Compassion for oneself -- & -- Compassion for others

[Leah]

Quieting Your Inner Critic Through Self-Compassion

If you are like many people you constantly judge yourself harshly and set unreasonable expectations for yourself. You may have a nagging inner voice who is constantly harassing you for something you did or did not do. My client Connie shared with me about how self-critical she is. "I'm an educated woman but I feel so incompetent and stupid most of the time. I constantly compare myself with other people and always end up feeling inferior in some way. I'm amazed at how other people seem to be able to speak up and not worry about whether what they say is going to be negatively judged by others, because I'm afraid I'll say something that will let other people know just how incompetent I really am."

Everyone has a critical inner voice, but some have a more vicious and vocal inner critic. A loud, verbose inner critic is enormously poisonous to your psychological health - more so, in fact, than any deprivation or trauma you may have experienced. We can often heal our wounds and recover from our losses, but the critic is always with us, judging us, blaming us, finding fault in us.

One of the most powerful ways to quiet our inner critic is through self-compassion. As Byron Brown, the author of Soul without Shame, so eloquently put it: "Compassion is the greatest antidote to the poison of your pathological inner critic." When you are being compassionate toward yourself, you essentially gag your pathological inner critic.

Compassion is the essence of self-esteem. When you have compassion for yourself, you understand and accept yourself the way you are. You tend to see yourself as basically good. If you make a mistake, you forgive yourself. You have reasonable expectations of yourself. You set attainable goals.

Compassion is a skill. That means that you can improve it if you already have it, or you can acquire it if you don't. The next time you hear your inner critic chastising you about something you did or did not do, counter this negativity by telling yourself something like, " I'm doing the best I can." Or "Given my circumstances, this is all I am capable of at this time." Give it a try, you'll be amazed at how much it helps. 

~ Beverley Engel

[Leah]

What Is Compassion and How Can It Improve My Life?

The definition of compassion is the ability to understand the emotional state of another person or oneself. Often confused with empathy, compassion has the added element of having a desire to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another. Empathy, as most people know, is the ability to put oneself in the other person's place. Although compassion and empathy are two separate things, having compassion for someone can lead to feeling empathy for another person.

Although the above is the accepted definition of compassion, I believe that having compassion for someone involves more than putting yourself in their place and genuinely wanting to understand or even help them.

It involves beginning to have a totally different perspective when it comes to how you perceive others.

For example, instead of assuming that the reason someone has done something that hurts you is because they are selfish or inconsiderate, assume instead that they had a good reason for doing it. This idea, based on Marshall Rosenberg's philosophy, can be difficult to buy into at first. But when you think about it, don't you usually have a good reason when you do something, even if what you did may seem inconsiderate to someone else? Let's say you are very worried about your child's health. You took her to the doctor and he decided to take tests in order to rule out a serious disease. Later that day you are walking down the street, preoccupied with your daughter and an acquaintance passes you and says hello. You say hello in return but because you are so deep in thought you don't stop to chat. Later on you hear the acquaintance felt insulted because you "snubbed" her. Even though it was not your intention to snub this person, and you had a very good reason for your behavior - the acquaintance assumed the worst.

Unfortunately, this is what most of us do. We assume the worst. Learning to have more compassion involves making the radical shift to assume the best in others.  If the acquaintance had assumed the best, she would have concluded that it wasn't personal - that you must have been preoccupied - and she would have been right!

- Beverley Engel

[Leah]

Compassion Fatigue

Compassion fatigue, also known as a Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a term that refers to a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among victims of trauma and individuals that work directly with victims of trauma.

Suffers can exhibit several symptoms including hopelessness, a decrease in experiences of pleasure, constant stress and anxiety, and a pervasive negative attitude. This can have detrimental effects on individuals, both professionally and personally, including a decrease in productivity, the inability to focus, and the development of new feelings of incompetency and self doubt.


Compassion fatigue - during and after - emotional / psychological abuse.


The media has been blamed for causing wide spread compassion fatigue in society. Proponents argue that the media's saturation of images and stories of suffering has caused the public to become cynical, or become resistant to helping. They cite preliminary scientific research which is showing that visual images affect brain activity in demonstrable and measurable ways.


Compassion Fatigue:  Repetitive Stress of the Heart

Patricia Smith, author


When caregivers   [ or those of whom are held captive (emotionally) to a disorderly person ]   focus on others without practicing authentic  self-care, destructive behaviors can surface such as:

     Apathy

     Isolation

     Bottled-up emotions

     Substance abuse

     Lack of personal hygiene practices

     Emotional outbursts


These symptoms head a long list of symptoms associated with the secondary traumatic stress disorder now labeled:    Compassion Fatigue.