In training, the first thing we learned in therapy techniques was Carl Rogers' approach of unconditional positive regard for your clients. For me, he was the GOAT. Those who are suffering most likely haven't been given the love and nurturing they needed in childhood, adolescence, and even adulthood.
Therefore, as therapists, you accept and support the person, without question. You accept the client, including their flaws, after all, everyone has weaknesses, no one is "perfect".
By giving unconditional positive regard, the client then begins to regard themselves more positively after being heard, accepted and supported, they begin to see that they're worthy. And, because they're worthy, they'll be more motivated to change - you take care of things that are valuable, which includes you!
For some reason, this message has been strangely forgotten after my training, because the concept of self-esteem was the fetish. To the point where we have clients write positive things about themselves to improve self-esteem. Esteem, meaning, that you value yourself for your positive qualities, and the more positive qualities, the better your self-esteem.
Do you see the fatal flaw? When you start thinking of your negative traits, and we all have them as human beings, your self-esteem will fall. Also, what if one of the things you find positive about yourself is that you have beautiful skin, but as you age, it will "sag" and then your self-esteem will crumble. Or, that you're a kind person, but there are going to be times when you act unkindly (out of stress, we're all human), so that will also lower your self-esteem.
However, if you can accept yourself fully, warts and all, because you know that you're not perfect, and no one else is perfect, you begin to accept yourself, and in turn, accept others for not being perfect as well! Thus ending the deadly poison of self and other-criticism, that destroys creativity, inspiration, passion, productivity, and love.
Once you have self-compassion, you will be more motivated to act in more healthy ways such as exercising, not procrastinating, not being critical of others because you see that you're a valuable person. And if you're valuable, like all valuable things, you want to take care of yourself.
Here is the scientific breakdown for why self-compassion works, and why self-esteem doesn't:
How do you have self-compassion? The easiest exercise is to treat yourself as a best friend would treat you. You don't even have to be that mindful it's very obvious when you feel bad because they're such strong, obvious emotions:
Anger, stress, hatred, comparing yourself negatively to another person leading to jealousy and envy, criticizing yourself (which makes you feel down in the dumps), and so forth.
In this post, I will outline the steps with the best friend strat, and then give five very common scenarios when we tend to be really mean to ourselves, and show how you use this best friend approach.
BEST FRIEND APPROACH
Step One: As soon as you feel that sinking, negative gross feeling, stop and think about what you're upset about.
Step Two: Talk to yourself (internally or out loud) as if you're your own best friend, using this three step method:
As a best friend, he would tell you, that really sucks you got an F (or whatever failure), that's crushing and heart-breaking. He will say that we all fail, Edison failed millions of times, it never feels good but at least you tried and had the guts to show up and take that test (or do whatever project).
How can we do better to crush that test? And then come up with solutions in terms of studying "smarter" not "harder" (i.e. Gordon Greene's "Getting Straight A's"). You get excited and motivated so you order this used on Amazon.com and thank your best friend for support. Your friend says, "that's what friends are for!" You then get an A (at worst B+) on the next test.
Analysis: We see in this scenario how your friend acknowledged your feelings of suckiness when you got that big fat F.
He then universalized failure, that you're not the "only one" in the world who fails, so you're not the "sole loser outcast". Rather you're human just like everyone else.
Lastly, what can we do to change the outcome? Problem-solve and act upon the problem at hand!
Scenario Two: You're too tired to exercise yet again, even though exercising a mere 13 minutes, three times a week, can prevent major cardiovascular conditions that lead to death.
You say to yourself that you're a lazy, pathetic, useless piece of shit who can't even do something as short as 13 minutes. You feel awful, which is the signal to go into best friend mode.
Best friend would say, no one likes to exercise, why do you think there are all these memes about hating exercise, and there's this viral cat video where the cat's so miserable to even move her left paw!
You're not lazy, you're human and like all the mammals in the world! ALL mammals are biologically wired to go the path of least resistance since calories are so scarce back then! Pampered pets tend to be overweight to obese, and inactive. The goal was to conserve the energy and hibernate in winter!
You feel better about yourself. Then he'll problem-solve and say, just go to the gym as the goal. If you don't want to exercise, then go back home. Most likely what happens is that you'll end up doing the 13 minutes, perhaps rounding up to 15 minutes or more.
Scenario 3: Your boyfriend dumped you, and you feel anger toward him. You also start feeling that you'll never find love again because you failed in this relationship. You tell yourself that you're unloveable, hideous, disgusting and trash. No one would love you ever again. You become depressed, which is signal to use the approach.
Your best friend might actually have a girl's weekend at your place to wallow in the sadness Friday night after work. She'll bring 12 different flavors of Ben and Jerry's, various chocolates, and order out pizza. You process the breakup and she tells you that everyone goes through breakups, it's a part of everyone's life - you're just like everyone in the world who's gotten rejected, I still love you. You feel better because of this truth. Then binge on Downton Abbey episodes.
But, on Sunday night, after you enjoyed the binge and wallow fest, your best friend tells you that you need to work on yourself and get healthy. She doesn't want to see you wallow in self-pity for months on end.
She tells you to go back to your life, go to work, take it one day at a time, socialize with your friends - you may meet eligible men. Feeling encouraged and supported, you begin to get over the break-up and taking healthy steps.
Scenario four: This is taken directly from my recent experience. You compare yourself negatively to another person. You begin to think why can't you be as fluent, as on point, as passionate, as humorous as Dr. Ramani:
Your friend notes that of course she's on point, she teaches this stuff every day to her students so she has to know the material like the back of her hand. For these interviews, she most likely prepared these answers in advance, and she has done so many, that it gets easier and easier!
I then feel better and interestingly, I felt gratitude (rather than feeling down on myself for "not measuring up") toward Dr. Ramani for helping people avoid getting involved with a narcissistic partner in the first place! Avoiding these people who destroy and crush others' souls (a malignant narcissist can conceivably kill his partner), literally saving lives.
Scenario five: You berate yourself for procrastinating yet again because you'd rather indulge yourself by playing video games. You call yourself pathetic, lazy and useless because you can't accomplish anything at all!
How would you treat yourself with self-compassion? This is what I would tell myself, using the best friend approach:
Therefore, as therapists, you accept and support the person, without question. You accept the client, including their flaws, after all, everyone has weaknesses, no one is "perfect".
By giving unconditional positive regard, the client then begins to regard themselves more positively after being heard, accepted and supported, they begin to see that they're worthy. And, because they're worthy, they'll be more motivated to change - you take care of things that are valuable, which includes you!
For some reason, this message has been strangely forgotten after my training, because the concept of self-esteem was the fetish. To the point where we have clients write positive things about themselves to improve self-esteem. Esteem, meaning, that you value yourself for your positive qualities, and the more positive qualities, the better your self-esteem.
Do you see the fatal flaw? When you start thinking of your negative traits, and we all have them as human beings, your self-esteem will fall. Also, what if one of the things you find positive about yourself is that you have beautiful skin, but as you age, it will "sag" and then your self-esteem will crumble. Or, that you're a kind person, but there are going to be times when you act unkindly (out of stress, we're all human), so that will also lower your self-esteem.
However, if you can accept yourself fully, warts and all, because you know that you're not perfect, and no one else is perfect, you begin to accept yourself, and in turn, accept others for not being perfect as well! Thus ending the deadly poison of self and other-criticism, that destroys creativity, inspiration, passion, productivity, and love.
Once you have self-compassion, you will be more motivated to act in more healthy ways such as exercising, not procrastinating, not being critical of others because you see that you're a valuable person. And if you're valuable, like all valuable things, you want to take care of yourself.
Here is the scientific breakdown for why self-compassion works, and why self-esteem doesn't:
How do you have self-compassion? The easiest exercise is to treat yourself as a best friend would treat you. You don't even have to be that mindful it's very obvious when you feel bad because they're such strong, obvious emotions:
Anger, stress, hatred, comparing yourself negatively to another person leading to jealousy and envy, criticizing yourself (which makes you feel down in the dumps), and so forth.
In this post, I will outline the steps with the best friend strat, and then give five very common scenarios when we tend to be really mean to ourselves, and show how you use this best friend approach.
BEST FRIEND APPROACH
Step One: As soon as you feel that sinking, negative gross feeling, stop and think about what you're upset about.
Step Two: Talk to yourself (internally or out loud) as if you're your own best friend, using this three step method:
- Best friend will acknowledge the shittiness of how you feel and allow you to bitch and complain.
- Next, best friend would say this shit happens to all of us, you're not alone, and of course you'd feel horrible, who wouldn't?
- Lastly, how can we move forward and problem-solve?
EXAMPLES
Scenario One: You failed a test (or whatever project), you then begin to criticize yourself harshly and say that you're a complete loser and a fucking failure, you feel dejected and depressed. You feel like crap and crippled to do anything, which is the signal where you go into best friend mode:
As a best friend, he would tell you, that really sucks you got an F (or whatever failure), that's crushing and heart-breaking. He will say that we all fail, Edison failed millions of times, it never feels good but at least you tried and had the guts to show up and take that test (or do whatever project).
How can we do better to crush that test? And then come up with solutions in terms of studying "smarter" not "harder" (i.e. Gordon Greene's "Getting Straight A's"). You get excited and motivated so you order this used on Amazon.com and thank your best friend for support. Your friend says, "that's what friends are for!" You then get an A (at worst B+) on the next test.
Analysis: We see in this scenario how your friend acknowledged your feelings of suckiness when you got that big fat F.
He then universalized failure, that you're not the "only one" in the world who fails, so you're not the "sole loser outcast". Rather you're human just like everyone else.
Lastly, what can we do to change the outcome? Problem-solve and act upon the problem at hand!
Scenario Two: You're too tired to exercise yet again, even though exercising a mere 13 minutes, three times a week, can prevent major cardiovascular conditions that lead to death.
You say to yourself that you're a lazy, pathetic, useless piece of shit who can't even do something as short as 13 minutes. You feel awful, which is the signal to go into best friend mode.
Best friend would say, no one likes to exercise, why do you think there are all these memes about hating exercise, and there's this viral cat video where the cat's so miserable to even move her left paw!
You're not lazy, you're human and like all the mammals in the world! ALL mammals are biologically wired to go the path of least resistance since calories are so scarce back then! Pampered pets tend to be overweight to obese, and inactive. The goal was to conserve the energy and hibernate in winter!
You feel better about yourself. Then he'll problem-solve and say, just go to the gym as the goal. If you don't want to exercise, then go back home. Most likely what happens is that you'll end up doing the 13 minutes, perhaps rounding up to 15 minutes or more.
Scenario 3: Your boyfriend dumped you, and you feel anger toward him. You also start feeling that you'll never find love again because you failed in this relationship. You tell yourself that you're unloveable, hideous, disgusting and trash. No one would love you ever again. You become depressed, which is signal to use the approach.
Your best friend might actually have a girl's weekend at your place to wallow in the sadness Friday night after work. She'll bring 12 different flavors of Ben and Jerry's, various chocolates, and order out pizza. You process the breakup and she tells you that everyone goes through breakups, it's a part of everyone's life - you're just like everyone in the world who's gotten rejected, I still love you. You feel better because of this truth. Then binge on Downton Abbey episodes.
But, on Sunday night, after you enjoyed the binge and wallow fest, your best friend tells you that you need to work on yourself and get healthy. She doesn't want to see you wallow in self-pity for months on end.
She tells you to go back to your life, go to work, take it one day at a time, socialize with your friends - you may meet eligible men. Feeling encouraged and supported, you begin to get over the break-up and taking healthy steps.
Scenario four: This is taken directly from my recent experience. You compare yourself negatively to another person. You begin to think why can't you be as fluent, as on point, as passionate, as humorous as Dr. Ramani:
Your friend notes that of course she's on point, she teaches this stuff every day to her students so she has to know the material like the back of her hand. For these interviews, she most likely prepared these answers in advance, and she has done so many, that it gets easier and easier!
I then feel better and interestingly, I felt gratitude (rather than feeling down on myself for "not measuring up") toward Dr. Ramani for helping people avoid getting involved with a narcissistic partner in the first place! Avoiding these people who destroy and crush others' souls (a malignant narcissist can conceivably kill his partner), literally saving lives.
Scenario five: You berate yourself for procrastinating yet again because you'd rather indulge yourself by playing video games. You call yourself pathetic, lazy and useless because you can't accomplish anything at all!
How would you treat yourself with self-compassion? This is what I would tell myself, using the best friend approach:
I consciously tried self-compassion at work today which compelled me to write this post.
It was the first time where I felt light-hearted and a genuine joy, feeling full-hearted toward my coworkers without effort. I always feel the irritability when I'm at work, and use immense amount of energy to be pleasant to my coworkers since I like all my coworkers.
While they all say that I'm very easy to work with and non-intimidating, it takes up so much mental energy that I get drained at work. Which is why I end up playing video games after work. However today, having self-compassion, I have enough mental energy to write this post!
Despite being stressed today, interrupted every minute to sign, to make calls, and having to eat lunch in front of clients, I didn't feel mental fatigue, only physical fatigue. (The physical fatigue was my fault for not realizing I didn't have iron or synthroid in my weekly pill reminder box for the last 2 weeks, as well as untreated sleep apnea, and not exercising for being so tired).
At any rate, it was a wondrous feeling of being light and having this outpouring of love toward my coworkers (I do love them, I just don't feel it often due to work stressors), that I came up with rather creative solutions for a family, that surprised even myself!
The trap of doing any other exercises aside from self-compassion - activities such as keeping a gratitude journal, exercising regularly, and the like, is that if you don't do those things, you start feeling bad about yourself for being lazy, and you quit out of demoralization.
However, with self-compassion, you start feeling better. Even when you get down upon yourself for having a critical thought about yourself, you can snap out of it due to feeling the warning signs.
You may even laugh at yourself because of the irony. You're criticizing yourself for criticizing yourself! But by laughing at that, as your best friend would (perhaps even teasingly saying that you're a dork, but that makes you lovable), you can regain self-compassion.
Finally, as you accept yourself, flaws and all just like everyone else, you feel a sense of connection for others when you see them struggling, and end up having compassion towards them.
This feeling of love that you have to others make you feel even better and light - no jealousy, no bitterness, just a wonderful feeling of connection. We humans, as all the researchers say, are hard-wired for connection, and people tend to depression when you feel disconnected.
With self-compassion, as you feel better and find yourself worthy and worth doing all these hard things. You become more motivated to make healthy choices, do the gratitude exercises, eat healthy, get enough sleep, eat fruits and vegetables, just from self-compassion alone.
The love you feel inwards and outwards becomes effortless, love being the powerful force, empowering you to do the hard, necessary things that are fulfilling to you.
The How of Happiness Review
