Self-Compassion
Illustration by: Keith Negley
At From Balance, we think of empathy as the superglue keeping you connected to yourself and people around you. The ability to empathize enables us to interpret unspoken emotions and to understand a range of perspectives, including the motives causing other people to act differently from us. Unlike feeling sympathy, showing empathy has to do with your ability to relate to a person’s situation beyond feeling sorry.
In order to show empathy to others, we need to practice empathy towards ourselves. To show genuine compassion for other people, it is important to first recognize and accept the emotions within ourselves.
When it comes to self-compassion, many are highly critical of their insecurities and mistakes. The majority of the women I know (myself included!) are far tougher on themselves than any of their friends and colleagues at work. Many have been conditioned to be to believe that being self-critical is necessary in order to achieve great results. To some, not being hard on themselves implies being complacent, aimless or even lazy.
Self-criticism is always tough on one’s self-esteem but particularly destructive during times of transition. When going through changes in our lives, we automatically experience temporary stages of imbalance. Whether we are in the process of adjusting to something new, or trying to figure out where to go next, we tend to be more sensitive to the impact and response from our surroundings.
Sensitivity to the feedback we get from others, or finding ourselves in a challenging situation, typically causes us to pick up on things triggering our insecurity. Instead of noticing the positives, we focus on the negatives and allow these to perform a hostile takeover of our inner dialogue and self-confidence.
I often think of this as if we are listening with some kind of "sponge ears” that first suck up everything that confirms us in our worst fears and then distorts these in ways that our rational mind knows are disproportionate. When doing this, our emotions can take us on horrific rides! And once the ride comes to an end, quite a few of us start blaming ourselves for not being able to brush off feelings like these or to look at the positives.
Believe me: Been there, done that and (still) keep going back during times of uncertainty and change!
The worst part, however, is something even more tricky…
From my own life, and when speaking to my friends, the most painful part isn't so much the lack of results as the absence of clarity itself. From speaking to competent and resourceful clients over the years, I notice a recurring pattern of shame from not knowing the way out of this mental state of “fog” and back into clarity and flow. Working on ways to do so and support others on the same path as myself was therefore one of my main reason for creating the From Balance community.
Balance creation is not about calming the ocean but about riding the wave. Just as life itself is a dynamic process, balance is the ability to juggle in a constant state of movement and change.
Still working on my own ability to follow the flow, I am learning the importance of having direction in life and knowing the points by which I navigate. Like learning to surf, balance creation takes patience and self-compassion. Some days I succeed and on other days, I get to try again...
Love,
Sille