00:00 

You're listening to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 34, "Self-Compassion." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Well, hey there and welcome today. So glad. I hope you're having a great day. I hope that life is fitting together for you, that pieces are coming together, and that you are finding yourself in a better and better place all the time. I know that I am and I am just loving where I am right now. So I hope that you're finding yourself in the same place. 

00:41 

So today we're going to talk about self-compassion. So I actually recorded the forgiving podcast, the last one, yesterday. And so I've been thinking a lot about self-compassion in the last 24 hours as I've been processing that. Because although I didn't use the term self-compassion, I don't believe, in the In the forgiving podcast, "Forgiving Ourselves," it is a huge part of living a peaceful life as we forgive ourselves. So we're going to start off today by just talking about compassion as a whole. 

01:15 

So the dictionary defines compassion as a sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it. So there's two parts here. So when I feel compassionate it means I'm aware of the struggles and I want to help. So first, I have to be aware of the suffering. Second, I have feelings that cause me to want to respond to that suffering by helping some way. I may respond with a physical act that helps to relieve the suffering, such as buying a meal for a homeless person or maybe helping with some yard work for a neighbor who just had surgery or something. Having compassion also means that I offer kindness, acceptance, and understanding to others rather than harsh judgment. 

01:59 

Alright, and this lack of judgment comes from the fact that we realize and we understand that suffering and failure and imperfection are all part of the human experience that we're going through. One of my favorite quotes that I have hanging up actually both in my bedroom and in my office that I just printed it out and taped it up, and I don't do a lot of that, but I love this. Marvin J Ashton was talking about charity but I feel that charity has a lot in common with compassion and this is what he said, "Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don't judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone's differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings, having patience with someone who has let us down, or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn't handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another's weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other," end quote. 

03:08 

Alright, so now let's look at some of these same concepts in regards to self-compassion. So having this kind of compassion for ourselves. This may be a new concept. Some of you may have never heard the term self-compassion, and some of you may have, but I think it's fascinating to start looking at this concept of being compassionate with ourselves. So first, when I'm going through something difficult, rather than ignoring it, maybe buffering or numbing it out or avoiding it, I need to start acknowledging that the struggle is there. So often it can be very easy for us to try to avoid our challenges or to tell ourselves to just get with it or pull yourself together. I know that growing up a child in the 70s and the 80s, this seemed to just kind of be the thing: "if you're gonna cry, I'm gonna give you something to cry about," right? These kinds of phrases where there just was not space for us to feel sometimes. "Pull yourself together." Don't sit in this space. 

04:13 

And so I think for a lot of us, especially in my generation and probably those older than me, it can be very easy to have these ideas that I need to just get with it. And it's important that we first acknowledge that we're struggling. And we can tell ourselves a couple of things. We can say something like, "this is really hard right now, or this is super difficult for me to deal with." Acknowledgement is the very first part of charity, and we saw that in the definition. 

04:39 

The second part is to respond in a helpful way to the suffering. Okay, so when we are suffering, when we're going through a hard time, we may respond physically by doing something, like going for a walk, or maybe reading something helpful. Maybe we take a nap, where we meditate, but we can also respond by not judging ourselves harshly, by being kind to ourselves in the way that we speak to ourselves. So that would be less of "get with it and pull yourself together" and more of "okay, this this is kind of hard I'm struggling with this." So instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing ourselves for everything that we see wrong about ourselves, self-compassion leads us to, going back to the Marvin G. Ashton quote, give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. It leads us to accept our weaknesses and our shortcomings. It leads us to be more patient when we fall short of our expectations. It leads us to forgive ourselves and to be kind and not to judge ourselves harshly. 

05:47 

In essence, we are giving ourselves space to not be perfect. Because really, perfection doesn't really exist anyway, does it? It's an illusion. Embracing our humanness and loving to learn the processes of our humanness are two major concepts involved in self-compassion. We will inevitably have struggles and challenges and failures and losses. We will see our weaknesses and our sins and our shortcomings. We will notice when we let other people down and we'll notice when we let ourselves down. And we'll try to change, right? But when we have self-compassion, our reason for change is that we want to be healthier and happier in our lives. We don't feel we need to change because we're worthless or not good enough or unacceptable. Gosh, that is some of the most important pieces of information that we can have. We are not trying to change because we think we're worthless or not good enough or we are not acceptable. But we are trying to change because we want to be healthier and happier. I think that's so important. 

07:01 

And here's another big concept for self-compassion. It's based on the understanding that we are enough. That our worth is huge and unchanging. That we are lovable just the way that we are. When we believe these things about other people, it's easy to have compassion for them, isn't it? Look at our children, if you have children. When we see them and we love them unconditionally, it's easy to be compassionate for them and to them. And when we believe these things about ourselves, it's easier for us to have compassion for ourselves, for sure. A piece of the compassion puzzle is that we take a balanced approach to our struggles. We don't want to downplay them, but neither do we want to over exaggerate them. 

07:51 

So let's take a look at what these two things look like. So one, downplaying our struggles would be like saying, "well, this is not as difficult as Sarah who was just diagnosed with cancer. I really don't have anything to complain about." Okay, first of all, just because our difficulty or trial isn't the same as someone else's, doesn't mean that it isn't difficult for us. For some reason, Sarah gets the trial of cancer. This is the path that she needs to grow for reasons known only to God. We get the trial that we get because it's the path that we need to grow for reasons, again, known only to God. So downplaying our struggles by comparing them to other people's struggles is really unfair to ourself because we are walking the path that God wants us to walk. My struggles are custom made for me and your struggles are custom made for you. When we can embrace this and realize that our struggles are hard for us, we can be more compassionate with ourselves. They're meant to be hard for us. Struggles that I go through may not even phase somebody else, but struggles that other people go through that are super difficult may not even phase me. It's because it's all custom made just for us, right? And when we start realizing that we can be more compassionate with ourselves and realize this may not be as big as somebody else, seemingly as big as somebody else's, but it still is tough for me. In my learning path, this is tough. 

09:31 

But the other end of this spectrum, so on this first end we have the downplaying our struggles and this other one we're going to have over-exaggerating our struggles. And this would be again where we compare our struggles with someone else's, but we always come out on the this is harder end, right? When we're in this place, we may always feel that our trials trump what any other people are going through. Interesting, isn't it, that both ends of this spectrum that keep us from feeling self-compassion are rooted in comparison? Comparison really is the thief of peace and joy. 

10:15 

Sometimes we may have had the thought that self-compassion is the same as self-pity. So let's clear this one up, shall we? Self-compassion sees our struggle or challenge for what it is. Something difficult that we get to work through as a human, okay? Self-pity will see our challenge or struggle as something that sets us apart from other people and makes our life so much worse than everybody else's around us. We can't see that others are suffering as well and we feel that the world should really just kind of stop and respond to my challenges. Self-pity destroys the connections we have with others because we tend to have the expectation that they should drop everything to respond to our needs, that they should see our needs as always bigger than theirs. 

11:06 

Self-compassion, however, strengthens connections because we will always be cognizant that others are struggling also. And we may even find strength in connecting with others who are going through challenges as well. Some people may feel reluctant to offer themselves compassion when they're struggling because they may feel like they're getting away with something, right? And this could be termed that they've become self-indulgent. 

11:38 

So let's take a look at this one. Self-compassionate people are focused on being in a healthy place while they work through their struggles and they want to end up in a better place when the struggle is done. If we become self-indulgent rather than self-compassionate, we will make choices that are not in our best interest in the long run. So, for example, after being laid off at work, a self-compassionate person may give themselves a few days to feel some tough emotions, maybe watch a few TV shows, get some big jobs done around the house that they may not have had time to do, and then they're going to get up and they're going to start looking for another job. 

12:17 

Alright, not that that's easy, but they know that in the long term they have to take care of themselves. They have to be compassionate to themselves today, but also compassionate to themselves that's going to be existing two or three months down the road or a year down the road. So they're compassionate to my present self and compassionate to my future self. 

12:43 

A self-indulgent person, however, will give themselves a few days, and then maybe a few days, and pretty soon it's been several weeks, and the entire series of The Office and Friends and Parks and Rec, and they still haven't started looking for another job, and the house just gets deeper and deeper, and they're eating crappy food. Alright, a self-indulgent person will start to buffer, which means they're seeking to avoid the negative feelings associated with struggles by doing outside stuff rather than inside work. A self-compassionate person will allow the feelings of discomfort, they're going to acknowledge them, and then they're going to start moving toward a healthier place, even though that moving can also be uncomfortable. 

13:32 

But in this context, being self-compassionate is not always comfortable, because being self-compassionate also means that we're doing what's best for our future selves, for what's best for ourselves in the long term, even though the discomfort of doing so can be really hard to deal with today. But the thing is...it's going to be uncomfortable on either side. We're either in discomfort because of where we are in the struggle and so we indulge in buffering and numbing. We're avoiding or responding in negative ways and we're in the discomfort of knowing that we are not in a good place or we're in the discomfort of moving toward a healthier place. Either side is uncomfortable. The being stuck is uncomfortable and the moving to a healthy place is uncomfortable. Either place is filled with discomfort. We just get to choose whether we want to be self compassionate and work through the discomfort of moving forward into a better place or be self-indulgent and sit in the comfort of not changing. 

14:41 

Alright, so last thought here. When we struggle with our self-esteem, our sense of self-worth, we will almost always struggle with self-compassion. And here's why. Because self-esteem has everything to do with how much we like and respect ourselves. Our culture, though, has put such an awful twist on it. In our culture, we're inundated with ideas about how self esteem can and should be gifted to us by other people or by outside sources. "My parents didn't give me self-esteem." Well, what is that? I can tell my kids they're great every day of the week. But if they are behaving in ways that they know are not great, there's no way. Self-esteem is about themselves. It's not other esteem. 

15:31 

So these outside sources that the world tells us are like what I should wear, what I drive, where I live, can all be attached to someone's perceived self-esteem. And they may also be looking for other people's opinions. And the more a person seeks for self-worth in these outside sources, the more they're going to struggle with self-esteem. Because this type of self-esteem  is constantly fluctuating based on what is currently popular, what our latest successes are, or who our friends are. And this struggle for self-worth never leaves a place open for self-compassion. Because self-compassion is based off of the understanding that we are of worth just because we are. 

16:19 

Whereas the self-esteem we described above is, again, completely based on comparison of others. True compassion has nothing to do with comparing ourselves with others. It only matters that we value ourselves as a person for who we are as a human without comparing ourselves to others in any other way. So if we are stuck in the struggle for self-esteem by thinking that outside sources are going to determine our worth, we will. will really struggle having self-compassion for ourself. So as an overview, self-compassion has its roots in our feelings of self-worth. And our self-worth is not determined by anything except the fact that we are. We live, we breathe, therefore we're of great worth. That's all. When we can get to that point, self-compassion really can start playing its part. Self-compassion is allowing ourselves to have difficult experiences without comparing them to other people's experiences. It is recognizing that we are having a tough time, and that's OK. 

17:36 

It's being patient with ourselves as we struggle to work through difficult situations. It's allowing ourselves to be human, just like all the other people around us. It's not expecting perfection. but rather being kind to ourselves when we fall short in any way of our perfectionistic expectations. Self-compassion is embracing ourselves in all of our glorious imperfection and being kind when we fail, when we fall short, and when we stumble. Self-compassion is embracing our human experience by acknowledging the difficulty and working to alleviate the struggle in healthier ways, and those ways will bring long-term growth. 

18:24 

So we have it. Self-compassion, such a valuable, valuable part of learning to forgive ourselves and of learning to live in a peaceful, content, happy way. Okay, growing up is great. I love it. It's so awesome to be at this stage in life. So if you would love some personal help from me to learn how to be more self-compassionate or just navigate through some tough situations with more clarity, get on my website tanyahale.com. You can book a free 20 minute coaching session to get started. I would love to help you be more compassionate with yourself. While you're there, you can also sign up for my "weekend win" email that I send out every Friday. And it's meant to be read in less than a minute, but just a great idea for today to help you think about something all weekend long. 

19:10 

And last of all, if you feel this podcast is helping you, and if you feel it can help other people, here's a few things you can do. One, you can share it with other people. Two, you can leave a review so that people can read about it and see how it's helping other people. And you can subscribe to it, and then that way you never miss an episode, which who would ever want to miss one of these, right? Okay, have a terrific, terrific day. Let's work on that self-worth and on being more compassionate with ourselves, recognizing that you know what? We're all humans. We are all humans having a human experience, and that's what we are meant to be doing. here. We're meant to go through this and and to be compassionate. So have a terrific day. Talk to you next time. 

19:58 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!