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Pat yourself on the back
Last Brain Bytes, we gave you a couple of tips on how to engage the body's parasympathetic nervous system - the "rest and digest" circuitry. Today, we're going to take a look at one of the most direct paths to that system: self-compassion.
First, we should be clear with our terms. Self-compassion is not self-pity. Self-pity and wallowing mean abandoning responsibility over yourself, your life, your actions, or your feelings. Self-compassion keeps you in touch and grounded, while giving yourself the room to make mistakes or feel regret, and making sure you have the resources and time and space to recover. This acceptance and nurturing of one's self serves as a buffer against stress and increases resilience.
A lot of times, we're a lot harder on ourselves than we are on others. For one reason or another, we often just don't feel like we deserve to have moments of doubt or weakness or grief (more on that in a minute). So here's a simple technique for practicing self-compassion. Just think to yourself, "How would I respond to a friend who was experiencing this exact same thing?" Then, compare that to how you're responding to your own situation. They may look a lot different. Then, apply that same compassion and support to yourself.
Like most mental states, self-compassion becomes easier with practice. Here's an easy way to reinforce those mental pathways.
- Bring someone to mind you feel compassion for
- Try to clear your mind; focus on and let yourself sink into the physical and mental experience of compassion
- Once you've tuned into that experience, shift the compassion to yourself
- Make sure to really absorb the state - let thought become experience and sensation
Don't worry if it's harder at first to feel compassion for yourself than for others. There's a good reason for that. Evolutionarily speaking, there wasn't much survival benefit to self-compassion. It wouldn't help you escape from a predator or find food. But since we're a social species, compassion for others is a basic and powerful survival mechanism for us humans. This means we have an easy time activating the neural pathways for compassion, and from there, we can turn around and apply it to ourselves with a little mindfulness and a little effort.
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