Have you ever been told you need to be kinder to yourself?
If you’re struggling with your mental health chances are you have.
But if you’ve never done this before, its not surprising you may be wondering, how can I be kinder to myself? And why is it so important?
Kindness does not sound like the most powerful tool when you are on your knees with stress or low mood.
But in fact kindness and self compassion is backed up with science and the latest tool psychologists are using to improve mental health problems.
Whatsmore, its a skill anyone can learn to improve wellbeing and enjoy life.
This blog will explain what it is, why it works and how to do it!
But first some background. If the 2010s were the decade of mindfulness in the mental health world, self compassion seems to be the psychology buzz word of 2020’s.
The “C” word can have a strange effect on people such as strong aversion (due to is sounding weak, indulgent and possibly ineffective). Also, strong emotion due to a recognition of how little compassion they may feel for themselves or have received from others.
Many people also confuse it with self care, which is linked, but can make people think of forgetting about their troubles and watching netflix. For this reason, self compassion may seem like a self help sticking plaster to deep issues. If you are struggling with severe issues then something that sounds like you are being told to have a bubble bath might not sound quite enough. But this couldn’t be further more the truth.
In fact the origin of the “self compassion” movement comes from Compassion Focussed Theory which is a very powefrul psychological techique used by world famous psychologist, Prof Paul Gilbert. He developed this model after successfully helping some of the most mentally unwell people in society cultviate compassion after realising that traditional CBT did not work for all.
It has it roots in evolutionary psychology, neuro science, attachment theory, CBT and mindfulness. It therefore brings together some of the most effective approaches to modern psychological healing in one all encompassing and practical model. No soft touches there.
So what is it and how to do it? First the science bit…..
We can think of our brains as having 3 systems which have evolved with us since early man. Soothing, Drive and Threat. The “threat” alerts us to danger and makes us avoid or attack our predetor. If this mode is triggered we are likely to feel anxiety, anger, disgust. Crucially it can be activated in relation to other people i.e. if we feel rejected or criticised.
Then we have the drive part which is responsible for helping us to achieve and acquire things which is great. But it also makes us compare ourselves to others and put pressure on ourselves when over activated. This can lead to stress but also depression if we become so self critical we withdraw.
Being too much in threat and drive shuts down our soothing/compassionate system. The more self critical we are the more we will activate threat and drive and consequently the more we are in those drives the more self critical we will be!
The soothing system regulates drive and threat by activating feelings of love and kindess (i.e compassion!) to ourselves and others.
Thankfully the key to increasing the impact of the soothing system and reducing the foothold of the other 2 is within our grasps. Just as we might salivate over thinking about our favourite meal (or our favourite lover!) if we start to imagine in compassionate ways we can increase compassion mental muscles.
Ways to stimulate compassionate and kindness system involves:
- Developing mindfulness to notice when you are in the threat or drive system and not being kind to yourself.
- Acknowledging when you are struggling and not blaming yourself but allowing the feelings to be there.
- Asking yourself what you need rather than what you should do.
- Practicing specific breathing practices to help move brain over into the soothing “system”.
- Cultivating a “compassionate self” and/or a “compassionate other” to build this part of the brain and help you respond compassionately to yourself when struggling.
- Changing the tone of your inner voice to a calm, compassionate one.
- Generating compassionate but more rational ways of thinking which are not self blaming and assuming the worst etc
If you would like help to use self compassion to address issues such as stress, anxiety, self worth of depression please contact me for my 1-1 and group services.
