Why Your Attitude Toward Yourself Matters And How to Be More Self-Compassionate?

Have you noticed how you tend to talk to yourself or even how you treat yourself? Do you usually speak harshly to yourself or criticize your every mistake or do you forgive yourself and are kind and compassionate to yourself? We may think this is of no consequence and that we do need to keep things ‘real’. If we want to perform and achieve, we should not let ourselves off the hook, right? We should push ourselves to be better. Well, research has shown how the way we treat ourselves has an impact on our neurobiology. What does this mean? It means that our brain will learn a specific way to respond – self-critical and release stress chemicals that negatively impact our mental and emotional states. So, it is important to pay attention to the way we treat ourselves.

We have all heard how it is important to be kind to others and how it is important to be compassionate towards other people’s suffering. This is what we are taught as young children – we are taught to ‘play nice’. As adults, the message is the same. We hear how it is important to forgive others for their mistakes or the things they may have done to hurt you . But there is no similar message to be kind towards ourselves – or to have compassion towards ourselves. But what is compassion?

Compassion is defined as this feeling of kindness or warmth that moves us to want to help other people in their suffering. Compassion allows us to understand other people’s point of view or what they may be going through. So, instead of turning to blame, judgment or anger, we are able to see the bigger picture and forgive others. This is what compassion means, we are able to feel with them.