The short version<\/p>\n
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- When the critic speaks, name the feeling, remind yourself other people struggle with this too, and rewrite the sentence the way a supportive friend would.<\/li>\n
- Kristin Neff’s framework has three parts: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness.<\/li>\n
- It is not self-pity or self-esteem, and it does not require lowering your standards.<\/li>\n
- In one large UK study, people with negative beliefs about self-compassion were less likely to use it after a setback, and people high in perfectionistic concerns were more likely to hold those beliefs and to find it hard to practice.<\/li>\n
- It can be learned: a review of 27 randomized trials found self-compassion training improved stress, depression, anxiety and self-criticism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
What Is Self-Compassion, and What Isn’t It?<\/h2>\n
Self-compassion means being kind and understanding toward yourself when you suffer, fail or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring the pain or flagellating yourself with self-criticism<\/a>. In practice, it is the voice you would use with a friend who just failed an exam: honest about what happened, and still on their side.<\/p>\n
It is not self-pity. Neff came to see mindfulness as the piece that separates healthy self-compassion from unhealthy self-pity, because it asks you to see a situation as it is instead of exaggerating it<\/a>. Self-pity says “why me?” and stays there. Self-compassion says “this hurts, and it happens to people” and keeps going.<\/p>\n
It is not the same as self-esteem. Neff turned to self-compassion after studying self-esteem, which is linked to many good outcomes but also to problems such as narcissism<\/a>, and her 2003 paper describes self-compassion as taking the self-evaluation process out of the picture<\/a>. You do not have to win an argument about your worth before you are allowed to be kind to yourself.<\/p>\n
And it is not lowering the bar. You can still work to change, but the motivation comes from caring about yourself rather than from feeling worthless or unacceptable<\/a>. That matters for goals too: earlier studies summarized in a 2022 paper link meeting setbacks with self-compassion to pursuing goals successfully, and self-criticism to abandoning them<\/a>.<\/p>\n
What Are the Three Components of Self-Compassion?<\/h2>\n
In her 2003 paper, Neff describes self-compassion as having three main components: self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness<\/a>. Each one replaces a habit of the critic.<\/p>\n
Self-kindness instead of self-judgment<\/a>. This means being kind and understanding toward yourself in moments of pain or failure, rather than being harshly self-critical<\/a>. It is the difference between “I’m so stupid” and “That was a hard one, and I can learn from it.”<\/p>\n
Common humanity instead of isolation. This component involves framing your own experience in light of a shared human experience<\/a>. The critic says you alone are failing. Common humanity is the reminder that struggling is part of being a person, not proof that you are worse at it than everyone else.<\/p>\n
Mindfulness instead of over-identification. This means holding painful thoughts and feelings in balanced awareness rather than over-identifying with them<\/a>. You notice “I feel embarrassed” without sliding into “I am an embarrassment,” and you neither suppress the feeling nor exaggerate it<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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You have to be mindful of your suffering in order to give it compassion.<\/p>\n
Kristin Neff, PhD, University of Texas at Austin<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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<\/figure>\nWhy Is Self-Compassion Harder Than It Sounds?<\/h2>\n
Several things can get in the way, including the home you grew up in and what you expect self-compassion to do to you. Neff told the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology in 2011 that most people in our society are not that self-compassionate<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The same 2011 article notes that people who grew up in supportive homes with understanding parents are more likely to direct compassion toward themselves<\/a>. If you grew up around criticism, harshness can feel like the normal, even responsible, way to speak to yourself.<\/p>\n
Some people believe self-compassion will lower their standards and sap their motivation, or associate it with weakness, selfishness or self-indulgence<\/a>. In a two-week online study of 2,060 UK adults struggling with a personal goal, those who held negative beliefs about self-compassion, or found it hard to put into practice, were less likely to respond to their own lapses with self-compassion<\/a>.<\/p>\n
People high in perfectionistic concerns were more likely to hold those negative beliefs and to find self-compassion hard to practice<\/a>. One statement the researchers used to measure that difficulty reads: “When I am experiencing difficulties, my critical inner voice gets in the way of being kind and accepting towards myself.” If that sounds familiar, the link between perfectionism and stress<\/a> is worth understanding too.<\/p>\n
A Daily Practice for Being Less Hard on Yourself<\/h2>\n
The practice has three small parts: a phrase swap whenever you catch the critic, five minutes with a hand on your heart in the morning, and a short letter to yourself once a week.<\/p>\n
The first of these self-compassion exercises uses all three components. When you catch the critic mid-sentence, name the feeling, remind yourself that other people struggle with this too, and rewrite the sentence the way a supportive friend would. The table shows a few examples and the component each one practices.<\/p>\n
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