Five Reasons to Show Yourself Compassion

Beating yourself up is so last year. Here's why

This week, I’ve delved into the theme of Self Compassion for your daily encouragements. Today, I want to share five reasons to show yourself compassion.

Why? Because, as we know, it is so easy to beat ourselves up. There are a lot of societal reasons we do so, which Dr. Gabor Mate talks about in his latest book, The Myth of Normal. I am reading it now and find that much of what he writes overlaps with the ideas of Fromm. In fact, the opening quote in the book is from Fromm’s The Sane Society! Which is pretty cool. Societal factors definitely play a role, and are part of the reason, maybe the root of the reason it’s so easy to beat ourselves up, but other circumstances affect our tendency to chose a harsh response instead of a kind one.

Regardless of why we tend to beat ourselves up, having compassion on ourselves is achievable. It is a skill that you learn and build on, getting better and better at it over time. Just like dribbling a basketball or playing the guitar. And it’s one you can do. You can do it. You can! Ánimo!!

Five Reasons to Show Yourself Compassion

1. You’re Human

Humans are animals who are not perfect. We are not machines which can work for extremely long periods of time without making mistakes. We are living beings, we are imperfect. We have needs and desires, and hopes for authentic interactions with the world. Imperfection is one way that these authentic interactions occur. Imperfection means having needs, making mistakes, doing things that you might not have wanted to do looking back, or which hurt someone else. The point is that you give yourself all the kindness and understanding for the very reason of being human, a living, growing, evolving being. If you were perfect, you wouldn’t be living, growing or evolving. One thing I say to myself often when I “make a mistake” or do something I might have wished I hadn’t, I say, “Of course I did that. I am a human. Its a very human thing to do _____.”