Self-forgiveness and self-compassion

Overview

Self-compassionWe covered these three essential components of self-compassion on the Essentials weekend (ref: Kristin Neff).

  1. Mindfulness – acknowledge that you have patterns, behaviors, and negative beliefs about yourself. Be mindful not to either exaggerate them, which can lead to self-pity, nor suppress them – instead simply observe them, without judgment.
  2. Common humanity – be aware that others have all these too, it’s part of the human condition. Humanity is interconnected. You are not alone in having them.
  3. Self-kindness – be kind and understanding to yourself when you struggle, fail or go into your patterns.

Self-compassion and self-forgiveness are practices to develop. They don’t necessarily just happen. You create them through finding simple practices that increase your loving kindness toward yourself, so that they become second nature.

Here are some examples of self forgiveness and self-compassion practices:

  • Speak to yourself in a kind way, how you’d speak to a friend who shared with you that they feel like a failure, or feel rejected
  • Pay attention to the words and tone you use to speak to yourself. If you wouldn’t say the same statements to someone you care about, know you’re being self-critical.
  • Do a Quadrinity Check in
  • Connect to your Spiritual Self
  • Commit to your favourite practice eg. meditation, yoga, walking,
  • Allow yourself to feel what you feel rather than denying or numbing out. Be aware of whatever patterns cause you do that and commit to using the tools to deal with them
  • Nurture yourself by doing whatever you love doing
  • Practice appreciation and gratitude regularly
  • Simply stop in any moment and take a full, deep breath. Be in the moment
  • Listen to the Self Compassion visualization you experienced on the weekend.

What is something specific and simple you can do every day, or are already doing, to be self-compassionate?

To return to the Post-Essentials homepage, click here