What happens when we make a mistake? How long do we criticize ourselves? How long do we stay hooked on that feeling of guilt or shame?
Throughout our lives our actions have pleasant and unpleasant consequences for ourselves and others; With the latter we tend to stay stuck, thinking about everything we have done wrong criticizing ourselves and with the present feeling of guilt becoming greater and greater.
In these cases it is important to learn to be self-compassionate
Being self-compassionate implies being able to be kind and understand oneself, especially in the cases that we mentioned previously where I have made a mistake or mistake. This does not imply that we feel sorry for ourselves or victimize ourselves, since being compassionate with ourselves must include learning about it and being proactive with our circumstance.
According to Kristin Neff self-compassion is composed of:
To these three points that are part of self-compassion according to Kristin Neff, I would add, as I mentioned previously, The learning In order not to turn being kind to ourselves in situations of failure or suffering into being self-indulgent or self-pitying, it is important that, in addition to understanding that these experiences are part of being human, we also learn or take a global view of the situation to grow as individuals.
Being compassionate towards ourselves has benefits on a personal and social level This is because being self-compassionate and trying to understand ourselves encourages us to be more empathetic with the people around us, the calm we achieve with ourselves helps us to be more patient with others and enhances personal growth by being able to see reality in a less dramatic way and learn about it and with it self-esteem.
To start achieving the goal of being self-compassionate I suggest that you start by trying the following exercises:
1. Become aware of your internal dialogue
To begin to see if you are being very self-critical and what situation you are in with yourself, start by identifying how you dialogue with yourself in stressful situations, failures or mistakes on a daily basis.
You can write phrases that you usually say to yourself at those moments and analyze them later Would you talk like that to a friend? Once you have made this point, you can begin to change that dialogue by approaching it from a kinder and more respectful perspective toward yourself. For example: if I start a new job and make a mistake, I can change the “I am useless” or “I will never be able to do it well” for “Right now I don’t have much experience, but little by little I can improve.” my performance.”
2. Self-knowledge
Spending time alone and getting to know ourselves makes it easier for us to be more aware of our emotions and to be able to live them without overestimating them. Spend time with yourself, don’t ignore what you feel and reflect on it.
3. Observe the situation as a spectator
Try to change the focus and see the situation from the outside. This helps us see different points of view and if we are especially critical of ourselves, imagining another person in the situation we find ourselves in allows us to feel compassion for that person and start treating each other like we would treat a friend that was in the situation we currently find ourselves in.
Finally, if you feel that you carry with you a stone of guilt that you cannot shake, that always accompanies you and that does not allow you to be kind to yourself, you should make a forgiveness directed towards you Sometimes it can be very complicated to do it ourselves, and perhaps if you are in this situation, the best thing you can do is look for a professional who inspires you confidence and start working on yourself and your well-being.
