Do you ever feel like you’re at war with your body? Do you spend hours looking in the mirror, performing “mental cosmetic surgery” on the parts you don’t like? Are you so ashamed of your body that you avoid social interactions?
Do you ever wonder if there is a way out of this suffering?
Many people believe that if they feel badly enough about something, it will motivate them to change. We readily point out our flaws and all the ways in which we fail to measure up to society’s standards, and there is almost nobody we treat worse than ourselves. But, what if changing how you feel about your body actually makes it easier to achieve a healthy, sustainable weight?
A growing body of research points to a powerful antidote to all this body shame and hatred: self-compassion. Self-compassion entails treating oneself with kindness and understanding in the face of disappointment or perceived inadequacy (Neff, 2003), and is relevant to all experiences of suffering, including those generated by perceived flaws or body image distress. Unlike the pursuit of high self-esteem, where we must prove ourselves ”better than” in order to feel worthy, we don’t have to earn the right to self-compassion; everyone is deserving of compassion by virtue of being human.
Self-compassion has three core components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness (Neff, 2003).
- Self-kindness involves being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than judging ourselves harshly.
- Common humanity means recognizing that feelings of personal inadequacy are common to everyone versus feeling alone in and isolated by our experience of suffering.
- Mindfulness involves bringing awareness to our painful experiences and taking a balanced approach that helps us to neither suppress feelings nor over-identify with perceived shortcomings.
People who are compassionate towards their failings and imperfections experience more positive body image regardless of their body mass index (BMI) and are better able to handle personal disappointments and setbacks in their daily lives than those who repeatedly judge themselves (Kelly et al., 2014). Self-compassion has also been linked to less severe binge eating (Webb & Forman, 2013). This approach provides a unique way of relating to oneself when the tendency to engage in negative self-evaluation may be particularly likely, such as when looking in the mirror or eating more than intended.
The next time you find yourself critiquing your body or berating yourself for your weight, stop and ask yourself how you would treat a good friend or loved one. Try to bring that same kindness, caring, and compassion to yourself and remind yourself that these experiences are a normal part of life. Then consider what you might do or what changes you might make if you were treating yourself as someone deserving of unconditional understanding and kindness. For more information and exercises to help develop your self-compassion visit www.self-compassion.org.
How do to show yourself compassion? Share with others by leaving a comment.
Similar Reading: How to Lose Weight in a Way That’s Actually Empowering
References:
Kelly, A.C., Vimalakanthan, K., & Miller, K.E. (2014). Self-compassion moderates the relationship between body mass index and both eating disorder pathology and body image flexibility. Body Image, 11(4) 446-453.
Neff, K.D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2, 85-102.
Webb, J.B., & Forman, M.J. (2013). Evaluating the indirect effect of self-compassion on binge eating severity through cognitive-affective self-regulatory pathways. Eating Behaviors, 14, 224-228.
