How to Practice Compassion This Season

(Scroll to the bottom to hear this episode in podcast form!)

If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter, you maaaaay have noticed that the three most recent newsletters had the exact same subject line. Whoops.

(And by the way, if you’re not subscribed… Why not? Click here and get subscribed! In exchange, you’ll get my tried and true Core Values exercise, and you’ll receive a couple emails a month from me with inspiring stories, goings on, and resources I’ve been enjoying lately!)

Having the same subject line for distinctly different emails was obviously a mistake. In fact, any time I make a typo in my or mistake in my newsletters, blogs, or podcast, I feel a twinge of embarrassment. I’ve prided myself for many, many years on how well I can write. It was something that set me apart from other men and women in STEM at an early stage in my adulthood. Hell, I’ve even written a book! And maybe there are some small errors in there that I haven’t found yet. If you’ve found any, please let me know by sending me a message or leaving a comment below!

The program I use to craft and send all my business emails recently changed its interface, and things aren’t where they used to be. I thought after I created the newsletter, I’d have a chance to edit the subject. But no… And then here I am, seeing the same subject line in my inbox on a Thursday.

I could tell myself I’m an idiot, berate myself and be upset by these little mistakes. Maybe get discouraged to the point where I don’t do the newsletter or the podcast because it’s not perfect.

Or… I could practice self-compassion.

What exactly is self-compassion?

Self-compassion is exactly what it sounds like: it’s extending compassion to yourself. But this is both abstract and easier said than done, so let’s break it down a little more.

The best resource I know of for information on self-compassion is Dr. Kristin Neff, who has a website called selfcompassion.org. Kristin is a professor in the educational psychology department at UT Austin, and has become known as the expert on self-compassion. She’s written several books on the subject, runs frequent workshops, operates an online community and provides lots of free resources on her website. I’m constantly referring coaching clients to her site to find self-compassion exercises and guided meditations.

Dr. Neff defines self-compassion as being in the presence of one’s own suffering, with a desire to help. It’s no different than applying the way you exhibit compassion, but to yourself. (Compassion is different than empathy in that there is the addition of wanting to help as opposed to just feeling the feelings of another person.)

Dr. Neff further breaks it down into three main elements: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. These are of course the same components of being compassionate to others. When a friend or loved one is struggling, you’re mindful in the moment, recognizing their suffering, and you typically reach out with warmth and understanding.

Compassion and empathy are both deep-rooted emotions that are uniquely a part of the human experience. Earlier this year, I wrote an article about what sets us apart from the fish I was observing in my stream, mainly about our freedom of thought. But these types of emotions are also things that set us apart from other animals. They have an evolutionary purpose.

Why is self-compassion so hard?

If compassion and empathy are part of our humanity, why is self-compassion so hard? Kristin Neff also identifies common myths associated with self-compassion. It’s associated with complacency or laziness; if you’re too kind to yourself, you won’t make progress or change. People think that it’s self-ish or self-centered, and that if they aren’t cracking the whip on themselves, they’ll lose motivation and negatively impact chances of success in the future. But in her research, she points out that self-compassion is actually a vehicle for good habits, enhanced relationships, self-confidence, and more compassion for others in your life.

On top of it all, and this is particularly true for high achievers, we’re our own worst critics. We have high expectations for ourselves, and this leads to a setup for so-called failures. What if how we approached these failures (and I’m using air quotes right now) was different – how motivating and contributing to progression would that be?

I just recently hosted a perfectionism expert – both by research and by personal experience – on the podcast, Dr. Amna Shabbir. And she talked about how one of the big tenets of perfectionism recovery is adopting self-compassion. I talk about self-compassion as one of the components you can practice to learn authentic, real confidence in my confidence course. And I’ve experienced my own transformation from self-hatred and negative self-talk to self-love and self-compassion.

My personal story of gaining self-compassion

I spent my childhood comparing myself to others. I was fixated on it. I don’t really know why it was at the forefront of everything, but I, like most of you, was a high achiever so competitive in school. And I was also by far the tallest kid in any of my classes. Having a physical difference I think made comparisons just so much more common. I realize this is not like having a disability, but it’s a very visible difference that affected a lot of my interactions with both kids and adults growing up.

The awkwardness of being tall manifested in me wishing for years that I looked different. I wished I could cut off part of my legs to be just a little bit shorter. I was just sitting in the lounge with a colleague, and he told me about an orthopedic surgeon in the city where I work that does limb lengthening procedures electively on people who want to be taller, and all I could do was laugh at the irony. Anyway, looking back now that I’m more than halfway through my life, I realize that I really didn’t like my body very much. I didn’t appreciate all that it did for me, and while I wasn’t destructive in any way, I wasn’t particularly kind. And I wasn’t mindful.

Fast forward to early adulthood, and being tall wasn’t so bad anymore. But I had other ways that I was unkind to myself. I told myself stories about my lack of athleticism despite an expectation because I was so tall. We got into rock climbing, and given the stories I believed about myself, it became a whole new way for me to compare. So were med school and residency, of course. When I was sick during residency and didn’t know it, I was particularly unkind in my self-talk:

“Why can’t you cut it?”

“Why is this so hard for you and it’s so easy for everyone else?”

I struggled for a couple years in residency to keep up, falling into a period of deep fatigue that led to taking a leave of absence. And they still didn’t even know what was wrong with me. But man, I sure hated myself. It also affected my marriage because I didn’t feel very lovable either.

When I was finally diagnosed with a brain tumor, my thinking changed in an instant. All of a sudden I could say to myself, “No wonder. It all makes sense. Poor girl. You have a cancer.”

My self-hatred, comparison, and all the “why me’s” turned into self-compassion. And after I got through surgery and my initial recovery, I made it my mission to be kind to myself and to love myself, my mind, and my body for all they do for me.

What you can do

Let’s talk about some practical, digestible steps you can take to learn more self-compassion.

Find a sustainable mindfulness routine

Design a regular mindfulness practice that works for you, that you can be consistent with. I’ve talked about this many times and will point you to this article and this article I’ve written about easy ways you can work mindfulness into your days. It doesn’t have to look like a perfect 30-minute guided meditation on a meditation pillow; you can do even just a few minutes of practice each day by drinking your coffee in silence, taking a walk without your phone and noticing what you see or hear, or maybe just closing your eyes and putting your hands to your heart for just a few minutes on your lunch break.

Journaling

Writing things down, getting them out of the jumble in your head and putting them into some sort of logical framework can be so powerful for making anything stick. Try journaling so you can identify any negative things you say about yourself. Journaling has a similar affect to meditation and mindfulness practices in that you can be an observer of your own thoughts. If you’re not the type to write things down, you could try dictating. Lots of us in medicine are used to dictating things, and it can work just the same way as a journal.

When you observe negative self-talk, come up with a different statement to replace it. Make a statement that you would say to a friend or loved one that came to you with the same problem you’re judging yourself about. How would you respond to them? If it’s hard to swallow, write it down. Look at it and let it sink in.

The goal is to get the point where you can automatically ask yourself when having negative self-talk: What would I say if a friend or loved one were coming to me with this situation?

Continuously practice

Remember that this is all a practice. Just like everything we talk about on this platform, you’re not going to see quick changes. Even in my health crisis, my transformation was not like a lightning bolt. The lightning bolt was my diagnosis that jolted me into change, but after that, I took a deep dive into mindfulness practices, personal development and self-care. I learned all the things I share with you here and talk about in my articles, my talks, my book and course. It’s a journey, but it’s well worth it for peace.

And peace is what I wish for you this holiday season!

When you go to this page on the selfcompassion.org site, you’ll find guided meditations about particular topics, as well as guided journal entries and exercises that I often have used with my own coaching clients.

Do you find it hard to be compassionate to yourself or others? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below!