Calming Through Kindness
Learning about and practicing self-compassion has been one of the most transformative tools in my own life for helping me feel more calm and balanced during life's inevitable challenges.
While some of life’s difficulties are caused by external conditions, many are created (or aggravated) by the inner narratives in our heads. You’ve probably heard the term the ‘inner critic’ and most likely felt its presence. It’s the berating internal voice that rears its head to say, “You’re SUCH an idiot!”, “WHO do you THINK you are!?” or “I told you, you couldn’t do it!”. It is a common companion that we carry with us through life, often mistakenly believing its voice to be true.
I’ve met many people who believe that without this critical inner-narrative they wouldn’t get anything done or strive to be their best. However, a vast body of research shows that rather than our inner critic helping us, it hinders us, feeding patterns of stress, anxiety, and depression; fearing, and feeling defined by failure rather than taking healthy risks from which we learn and grow.
Cultivating a more compassionate relationship with ourselves promotes greater creativity, growth (being able to learn from mistakes rather than feeling defined by them), clear thinking (as we move from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system), productivity and resilience.
Meeting ourselves with kindness doesn’t mean we don’t hold ourselves accountable for our actions or mistakes, but rather that we can see and respond to them skillfully, rather than getting stuck in loops of self-blame or criticism.
As mammals our brains are designed to feel safe when met with kindness rather than aggression. It is when we feel 'safe' that our nervous system feels calm. It is when we feel calm that our long term health and wellbeing is tended to. As the psychotherapist Paul Gilbert writes in Mindful Compassion “our brains are set up to be calmed down in the face of kindness.”
We might recognise how much calmer we feel when kindness is offered to us by others, when their words, tone of voice and actions help to soothe and settle us and offer a clearer perspective. Self-compassion helps us to become a part of our own caring support network.
Some simple things that you could try to build self-compassion into your daily life could include:
Imagine how a friend would talk to you (the tone of their voice, the words they would choose, the actions they would suggest) and offer a similar tone to yourself. You might even try referring to yourself with a loving terms such as “sweetheart”, “my love”, “dear one” etc.
Incorporate caring touch such as placing one or both hands on your chest and imagine receiving their warmth and kindness for a few breaths.
Offer yourself some compassionate breathing. When you breathe in imagine breathing in kindness, letting it touch into the chest softly like it was soothing you.