Self-compassion: An entryway to healing emotional pain

“the entry to all-real healing is through self-compassion” – Tara Brach

Emotional pain is hard and draining, and it can take a toll on our mental, physical and social wellbeing. When emotional pain worsens it can significantly impact areas of life and how one goes about their days, weeks, or even months. Sometimes we might even turn to strategies that are more damaging, putting greater pain and suffering onto ourself, for instance, if feeling shame, one might isolate and disconnect from those who want to support, or if feeling anger, one might turn to a bottle, or two or three of liquor.

Emotional pain is tough and uncomfortable – no doubt about that! But it is not permanent. How we respond to the emotional hurt we feel can be the difference between greater misery or impactful healing. In this post, I will be breaking down what Self-Compassion is and how it can help guide toward the latter and be one of the most important and effective tools for when you are experiencing any degree of emotional hurt.

One of the first things that may come to mind when you hear Self-compassion is to talk to yourself as you would a good friend when you feel down. Being kind to ourself is one of the essential elements of self-compassion, but compassion is more than just being kind; it is the ability to be with suffering rather than fighting it.

Let’s look at this more”…

What is Self-compassion?

To understand the true meaning of Compassion, let’s start with looking at the roots of the word. Compassion stems from the latin roots com meaning “with” and pati meaning “suffer.” Therefore, compassion is to “suffer with.”²

In the book The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions, Germer (2009) explains, “what distinguishes compassion from loving-kindness is the presence of pain” (p. 180). In order to take care of the hurt or distress we feel, acknowledging, accepting and nurturing that pain is the entryway to healing it. While loving-kindness is not the exact same as compassion, it is an essential component to practice compassion.

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” 

– Buddha”‹

KEY COMPONENTS OF COMPASSION

Kristin Neff, pioneer in the field of Self-Compassion and co-founder of the Centre for Mindful Self-Compassion identifies three key elements of Self-Compassion: ¹

1. Self-Kindness vs. Judgement
2. Mindfulness vs. Over-Identification
3. Common Humanity vs. Isolation

Self-Kindness vs. Judgement helps remind us that when we are experiencing pain, if we turn to self-criticism or judgment, we will usually find that it does not help or it increases our pain. Ultimately we want to avoid pouring salt on the wound, and blame and judgment is the salt on that open wound of emotional pain. Self-kindness on the other hand is being your own source of gently support and comfort. While it may not take away the emotional pain, it will help you get through the difficult distress with genuine care.

Mindfulness vs. Over-Identification – When we find ourselves putting our mental and emotional energy toward an awful feeling, thinking about how to rid ourselves of this feeling and how uncomfortable it feels, we can easily get lost in the pain preventing ourself from feeling anything else, like joy or excitement. This is over-identification. But when we can be mindful – the practice of observing thoughts and feelings as they are without judgement or trying to change them, allows us to be present, calm and thoughtful in what we decide to do next.

It is a lot harder to heal when we are unaware of what it is we are actually feeling or thinking. Mindful awareness opens us up to be able to learn to understand what may be underlying the pain, rather than staying stuck on the pain we feel.

Common-humanity vs. Isolation – Common humanity is recognizing that to be human is to experience all sorts of emotions and feelings including pain and suffering. When we feel hurt sometimes the knee-jerk reaction is to disconnect from life and the world, perhaps because you feel guilt, shame, or like a failure and not worthy. Self-compassion involves doing the opposite and connecting to that common humanity of the fact that pain, uncertainty, and change is inevitable. Acceptance of this ‘common-ness’ amoungst all humans can help bring openness to that which we may not be able to control, allowing whatever is, is without judgment and walking gently through that pain with the reminder that you are not alone.

You can read more about these 3 components on Neff’s website if you click here

PUTTING INTO PRACTICE: SELF-COMPASSION

Neff reminds us that when we are in moments of pain to “embrace ourselves with kindness and care in response, remembering that imperfection is part of the shared human experience” (Tips for Practice, nd). Allowing ourselves to be patient is also key because when we give ourselves permission to be vulnerable and open our heart to meeting our pain, old pain may surface. This is because in order to love ourselves unconditionally, we need to embrace and acknowledge the parts that we did not love or had never received love.

Examples of how to offer yourself self-compassion in times of hurt & pain:

• Focus on the simple act of breathing – honouring and appreciating the ability to breathe can help ease that emotional tension inside. Focus on breathing in self-love, and breathing out tension/discomfort.

• Awareness, Acknowledgment & Acceptance
  • Bring awareness to the feeling or to where you feel it in your body.
  • Acknowledge it – I feel regret for a mistake I made at work because I care about my work.
  • Acknowledge the pain in your body – my shoulders are holding a lot of pain.
  • Practice acceptance – the ability to relinquish control of trying to change something and to allow or welcome whatever is, is. In other words, it is dropping the rope to the emotional tug-a-war between you and the emotion and accepting that what you are feeling is normal and okay.
  • Then, try offering yourself a phrase of self-compassion, ex: May I be kind to myself; May I forgive myself.

• Engaging in acts that take care of your health/well being or bring you joy – Soothing yourself with a hot cup of tea, reading a favourite book, spending time with pets, getting outside in nature, caring for your hygiene and body; making it a point to consistently attend to yourself everyday.

• Normalize – Remind yourself that it is normal to feel pain at times and that everyone goes through emotional pain. Give yourself permission to feel what it is you are feeling with love.

• Compassion through creative means – Turning to a creative means to process pain can be deeply therapeutic and healing. One example is to take a pencil, marker or paint and draw/sketch the pain intuitively. When a visual appears, offer the pain comfort, reassurance, perhaps even forgiveness. Write about what you drew/created.

• Journal/Write a Letter– Write a letter to someone important in your life who may be going through a difficult time and extend love and compassion their way. This can even be a letter to your future self. Or, journal/write out what you are feeling, approaching the writing with a kind curiousity toward the pain.

• Self-compassion meditation/mantra. There are a lot of free resources on Kristen Neff’s website by clicking here

• Tara Brach’s R.A.I.N Exercise (RAIN, 2020)³
  • R – Recognize
  • A – Allow the experience to be there
  • I – Investigate with interest and care
  • N – Nurture with Self-Compassion

*You can find more information and resources about RAIN on Tara Brach’s website by clicking here

If we can practice kindness toward ourselves each day, the easier it will become to turn to self-compassion in moments we are experiencing emotional pain. With practice and patience, we can unleash the strain we unconsciously put on ourselves when we want to rid ourselves of the discomfort. When we accept, allow, and give ourselves grace, we’ve created an entryway toward healing, because then love and kindness will flow naturally.

“it’s precisely when we need love the most that it is hardest to give it to ourselves”

(Kristin Neff, as cited in Germer, 2009, p. 141).

References:

1. Germer, C. K. (2009). The mindful path to self-compassion: Freeing yourself from destructive thoughts and emotions. The Guilford Press.
2. Neff, K (n.d.) Self-compassion. Self-Compassion. https://self-compassion.org/the-three-elements-of-self-compassion-2/
3. Brach, T, (2020, Jan 1). RAIN: A Practice of Radical Compassion. Tara Brach. https://www.tarabrach.com/rain-practice-radical-compassion/

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