The number one concern I hear from clients when I coach them around self-compassion is the idea that it will mean they don't get anything done if they give themselves too much self-compassion.

Or if they're too nice to themselves, they're just letting bad behavior slide, or they're becoming a victim if they acknowledge when something's difficult for them.

But this is a conflation of self-compassion and self-pity. Self-pity is self-indulgent and not in the fun way. The way that we indulge in a bad habit, right, something we know is not serving us or is actively harmful. From a kind of fuck it, don't tell me what to do, who cares about my future self-way of thinking? Self-compassion is is much more rigorous and radical. Self-pity

will keep you stuck, while self-compassion will help you transform. So today I want to share

exactly what self-pity looks like versus self-compassion and how self-criticism fits into this

puzzle. I'm going to teach you how to switch from self-pity to self-compassion.

Welcome to unfuck your brain.

I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thub.

I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. Let's go. So let's do a little word association. What do you

think of when you hear the phrase self-compassion? I think of like pastel therapy workbooks or an Instagram post with a

flower growing out of some bricks, right? Something very soft and gentle. It's like maybe a little

cringe. I spent most of my life very not interested in self-compassion. Like I would nod and

agree that it was good whenever anyone brought it up because I knew that was the right

answer, quote unquote, but I did not have a lot of patience for it. It seemed like it was

kind of for sad, weak people who couldn't get their shit together. Obviously, I was pretty

confused back then, but I didn't know any way to be other than being intensely judgmental

and critical about myself and everyone else I had ever met. And because

I didn't know how to change my thoughts, my feelings, or my life, I felt very helpless. And so I only

vacillated really between self-pity and self-criticism. Self-compassion seemed like something for

like dumb people, right? Like most healthy psychological attributes the way that I

thought back then. But then maybe 15 years ago, as I started going to therapy more and learning more

about my own dysfunctions, I started to see all the ways things I had experienced had shaped me.

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