Start with Self-Compassion

Most people come to therapy with a desire to make changes. While the changes often initially focus on aspects of one’s life (relationships, behavioral habits, moods, jobs), the underlying change that people seem to be seeking is to get rid of or get away from difficult, painful, or uncomfortable feelings. This is a strong and totally understandable desire. Part of this desire is an unfortunate (and again understandable) aversive relationship to the parts of ourselves that we don’t like feeling, thinking about, or living with. There is a tendency to shun, shame, blame, or abandon these aspects of our experience. It is common to feel a degree of fear when engaging with our most painful parts. As this fear arises, the fight, flight, or freeze reactions to threat are turned inward. As we get close to what’s painful and troubling, we naturally and habitually react to the risk of overwhelm by protectively shutting down, rejecting, or tuning out. Through this ongoing cycle, our pain can be compounded by our relationship and reaction to it. A desire for change can be counterproductive if it is based in an antagonistic and intolerant relationship to the self.

It can be somewhat counterintuitive to realize that the first step in changing is to stop trying to change. Instead, learn to trust that becoming familiar and comfortable with how you are right now is a good place to start. Humanist psychologist Carl Rogers wrote, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” The initial and ongoing challenge when engaging in therapy is how to simultaneously hold both sides of this paradox, the desire for change and being with how we are right now. Acceptance is a word that gets used a lot. It can sometimes be seen as a form of resignation or apathetically giving up, like a “whatever”. That’s a misunderstanding. Acceptance can be understood more positively as simply a recognition of what is in the moment without added judgment or aversion. Additionally, what can be actively brought to acceptance are qualities of curiosity and most importantly self- compassion.

Psychologist and compassion researcher, Kristin Neff wrote, “You can’t ignore your pain and feel compassion for it at the same time”. Not only do we often ignore our pain, but we actively turn away from it through counterproductive behaviors which typically take some form of numbing, rejecting, blaming, or distracting. This are all understandable reactions because pain is painful. Neff described three components of self-compassion as “self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness”. I would also highlight the qualities of patience and courage. It takes time and steadfast bravery to compassionately face head-on what we find most troubling about ourselves and our lives. Through practice and repetition, supported by a therapist, mentor, or community, generating self-compassion has been shown, paraphrasing Neff, to start strengthening and activating the internal self-soothing system while also deactivating our habituated threat system. Self-compassion is like nutritious food. This is a process of replacing the psychological junk-food and starvation of self-blame, self-harm, and self-denial with the wholesome ingredients of compassion, acceptance, and love. Once you have begun to compassionately attend to all the parts of yourself, especially the ones you don’t particularly like, insight, growth, and change can begin to take place.

References:

Neff, K. D. (2012). The science of self-compassion. In C. Germer & R. Siegel (Eds.), Compassion and Wisdom in Psychotherapy (pp. 79-92). New York: Guilford Press.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist's view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.