE

What is compassion?

Compassion is a feeling of care and empathy for another and one’s self; with a desire to help reduce or alleviate the suffering. 

It is important to note that although empathy is one of the qualities of compassion, (as you will see Compassion Focused Therapy later identifies); Compassion takes it a step further in it’s….

“Responsiveness or readiness to help relieve that suffering.”

Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D., is the Dalai Lama’s principal English translator and author of the course Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT).

People sometimes also confuse compassion with kindness. The difference here is kindness tends to be an action. But compassion is an emotional response that often involves actions of kindness. 

In CFT, (Compassion Focused Therapy), there are several qualities that compassion has: 

• Valuing Self-Compassion: It is a position of strength, not vulnerability
• Empathy: Understanding why we feel the way we feel and being sensitive to this
• Sympathy: Feeling sad with kindness for ourselves or others
• Forgiveness: Being open to mistakes and learning from them
• Acceptance Tolerance: Acknowledging ourselves as the human beings we are, with our tricky brain
• Developing feelings of Warmth: Practicing and allowing feelings of warmth and love towards self
• Growth: A want to change things, to grow and improve ourselves
• Taking responsibility: Recognising our critical, less compassionate thinking
• Training: Or re-training our brain away from it’s natural critical state, through certain practises

Why is Self-compassion Important for our Mental Wellbeing?

The way the brain works and has evolved over time means we automatically can become very self-critical. It is often automatic for those negative thoughts or inner-critic to pop into our mind. We believe these negative thoughts to be us. We then feel guilty, blaming ourselves for having these thoughts. Bringing yet more negative thoughts about ourselves and the world into our minds. This lowers our self esteem, can cause us to feel hopeless or powerless and creates tension in the mind. 

Self-Compassion teaches us not to challenge this but instead to show compassion to ourselves that a) It is only natural we feel this way, because it is just the way the mind works. Instead of blaming ourselves, we turn our minds to a compassionate place by recognising it’s not our fault. 

b) Our thoughts are not us. We are not our thoughts. Stepping back from this process and allowing thoughts to come in without attaching ourselves to them. 

When we do this we are already bringing in a calmer sense of warmth to our minds. The tension dissipates a little. It is from that place we can then start to work on finding a more helpful compassionate mindset that allows us to feel more positivity towards ourselves and in turn our feelings and behaviours will become more positive too. Research shows we feel increased connection to ourselves and others, better ability to face adversity and generally calmer in body and mind.

Quick ‘how to’ on Creating that Self-compassionate Mindset: 

Creating a self-compassionate mindset takes training and commitment, but there are some simple things you can start doing straight away. 

1. Recognise and understand the tricky brain: When the negative or self-critical thoughts arise, remind yourself that it’s just the tricky brain. It’s not your fault. Your brain was designed for you, not by you. Rather than engage with the tricky brain. Simply remind yourself this isn’t my fault, this is the way the brain works. By doing this you are removing that idea of being critical of yourself for your brain doing this, but instead showing yourself some compassion instead. 
2. Always ask yourself am I being helpful or harmful to myself: This is one of my favourite mantras from compassion focused therapy. It’s a simple way to work out in a moment whether you’re being nourishing to your mind and being compassionate towards yourself or whether it’s counterproductive and damaging. 
3. Where we place our attention our feelings and emotions will go: So rather than placing the attention on the negative thoughts or situations we are experiencing, intentionally turn your attention to a more compassionate place. In order to anchor to this compassionate place consider step 4, your compassionate image. 
4. Build a compassionate image: What does it feel like in your body and mind to be compassionate? Compassion is a sense of warmth, lightness, softness. It’s a smile. It’s shoulders relaxed and forehead eased. In your mind, it’s thoughts of kindness, such as ‘I’m doing the best I can.’ It’s showing understanding and forgiveness. It’s non judgemental. Anchor to that feeling. And visualize it. Visualize yourself in a compassionate state, think about what you’re wearing, the colours and maybe a setting where it feels easy to be compassionate. For example, for me, it would be a nice sunny day by the beach. Here I feel at ease, warm and happy. This image is what you can turn your mind to when you’re considering step 3. 
5. Introduce regular self-soothing practises that help bring a general feeling of compassion into your mind: Think about what healthy things you do that make you feel good and soothe your mind; maybe it’s meditation or yoga, or exercise, walking in nature, reading, cooking a nice meal, having a bath. Write a list and pick one self-soothing exercise to do every day. 
6. Do something to be in act of service to someone else: When we do this, we feel a better sense of connection to others and gives our day/ life a sense of meaning or purpose (two fundamentals, research shows, in the key to happiness). This can be a gesture of kindness, like going out of your way to chat with an elderly neighbour, volunteering, doing something helpful for a family member or friend. Just remember a little goes a long way. 

This is scratching the surface on how to create more self-compassion. But don’t forget it involves commitment and practise. If you are interested in finding out more about this, Nathalie offers 1-1 support to really help you tackle those negative thoughts and improve your self-esteem. You can find out more about this and also organise a free consultation call with Nathalie, by heading here. 

Listen to Episode 30 and 33 of the podcast for more tips and a meditation on self-compassion