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This LTM, let’s talk about self compassion for your mental health.
Hello,
Have you ever been hard on yourself over something really small? Do you have a hard time forgiving yourself for mistakes you’ve made, even though you forgive others for the same things?
If you feel like it can be hard to empathize with yourself, you’re not alone.
Between all the energy it can take to empathize with others, and the time spent pushing ourselves to maximum capacity, it can seem like there’s no room left for self compassion. It may not seem important, but strong self compassion can decrease stress, anxiety, and depression. When you begin to give yourself the same kindness that you give to others, you may notice a significant difference in how you cope with stressful situations and how you navigate your day to day life. You can go from giving yourself grief over tiny things and ruining your mood, to peacefully accepting any difficulties and feeling accomplished for reacting so kindly to yourself.
You may be thinking self compassion is a sign of weakness, but in fact self compassion is the opposite of self pity. Most of us are way harder on ourselves than we need to be, causing unnecessary stress and inner turmoil. You may think things like “What is wrong with me?”, but these thoughts do not serve any purpose other than to bring you down.
Instead of asking yourself what is “wrong with you” (self pity), try forgiving yourself for what happened (self compassion)! This is just one example of small changes you can make (and one of the many strategies you can learn from our CBT Care Providers)!
It may sound difficult (especially if you’ve always been hard on yourself) but in good news, you can strengthen the compassion you have for yourself each day using simple tools. We’ll take a look at some methods to increase self compassion, see why it’s important, and how we can apply it in our daily lives.
Helping Hands
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Client Corner
Some kind words about Cognito from a client:
We hope you enjoyed this month's Letter to Myself! If you have monthly themes you’d like to see in the future, please send an email to lettertomyself@getcognito.ca to submit your idea.
