Three ways to practice self-compassion and self-love

If being kind to yourself seems foreign, you are not alone. Many of my clients and people in my inner circle struggle with self-compassion and self-love. They will be quickto extend grace, understanding, and empathy to a friend or colleague, but they struggle to grant the same level of kindness to themselves. As a result, they internalize their feelings of sadness, anger, and thoughts of not being enough or deserving.

Extensive research has demonstrated that self-empathy leads to many positive outcomes, including increased happiness, resilience, connectedness, curiosity, decreased anxiety, depression, and fear of failure. If the advantages of cultivating self-compassion are clear, why is it a skill many struggle to develop? And, more importantly, how can we begin to practice self-compassion?

We were all conditioned in our formative years to live up to the expectations of others, primarily our parents, who may have intended well, yet programmed us to try harder, do more, comply and conform, frequently to impress others, or at least avoid criticism. I speak out of experience. My parents owned a pub, and my mom’s greatest concern was that our guests would disapprove of our choices in clothes, activities, friends, etc.

Finding my authentic self had narrow guard rails associated with it, and it took me many years of self-development work to break free from those external expectations. And that is exactly what you need to do if you want to experience the benefits of self-compassion I mentioned above.

So here are three ways to practice self-compassion and self-love:

1. Positive self-talk
2. Writing yourself a love letter
3. Challenging your inner critic

1. Positive self-talk

Tell yourself that you are doing your best at any given time. We all make mistakes, and that is perfectly normal as a human being. If that happens, forgive yourself and move on. You are unique, and no other person is like you on this earth. You are worthy of receiving anything and everything you desire. If you are having difficulty accepting these words as the truth, you can try listening to guided meditations. Search for them on YouTube.

2. Writing yourself a love letter

Write down the things that make you unique and that you like about yourself and your hopes, wishes, and dreams. If you struggle to come up with your positive attributes, you can always ask your friends for input. And, if you are looking for a love letter template, here is a link to a love letter to yourself (love letter link) .

3. Challenging your inner critic

This last exercise might be the hardest as you will need to do some work to identify your inner critic first. I recommend the assessment from Positive Intelligence to find your personal saboteurs. The results will provide you with questions to challenge your inner critic. Working with a professional coach might be beneficial for doing this deeper-level work.

It took me years to develop my current level of self-love and self-compassion. I utilized all the suggested practices in this article and worked with a therapist and coaches. I know it is not easy to reverse patterns we developed over many years, but I can assure you it is worth it. You will enjoy living with yourself a great deal better!