SELFCOMPASSION

It is a fact that man is the smallest part of society and, compassion is  one of his most valuable features. Humanbeings show love, empathy, patience and understanding to their best friends and loved ones, but can they show the  same behaviour to themselves? Generally ,people  are the ones  who save the worst criticism for themselves. Over and above that,people repeatedly do this in their daily life and, they pretend to be their own worst enemy .When they make a mistake or struggle, they insult themselves and criticize themselves  and question themselves.These internal judgements hinder them from reaching their goals.Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing themselves for various inadequacies or shortcomings, people can overcome this situation by showing compassion to themselves and it is called self-compassion.Self-compassion is described  as  having three elements and even though there are several benefits of it, motivation and less anxiety can be claimed to be the most important two.

To begin with,according to Doç. Dr. Kristin Neff who is a  psychology expert; self-kindness is the primary component of self-compassion. This factor involves loving ourselves rather than judging ourselves mercilessly. Moreover, she says that common humanity is the second component. When a person makes a mistake and feels separate from the rest of the world, he should remember that the common of feature of all people is making  mistakes. Another element is mindfulness, (which # is) a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them. As a result, when they realize what they do to themselves with brutal criticism, they can give themselves the compassion that they need.

Furthermore ,motivation is the physiological effect of self-compassion. When people criticize themselves, the body activates the system of self-defense. This system has developed for threats targeting people’s body. But in modern times, the threat is generally not the body, but the perception of self. Thus, when they do not like themselves, they  threaten themselves. Ultimately, they attack the problem, so they attack themselves. In addition, when people criticize themselves, the problem is doubled because they are both aggressive and attacked at the same time. If people are constantly self-critical, they have a constant high level of stress and, in the end, the  body closes  to protect itself and becomes too depressed to cope with all this stress. In this process, anxiety is inevitable.In brief(Briefly), the more compassionate you are towards  yourself, the more motivated you  become and, the less anxiety you have.

To sum up,the level of both motivation and anxiety are connected with mental health.And according to experts,especially Kristin Neff, self-compassion, which ismade up of three components, is likely to be  a drug for mental health.I think , we do not need to feel special and above average, we must just get rid of social assessment dynamics and we must never forget that we are human.                                                                       

. BURAK ÖZÇİFÇİ