Dr. Kristin Neff, the researcher and renowned expert in the science of self-compassion, says: “With self-compassion, we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.”
For me, this feels like the simplest and clearest explanation of what self-compassion is… but why is it so vital for us all – and what can get in its way?
The simple answer is that without self-compassion our sense of self-worth can become depleted. We can fall into habits of self-judgement, listening to the words of our inner critic, that can then drive behaviours that ultimately don’t serve us, the people we lead or our organisation.
Self-compassion vs self-esteem
One of the challenges here can be mistaking self-esteem as the source of building our sense of self-worth.
And, according to Neff, focussing on building our sense of self-esteem can have serious downsides:
“Most people feel compelled to create what psychologists call a “self-enhancement bias” – puffing ourselves up and putting others down so that we can feel superior in comparison. However, this constant need to feel better than our fellow human beings leads to a sense of isolation and separation. And then, once you’ve gotten high self-esteem, how do you keep it? It’s an emotional roller-coaster ride: our sense of self-worth bounces around like a ping-pong ball, rising and falling in lock-step with our latest success or failure.
By contrast, self-compassion gives us a sense of interconnection. We are no longer so focussed on being right or better than or more important than others.
And that enables us to relate better to others – as well as to ourselves. Which, in turn, enables us to lead others in achieving the best outcomes for the organisation (building a shared sense of self-worth) – rather than directing others to do as we want (to enhance our own sense of self-esteem).
However.
Being in a leadership role can make accessing self-compassion feel particularly challenging.
What can get in the way?
There are many things that can get in the way of being our own best friend; things that can feel difficult to shift – but that, fortunately, we all have the power to change.
I’m going to focus on three areas here – all of them come up regularly in coaching sessions with my clients: limiting beliefs, resistance to change and the stories we carry.
Understanding what’s getting in the way of our own self-compassion can be a very useful step in accessing it more easily. And from there, we can start to really build our reserves of self-compassion, so it contributes to our inner resilience, and is always there, whenever we need it.
1) Limiting beliefs
One of the things that can hold us back from creating positive changes in our lives can be limiting beliefs.
And these beliefs you hold about yourself can block you from being truly compassionate to yourself.
We all have the ability to change how we feel about these ‘truths’ we hold inside. And the first step is to identify what those beliefs are.
To begin to shift these beliefs, the invitation is to explore your own beliefs about what self-compassion means to you.
You can do this exercise on your own or with someone you trust.
Take a piece of paper and write down all the things you ‘believe’ about self-compassion. Don’t censor yourself. There may be some positive statements here, there may be some negative statements. Whatever you write is ok.
The task is simply to notice what comes up. And, by allowing yourself to explore this, without judgement, you’re practising self-compassion!
Now, take one of the limiting beliefs and think about what its positive opposite would be.
For example:
“Self-compassion doesn’t help me lead others” could become “Self-compassion makes it easier to show compassion to others”
“Self-compassion is indulgent” could become “Self-compassion is a leadership essential”
“I’m not worthy of self-compassion” could become “Everyone is worthy of compassion”
Once you’ve chosen your limiting belief, and written its positive opposite, answer this question…
If you knew that [positive opposite] were true, how might you act?
2) Inner resistance to change
For many of us, we’ve ‘grown-up’ in organisations where leadership style was a set piece.
We were told that leaders need to be strong, unafraid and need to always know exactly what to do.
Then, when we became leaders, we subconsciously adopted those same beliefs; those same behaviours.
And our limiting beliefs about ‘how leaders think and act’ can result in us resisting changing the way we lead – even if, on another level, part of us knows it would be beneficial for us, our team… and the wider business.
We can also feel a high degree of vulnerability about the change we think being more self-compassionate may bring. We might be making a series of assumptions…
Perhaps we fear it will make us seem woolly or weak. Perhaps we feel it will make us soft and unable to take control when needed. Perhaps we feel it’s not going to help get us higher on the career ladder; because ‘others’ won’t value it.
All of these fears are entirely understandable. And can lead to a deep resistance to change.
Which in turn can be a powerful blocker to self-compassion.
Building a deeper sense of self-compassion (and compassion more generally) is often an act of courage. It may mean butting up against some very well-worn beliefs… and challenging the status quo.
A useful question to ask yourself here could be: What am I resisting?
3) The stories we tell ourselves
As we’ve seen, self-compassion can feel hard because of beliefs or assumptions we’ve adopted or adapted along the way of our life. Another blocker can be the stories we carry with us.
When we think about the idea of self-compassion, the stories we inherit from our families, the media and our culture can be powerful data sources.
We adopt or inherit or create these stories (from information we gather subconsciously) and these stories then inform how we perceive our world view – but our stories can be based on outdated information.
For example, one of my own stories was that, as a senior female leader in a global corporate, I needed to ‘toughen up’ in order to be respected.
This ‘toughening up’ led to me working ridiculous hours, always feeling as though I had to be better prepared than anyone else, and endlessly choosing the needs of the job over my own well-being.
It resulted in two significant burnouts before I finally listened to what my inner voice had been quietly telling me for years. And learning how to practice self-compassion not only led me to learn how to lead others better, it also meant I was better able to lead myself.
We all have a choice over whether we continue to believe the stories we carry (whatever their source) – or to release them… and write our OWN leadership story.
What do you want yours to be?
*****
Creating a deeper sense of self-compassion is something that serves us across our whole life, not just as leaders.
One additional approach you may want try is to challenge what self-compassion means to you… and see how it would support you in supporting others.
It can be a useful way of reframing those limiting beliefs, of challenging that inner resistance to change and of re-writing those stories we tell ourselves.
Henny Flynn helps people make and manage deep and lasting change by creating a bedrock of self-compassion and self-awareness. She’s a coach, author, podcaster and retreat host. Her work is underpinned by her deep understanding of the power of non-judgement and profound self-care in effecting positive, powerful change. And it reflects the changes she has made in her own life. https://uk.linkedin.com/in/henrietta-flynn
