Why is Being Compassionate to Yourself the Best Place to Start

It’s the new thing in science: Being compassionate is good for your health.

Doctors are all over this compassion thing. They're finding correlations between heart disease, mental health issues, emotional issues and more linked to compassion. Think about those articles that talk about how petting your cat, or hugging your spouse drops your blood pressure...

But what is compassion?

In any context, compassion is more than empathy (being able to place yourself in the experience of another), sympathy (feeling bad or feeling pity because of someone's circumstances). It's not trying to "fix" everything, and it's not sitting back and judging circumstances for yourself or anyone else.. And it's not blame! Blame, by the way, is an absolutely useless mechanism, in my opinion, as it only serves to create guilt, another unproductive mechanism.

Compassion is about placing yourself outside of the situation and looking at it objectively, then filling the gap between yourself and the situation (or person or thing) with love and acceptance.

Simply put, compassion is the art of applying non-judgment and grace to your life and to others.

When you recognize blame, sympathy, pity, guilt or judgment, and remove those things from your frame of reference, and then re-frame the person, thing or situation in a context of love and grace, you're practicing compassion.

So why be compassionate towards yourself?

"Okay," you say, "I get why being compassionate toward others is a good thing, but what purpose does it serve to be compassionate toward myself?"

It appears in most major religions, in some form of the following: "Treat others as you yourself wish to be treated," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Philosophers and the Divine alike, recognize that if you can't generate compassion toward yourself, it is next to impossible to generate genuine compassion toward others. We can go through the motions of love and compassion, and never actually experience it it whole. 

Self-compassion and self-love in this context, are not the same as being self-absorbed and selfish. Being self-aborbed and selfish put your needs ahead of the needs of anyone else all the time. Self-love means making sure your needs are met (and there is a big difference between need and want), so that you can move on to taking care of the needs of others. Self-compassion means accepting responsibility for mistakes and being able to dig in, find the lesson and then forgive yourself and move on. It means you don't let Blame, Shame and Guilt move in, or even come in and have dinner with you. Those things stay outside the fence, while you invite Learning and Growth in to find your mistake and move on. In self compassion, you recognize and acknowledge that what you didn't know, isn't your fault. But you've made that mistake, you learn from it, and you set an intention and a practice in place to not do that thing again.

You make better choices for yourself and others when you’re compassionate.

Removing Guilt, Blame and Shame from the equation gives you room to blossom and grow when you're compassionate for yourself. Removing them from your relationships allows the bonds between you and others to grow, and gives the other person room to blossom as well. You make choices based not only on your needs, but in consideration of how your choices affect others.

When you're compassionate toward yourself, you make healthier choices about your food, your activities, and your time. You recognize what doesn't feel good, and you tweak your practices accordingly. 

For example, when my doctor told me that I was a walking, talking stroke-in-waiting, that I needed to clean up my nutritional life, I went through a period of self-blame (my food choices led me here), guilt (I know better than to eat a lot of crap food), shame (I weighed almost 270 pounds at the time-I don't need to point out the societal influence here, right?), and panic, fear and loathing for the changes I needed to make to get healthier.

I walked home from the doctor's office in tears, unable to see how I could possibly make the changes she wanted me to make right this second. Ninety percent of the food in our pantry was now off my menu, and we had only $50 in the bank to get us through the month (and it was only the 10th!), so I knew I wasn't replacing all that food right now.

It has taken me several months to get where I'm at now. Yeah, I still eat stuff I shouldn't, but it's less and less frequently. And when I do, I do so consciously, and make note of the changes I notice the next day (more moody, more soreness, more stiffness, more tummy discomfort). But each choice leads to a strengthened resolve to reduce further, and better choices in the future.

Oh, and I've lost 8 pants sizes and well over 30 pounds. [Note: I don't use a scale at home, just follow along at the doctor's office, as I have issues with eating and obsessing about my weight - but that's one of those self-compassion things. I know that it's not healthy for me, mentally, to try to weigh myself all the time at home, and this works for me. Your experience is most likely different.]

You feel better.

Because you're not used to recognizing Guilt, Shame and Blame in your own life, you probably don't realize just how crappy they make you feel. This subtle programming has been in your life since you were very, very young in most cases, and you don't even know you're doing it.

That's where meditation practice comes in handy-that process of sitting back and being the observer of your thoughts, so that you can move to being the thinker of your thoughts instead of being driven around by the chaos in your head all the time.

And as you start removing these weeds? You start to feel more free, more in control, more powerful. You free yourself and those you interact with from the lead weights that have been holding you under for years, and you start to blossom and grow.

Your outlook improves.

Free of Blame, Guilt and Shame, the future looks brighter. You're honest with yourself that you might fall down, this new thing you're trying might fail, but, and here's the change, you don't get caught in the downward spiral, you grow from your failure, and keep moving forward.

Suddenly, the future looks a hell of a lot more friendly!

The Universe smiles on you more.

People that practice self-compassion are more open to the future. They aren't closed off to possibilities, because they no longer fear the Guilt, Shame and Blame cycle of failure. In fact, they're more likely to try something daring and outrageous, because they know that failure is just a sign that something needs to change.

And when you dare to do big things, the Universe smiles on you, and rewards you in big ways.

It’s ongoing.

Self-compassion isn't a one-time thing. It's an ongoing, day-to-day practice of being mindful of your thoughts and emotions. Guilt, Blame and Shame are sneaky little critters, and will worm their way back into your life if you're not careful.

You have to stay mindful of your choices and the voices you allow to play in your head.

Try it Yourself, Further Reading:
Compassion Meditation through Greater Good
The Art of Happiness by His Holiness the Dalai Lama