New Lessons in Self Compassion

All through counselor training,  I have been taught the value of self-care both in school and out of school. The emotional and mental wear of helping people can drain a person quicker than they can say, "I need a break." But at the same time, doing what you love can feed your soul and spark greater personal development just a quickly. None-the-less, I have been doing some reading on the value of Self Compassion and what it really entails and especially, what it would like for parents and their over anxious children.

I discovered (thanks to another great therapist- Charmaine Chavez) a whole lot of research done by Kristin Neff and her colleagues. If you have the time, please look up Self Compassion and Kristin Neff and just watch her videos. Excellent. I realized as I looked over her materials just how leery I was personally to think too much about my own need for self kindness. I was worried it would make me selfish and perhaps it was "unchristian" to really be nice to me. But what I found out through the research helped me see all of this differently.

ALL PEOPLE ARE WORTHY OF COMPASSION, MYSELF INCLUDED

If we are open hearted to our selves, we will have more to give, not less. We have to invite ourselves to be compassionate toward our self in order to even have anything to give to others. Remember the oxygen mask...put it on first and then help others. Or what about the truth of "Love your neighbor as yourself"?  If we are hard on ourselves it comes out in critical nature toward others or our judgments of others and our self. Neff does a good job of talking about the difference between self esteem (which judges ours and others self worth) and how it is different than self compassion which teaches us to relate to ourself flaws and all.

As a counselor I found the research in the benefits of teaching and practicing self compassion were incredible. A person's self criticism often gets them stuck in anxiety, depression and over defensive coping skills such as perfectionism and rumination. Self compassion helps us to balance the needs of others and our own needs while giving us constructive responses to various problems we all face. It frees us from needing to control others and allows for more acceptance and open-hearted responses to meeting people where they are in their journey.

By far the most exciting part of my discoveries (with more to come I hope), was the tie to secure attachment and self compassion. I work with families who are struggling to help their hurt children heal and form secure attachments. Secure attachment is the feeling of being safe, supported, loved and accepted. It is vital in helping people to be resilient in the midst of stress or struggles.  Without it people are distrustful, full of self doubt, emotionally unbalanced, fearful, have reduced intimacy, defensive, lack self awareness and often deeply hate themselves.

Neff found that the degree to which people are kind to themselves is correlated to how kind they are to others and in turn is linked to higher levels of intimacy and less controlling behaviors. People with lower self compassion tend to be more controlling, domineering, verbally aggressive, over-reactive and detached. Our children who have not formed secure attachments have a difficult time connecting with others and often display all of the issues noted above. I am always looking for interventions and ways to help parents form attachments with their children and to help them build trust within their family. What I learned from Neff's research is going to be a part of helping our families heal.

Secure attachment earlier in life produces self compassion later, and learning self compassion can also foster secure attachments in relationships---GOOD NEWS! Our early family experiences play a big role in our personal self compassion or lack there of. And what we are finding out this also is huge in attachment issues.

So how do we teach our children to be self compassionate?

It starts with mindfulness. Noticing the different emotions and thoughts we are experiencing at the moment. But it is also learning to acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses in the moment as well.
This is where counseling comes in, we help people discover things about themselves.
The work Healthy Foundations has been doing with children from hard places was already incorporating many of the interventions I found in the research. For example to use of teaching children to be still. We call it calm + five. then there was "Sitting like a frog", we use "strong sitting" and mindfulness teachers recommend doing away with time out. We teach parents how use time-in. We found helping parents to identify the feeling behind the behavior helps the child to be more mindful. The research pointed out that mindfulness helps children to concentrate, builds self control and actually increases activity in the frontal cortex.

So many benefits. I can't wait to discover more. If you want to help your kids remember you have to practice self compassion first.
Ask yourself....are you allowed to be nice to yourself?