Exploring Self-Compassion

When it comes to the pandemic, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But I've found the past few months have been particularly tough, perhaps even tougher than at the beginning of the pandemic. Here in the U.K. we are still in a third lockdown, and I have been feeling fed up with just about everything. 

To cope, I was doing something that in my mind I was calling "lowering my standards". I decided not to worry so much about how clean our bathroom was or that sometimes our son was eating toast and apples for dinner on the couch next to me in front of an endless loop of Laurie Berkner's "kindie" videos. He has now moved on to a slightly unhealthy obsession with Peppa Pig.

A typical lockdown activity.

And then I was listening to a podcast -- something I do a lot at the moment to break the unbearable silence of working on data on my own in a quiet room -- and the subject of compassion came up. It was not just compassion, but self-compassion, a concept of course I knew about, but not exactly the kind of thing I practice very much of. Sure I'm compassionate to other people, but myself, what does that look like? I've always got to do better, get more done and just get on with things. If things aren't working, then work harder.  

I don't know about you, but I don't feel like I can work any harder at the moment. I was struck by the idea that maybe what I was trying to do wasn't in fact lowering my standards, but more like showing myself some compassion. After all, things are not exactly life as normal at the moment. And then I thought, shouldn't this be something I'm always doing? I'm human just like everyone else and I would never talk to anyone else the way I talk to myself. I was also very interested to learn from this podcast that there are studies that show self-compassion can help with procrastination. That certainly caused me to perk my ears as procrastination is something I have always struggled with.  

I think a lot these days about my actions in a way I haven't before, because now I'm 100% responsible for another human's life. Two years and a bit in, this still feels new and is starting to cause a shift in my own thinking about the way I treat myself, because I need to stay emotionally and physically healthy for someone else. It's that old put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others idea. 

I think there's always the concern that self-compassion means "going easy on yourself" or lowering your standards, as evidenced by my original thinking. But thinking about self-compassion reminded me of something I've read about concerning toddlers. 

One of the constant themes that comes up in parenting books is acknowledging the feelings that toddlers have. And they have some crazy emotions. My toddler has been known to cry over the fact that the peel cannot go back on the banana, that he has to wear a coat outside, or that we won't let him scramble his own eggs.  

The idea is that by acknowledging toddlers' feelings it can help them cope better with this bizarre world that they're getting used to. And what else is compassion other than acknowledging feelings? If you feel heard, it's easier to cope with life's difficulties. Food for thought as we struggle to get out the other side of this mess. Be compassionate, of course to others, but also to yourself. I'm certainly going to try. 

Views are my own and do not reflect the views of my employer.