• One of the biggest barriers to practicing self-compassion in our relationships – and the importance of breaking through it. (1:00)
• Why it’s problematic for us AND our partners when we are solely “other-focused” in relationships and don’t tend to our own needs. (1:44)
• How we unintentionally teach people that our needs don’t need to be considered. (2:54)
• What happens when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction — and we are overly dependent on others to meet our needs. (4:16)
• The other big barrier to practicing self-compassion and how subscribing to it can wreak unintentional havoc in our relationships. (5:02)
• An old East Indian saying that illustrates when it’s noble and when it’s foolhardy to help someone. (6:00)
• How self-compassion naturally invites compassion from others. (6:34)
• Why learning to care for ourselves with self-compassion feels so empowering AND benefits our relationships. (6:55)
• The three components of self-compassion from researcher, Dr. Kristin Neff. (8:09)
• The difference between being kind and being nice. (10:52)
• A scenario of compassion for a friend that illustrates how mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness can unfold in real life (and how to make it your own). (12:25)
• A simple process we can all use to grow in self-compassion using the same scenario with a simple twist.(16:58)
• How expanding our capacity to care for ourselves also expands our capacity to form well connected relationships with others. (21:00)

One of the biggest blocks to self-compassion is the notion that self-compassion is selfish.  Merriam Webster defines selfish as: 

1: concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others

2: arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others

It’s obvious that being selfish- caring for ourselves without regard to others – would be detrimental to relationships.  What’s less obvious is that caring for others without regard to ourselves is also detrimental to relationships.  Many of us have actually been trained not to have needs, and if we do have them, not to tend to them.  We’ve been trained to be exclusively other focused.  And that’s a problem. Because being a human means we all have needs.  We have physical needs- food, shelter, etc.  and we have emotional needs- the need to feel safe, connected, valued, and to belong to name a few.  

Living our lives as if our own needs don’t deserve our time and attention means our needs go unmet.  And that often leads to a sense of despair, emptiness, and resentment.  We can wonder what is wrong with us that we aren’t valued by others.  Alternatively, we wonder what is wrong with others (partner, parents, siblings, friends, colleagues) that they don’t consider our needs.  In other words when we are self-less we may decide those around us are self-ish.

When we don’t tend to our own needs we consciously or unconsciously depend on others to meet our needs.  In so doing we are placing a burden on others.  And that expectation often goes unmet.  We actually teach others that we don’t need care.  For example, let’s say someone accidentally steps on your toe and they quickly apologize.  You say, Oh don’t worry about it- I’m fine.  After all, you don’t want them to feel badly about what was clearly an accident on their part. And then it happens a few more times with your continued assurances that it’s no problem you’re fine.  Then a second person steps on your toe accidentally and the first person steps in to reassure them that they don’t need to worry about it- you’re actually fine and don’t mind being stepped on.  You may be aghast at that, but really it’s what you’ve taught them.  They don’t need to consider you or take care not to step on you.  

Of course, that isn’t what you intended to teach them.  You probably intended to be understanding about the fact that they made a mistake.  That’s noble enough.  The problem is that when we don’t take care of ourselves we telegraph a message that we don’t need care.  

It’s easy for others to get the impression that we don’t need care when we aren’t caring for ourselves.  But the fact is that every last one of us does need care.  Somewhere down deep we know it and we hope and expect that others will understand that too and show some care toward us.  When they don’t we can feel resentful, as if our own needs don’t matter to them.

On the other hand, some of us are so in touch with our own needs and the deficit of not having been cared for adequately that we expect and pull for others to meet our needs.  We want them to care for us the way we should have been cared for when we were little and couldn’t care for ourselves.  We ask them to do for us what we can and should be doing for ourselves unaware of the tremendous burden we are placing on them.  What they may do for a while out of a sense of love and care for us, will quickly foster burnout and resentment.  Or they may see the excessive neediness for what it is and run for the hills.  Without developing the capacity to care for ourselves this leaves us dependent and, ultimately, all alone.  

That’s actually one of the other biggest barriers to self-compassion: The notion that if I care for myself then others won’t show up and care for me.  And when people believe that, they often resist learning to care for themselves because they don’t want to give up on feeling cared for by others.  This scenario often plays out when we haven’t gotten our needs met in childhood and we’re still longing to be loved by someone who will meet our needs.  

Of course, it’s easiest when we get what we need in childhood.  Then we learn that we matter and are secure in belonging and feeling valued.  As we grow our parents gradually turn over the responsibility for caring for us by teaching us how to care for ourselves.  But the truth is that even if we didn’t get the care we needed when we were children, as adults we all have the capacity and responsibility to care for ourselves.  

There’s an old East Indian saying that a colleague shared with me.  Roughly translated it goes like this: While it is noble to assist an elephant that is trying to stand it is foolhearty to assist an elephant who is falling down.  I love that saying.  If the elephant is falling down, get out of the way- you’re gonna get smooshed.  It’s true in our relationships too.  It’s one thing to help someone who is trying to help themselves, and another to help someone who doesn’t want help.  (Of course there are exceptions to this, such as when someone is suicidal and needs to be hospitalized).  For the most part, though, this applies.  

So if you’re the elephant, whether or not you are trying to care for yourself may actually be the deciding factor in whether others will show up to assist you.  In this way, self-compassion actually invites compassion from others.  When both partners are practicing self-compassion compassion naturally flourishes in our relationships.  When either partner depends exclusively on the other for compassion, the relationship can too easily become a parent/child relationship.  And, dependency breeds resentment, as I noted earlier. 

When we learn to care for ourselves with self-compassion it actually feels empowering.  We are no longer dependent on someone else.  After all, everyone is human and has their own needs and challenges.  That means that others will let us down- even if they don’t want to. They get sick, go on vacation, go to sleep.  They can’t always be available to us.  I am the only person I have access to 24/7.  Knowing that I can tend to myself when I need it means I never have to go without.  And when I care for myself I also give the signal to others that I matter and am worth caring about.  

You may be thinking, well that’s all well and good, Michelle, but how exactly does one do that?  There are actually three components that can help us here.  Kristin Neff, researcher and co-founder of the mindful self-compassion program defined three components of self-compassion as: mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness.  

One way to think about mindfulness would be clear seeing.  When we are having a hard time, we need to be able to see that we are having a hard time, and we need to keep that struggle in perspective.  We might think of this like viewing a piece of art on display at a gallery.  There is a natural distance from which we want to view the painting.  Too far away and we don’t see the painting or don’t notice it, too close and we get stuck in a particular detail without seeing how it relates to the whole painting.  When we are struggling, sometimes we fail to notice we are suffering- like when we are so far away from the painting that we don’t see it.  We can’t tend to our pain because we don’t see it.  Other times, we are so caught in a particular detail of the pain we are feeling that we become stuck in rumination- we can’t see the larger picture.  Like when you get a review at work that has 20 things you did well and one area for improvement.  If we fixate on the one area for improvement to the exclusion of the 20 things we did well we actually increase our suffering.  So the first step is to notice when we are having a hard time, without falling into a story or ruminating about how horrible it is.

The second component, common humanity, points to the fact that difficulty is a part of every human life.  No matter how much power and wealth you may have, you will not be able to avoid the painful aspects of life, illness, loss, and death.  Of course, this doesn’t mean that we suffer equally.  Some of us do have an easier or more difficult time than others, often depending on whether we have aspects of our lives that are marginalized by society.  Still, we are not alone in our suffering. Others also suffer in the ways we suffer and, though we don’t wish harm on others, there is some comfort in knowing we are not alone with our pain.  In common humanity it isn’t just me- and it isn’t just you.  There is a place, the place of being a human, where we understand painful things happen in life to everyone, even if it isn’t to the same degree.

The third component, self-kindness, is the most natural aspect of self-compassion.  When we see that someone is having a hard time, we know it isn’t their fault- it’s just part of being human, than the most natural thing in the world is to offer them kindness.