Big Idea Daily | Self-Compassion
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The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourselfby Kristin Neff, Ph. D. |
“Compassion involves the recognition and clear seeing of suffering. It also involves feelings of kindness for people who are suffering, so that the desire to help—to ameliorate suffering— emerges. Finally, compassion involves recognizing our shared human condition, flawed and fragile as it is.”KRISTIN NEFF |
BIG IDEA
Self-Compassion: Defined
FROM THE BOOK“As I’ve defined it, self-compassion entails three core components.
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First, it requires self-kindness, that we be gentle and understanding with ourselves rather than harshly critical and judgmental. Second, it requires recognition of our common humanity, feeling connected with others in the experience of life rather than feeling isolated and alienated by our suffering. Third, it requires mindfulness —that we hold our experience in balanced awareness, rather than ignoring our pain or exaggerating it. We must achieve and combine these three essential elements in order to be truly self-compassionate.”
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Brian's Notes
Self-compassion has three primary components:
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Self-kindness. In short: We need to be nice to ourselves! Beating ourselves up = not helpful.
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Common humanity. We’re not alone. It’s important to see that our suffering is a part of the shared human experience.
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Mindfulness. We want to observe our experience—holding it in “balanced” awareness without trying to push our pain away or make it a bigger deal than it is.
Kristin unpacks each of those core ideas in its own chapter and comes back to them throughout the rest of the book as we apply self-compassion to different aspects of our lives.
Powerful stuff.
Let’s take a quick look at each in a little more detail.
Big Ideas
01: SELF-COMPASSION DEFINED
02: #1. SELF-KINDNESS
03: #2. COMMON HUMANITY
04: #3. MINDFULNESS
05: SUFFERING =
“You don’t want to beat yourself up for beating yourself up in the vain hope that it will somehow make you stop beating yourself up.”KRISTIN NEFF |
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