I hardly know where to begin. I discovered the self-compassion work of Dr. Kristin Neff through Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection e-course. Dr. Neff has a really long title. She’s an Associate Professor in Human Development and Culture in the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Whew.

Dr. Neff spoke at TEDx Manitoba on The Space Between: Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion.  In the video, she defines self-compassion, a term I had never heard before, what factors in our culture drive us to not practice it, and the benefits if we do practice it.  The video is less than 20 minutes and is very insightful.

Self-compassion as a healthier way of relating to yourself, yes. Interesting, yes. Novel, yes. But it didn’t hit me that I might find this personally useful until I took the 26-question assessment.  If you’d like to take it too, check the right nav bar of her home page.

The test breaks down behaviors that makeup self-compassion. It assesses how much we practice Isolation, Self-judgement, and Over-identification, all not very self-compassionate behaviors, vs how much we emphasize our Common Humanity and practice Self-kindness and Mindfulness.  The screenshot below describes how these factors relate to one another.

My scores show I could use some help in this area.

While the result raised my eyebrows, my husband was not surprised. LOL!

Dictionary.com defines compassion this way: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorry for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. It sounds like a good way to feel about ourselves. Antonyms or opposites are merciless and indifferent. That seems like a painful way to feel about ourselves.

So how do we whisper compassionately to ourselves? And what do we say? One of Brené’s affirmations is “I will talk to myself the same way I talk to people I love.” This made me check my level of discourse with myself and my self-talk.  Words that acknowledge the pain and not ignore it, words that embrace less than perfect, and words that celebrate joyous events and not minimize them are some good candidates to use.

For another angle, I looked up compassion on Biblegateway.com. It’s used 82 times in the New International Version of the Bible. That would mean that God and Jesus see us, see our pain and have a feeling of deep sympathy and a strong desire to ease the suffering. Hmm, now that’s interesting. The problem of pain is a big one. If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t he fix it. I defer to C.S. Lewis’ book The Problem of Pain and other books. That question feels beyond me.

Returning to things I have some hope of affecting, my own actions, I’m practicing self-compassion this week. How about you?

If you’d like to read my other Brené Brown-related posts, click the first 2 links below.

Related articles

• Imperfect and Enough with Brené Brown and Oprah (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)
• A Zentangled Journey (jenniferhartnetthenderson.wordpress.com)
• Why Self-Compassion Helps You Meet Life’s Challenges (psychologytoday.com)
• When Practicing Self-Compassion (tynascline.com)
• TED Talk Tuesday – Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy (minusthebox.org)
• In disfigured man, Pope Francis saw Jesus (washingtonpost.com)
• Compassion: The Glue That Holds Us Together (princessofthelight.wordpress.com)
• Vulnerability (thewholeheartedblueprint.wordpress.com)
• Compassion! (plunderfortheplanet.wordpress.com)