Self-compassion

Self Compassion
Give compassion to your future self

Will your future self be a success or failure, healthy or sick, happy or sad? We spend a lot of our time thinking, worrying and speculating about the future but I find that one way to cut through that preoccupation is to wish my future self well whatever happens.

After all, as I point out in my book Kindfulness, you don’t have total control over how your future will work out. Life is full of random events that can get in the way, whether the future we worry about is later today, next year or ten years from now. We don’t know what’s going to happen with our health, the economy, the political situation to name a few.

What I can do, though, is to wish my future self well in whatever circumstances I find myself, in other words wish myself well unconditionally. I think this practice can give us a certain assurance, as the future turns into the present, that we will be our own friends whether things turn out well or badly.

Try this

One way to do this is to generate a feeling of goodwill towards a friend or someone you love, perhaps wishing them well with words like ‘Be happy, be safe, be well.’ Then let that image fade and bring that feeling of goodwill to your future self, again using words like ‘Be happy, be safe, be well.’

Allow yourself to continue to experience that feeling of goodwill and well wishing for a few moments before bringing the practice to a close.

Health benefits

In removing or lowering the fear of how you might be in the future you reduce stress and lower stress is good for your health. You are also, in my view, more likely to engage in behaviours, such as exercise and healthy eating, that increase the chances of a better future. That’s because the less painful the future is in your eyes the easier it is to accept the value of doing what you can – within reason – now to take care of that future.

By the way, the future in question doesn’t have to be years away. It can be tomorrow, next week, next month: it’s all the future. Self-compassion for that future is a gift you can give yourself right now.

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See also: Wishing well to your past, present and future selves

30/01/2025

Kindfulness
Self-compassion: Kindness towards the person you already are

​Self-compassion is becoming a key aspect of mindfulness in the West. It is also, in my opinion, one of the greatest gifts you could give yourself.

What is it?

It involves:

  • deliberately treating yourself, with your mixture of faults and virtues, with kindness and understanding and
  • accepting that you share your painful experiences and your failings with many millions of others.
  • And it is underpinned by the practice of mindfulness.

Here is how one the major researchers on self-compassion, Dr Kristin Neff describes it:

“Self-compassion, therefore, involves being touched by and open to one’s own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, and generating the desire to alleviate one’s suffering and to heal oneself with kindness,” she writes in her contribution to the book Mindfulness in Positive Psychology.

“Self-compassion also involves offering nonjudgmental understanding to one’s pain, inadequacies, and failures, so that one’s experience is seen as part of the larger human experience.”

More benefits

Some more points from that chapter:

  • Self-compassionate people ruminate less. In other words they are less likely to keep repeating and repeating negative thoughts to themselves.
  • People who are compassionate towards themselves have lower levels of depression, anxiety and stress.
  • Self-compassionate people feel less negative about the past even though they are more likely to take personal responsibility for what has gone wrong in the past.
  • When self-compassionate people fail, they are more likely try again. This might be because they know that if they fail again they won’t subject themselves to fierce criticism.
  • Self-compassionate people are more likely to stick to their diets, to exercise  and to succeed in reducing alcohol use. Why this should be is not entirely clear but it may be that a self-compassionate motivation is more helpful than a self-critical one.

(The book is Mindfulness in Positive Psychology: The Science of Meditation and Wellbeing edited by Itai Ivtzan and Tim Lomasmeans)

If you believe you would benefit from greater self compassion my online course True Friend (payment by donation) can make the difference.

Resources for self compassion list.

03/01/2024

Mindfulness
Choices? They’re not all free so a little self-compassion may be called for

Choices? They're not all free so a little self-compassion may be called for

“You’ve made your bed and now you must lie in it.”

This is one of the most un-compassionate phrases we can use to ourselves or to others. Usually it means it’s time to pay for your choices and you can expect no sympathy from me.

Of course we need to take responsibility for our choices but, as I point out in my book Kindfulness, we also need to remember that our choices are not entirely free. Our lives are also influenced by certain conditions, and these have accumulated over years, often outside our control.

For instance if you have little or no money, then choosing to go to live in another city where accommodation is expensive represents a far more difficult choice than choosing to stay at home.

Another example: If your parents are farmers, your conditions and choices will be very different to what they would be if your parents were rock ‘n’ roll stars.

Choices are also influenced by factors we’re unaware of at the time, such as the wiles of marketing. The marketeers know where to place goods so that you are more likely to buy them and what music to have on in the background to nudge you towards handing over your cash or your card.

This isn’t about denying responsibility for your actions. It is about recognising that you are a human being who has to juggle choices and conditions with no knowledge of what the future holds – quite a demand! In that very human situation, self-compassion may be just as valid as self-criticism as you go about dealing with consequences.

Kindfulness – be a true friend to yourself with mindful self-compassion, is published by Yellow Kite Books on 28th June 2018

02/06/2018