Following on from the previous topic of self-compassion, today I want to talk about choosing compassion for others over judgement. Showing compassion has positive impacts on our wellbeing as individuals but also for society as a whole. It helps to strengthen our character and build resilient and connected communities which support our health and wellbeing.
On the other hand, judging others leads to conflict and separation. Instead of healthy and supportive communities, we create divided ones that feel unsafe and untrustworthy. Not only that, if we think unkindly about others, those thoughts remain inside of us. If we critise others, we are more likely to criticise ourselves and attract criticism from others too. Next time you feel like judging someone, ask yourself how you would feel in their situation? We are all part of common humanity and yet we have our individual differences and life circumstances which shape our beliefs and drive our behaviours.
When someone says something we don’t agree with, we can often mistake these feelings for a dislike of the person as a whole. They could be the kindest, most interesting person but if we disagree on a core level (e.g. religion, politics) we can disregard them and even feel hostile towards them. We are seeing this today with the “vaccine wars” with friends and neighbours becoming aggressive towards each other because they disagree on a fundamental level about this one thing. Such conflict is driven by fear and by not seeing the whole picture. We tend to focus in on the small things and forget the things that do connect us.
Can we become more compassionate?
Compassion is a natural trait that we are born with as a result of evolution. Children show compassion to different degrees but research shows that compassion is also a skill that can be learned and refined. There are many education programs aimed at increasing compassion amongst school children or in the workplace. The outcomes of these interventions show increased levels of compassion and wellbeing amongst the participants.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, check out this interesting report on compassion and wellbeing from the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion.
Ways to show more compassion to others
We don’t have to become Mother Theresa or Gandhi to receive the benefits of compassion for our own wellbeing and that of those around us. Small actions that we take daily can have a huge effect. Some ways in which we can show kindness compassion to others:
Truly listen to a friend (without distraction or interruption)
Smile and say hello to a neighbour
Volunteer for a local charity
Help an older relative with shopping or housework
Support a colleague with a difficult task at work
Celebrate and share the joy in others’ successes
Comfort someone going through a difficult time
Buy a hot drink for a homeless person
Donate old clothes to a charity
Adopt a stray animal and show it love
Sometimes it might feel like we don’t have time to show compassion. We are so busy with work, families and the thousands of other demands of modern day living. But simple acts of support and kindness to others will energise you and boost your mood, helping you to get these things done with a smile. In addition, as the old saying goes, what comes around goes around. If you offer compassion to others, they are more likely to behave compassionately towards you too.
Rather than a negative spiral of judgement and conflict, you will create a positive spiral of understanding and mutual support!
Today’s challenge: Random act of kindness
Today’s task to improve your wellbeing is to choose one small act of kindness you can do to show compassion to someone in your life. You can use the list above for ideas or think of your own. Pay attention to your feelings before and after – hopefully you will experience a boost in your mood and happiness as a result of showing kindness to another human!
Over to you…
If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.
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Welcome to week three of the Women’s Wellness Challenge! Thank you again to Well College Global who have inspired this series. I hope you have enjoyed the first two weeks on the topics of nourishment and connection. This week, we will be talking all about compassion, starting with self compassion. I will share with you what this means, how to practice it and my favourite meditation for self compassion.
Compassion is important not only for our own wellbeing, but for the wellbeing of others and our society. With everything going on in the world at the moment, I think we could all do with a reminder to have more compassion! But what does this really mean? Compassion is the ability to have awareness and understanding of challenging emotions and the urge to do something about it.
This can include having empathy for others who are suffering and the desire to help them in some way. We can also show compassion for ourselves which is what I want to focus on today.
What does self compassion mean and why is it important?
Self compassion means being aware of our own emotions and responding with care and kindness. It also means listening to our needs and taking the time to meet them, rather than ignoring or judging them. Self compassion is a tool that we can use to support our wellbeing in difficult moments. It is a way of responding when life doesn’t exactly go to plan and prevents us from spiraling into self-hate if we don’t meet our own expectations.
Dr. Kristin Neff, a leading researcher in the field of self compassion states:
“Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?”
If you are lacking in self-compassion, you might find yourself often:
Blaming yourself when things go wrong
Criticizing parts of yourself
Being overly harsh towards yourself
Ruminating on past mistakes
Speaking unkindly to yourself
Experiencing these things on a regular basis will negatively affect your overall health and wellbeing. Particularly on a mental and emotional level but also physical as critical thoughts create tension which blocks the energy flow throughout your body. On the other hand, sowing yourself more compassion means you will respond in a more helpful manner when things go wrong, making you more resilient and able to bounce back.
The first step towards developing self compassion is becoming mindful of critical thoughts and not allowing them to take over. So often we live life in auto-pilot and our subconscious mind runs riot. We could be speaking harshly to ourselves all day long and not even notice because we are so used to it. Small comments like “I am so stupid” or “I never get anything right” might go unnoticed but it doesn’t mean they have no effect.
Starting to pay attention to how you think and speak to yourself can be challenging at first as you become aware of the hurtful things you say to yourself. But once you are aware, you have the power to change things. Replacing critical thoughts with more kind and understanding ones is not always easy but you do have this choice. It is important to remember your inherent worth as a human being and care for yourself as you would a friend or child in moments of need.
You can also practice self compassion by:
Using positive affirmations or mantras
Letting go of perfectionism and unrealistic ideals
Maintaining self-care rituals that nourish and relax you (more on that later in the week)
Practicing meditation for self compassion
Keeping a self compassion diary
Using these tools daily over a period of a few months can completely turn around your attitude towards yourself and enable you to live a life of balance and wellbeing!
My favourite meditation for self compassion
I want to share with you my favourite guided meditation for self compassion by the Mindful Movement on Youtube. Practice this meditation 1-2 times per week for a month and watch your relationship with yourself transform. Remember that this is not selfish! Showing kindness and compassion to others starts with offering these things to yourself.
Today’s challenge: Keep a self compassion journal
I recommended this task in my previous post on self-compassion but I will repeat it today as I think it is a very important exercise!
1. In carry a small notebook with you over a 24 hour period and whenever you notice a self-judgement (positive or negative) pop up, write it down, especially any judgements relating to your current health goals
2. At the end of the experiment, reflect on what you have written. How many times did you judge yourself? In what situations? Were your judgements mostly positive or negative?
If you find that you are often criticising yourself and your day is packed with negative self-talk, it’s maybe a good idea to focus on developing your self compassion. You can start by going through every negative item on your list and thinking of how you would respond if YOU were a coach and speaking to a client trying to improve their health. Developing your own inner coach or cheerleader is the most powerful thing you can do to reach any goal you have in life!
Over to you…
If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.
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How would you rate your self-compassion on a scale of 1-10?
What is self-compassion?
Self-compassion has been defined as:
“the capacity to comfort and sooth ourselves, and to motivate ourselves with encouragement when we suffer, fail or feel inadequate.” Chris Germer from the Centre for Mindful Self-Compassion
“being kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings…” Kristen Neff PhD
So when it comes to your path to better health, self-compassion could look like:
Speaking kindly to yourself when things don’t go according to plan
Letting go of harsh criticisms of yourself i.e. the inner bully
Observing your “slip ups” with a non-judgmental attitude and learning from them rather than beating yourself up
Being your own cheerleader and believing in yourself
Understanding that perfection doesn’t exist and failure is part of the journey
Being kind to ourselves and showing self-compassion is becoming increasing difficult in today’s world. With a constant barrage of seemingly perfect others to compare ourselves to on social media, TV and advertisements, it’s no wonder that we can often we left feeling less than and telling ourselves we don’t measure up. These comparisons then become the ammunition for the mental weapon which we turn towards ourselves.
Sometimes the language of negative self-talk becomes so engrained into our psyche that we don’t notice it. How many times have you thought to yourself “I’m so stupid”, “I never get things right”, “What’s the point, I’m a failure”, “I’ll never be like that”. All of these thoughts create a mental environment that keep us stuck in our same old habits and routines, unable to break free and move towards our vision of better health and overall life happiness. Speaking to ourselves harshly sets off a cascade of chemical reactions in our bodies which then influence the trillions of cells and change the way they function.
Self-compassion and holistic health
Part of my coaching as a Women’s Wellness Coach involves supporting women to love themselves and believe in themselves more. Not only because having a positive self-image is part of holistic wellness but also because negative self-talk and lack of confidence can be a major barrier to change in all other areas of health improvement including diet, movement and stress management. Research shows that rather than being motivated by criticism from ourselves and others, we are more likely to feel like a failure and give up altogether.
On the other hand, self-efficacy, that is the belief that we can take action and succeed in a particular situation, is associated with positive behaviour change and health outcomes. Self-efficacy goes hand in hand with self-compassion because without kindness and understanding how can we expect to believe in ourselves enough to make change? If we believe that every time we fall off the wagon or don’t achieve the results we expect, it’s because we are a failure and not because the goal was unrealistic, we didn’t have the resources we needed or life just got in the way, how easy will it be to get back up and try again?
When we react to our mistakes with self-compassion, it is much easier to pick ourselves up and get back on track rather than enter a negative spiral. Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) describes how our thoughts create feelings which in turn affect our behaviours and our physical state. Negative self-talk can make us feel worse about ourselves and not want to do things to take care of ourselves holistically. On the other hand, showing self-compassion creates more positive feelings of acceptance, gratitude and peace which are more likely to trigger us to act in ways that support our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.
Developing self-compassion first requires becoming mindful of the thought tapes that are playing in our minds and where we could be harming ourselves with our self-talk. Whether you realise it or not, you are talking to yourself all day long via your thoughts! These can be thoughts about what is going on in the world around you but we often also have thoughts about ourselves and our actions or how other people see us. If you are not used to paying attention to your thoughts, this can come as a shock once you realise the constant chatter that is the backdrop for your life.
A useful experiment is to carry a small notebook with you over a 24 hour period and whenever you notice a self-judgement pop up, write it down. At the end of the experiment, reflect on what you have written. How many times did you judge yourself? In what situations? Were your judgements mostly positive or negative? If you find that you are often criticising yourself and your day is packed with negative self-talk, it’s maybe a good idea to focus on developing your self-compassion. Remember, if you find that your self-talk is very negative, not to use this as yet another thing to criticise yourself about. Instead see it as a starting point and something you can improve on over time.
Thought replacement/inner dialogues
Unfortunately, we can’t simply tell our brains to stop thinking, nor can we just turn off the thoughts we don’t like. Instead, we can create balance by countering any negative thoughts with more compassionate ones. This could look like a dialogue in your mind between your harsh inner critic and your kind inner cheerleader or coach. For example:
Inner critic: “Why did I eat so much food at the party? I wasn’t even hungry, why am I always so greedy!”
Inner coach: “Ok, perhaps you ate more than you planned to today. Why was that do you think? Is there something that you need? Is there something you could do differently next time?”
Inner cheerleader: “Parties are for enjoying! You ate really healthily this week and you noticed the benefits. Let it go and carry on with your plan”
If it helps, you can actually imagine these different perspectives as characters. Naming your inner critic or your inner bully and visualising it as a saboteur that creeps around your mind can really help you to separate you from your thoughts and judgements about yourself. These are thoughts that are occurring automatically and you are the one that is witnessing and experiencing the effects of these thoughts.
If you struggle to do this mentally, you can also put the dialogue on paper. As you review your thought journal, pick out some key themes or areas where you criticise yourself and experiment with writing a response from a more compassionate perspective. This might feel uncomfortable or be challenging at first but the more you practice, the easier and more natural it will become. If you have children, it might come more easily as we usually try to see the best in our children and see the bigger picture of what might have influenced their actions rather than blaming them personally.
Positive affirmations
Another way to counter negative self-talk is to try to crowd out the negative thoughts with more positive or neutral thoughts. Affirmations are statements that we can repeat to ourselves to program our minds to think differently. We are always making affirmations whether we realise it or not. Our thoughts create pathways in our mind and the more a thought is repeated, the deeper and more defined the pathway becomes making it easier to automatically think that thought again in the future. This is why over 90% of our thoughts tend to be the same from day to day!
If our habitual thoughts (i.e. affirmations) are negative judgements of ourselves, this is going to affect our ability to feel positive emotions and create the life we wish to live. Consciously repeating positive affirmations can help by planting the seed of more positive thoughts that are in line with our goals and our ideal vision of ourselves. Affirmations don’t have to be extreme and cheesy, in fact, if they are too outside of our current view of ourselves, they can have the opposite effect.
For example, someone who looks in the mirror and finds themselves ugly might repeat an affirmation such as “I may not be perfect but I accept myself the way I am and I know I am more than my physical appearance” rather than “I am beautiful” which might feel unrealistic and difficult to relate to.
Repeating affirmations like these just for a few minutes each day can start to change the usual narrative of thoughts that we experience. Even if initially it is only 1 positive thought followed by 99 negative ones, it is a start and a foundation to build on. Like any habit, conscious repetition leads to mastery. So whilst it might seem too simple to work, practicing positive affirmations daily can really work wonders over time.
Practice acceptance and forgiveness
Self-compassion is not about believing that we are perfect and never make mistakes. It is more about understanding that inevitably, because we are human, we will have flaws and act in ways that we later regret. It is being able to continue to show unconditional love for ourselves through these moments and not to take everything so personally. Instead of that age-old saying of treat others like you would like to be treated yourself, self-compassion is treating yourself as kindly as you would others you love.
In moments where you feel the inner critic rear its’ head, take a deep breath and let it go. Remind yourself that you are only human and we all make mistakes or feel like we don’t measure up. How many times have others in your life made mistakes or been less than perfect? How many times have you forgiven or accepted others just the way they are? Start to offer this acceptance and forgiveness to yourself and you will be on your way to developing self-compassion.
Meditation to develop self-compassion
An excellent way to combine these three elements of developing self-compassion (mindfulness, thought replacement and positive affirmations) is through guided meditations. My absolute favourite channel for guided meditations on Youtube is the Mindful Movement and I always recommend their meditations to my clients. Try out this meditation for connection and compassion below.
Over to you…
If you would like to work with me to balance your hormones and improve your health, contact me to set up a free 15 minute discovery call. I am a nutritionist, yoga teacher and women’s wellness coach. We work together using a combination of modalities to support your individual needs and help you to feel your best.
Please like this post and share to support my business
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Moon Life 