Human Doing or Human Being: Self Esteem vs Self Compassion
When I am teaching yoga I am often talking to my students about practicing with compassion for themselves, and bringing that compassion into their daily lives. We work on our core, to strengthen the navel point, taping in to our self-esteem. But really, what is self-esteem, and compassion, let alone self-compassion.
What is Self-Esteem?
Dr. Kristin Neff describes it as “a global evaluation of self worth, a judgment; am I good person or am I a bad person”. She goes on to explain how in our culture average does not cut it, for us to have a healthy self-esteem we need to feel above average.
The dictionary definition of esteem as a verb is to think highly of, to judge and consider. As a noun it is high regard.
When our first chakra is out of alignment we feel insecure. We question our right to be here. The second chakra is or sense of self worth. The third chakra is the realm of self-esteem and identity; but if we are already insecure about our worthiness, and our right to be here, how can we even begin to hold ourselves in high regard to fulfill our full potential?
When our self-esteem is low we feel stressed, distressed, over-whelmed and powerless. We become indecisive we have a poor self-image. We are anxious, frustrated, we reject ourselves making us easily manipulated.
When our self-esteem is balanced we feel a healthy self-respect, a sense of belonging. We are decisive and confident. This sounds great. The problem can arise if we consider how we strengthened our self-esteem; was it at the cost of someone else’s? Did we manipulate a situation? Did we bully? Did we make someone else feel inferior, so we could feel superior? Maintaining a need of continual high achievement whilst comparing ourselves against our own perceived notion of how others are doing is exhausting, and of course when we are unable to meet our expectations we feel like we failed, and our self esteem plummets.
Self-esteem is a dichotomy: right or wrong, good or bad, succeed or fail. How do we dare strive for success? Our self-esteem is created from lack, and from judgment. Our self-esteem is contingent on success, so what emerges is the self-critic. We all have one, and for some it runs amok. We are enslaved to our self-critic because we believe it is there to motivate us.
What are the mantras of your self-critic? I bet it has some phases that you would never say to anyone else, even someone you disliked immensely. Ultimately, we become utterly brow beaten and just give up, because we have lost faith in ourselves and have highly developed fear of failure.
What is Self-compassion, and what is it not?
Dr. Kristin Neff attributes three components to self-compassion. The first is self-kindness. It is encouraging, understanding, empathetic and generous. It has an element of patience and gentleness. There is no place for the cruelty of harsh self-judgment.
Self-compassion has a common humanity. Instead of allowing our self-critic to ask; how am I better, different, worse than others, we look for a common thread. When we are open to our imperfections we no longer feel isolated. We no longer need to reject ourselves when we fail to reach a goal.
Self-compassion involves mindfulness, being present and accepting what is. We acknowledge both our successes and our failures. Validating emotions, our excitement when we succeed and the suffering we feel when we fail.
Our heart centre is where we process our emotional experience. When we don’t allow ourselves to process our emotions our 4th chakra closes down. We feel resentment, sadness, and disengaged. We feel isolated and abandoned. We reject our self. When we have a balanced centre we feel a sense of wholeness. We feel hope and inspiration we are naturally open to be compassionate.
We allow the voice of our self-critic to run the show because we have been lead to believe it is our self-motivator. Compassion will indulge our laziness and thus, we will under achieve. However, consider a friend who has been though a difficult situation making mistakes along the way. How did you talk to that friend? Did you say things like: ‘you stupid person what are you thinking?’ Or, how about, ‘you’re such a looser, why do you even bother?’ It is more likely you coaxed your friend out of failure, encouraged her towards success, and celebrated the minor victories along the way.
Compassion is not all lovey-dovey and gooey. And this is where we get confused with sentiment, and wallowing in self-pity. Compassion requires an action, ‘what can I do to help this situation?’ What is it I need in this moment? How do I need to process my emotions and what do I need to learn so I can make some changes and move forward.
The Science behind why Self-Compassion works.
The self-critic taps into our defense mechanism in the reptilian brain: fight or flight, activating cortisol and adrenaline. The brain cannot conceive the difference between an external threat and the internal threat to our self-concept. In attacking the problem we attack ourselves. Eventually our body shuts down as it is overwhelmed.
Self-compassion utilizes the mammalian care giving system, releasing oxytocin and opiates both are ‘feel good’ hormones. As mammals we naturally respond to warmth gentle touch and soft vocalizations. These hormones reduce cortisol helping us feel safe. This provides the optimal mindset for creative thinking, and for us to do our best.
Self-compassion offers the benefits of self-esteem without the pitfalls.
A Human Being rather than A Human Doing.
Dr. Kristin Neff eloquently says “ Self-compassion is there for you precisely when you fail; just when self-esteem desserts you. Self- compassion steps in and gives you a sense of being valuable. Not because you reached a standard but because you are a human being worthy of love at that moment”
When we depend on our self-esteem to feel good, we need to constantly be achieving, we do not have time to pause and celebrate our successes because of the insatiable appetite of our self-critic who dwells in lack. Our life becomes one long to do list. Even when we achieve major life goals we don’t always find happiness because need to achieve we missed the subtle clues that were trying to adjust our course to something that was more fulfilling.
In the realm of self-compassion, we can savour each moment. Our lives are enriched by experiences rather than marked by success and failures. We feel happy, we feel motivated, and we enjoy a continuous satisfaction. We have a strong sense of accountability to ourselves because we shed the need to blame, thus we can make better, more informed life choices, and we have a greater sense of connectedness because we are present. We are able to just be.