Fierce & Tender Compassion

I sometimes feel like self-compassion gets misunderstood. 

Like it's all about being soft and fluffy, giving ourselves a gentle stroke and letting ourselves lounge around and eat ice cream all day (if that’s your thing!). 

But in reality self-compassion is a courageous act. 

It’s a choice (and a practice) that ensures that as well as caring for others in life we remember to care for ourselves. This is especially essential when we hit bumpy patches in life. 

This can sound obvious but in truth many of us are caring towards others when they experience pain or difficulty, but rather harsh and critical towards ourslelves. 

We don't even pause to consider the implications this might have. 

For example, our brains don't know the difference between someone else shouting at us that we are an idiot and ourselves doing so internally in our heads.  Our stress response ramps up. As stress hormones course through the body, they created mental and physiological responses that don't make us feel or perform at our best. Feelings of shame and blame can easily dominate. 

On the other side, putting ourselves last can lead to us never saying no, agreeing to do things even when they stretch us beyond our capacity to care for ourselves. This can leave us feeling frazzled, exhausted and undervalued. Again this can send our stress response into a spin. 

This is why Kristen Neff (a pioneering researcher and teacher of self-compassion) talks of there being 2 types of self compassion – tender and fierce. 

• TENDER SELF-COMPASSION enables us to meet difficult experiences with a loving awareness and respond with care and kindness.  Here our nervous systems are calmed. As our threat response dials down our minds can think more clearly and with greater perspective. We learn to settle and sooth ourselves so that we feel and respond more calmly. 

• FIERCE SELF-COMPASSION reminds us of the importance of setting boundaries. This enables us to call out the actions of others that aren't compassionate towards us, or to enforce our right to say 'no'. 

Both are needed. Both enable us to move through the ups and downs of life feeling we are on our own side. 

And the irony is that the better we get at being compassionate for towards ourselves, the more compassionate we are to others. We sense our shared humanness. 

In the words of the meditation teacher Jack Kornfield ... 

"If we are to bring light and wisdom and compassion into this world,
we must first begin with ourselves". 

And in the current climate this feels more urgent than ever. 

So this week take a moment to see what is needed, tender or fierce compassion, and find small ways to build it in.