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Writer's picturelavender Psychotherapy

Self-Compassion Breaks as Self-Care!

Updated: Jun 11

Sometimes stress likes to overwhelm us at the most inopportune times. Even if we've spent time developing an extensive list of self-care practices, strategies such as yoga practices and extended meditations aren't always convenient or accessible when a bad grade is received at school or critical feedback is given at work.


Self-Compassion Breaks as Self-Care!

Though we may not be able to remove ourselves from these situations to pull out a strategy from our self-care list, we can always engage in a self-compassion break. Have you heard of self-compassion before? Self-compassion refers to the ability to extend the same compassion, understanding, and kindness to ourselves that we'd extend to a loved one or other in a similar situation. It tends to feel more difficult to extend kindness to ourselves than it is to our dearest friend, isn't it? So here's how we can incorporate self-compassion into our lives and use it as an immediate self-care strategy in the midst of difficult and uncomfortable situations.


he process of engaging in self-compassion requires three simple things: being mindful, acknowledging our common humanity, and expressing self-kindness. This can be as simple as being mindful of and acknowledging what we're feeling (Ow, this disappointment really hurts), remembering that suffering is a part of the human experience (I'm not alone. Other people feel this way right now) and choosing to be kind to ourselves amidst our suffering (May I speak kindly to myself. I'm doing the best I can).


By quickly taking a moment to acknowledge these three things we can allow self-compassion to support us as we encounter and deal with the stresses of life and move through them with a little more compassion and understanding. 

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