Self-compassion is one of the cornerstones of mental and holistic health. I was first introduced to the idea back in 2016 when I was doing conventional therapy. Before therapy, I had not heard of self-compassion. However, I was familiar with positive self-esteem practices. My experience with self-esteem practices dates back to my college years (about 2010).
In college, I knew that I suffered from poor self-esteem and was eager to improve how I felt. This led me to start reading up on positive self-esteem practices and even buying a self-esteem workbook. I told myself that working on self-esteem had worked for other successful people, so it could work for me. That’s about as far as I got. The moment I started working on my self-esteem, it abandoned me, and I felt worse than before. I ended up selling the book and moving forward with the self-esteem that I had.
This changed when I began conventional therapy. I talked with my therapist about self-esteem, and it was then that she introduced me to self-compassion. What I hadn’t known was that self-esteem can be fragile, and when something challenging happens, it can make you question yourself and negatively impact your self-esteem. In other words, when things get tough, your self-esteem can abandon you.
With self-esteem having abandoned me in the past, I was hesitant to explore self-compassion. It took time before I fully invested myself in exploring what self-compassion was all about. Following my therapist’s direction, I researched Dr. Kristin Neff and Brené Brown. Both are researchers and pioneers in the field of self-compassion. What I discovered was a revelation.
Self-compassion is about being kind and understanding of yourself. It is about treating yourself the same way that you would treat a loved one that is going through a tough time. In tough times when self-esteem would abandon you, self-compassion would support you when you were most vulnerable.
By cultivating a self-compassion mindset and applying it to my other practices, I began to see my world dramatically change. In moments when I wanted to give up, I found myself giving pep talks. In moments when I felt discouraged, I inspired myself. And in moments when I felt unloved, I reminded myself that I was loved unconditionally.
Slowly this became a foundation for all of the personal development that I engage in. Self-compassion became the bedrock that allowed me to finally begin my positive self-esteem work. I learned that positive self-esteem is a worthwhile endeavor, but without a compassionate and loving base, it falls apart. I learned that self-compassion would allow me to extend grace to myself and others. This is why it is part of my core values and has been the cornerstone of my work.
