Self-compassion, it is said in English. It means treating ourselves with affection when we stumble, when we suffer failure, if we make mistakes. Instead of flagellating ourselves, blaming ourselves, reproaching ourselves, we should feel the same feeling of closeness towards ourselves that we feel when faced with the pain of others.
The invitation that emerges from an increasingly popular field of study is: behave towards our poor bruised self as we would towards a friend in a difficult situation. We would be understanding, we would give courage. As psychoanalyst James Hillman said, “words are like pillows, when they are arranged in the right way they relieve pain.”
Self-compassion is the focus of research because it can improve health, not only mental, but also physical. A review of seven studies, which appeared in Journal of Health Psychology in 2019, and this is supported by a book by psychotherapists Lorraine Hobbs and Niina Tamura, just published in Italy by FrancoAngeli: Teaching self-compassion to adolescents. In truth, it is never too late to learn to practice it.
Kids should have an affectionate internal dialogue with themselves just as they would with someone they love, experts suggest (photo Getty Images).
«Self-compassion is associated with greater happiness in life, lower levels of anxiety and depressionto habits such as a healthy diet and exercise and to more satisfying personal relationships”, writes Christopher Germer, of Harvard Medical School, in the preface to the essay.
“Teaching Self-Compassion to Teens” by Lorraine Hobbs and Niina Tamura
“All over the world, most people are less compassionate towards themselves than towards others. Typically, when things go wrong, we become our own worst enemy: we turn against ourselves, hide in shame, or get lost in rumination. Self-compassion is the opposite.”
Only we know each other well
Delicacy towards one’s crumpled soul is a skill that can and should be learnedassures Germer: «No matter how wonderful our family or friends may be, other people do not know us as well as we know ourselves and cannot provide the kindness and understanding we need exactly when and how we need it. need”.
“Words of Comfort” by Matt Haig (and/or editions, 2021)
Furthermore, despising yourself is useless. “You don’t become a good person if you keep thinking you’re a bad person,” summarized Matt Haig in the best-seller Words of comfort (and/or editions, 2021).
The three pillars of self-compassion
Self-compassion is different from self-esteem because it does not involve evaluation. However, it lays the foundation for good self-judgment, since it leads to concern for one’s well-being.
It is Kristin Neff who borrowed it from the Buddhist tradition, introducing it into academic research. The American psychologist has identified three pillars of self-compassion.
- The first is to turn to yourself imagining the phrases that the most supportive friend would say to us.
- The other important step according to Neff is recognize that missteps and falls are part of life, are a common experience. I made a mistake but others also make mistakes, in fact I am human precisely because I make mistakes.
- The third key component is the mindfulness, the awareness of what we feel. Sometimes thoughts can feel like persistent background noise that is difficult to turn off.
One way to mitigate them is to listen to them carefully and identify them for what they are: simply critical thoughts, negative feelings. In moments of frustration, hypercritics must operate a certain detachment from the internal narrative, which otherwise can lead them to catastrophic images. When the mind enters a sort of dark spiral, it must be stopped: it is an essential stop to recognize processes that create discomfort and start changing them.
Teenagers are not alone
Self-compassion is like wearing a warm coat when it’s cold, it’s been said. She is not only “tender” but also “proud”, psychologists point out. On the one hand it consists of reassuring, on the other it consists of motivating to resume your personal journey.
In summary, it could be translated with these sentences to pronounce in your mind: «Courage, don’t worry, a misstep happens to everyone, it’s not the end of the world, you’re not a terrible individual, don’t speak badly of yourself, go after you”.
Young people first of all should be able to talk to each other as they would with someone they love. «Children often make excessively harsh judgments towards themselves», write Hobbs and Tamura.
«With self-compassion, teenagers can learn to stay calm and comfort themselves. Keeping in mind the concept of shared human experience is important to remind them that they are not alone. They are particularly prone to believing that the difficulties they encounter are happening uniquely to them, a phenomenon called “personal fable”. Finally, mindfulness allows them to become aware of their own habitual patterns of thinking and perception and how these patterns lead to difficulties with emotional regulation.”
Perfectionism can be dangerous
Adolescence is a period in which we try to find our own identity, to define our relationships with others. “It is the phase of life in which we are likely to encounter setbacks, difficulties and, in some cases, traumas”, we read again in the psychotherapists’ essay. «All this is probably accompanied by stress, strong emotions and worries, which make the adolescents more vulnerable to suffering and emotional turbulence».
The point is to protect yourself from harshness. We adults too live in an era of fake totems that we unconsciously pass on to our children, governed by the idea that self-criticism is what keeps us in line, convinced that being indulgent is equivalent to not improving, to confining oneself to the rear.
Many of us were raised with the idea that, to be successful, we must be perfect. Population surveys show that perfectionism has increased significantly in the last two decades, with dangerous effects. Kids have unrealistic standardsone of the main causes of increased anxiety and depression.
In the 1987 film Bewitched by the moonwinner of three Oscars, the protagonist (Nicholas Cage) says to her (Cher): «But we, we are not here to seek perfection. Snowflakes are perfect, stars are perfect: not us. We are here to destroy only ourselves, and to break our hearts, and to fall in love with the wrong people and to die.”
When we grieve, when the years slip away, when life has betrayed us, when a love is lost, Let’s try to have compassion for the wrongness of our lives and love each other.
Eliana Liotta (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Eliana Liotta is a journalist, writer and science communicator. On iodonna.it and on the main platforms (Spreaker, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Google Podcast) you can find his podcast series The good that I want.
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