Published: 16 May 2022
By Secure Minds Psychology (Copyright Secure Minds Psychology)
In my previous blog, I shared that I had met up with a friend experiencing disappointment in himself because he was struggling and not coping in a way that he thought was appropriate. That is, he felt he was ‘back here again,‘ in a place he knew well but wished he didn’t. This led me to think about self-compassion, which is an evidence-based self-soothing strategy that can help us when we’re experiencing a difficult time.
But just how do we go about becoming more self-compassionate? According to the Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) model, the act of self-compassion is related to ‘the road of inner reconciliation’ (The Essential Guide to the ACT Matrix, Polk by Shoendorff, Webster & Olaz, 2016, pp.112-121), and it is suggested that it should be practiced regularly by people experiencing difficulties with their mental health. They recognise, however, that not everyone finds self-compassion easy to induce and recommend seeing yourself in ‘parts,’ that is, as both ‘child’ and ‘parent’ parts. It is suggested that you engage the caring and nurturing ‘parent’ part to soothe the suffering or hurt ‘child’ part. For example, rewarding yourself for taking a positive step towards your goal by using caring language such as ‘well done, it was hard but you did it’.
If this experience is difficult due to past trauma, the authors recommend visualising yourself as a mother cat with a kitten (or a favourite animal that typically displays a nurturing instinct) needing care and attention, and asking yourself what a mother cat would do for her kitten to help it feel better. For example, a mother cat might return a kitten to safety and comfort it if it was in distress. Thinking of yourself as a caring mother cat may help you act in a more nurturing manner, with validating rather than judgmental behaviour towards yourself, therefore leading you to experience the benefits of adaptive self-soothing during your difficult time. Ultimately, your personal journey to self-compassion will be individual, and there is no right or wrong way to achieve it. The above are merely suggestions, and if you need more guidance, talk to your family, friends, or psychologist.
The important takeaway here is to recognise that you may be inadvertently adding to your difficulties by using a critical or judgmental approach with yourself, thereby making this time seem even more burdensome or hard. Try taking a gentler approach and giving yourself time to adjust to the circumstances with compassion while steadily moving forward and rewarding yourself for any steps taken. The effect of adopting this self-soothing approach may be to reduce your suffering and lessen the chance of experiencing similar difficulties again.