How Self-Compassion Makes Us Stronger, Happier, and More Generous?

The world sees compassion as a commendable quality; it’s a referred to an amalgam of many good qualities like kindness, benevolence, understanding, empathy, sympathy, and fellow-feeling, along with an impulse to help other living creatures, human or animal. But many of us forget that compassion is required not only for others but for ourselves too.

Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo says social and psychological researchers across the world have demonstrated that relating to ourselves in a kind, friendly manner is essential for our emotional well-being. Not only does it safeguard us from depression, anxiety, and stress---it also engenders a happier and more hopeful approach to life. More pointedly, research proves false many of the common myths about self-compassion that keep us trapped in the prison of relentless self-criticism.

Myth: Self-Compassion is a form of Self-Pity
One of the biggest myths about self-compassion is that many mistakes it with feeling sorry for yourself. It is not, self-compassion is not about whine about bad luck. Rather self-compassion is a process of making us willing to accept, experience, and acknowledge difficult feelings with kindness---which paradoxically helps us process and let go of them more fully. That’s one of the reasons self-compassionate people have better mental health.

For example in an unfortunate incidence like losing someone close, a self-pity person would blame him/herself, curse their bad luck, may experience unknown guilt etc. Whereas a self-compassionate person would focus on the acceptance that death is an inevitable process of life, feeling sad and bad is natural for him.

Myth: Self-compassion means weakness
Some people relate self-compassion with weakness but in reality, researchers are discovering that self-compassion is one of the most powerful sources of coping and resilience available to us. When we go through major life crises, self-compassion appears to make all the difference in our ability to survive and even thrive.

In a research by the University of Arizona tried to identify - how self-compassion helps determine how well people adjust to a divorce. On a sample of over 100 people, researchers found that participants who displayed more self-compassion when talking about their breakup evidenced better psychological adjustment to the divorce at the time and that this effect persisted nine months later. Studies like this one suggest that it’s not just what you face in life, but how you relate to yourself when the going gets tough---as an inner ally or enemy---that determines your ability to cope successfully.