In an earlier post, I define the concept of self-compassion. In the current post, I would like to briefly talk about one of the questions many people ask when I introduce the concept of self-compassion.
Is self-compassion selfish?
Many of us feel that there is something wrong with showing compassion for ourselves, as if it’s some kind of a guilty pleasure. We tend to think that there is always someone out there who has it worse than we do. Perhaps these messages come from our culture…this notion that we should always put ourselves last and others first. The irony though is that the kinder we are to ourselves, the closer we feel to other people. For example, when we are down on ourselves or beating ourselves up, we tend to crawl into a hole and distance ourselves from others…yet if we are kind and compassionate to ourselves, we are much more at ease and in turn much more connected to others.
If the concern about self-compassion is that you are being selfish and only thinking of yourself, the reality is quite the opposite. We need to start with ourselves…learn to be accepting of ourselves and our flaws…before we can be accepting of others. As our relationship to our self grows our relationship to others will grow in turn.
Hi Dr. McGehee,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts/opinion. I also came across this website and both of you agree that self-compassion is not being selfish. Please watch her video. Here is the link.
http://www.self-compassion.org/
I guess I have more of a question. What does being selfish mean to you? I feel like anything that you do for yourself to benefit yourself is being selfish. In my opinion it’s ok to be selfish sometimes because you need to love yourself or be self-compassionate to yourself and this benefits you. And I want to point out that I said “sometimes” because it’s important that a person knows that when you do more of something, you become more of that emotion you are doing. But isn’t it ok to put yourself first before others sometimes? Self-compassion can be either positive or negative depending on how you perceive yourself. I feel that self-compassion is positive when you see that it brings out the good in you like your kind, humble, loving, caring, and understanding etc because you are being self-compassionate to yourself and this may or may not make you feel that you are being selfish. But self-compassion is negative when it brings out the bad things in you. For example, if you believe that you should put others first before yourself and you cannot do that because you are suffering and you need to put yourself first and be self-compassionate towards yourself, which you might perceive as being selfish, then you will most likely feel depress. You may feel depress either because you feel that you cannot put others first before yourself and this may make you feel like you are selfish. I think it’s all relative on how you see yourself, and the emotions that you feel when you are practicing self-compassion. I feel like there is a positive and negative to everything and that they exist together. The positive and negative are separated or defined depending on one’s point of view and how that person feels about himself/herself. Maybe one must learn to embrace the ups and downs of his/her own life and try to find balance within yourself. Having the feeling that you’re life is balance will make you see that self-compassion can be selfish sometimes and also not selfish in other times. What do you think about my perspective?