Hey There! My name is Diana Garcia, I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor in Florida, owner of a private practice called Nurturing Minds Counseling.
Do you tend to be really hard on yourself? Are you your own worst critic? If so, then this month’s book pick is a must-read for you. This month’s pick is Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neff. This is honestly one of my top recommendations for clients because it has so much good information and concrete exercises throughout the book.
If you’re new around here, this is part of my monthly blog/vlog “Book Therapy” series, where I pick one self-help/mental health book to highlight and recommend. I also go over 3 insights from the book, so if you never decide to read this book, you at least leave with some nuggets of wisdom.
If you prefer to read instead, scroll down for the blog of this month’s pick.
Watch the video on “Book Therapy: Book 4: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself” here:
Read the Blog on “Book Therapy: Book 4: Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself” here:
Here’s a quick rundown of what we’re going to go over today:
- This Months Book Therapy Pick
- Summary of the Book
- 3 Key Insights from the Book
- Who can Benefit from the Book?
This month’s pick is Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neff. It was published in 2011 and is 320 pages. When it comes to self-compassion, this is one of the foundational books. It can help you start to learn and apply these skills.
Book Therapy: Book 4: Summary of the Book
As you can see from the image, the book is broken down into five main parts:
- Part One – Dr. Neff does a mix of her talking about her journey of discovering self-compassion and why it might be helpful for you to jump into self-compassion. In this part, she explains how learning to incorporate self-compassion is needed more now than ever, given the increasingly competitive society we live in.
- Part Two – this is where she does a deep dive into the essential components of self-compassion. She details each piece and how you could start to apply it to your life.
- Part Three – focuses on the actual benefits of engaging in self-compassion, including emotional resilience, motivation, personal growth, and how to avoid getting caught up in the self-esteem game.
- Part Four – is all about self-compassion and relationships. She has a chapter on exploring how this can impact your parenting and romantic relationships, including sex. In general, she discussed how self-compassion could help you relate to others.
- Part Five – this section is all about what you can expect to see change as you start to practice these skills. She further details a story in her life where having these self-compassionate skills was a lifeline during a difficult period in her life. She also talks more about being able to engage in self-appreciation.
I read this book a couple years ago, so I’m going to be honest, it was hard to fully jog my memory. But as I was re-reading certain sections and skimming my notes, these three insights stuck out to me.
Book Therapy: Book 4: Key Insight 1
At the beginning of the book, she talks about were are living in an increasingly ambitious society. And nowadays, it’s not even good enough to feel average. Now the bar is set that you have to feel above average or special just to feel like you’re enough.
You can see this starting young. For instance, even with parents wanting their kids to get into the best pre-k. There might even be a waiting list to get to the most prestigious pre-k or kindergarten. This constant need to feel above average or exceptional, which our society perpetuates, lends itself to a distorted self-image and a distorted image of others.
Suppose you’re regularly trying to feel good about yourself. In that case, you have to continually engage in this consistent comparison of yourself to others. It can lead to judging others negatively to feel better about yourself and blind spots. You might not be willing to take accountability for your mistakes because then you’ll get into a highly self-critical mode. It’s like you go from one extreme to the other.
For example, let’s imagine you get into a disagreement with your partner, and you need to protect your ego (to preserve your “above average” persona). That means that you’re don’t look at the role your actions played or accept any potential fault (a blind spot: your partner is entirely at fault). You can’t look at your part because you will get into negative self-talk mode and start to be harsh with yourself if you do. And before you know it, you’re in a shame cycle over one mistake in a disagreement. So to prevent that, you’d instead decide not to look at your role.
I picked out this nugget because I think it’s so common to engage in this constant comparison which might have negative impacts that you’re not even aware of.
Book Therapy: Book 4: Key Insight 2
The second tidbit that I picked out was the three components of self-compassion.
- Self-kindness: how do you talk to yourself in a moment of difficulty or when you’re struggling. Do you tend to be kind with yourself, or do you tend to be really harsh with yourself? Do you talk to yourself the same way you talk to your friend or your child when they are struggling? I find that we tend to be kinder to our friends or kids than to ourselves most of the time. Self-kindness is acknowledging with compassion when you’re having a difficult moment and asking yourself: What do you need to hear from yourself to get through this hard time?
- Common humanity: recognizing that when you’re struggling, it actually connects you to all of mankind. Because we all have moments of pain and struggle, and you’re not alone. To be human is to feel pain at some point in your life and so understanding that your suffering can connect you to others.
- Mindfulness: being aware of your experience and dropping into the here and now. Noticing what’s happening physically in your body, the thoughts showing up, and what feelings are coming up for you. Remember that you want to find this midpoint between not invalidating your experience and not over-amplifying it either.
I have another blog where I also talk about the three components of self-compassion.
Book Therapy: Book 4: Key Insight 3
The third insight is about the concept of contingent self-worth.
It means that your self-esteem depends on your successes or failures or who you’re pleasing. This type of self-esteem can feel like an emotional roller coaster because your self-worth is based on things outside of you. It can contribute to burnout and low self-esteem because you can’t sustain this. You are bound to have setbacks, failures, make mistakes, moments when life isn’t going your way, and make decisions that others don’t agree/approve of. That means your self-worth will dip each time one of these happens.
It can also lend itself to constantly trying to get the gold star, the hundred percent, the A+ to keep your self-worth high. The opposite of contingent self-worth that is having a sense of self-worth that is more inherent. Meaning you don’t have to do anything to earn it; it’s not based on your accomplishments or others’ approval.
You’re already worthy; it’s an essential part of being human. That doesn’t mean that you don’t own up to your mistakes or it takes away your desire for growth. Instead, the moves towards growth will be based on your values rather than on the need to feel worthy.
Learning to embody self-compassion will help you start to develop this stable sense of self. And, it will minimize some of the blind spots because your worth isn’t tied to if you fail or not, so you’re more willing to look at things with fresh eyes.
Who can benefit from reading Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself?
Most people could benefit, but particularly if you struggle with being highly critical of yourself, definitely pick this one up. If you notice your self-esteem tends to dip often, or you can relate to the description of contingent self-worth, I would also encourage you to pick up the book. I love that this book has so much good information and exercises.
Alright guys, that’s all for this book. If you are interested in more of my content, you can check out my blog here or subscribe to my newsletter here. Like I always say, I encourage you to continue nurturing your mind, body, and soul, whatever that looks like for you.
*Please note that the book links in this post are my Amazon Affiliate Link.