Self-criticism is healthy as long as it’s helping you to learn and make things better.
But, sometimes, we don’t help ourselves.
With harsh criticisms of our actions or decision, we often destroy the possibility of improvements.
And, this is not uncommon. Most of us do this every day. Yes! EVERY Single Day.
How?
Well, this I leave on you. You are your own judge.
Let me share with you my experience.
When I was 10, I used to feel somewhat scared to serve anyone rice. Yes, you heard it right. The thing was- I dropped the hot bowl of rice on one of our guests when he visited us for lunch. (Wait, I was just trying to help my mum.)
And, he was a bit hurt as those steaming rice were all over his hand, clothes, and some on his feet too.
But, he was being very kind. My mom was a bit worried and just said, “ My love, No problem. Just serve hot stuff with care”.
Matter closed. Only for others. For me, it started a new matter in my mind.
“I have hurt uncle. I shouldn’t have served food. I shouldn’t have asked mum in the first place. I don’t know how to serve food properly….”
The same incident in different situations with slight variation happened. I used to drop the serving spoon or rice, and, sometimes, the bowl. (facepalm)
It continued for years till the day I started giving it my attention- my KIND attention.
And, surprisingly, that fear of spilling rice while serving just vanished.
This story may sound funny or maybe just meaningless. But, deep down, you would be able to relate it to many incidences that happened with you. The incidents that made you less compassionate towards yourself.
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Why Self-Compassion is a must
> Self-Compassion and Self-Improvement go hand-in-hand
Being ruthless towards self → Harsh Self-Criticism → Fear → Disables to work on mistakes → Shuts the door for Self-improvement.
If you are not compassionate towards yourself, you would probably over criticize yourself. And with the unkind criticism comes the fear. The fear of not being able to overcome certain mistakes or anything you lack; kills the possibility of getting better.
It’s now much more clear to understand why we need to be Self-compassionate for progressing and making ourselves better from what we are.
> Self-Compassion is a healer
That worst pain that didn’t let you sleep many nights, and broke your kind heart, needs someone. And that someone is YOU!
Yes!!
The more kindly and gently you will treat yourself, the easier and faster the healing will be. To relieve an injury, we need help, not harsh treatment. Remember that.
> Self-Compassion makes you more Compassionate
The more kind we become to ourselves, the kinder we become to others. How good we are, as our friends, decides how much good friends we can be to others.
>Self-Compassion doesn’t seek approval
Hey, it’s just the talk between you and yourself. Nobody else can come in between saying- “yo! You were bad with him. You made a huge mistake, can’t mend it up…..”. When you are kind to yourself, you are less likely to seek approvals from others. It means that the voice- let me know what they think; gets less noisy when there is an inner voice that supports you.
> Self-Compassion helps you to win inner battles
The hardest conflicts are the ones that we have with ourselves. Whenever there is a feud between You and your inner self, the more kind and gentle you tackle those inside conflicts, the less likely it comes from time to time to disturb your inner peace.
> Self-Compassion nurtures
Like a mother nurtures her child with all the love and care and prepares the child for the battles of the world; self-compassion strengthens us.
However, it is in no way a means to nurture what weakens you.
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Why is Self-Compassion easy on paper?
Well, as they say, it’s all on the paper. And, that’s all on paper, is apparently going great!
However, when it comes to the real situation — when you commit a blunder, the first thing that comes to mind is anger. Most of us get irritated and sometimes frustrated with ourselves. We scold ourselves. But, what we miss here is — The self is our friend, and we can’t make our SELF feel bad, or scared, or guilty every time we make a mistake.
Our difficult thoughts and feelings need us. We need our help when we fall into a situation where we don’t meet expectations and fail in certain things.
***
How to be more Self-Compassionate?
I can’t tell you how exactly to be self-compassionate to yourself. Nobody in this world can.
But, there are some ways which people commonly follow to be more gentle and kind to self.
Like-
- Use a positive tone while you are interacting with yourself
- Before you scold, observe
- Before you curse, stop
- Be more forgiving
- Help yourself to learn from mistakes
We can add numerous things to this list. But what works for us is something we need to focus on and find.
Let us NOT BE MEAN TO OURSELVES. We deserve our love and compassion.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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