Self-Compassion: An Essential Ingredient in Mental Wellness

Let me go over some common misconceptions about self-compassion.  

Self-compassion isn’t arrogance. It isn’t believing that we are right all the time or putting ourselves first all the time. It’s about recognizing our strengths and our challenges and approaching them with compassion. Self-love could be seen as an anchor, a practice that grounds us through all the potential life challenges we experience. For example, if I struggle with my body image, and someone mentions how they lost ten pounds, I’d likely feel a bit triggered. If I can acknowledge I’m triggered and speak reassuringly to myself, I don’t need to react or spiral, get defensive or shut down.

Self-compassion doesn’t mean that you lose your drive. For those people who lean towards being achievement-orientated, I want to reassure you that you can still meet your goals, even if you drop self-critical self-talk and beliefs. Think of coaches for sports. The coaches who have high expectations but who coach with positivity and create strong connections between team members are generally received better than ones who motivate through anger and criticism. 

Self-compassion is only for (insert specific group). Self-compassion can be practiced by anyone; however, self-compassion may look different depending on a person’s values or beliefs.

Self-compassion involves cultivating an encouraging, and gentle inner voice. Here are some aspects of self-compassion.

Self-compassion involves challenging negative beliefs.  Mental illness impacts thoughts that affect mood and behaviour.  A negative thought is like a domino falling over, knocking down more dominos. If you have a negative thought, you are likely to see your mood dip and perhaps you will engage in self-sabotaging behaviours.

When I was 18, I read Dr. Burns, “The Good Mood Book.” For a day, I recorded my thoughts. I was blown away by how many fearful, negative, and critical thoughts I had. These thoughts spread outward in my life in many ways, like a stone’s ripples in the water. Cultivating awareness of how our self-critical thoughts affect us is key.

Self-compassion is something that strengthens with daily practice. Having a mental illness is hard on self-esteem. It is so important to counteract this by acceptance. In fact, I really love psychotherapist and writer David Richo’s 5 “A’s”: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing (2019, pg. 40). He often explains in his books how we may not have gotten all of these in childhood and how we can give them to ourselves as adults. Self-love includes practicing all five “A’s.” Daily habits of self-love will eventually create overall benefits.

Self-compassion can be practiced in small ways throughout your day. Our lives are busy and complex and there might not be a lot of time to devote to self-care each day. The practice of self-compassion can be simply speaking kindly to yourself. Like breathing, you carry the ability to be self-compassionate with you everywhere.

Let me tell you a bit about my own journey to self-compassion. It has been a long winding road with many hills lol. I use the words self-love and self-compassion interchangeably, although they typically have slightly different meanings.

Coles Notes Version: My (Continued) Journey with Self-Love

My relationship to self-love has deepened over time as changes in my life propel me to work harder to accept myself and understand what self-love means. Finally stepping into the identity of a person with lived experience of mental illness, and writing from that lens, allows me to live from a more authentic place. However, it has been a long road to accept my mental illness. And I am still on the journey to self-love with other areas of my life.

As a teenager I remember being self-conscious of a lot of things, especially with my body image and social interactions. I invested a lot of energy into schoolwork and a lot of my self-esteem came from how well I did. Conversely, if I didn’t do well, I felt like a big failure. My love was conditional on achievement. I would also say that I was concerned, like a lot of people, with being liked. I went out of my way to avoid conflict and please people to feel accepted.

My first bipolar episode at fifteen rocked my self-confidence. I felt significant shame, and it was difficult to feel good about myself. It made me scared of other people’s judgements.

Then in 2019, after another episode, and being put on a high dose of psychiatric medications, I went from underweight to overweight. I felt a whole new shame, which was a significant part of the depression I experienced after.

In my earlier twenties, I started to read more self-growth books, searching for answers on how to feel good about myself and how to heal. I experimented with different ways to love myself. My concept of self-love was still strongly correlated with external validation through my twenties and thirties.  I understood intellectually the need to love myself separate from my external life, but in practice it was hard. If I lost weight, was successful in work/school, and if everything was positive in my friend circle, I felt good. When things got hard in life, I had a lot of shame, self-criticism, and self-doubt. I have the tendency to withdraw when I feel this way, to protect myself from judgements when, often, I am my own worst critic.

Jumping ahead to the last four years since 2020 and the Pandemic. My life started to accelerate a growth process through a constellation of challenges which I have mentioned previously. I was tested over and over to explore what was lurking in my past, to face the impact of choices and become more authentic in who I was and what I wanted in life. It was an uphill climb, and my mental health was struggling under the weight of many stressors. I felt a lot of anxiety and had stress-related physical symptoms. Luckily, I realized this and stepped away from significant work stress so that I could recover.

Through therapy in these last years, I have started to use self-compassion more comprehensively, shining light onto past triggers and trauma. Also, through art and writing, I have developed this inner voice that is more encouraging. I still have self-critical thoughts or worries, but I tend to process them in a way that they lose their power to undermine me.

Although mental illness brings extreme difficulties and suffering, it also means that you must pick yourself up after each episode, finding strength and determination to move forward. Essentially, you must find your worth separate from conditions and work towards a life that is meaningful to you.

So, what are some strategies for cultivating self-compassion?

There is a plethora of ways to become kinder and more accepting of yourself.  I think challenging negative thinking is one important aspect of this journey. There is deeper work that can happen in therapy around challenging core beliefs. For simplicity, we will focus on basic tools in this post.

To create more realistic, positive thoughts which help to improve mood, help motivate, and challenge self-defeating behavior, you can use strategies from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

In the CBT Art Workbook for Coping with Anxiety, author Jennifer Guest introduces “self-soothing affirmations” (2019, pg. 64). In this exercise, she has drawn self-compassion statements that you can colour in and practice reciting when critical thoughts occur (2019). If you were doing this on your own, you would take a self-love affirmation, like, “I am good enough”, and write it in large bubble letters in your journal or sketchbook. Then take time colouring and decorating these words while reciting this affirmation.

I mentioned before that I make Heart Strings and have them around mirrors or on the walls in my home. I write out affirmations, poetry, quotes and self-written wisdom on cut-out hearts. The goal is to surround myself with positive messages and to challenge negative thoughts I have about myself and my life. Even just looking at the hearts helps me soften toward myself.

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The second way that can be helpful in developing self-compassion is through mindfulness. Instead of trying to get rid of the critical thoughts, or the shaming thoughts, you can work on accepting them. My first introduction to mindfulness was through a book loaned to me from a kind friend when I was in hospital when I was a young adult. It was a book by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. Pema talks about how life is a continual cycle of healing and then suffering (2000). It is important to accept and even welcome the challenging emotions (Chodron, 2000). The more we struggle against the suffering, the harder life becomes. I think it has been helpful for my own mental health journey to realize that life will throw me challenges and then things will get easier. There will be more challenges ahead and more potential healing.

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Okay, are you ready to dive into making some art? 🎨

Therapeutic Arts Activity

Instructions

Write about your journey to self-love as a response to Melody Godfred’s poem in her book Self Love Poetry written below:

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I felt stuck

so I embraced stillness.

I felt powerless

so I embraced surrender.

I felt emotional

so I embraced vulnerability.

I felt abandoned

so I embraced my own company.

I felt ashamed

so I embraced my own story.

I felt empty

so I embraced

My authenticity

My wholeness

My worth.

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Instructions

Reflect on the meaning of Melody’s poem. What does self-love look like to you? How is your capacity for self-love connected with your challenges? Choose what kind of writing you would like to do (poetry, a story, an essay etc.) and write something that reflects your journey of self-love.

Materials

• A journal and pen or a computer

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Once you’ve completed this activity, here are some questions as guidelines for your personal explorations:

1.Can you name five ways you practice self-love in your life?

2. Reflecting upon the writing exercise, explore one theme.

3.Can you name a few ways having a mental illness has challenged your self-compassion?

4. What are some ways you can incorporate more self-love in your life?

My poem in response to Melody Godfred’s poem is very playful and builds on the theme of climbing the mountain to self-compassion. It talks about struggle and about keeping going. It’s written almost as if I was reading to a child. Perhaps my inner child needs to look at life a bit more lightly sometimes. Normally, I write very serious poems so this was a departure in style and also in content.

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I say this honestly – it is not easy to learn self-love and it’s a continual process. So many things go against a positive self-concept, such as challenging childhood experiences, trauma, unhealthy relationships, and a culture that is obsessed with competition. Patience is an important quality to develop in this process. As well, what self-love looks like is different for every person because how we talk to ourselves, what our values are, what we consider self-care, how we express our needs and boundaries are different.

❤️❤️❤️ With care and kindness, Meegan

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Sources

Chödrön, Pema. (2000). When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Shambala: Boston.

Godfred, Melody. (2021). Self Love Poetry. Andrew McMeel Publishing: Kansas City: Missouri.

Guest, Jennifer. (2019). The CBT Art Workbook for Coping with Anxiety. Jessica Kinsley Publishers: London, UK.

Richo, David. (2019). Triggers: How We Can Stop Reacting and Start Healing. Shambala: Boulder, Colorado.