I’ve been tossing around this phrase lately, “self-compassion”. I’ve actually started a running poll with my fellow colleagues, friends, professional network, and family on what is their definition of self-compassion. It’s quite ironic that i’ve been getting several different answers. These answers are all different depending on the people group:
Family:
- Tend to answer with compassion and kindness
- Talk about self-kindness and positive self-talk
- Don’t necessarily have direct tangible actions on how to apply this term to your life
- Ask if there is something wrong with me
- Start to worry about my well-being
Colleagues:
- Tend to respond with some sort of social justice response: “it’s the act of loving oneself as much as someone else”
- Self-love, self-care, and self-preservation
- Defined as something that they preach don’t practice
- Not judging oneself
Friends:
- Tend to assume I am naive to this term and have no idea what i’m talking about
- Say I’m hard on myself and need to take it easy
- Ask how I’m doing and avoid any hard topics about themself when asked
- Become increasingly agitated and continue to ask how i’m applying self-compassion to my life
- Define it as something one should do on a daily basis to avoid shame or guilt
Professional:
- Talk about the in depth therapeutic definition of self-care
- Give positive self-talk tangible action steps
- Never ask why I asked about the definition
- Assume that I’m asking in context for a clinical advice
- Claim that self-compassion is relative
- Validate my concerns about learning the definition of self-compassion
You see I have been wrestling with this term as long as I can remember. Most therapists and professionals will assume that it’s blamed on my childhood or the way my parent’s raised me. Yea, okay that might have been a factor. Trauma and emotional neglect aside what about the lack of connection? Or the personal affection? Or even the lack of boundaries in my life?
I don’t blame my parent’s for that stuff. Honestly, it wasn’t talked about or discussed back in the day. Hell, I don’t think that scientists knew the extent of damage a lack of boundaries or emotional neglect had on a child’s brain. My parents had no idea how damaging the impact of screen time or physically reprimanding for discipline purposes. I mean my mom struggled with controlling her anger by raising her voice or yelling at us for something or even taking things out of proportion. Honestly….I bet I deserved it. I was honestly a horrible daughter and regret saying a lot of things to her. However, We both had no idea the impact these coping strategies would have on both of us.
As a new parent, I am beginning to realize that life is not as easy as the movies make it out to be. Toddlers are little savages. But if you take a step back and realize these toddlers don’t have the complex decision making skills that us adults have. This prevents them from being able to control and/or regulate their emotions in a healthy way. They don’t know what the feelings sadness, anger, and frustration are. They have no idea what they even feel like. So they respond in the same way they begged for attention and food when they were infants. They cry.
My son gives me the largest, most plump, crocodile tears whenever I tell him “First, we need to do _____ before we can do ______.” Most of the time it revolves around food. Like I get it, I get hangry too, but dear Lord the fruit snacks are still going to be there after we wash our hands or sit up in the highchair, I promise.
What gets me the most is that, I as an adult have a hard time managing my emotions, effectively connecting with others, and not taking other’s emotions to heart. So, why should we expect other’s to respond any differently? Especially our own tiny humans. It all starts with modeling. Children model the behaviors that we do on a daily basis. They see us empty the dishwasher so they want to help wash the dishes or put them away. But we’re so quick to yell at them for putting them away wrong or doing things different than we’re used to, so we push them away or tell them they can’t do it. We turn the TV on or we distract them with something else instead of teach them the everyday life skills that kids lack now a days.
Children can figure out how to scroll on an iPhone, but they struggle with common day things like cleaning their room, making their own decisions, or even reading time on an analog clock OR counting back change. No I don’t think that these life skills are practiced as much as they used to be but they are also essential to being financially stable, establishing meaningful relationships, creating boundaries, learning about consent, and the ability to control their life, bodies, and minds. These skills are lost in the bustle of life trying to keep kids occupied so that mom/dad can get things done.
Let me tell ya straight sister….
NO ONE CARES IF YOU HAVE DIRTY DISHES IN THE SINK.
Your children are going to remember making a mess with you in the kitchen or helping mix a chocolate cake over watching TV in the living room while you do all these things. Give children the ability to learn how to establish healthy connections and understand the importance to creating intimacy with themselves.
This all STARTS WITH YOU.
Circling back to the modeling, children model the behaviors you do. You do your makeup every single day? Your little girl will attempt to put lipstick on or eye shadow just to be like mommy. She will also know the importance of loving herself modeled by how much you love yourself. If you constantly put yourself down about appearance, fashion, beauty, or behaviors based on shame or guilt then your child will do the same in her own life. Remember the saying, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”? Yea, that’s true with the self-based behaviors that you model/mimick. Your children want an intimate connection with you as someone involved in their life. In order to do that you have to TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.
Self-care is a whole other topic for another day, but self-compassion might be the roots that need to grow before you can blossom and shine for other’s to see first. Saying positive things to yourself, complimenting yourself, taking time to meet your basic needs (going to the bathroom whenever your bladder signals you to go, eating lunch even when you don’t have “time”, and showering/washing your face) can make a world of a difference. Once you have time to take care of your physical basic needs, you can then move onto harder things like emotional and psychological self-care. Again self-care is a topic for another day and something I’m truly very passionate about, but. self-compassion is the umbrella term and self-care is the action word related to self-compassion.
Do it. Be kind to yourself. Relate to yourself. Validate your own feelings by saying “Yes, I feel ____ right now.” Don’t try to remove the uncomfortable instead EMBRACE yourself and all your feelings. When you start to accept every part of yourself then you’re able to really share your gifts and joys to others and help them.
let’s all start with showing ourselves the compassion and kindness we deserve. YOU DESERVE IT.
AllTheThings 