Why can’t I be nicer to myself?

We’ve talked about what self-compassion is and why it matters. But in order to truly start living a more self-compassionate life, we need to explore some of the roadblocks that get in the way.

One of these roadblocks is simply this: it can be hard to be nice to ourselves! You may have noticed that it can be pretty challenging to provide ourselves with compassion. You may not even know where to start. Today, we’ll take a look at one of the concepts that Dr. Kristin Neff identifies as an important component of self-compassion, as well as its alternative: self-kindness vs. self-judgment.

Self-kindness is all about making an active choice to comfort ourselves in moments of suffering. Self-judgment, on the other hand, refers to the harsh self-criticism that we often don’t think twice about providing to ourselves - whether we’re failing or succeeding. We have a choice to make between these two approaches - let’s learn more.

Self-Kindness

Kindness, in and of itself, isn’t an unusual idea. Most people value kindness towards others. It pops up as an important ideal across most major faiths and moral codes. Generally, we believe that it is a good thing to be kind to others.

But as soon as we talk about that kindness turning inwards, the tune changes a bit. It’s not as natural to offer support to ourselves. Maybe it’s more awkward than it is fulfilling. There can be a fear that others will think you’re full of yourself, or that you’re not holding yourself accountable. So, we steer away from it.

Many of us have learned that the way to navigate suffering is to instead be stoic. You suck it up. You give yourself tough love. You keep on pushing, and never let them see you break a sweat. You don’t want to be a burden. You don’t want to show weakness. Maybe you have to be strong for everyone else’s sake. And so, your suffering goes unattended, shoved into a back corner where no one can be bothered by it.

The problem is, it doesn’t stay in that back corner, does it? Eventually, if it’s not addressed, you know it’s going to pop back up when you least expect it.

We have another option - that intentional choice to do something to comfort ourselves.

We are wired to care for people, and we thrive when we feel secure. Other people absolutely play into this, but we can also help to build this for ourselves. By providing consistent, reliable care and kindness to ourselves, we can learn that we are trustworthy to step in and provide comfort and reassurance to ourselves. We can build our own sense of security. We can learn to self-soothe in order to help regulate our nervous systems, leaning into our body’s natural response to receiving care.

We see the effects that self-kindness can have for us, but many of us still find ourselves stuck in a place of self-judgment.

Self-Judgment

I want to take a second to point something out here. When we talk about self-criticism, I’m not suggesting that we should never be critical. I think it can be an incredibly compassionate thing to think about ourselves and our actions analytically, in that sense of “being critical”. We can and should examine our thoughts and behaviors and notice the effect they have on others.

That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the harsh insults. Cruel words and labels. The thoughts that we’re a total failure, and nothing we can do will fix that. Many people may not even notice how pervasive this kind of self-talk is.

We can refer to this kind of self-talk as our “inner critic”. It’s a part of us that provides the constant running commentary, always ready with a snide comment or an insult. Many of us get incredibly frustrated by this critic, and we may even find ourselves wondering where that voice came from.

Here’s the thing: I don’t believe we just do things for no reason. Something has caused that critical voice to develop. Maybe it came from a parent or caregiver growing up. Maybe it’s from a coach, teacher, or boss who was always critical towards us. Maybe it’s a combination of these things. Maybe we’ve just heard so many other people think like this that it became our normal.

Wherever it comes from, many of us honestly believe that we need that inner critic - and that inner critic believes we need it too. Maybe it thinks it needs to motivate us, so it tries to make us panic, or tells us we’re lazy, with the desire to urge us into action. Maybe it wants us to be protected from failure or rejection, so it tells us to not even bother trying so we can avoid the possibility. Maybe it wants us to achieve greatness, so it tells us that nothing we do is ever good enough, with the intention to drive us further and harder.

And maybe this works for a little bit! Self-criticism can certainly motivate us in the short term. Sometimes, spite is a decent motivator. But in the long term? In the long term it leaves us exhausted and burnt out. It ultimately does not benefit us as much as we (or our inner critic) might think it does. Self-judgment has been shown to increase our stress and anxiety, cause depression, harm our relationships, and even cause physical health issues.

So, how can I be kinder to myself?

If the inner critic sounds all-too-familiar, some of these approaches may be helpful to try out.

• Practice self-soothing: Like I mentioned earlier, we can learn to provide care for ourselves. One way to do this involves calming ourselves with gentle touch and soft vocalizations. When someone offers a gentle touch, or speaks to us in a calm, soothing voice, our bodies respond. We can do this for ourselves!

  • Try it now: take a moment to place your hands somewhere that feels reassuring and comforting. This could look like resting them gently on your face, or over your heart. Maybe placing a hand or two on your abdomen and noticing how they move when you breathe feels nice. When you find something that works for you, try offering yourself words of compassion out loud. Tell yourself things like “I’m sorry you’re hurting”, “May you be well”, “You’re allowed to feel like this” - whatever feels most appropriate. As you do this, see if you notice any bodily sensations shifting for you. Notice how your body responds to this compassion.

• Befriend your inner critic: Okay, hear me out. We just talked about how much damage self-criticism can cause. But consider this: you can’t fight fire with fire. The inner critic is usually not out to harm you. It’s actually trying to help, in the only way it knows how to do that. Instead of telling it to shut up and leave you alone, can you acknowledge what it’s attempted to do for you? How it’s tried to help you over the years? Can you even thank it? When we respond to this part of us with gentleness, we stop spending all of our energy fighting it off. It may stay just as loud as it’s always been, but now you have the energy to live your life even with it present. Sometimes, it may even start to get a bit quieter after we’ve acknowledged that it’s there.

Self-compassion isn’t easy, but it is possible to change the way we speak to ourselves. We can learn to be kinder to ourselves and handle our inner critic in a different way.

If you feel like you could benefit from talking to a mental health professional about building more self-compassion, you can schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation with Wonder Why Counseling here.