According to Dr Neff, Self-Compassion being composed by 3 main components :-
1. Self-Kindness : being warm toward ourselves when facing difficulties.
2. Common Humanity : recognizing that suffering and failures as part of shared human experiences.
3. Mindfulness : a non-judgemental receptive mind state without trying to deny our flaws.
Self-Compassion can also be define as accepting of who we truly are - lock, stock and barrel.
If we don't loved ourselves wholly and completely, it means that we are saying to ourselves that we are not good enough.
Human is made imperfect.
Love, connection and acceptance is our birthright.
Everyone is WORTHY of compassion. It start with us acknowledging ourselves - We ARE GOOD ENOUGH and WORTHY ENOUGH.
Self-compassion creates a caring space within ourselves that is free of judgement.
A place that sees hurt and failures as part of shared human experiences and to allow or to acknowledge those experiences with KINDNESS and CARING.
Self-compassion doesn't mean that my problems are more important than others.
It just means that my problems are worthy of being attended too like others.
Research shown that self-compassion allows us to flourish, to appreciate the beauty and richness of life in what ever situation we're dealing with.
Self-compassion will keep us moving forward to make a better place.
Self-compassion is slightly different from self-esteem.
Self-esteem is a global evaluation of self-worth.
Low self-esteem can lead to depression and lack of motivation. High self-esteem correlated to narcissism, self-absorption, prejudice, discrimination etc.
In today modern world, it is NOT OKAY to be an average person - to have flaws and shortcomings.
An average person is deem as failure by society.
An average person will be left out, laugh at and discriminate by society.
We have to be above average and perfect to be accepted.
Being human does not mean being better than others. Being human means we encompass the full range of human experiences. Being human means we are average in many ways.
Sadly, some of us, in wanting to be accepted by social group tend to be hard on ourselves - sometimes too hard. We use harsh words. Words sometimes we never even use to our worst enemy. We think that if we're being to soft, we will be lack in motivation to be the best.
Research shown that in our body, we have a system called Threat Defence System. When we sense that we're in danger or feel threaten , physically or emotionally, our body will produce high ADRENALINE and CORTISOL to prepare us for retaliation and self-defence. Since the source of threat is within ourselves which mean we (the attacker) attack ourselves (the victim), it creates a lot of adrenaline and cortisol and will lead to feeling highly stress and depress. High adrenaline and cortisol cause chaos into our body system and as a way to protect, our body system will shut down to allow the system to make sense of what is going on internally.
But as a mammal, we also have Mammalian Caregiving System which produces OXYTOCIN and OPIATES. (the feel good hormone) which mean that our body are programmed toward WARM, GENTLE TOUCH and SOFT VOCALIZATION. That is the main reason why we are prone to listen more, cooperate more and open up more to warm smiles, gentle and caring touches and soft and encouraging voices. When we feel safe and comfort, our adrenaline and cortisol level reduce and our oxytocin and opiates level increase, we are in our optimal mind state to do our best.
Individuals who grow up with highly critical parents in childhood are much more likely to be critical toward themselves as adult.
People with critical parents learn the message early on that they are so bad and flawed that they have no right to be accepted for who they are. They will soon come to believe that only by being perfect will they be worthy of love.
Children with critical parents will believe that self-criticism will prevent them from making future mistakes.
It doesn't makes sense when parents spend the first 12 months of the children lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next 12 telling them to sit down and shut up.
Self-criticism is a type of safety behaviour designed to ensure acceptance within the larger social group.
Self-criticism serves as a submissive behaviour because it allow us to ABUSE ourselves first before others.
This mechanism stems from our natural desire NOT TO BE REJECTED and ABANDONED and makes sense in terms of our most basic survival instincts.
The social group that is most important for survival is our IMMEDIATE FAMILY. That is why no matter how difficult the situation at home, children have no choice but to rely on parents in order to get by in this world and they soon will grow up with a belief that their life are what life suppose to be.
Self-criticism was strongly related to depression and dissatisfaction in life.
Happiness is found when we go with the flow of life. Self-compassion helps navigate us.
Research shown that self-compassion is very strong related to mental well being, less stress, less anxiety, less depression and less perfectionism.
People with high self-compassion are generally happy and content, living life more meaningful, have greater motivation in life and more self-connected to others.
Self-compassion provide more stable sense of self-worth than self-esteem because we feel worthy not because we have reach some societal standard but because we are human being worthy of LOVE.
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