The Importance of Self-Kindness
The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week was kindness and, like many of us, I was brought up to be kind to others. In fact, kindness is such a strong value for me that when as a boss I had to fire someone, or make them redundant, or when I fell out with a friend, I beat myself up for weeks.
When one of the students on my Positive Psychology masters mentioned the idea of “self-compassion” or being kind to yourself as well as others, I was indignant. The violence of my response, my arguments against such a seemingly innocuous concept were lost on me at the time. I was just right, and the student concerned, probably needed self-compassion in a way which, I, strong minded person that I am, didn’t. And then last year, right in the middle of writing a piece about resilience (actually congratulating myself on my own), I had a mini burnout.
Most of the concepts about resilience which are taught in corporations look at mental toughness, grit, or psychological capital (do these all sound quite male to you?). These all involve concepts of self-efficacy, self-esteem, hope and optimism, all qualities which those of us who are successful in business generally own and which are highly valued by society.
And then I discovered a little trap called perfectionism.
As someone quite speedy, who doesn’t procrastinate and whose workspace is generally messy, I had not associated myself with that term, but completing Frost’s multi-dimension perfectionism scale, I was shocked to discover that I had 98% high standards for myself and 91% high standards for others. All of a sudden it was like the scales fell from my eyes. Now, on courses that I run for my Healthy Work Company, we ask people whether they fit this particular bill and many immediately recognise themselves.
Kindness and people pleasing are close relations. High self-efficacy can also mean you have a tendency to take on too much. High perfectionism means those multiple things you take on to please people have to be done to a very high standard. A combination of characteristics which represent the perfect cocktail for burnout. No wonder this was not my first, but my second in the last three years…. How was I going to stop this perfect storm from happening again?
Self-kindness as an antidote
On exploring the subject of self-compassion, I embarked on a workbook with Kristin Neff, devoured everything Brene Brown had to say (on anything to be honest) and had a series of revelations about myself and the world we live in. I was particularly interested by the self-compassion vs self-esteem argument.
Self-esteem is a concept which is so popular, so readily acknowledged as a term supporting mental health, how could it be damaging? Yet it is entirely focused on the uniqueness of the self, often contingent upon recent successes and can encourage narcissism. Self-compassion looks more at extending common humanity to ourselves as well as all human beings and as such transcends the “self”.
It recognises that no human being is perfect (I kind of knew this, but really acknowledging it is a different matter!). Self-compassion encourages you to look at your self-talk. How many of us beat ourselves up when we fail to meet our own standards? Oh you idiot. How useless are you? Even “I hate you”. The sense of shame can be overwhelming. Yet if we were talking to our best friend, we would say something entirely different. Oh it doesn’t matter. You did your best. It will be forgotten in a few days.
Read more from Heather Beach:
The Pressure of ‘Should’ During Lockdown
Managing Your Mental Health During Lockdown
This period of lockdown for me is both challenging for perfectionism and self-esteem and an opportunity. For who can do everything to an extremely high standard when nothing is working as it should? Who can home school kids and do a full day’s work and use flaky technology and nurture friends and family far away and all the other things we think we “should” be doing? Our 21st century armour of self-esteem and perfectionism also just feels inappropriate for this time. When we speak to strangers about how they are, we are all authentically sharing ourselves in a way which would have been extraordinary in the past. To say how perfectly we are managing seems out of step somehow. Better to be vulnerable ourselves.
So bearing all of this in mind I not only encourage you to be kind to others, but to consider being kind to yourself too. We all do our best with the tools we have available is a great way to think when we are tempted to judge each other – and ourselves.
- Self-knowledge is the key – are you kind to yourself?
- No human being is perfect – embrace yourself as well as the human race in the delights of imperfection
- Talk to yourself as you would talk to your best friend
- Be vulnerable
- We all do our best with the tools we have available
Reference: The self compassion workbook, Kristin Neff.
