written by Chris Germer, PhD is a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. He co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program with Kristin Neff in 2010 and MSC has since been taught to over 250,000 people worldwide.
Self-compassion is the most natural thing in the world
Although our personal experience may tell us otherwise, self-compassion is the most natural thing in the world.
Deep within all beings is the wish to be happy and free from suffering. We're responding to this instinct when we suckle at mother's breast, when we cry from loneliness, and when we save up to buy a pink Cadillac.
Everything we do, even the good feelings we derive from helping others, seems to derive from a wish to make ourselves feel better.
'fanning the flames of our innate desire to be safe, happy and healthy'
Self-compassion practice is therefore not adding anything special to our behavioral repertoire—it's just fanning the flames of our innate desire to be safe, happy and healthy and to live with ease, but in a more helpful way than our tendencies to grasp for short-term pleasure and to avoid pain at all cost.
'we need to recognize that we deserve to feel better'
First we need to recognize that we deserve to feel better. When we feel really bad, most of us engage in self-punishment rather than self-compassion. We heap on self-criticism ("This wouldn't have happened if I was so stupid").
We act as if suffering always points to a personal flaw rather than being a fact of the human condition. If we remind ourselves that wanting to feel better is a natural instinct, perhaps we'd be less likely to take ourselves to task when things go wrong.
Wouldn't you still clean and bandage a wound when you get injured? Why not do the same for yourself when you're in emotional pain?
This is an excerpt from The Mindful Path To Self-Compassion by Chris Germer, PhD (Guilford Press) approved exclusively to be shared on Give Yourself Kindness.
Chris Germer, PhD is a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. He co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program with Kristin Neff in 2010 and MSC has since been taught to over 250,000 people worldwide. They co-authored two books on MSC, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook and Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program.
Chris spends most of his time lecturing and leading workshops around the world on mindfulness and self-compassion. He is also the author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion; he co-edited two influential volumes on therapy, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, and Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy; and he maintains a small online practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
