If you were sick, I’d bring you soup, but if I was sick, I wouldn’t ask you for anything. If your husband is traveling and you have the kids to yourself, I’d tell you I understand how hard it is and encourage you, but if I were in the same situation, I’d tell myself to suck it up. If you’re celebrating, I’d celebrate with you with ice cream… and sprinkles. But if it were my victory, I wouldn’t celebrate. I’d tell myself that’s what I was supposed to do.

Extending compassion to you is easy, but extending compassion to myself sounds like a luxury when there’s so much work to be done. So if compassion is the way of Jesus, how do we embrace self-compassion?

When you have self-compassion, you’re giving yourself grace.

In her book Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff says that self-compassion causes us to “stop the constant self-judgment and disparaging internal commentary that most of us have come to see as normal.” Neff goes on to explain that it has three components. Self-compassion:

  1. asks for gentleness and bypasses criticism and judgment
  2. connects us to our shared humanity instead of pushing us to isolation, and
  3. recognizes that we are hurting instead of ignoring or exaggerating our pain.

It sounds like something Jesus would endorse, doesn’t it?

Jesus was gentle with those who were lost, weary, and confused. He had compassion on the people who seemed like shepherd-less sheep.

Jesus understands our shared humanity. The Bible is the most honest book about human emotions. No other book acknowledges so deeply the emotions of joy, hope, anxiety, discouragement, fear, love, and grief.

Jesus recognized the hurt of others. He changed the name of the woman with the bleeding disorder from “Unclean” to “Daughter.” He knew her hurt and validated her place.

Neff summed up the compassionate way of Jesus when she wrote, “Self-compassion reassures us that bad things happen, that we are so loved, and then encourages us to find a new routine.” If you’re still struggling to know what this looks like in your own life, here are three ways to know when you’re practicing self-compassion.

1. We’re self-compassionate when we’re gentle with our hearts.

When we’re not gentle with our hearts, we are severe, rude, oppressive, and harsh. So what does gentleness look like?

We’re gentle with our hearts when we recognize the hurt in our heart and don’t berate ourselves. If you had a rough morning and you’re running late, don’t pour on the shame by telling yourself, “You’re always late,” or “You’re so inconsiderate.” Instead, you should recognize the hurt you’re feeling and ask yourself, “How does my loving and tender Jesus feel about how I’m talking to myself? How would He encourage me right now?”

We honestly evaluate our situation. What is really happening right now, and what is the most kind thing we could do to help ourselves? We are truthful about our reality, pain, and struggle.

We soften the harsh tone of our inner critic. Our inner critic has a weird way of doing it, but it’s trying to keep us safe and in line with social norms. We can tell our inner critic, “Thank you, but no thank you. I don’t need your protection today.”

2. We’re self-compassionate when we realize we’re in this together.

Our enemy wants us to think that we’re the only one who yells at our kids, forgets to take the trash out, and misses deadlines. Instead of confessing our sins and struggles to each other, we nurse our wounds alone.

One day at lunch, a friend was sharing her struggle with overwhelm and I shared mine. I was so grateful that I had a friend in the mess, that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t have to listen to the lie that I was the only one on the planet not holding it together. The beautiful truth is that self-compassion connects us with others.

3. We’re self-compassionate when we recognize our hurt.

We’re masters of deflection with unrealistic expectations. We believe that even when we’ve had a hard day or when we’re exhausted or when major changes are happening, we should just keep doing all the things. We don’t see our reality clearly when we minimize our situation or refuse to admit that we’re struggling.

One way to extend ourselves compassion is to simply acknowledge that what we’re going through is hard. Sometimes I have to tell myself:

This is hard.
Everyone experiences hard things.
Jesus, help me to be kind to myself right now.
Show me my next healthy step.

Friends, let’s not reserve compassion only for others. Let’s extend compassion to ourselves. If you’re sick, ask for soup. If your husband is traveling, recognize that it’s hard. And yes, you too can celebrate with ice cream. Oh, and sprinkles.

BONUS: If you’re curious to see how self-compassionate you are, take the quiz here.

Share
Pin
0 Shares