Saturday, August 27, 2016

"The Core Components of Self-Compassion"


            Last Sunday, I began a new sermon series, exploring “Self-Compassion, An Overlooked Christian Value.”  One of the inspirations for this series, as well as a guide in developing the series, is the book, Self-Compassion, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, by Dr. Kristin Neff.[i]  This week, August 28th, we continue with the second proclamation in the series, an exploration of the three core components of self-compassion, as outlined by Dr. Neff.
            Our foundational scripture this Sunday comes from Mark 12:  28-34a.  For our purposes, the key portion of this scripture occurs when Jesus summarizes the Divine Law;

“One of the scribes…asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?  Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel:  the Lord our God, the Lord is one, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”’”

This scripture is very rich, and a whole series of sermons could be preached on these few verses alone.  Many Biblical scholars and preachers have focused on what it means to love God with all of our heart and soul and mind and strength, while others have focused on what it means to love our neighbor.  However, for our reflections this week, I would like to focus on the third, implied object of our love:  ourselves.

            Jesus says that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, which implies that we should love—or, have self-compassion—for ourselves.  What I will suggest this Sunday is that we love in response to God’s initial love for us.  Through the lens of Christian faith, we understand that the Divine seeks to enter into a loving relationship with us.  We respond to God’s amazing and boundless love for us by loving God, our neighbors, Creation, and ourselves. 

            Imagine an empty goblet.  When we begin to pour water from a pitcher, the goblet slowly fills to its rim.  If we continue to pour water into the goblet even after it is filled, then the water will begin to overflow, spilling over the edges and down its sides.  Similarly, we open ourselves to God’s love through faith in Jesus Christ, and God’s love fills us to overflowing.  Filled to overflowing with God’s love, then we respond by loving God, loving our neighbors, loving Creation, and loving ourselves.  We do not love out of obligation but simply because we are so filled with God’s love.

            In the proclamation, I will suggest that self-compassion is critical to this process of love.  If we cannot accept ourselves and have compassion for ourselves, then we have not truly accepted God’s love and we are incapable of loving our neighbor or God’s good Creation.  That is, if we cannot love ourselves first, then we are unable to keep Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

            In her study of self-compassion, Dr. Kirstin  Neff suggests that there are three core components:

1.       “Being Kind to Ourselves.”  Being kind to ourselves means that we end our harsh self-criticism, in which we condemn and beat ourselves up whenever we make a mistake or have a failure.  Dr. Neff writes, “But self-kindness involves more than merely stopping self-judgment.  It involves actively comforting ourselves, responding just as we would to a dear friend in need.  …We make a peace offering of warmth, gentleness, and sympathy from ourselves to ourselves, so that true healing can occur.”[ii]


2.      “Recognizing and Acknowledging the Common Human Experience.”  Loneliness and isolation are enemies of self-compassion.  As Kirstin Neff explains, “When we focus on our shortcomings without taking the bigger human picture into account, our perspective tends to narrow. We become absorbed by our own feelings of insufficiency and insecurity.  When we’re in the confined space of self-loathing, it’s as if the rest of humanity doesn’t even exist. This isn’t a logical thought process, but a type of emotional tunnel vision.  Somehow it feels like I am the only one who is being dumped, proven wrong, or made a fool of.”[iii] 


By contrast, we need to recognize and acknowledge that failure and set backs are simply part of the common human experience.  No one of us is perfect.  We all make mistakes; “to err is human.”  And, each of us experiences failures and disappointments.  So, an important component of self-compassion is acknowledging and accepting these common human experiences of mistakes and disappointments.


3.      “ Mindfulness.”  Mindfulness simply refers to the ability to be cognizant of what we are feeling, when we experience failure, disappointment, or pain.  Neff describes “mindfulness” in this way:  “We certainly feel the sting of falling short of our ideals, but our mind tends to focus on the failure itself, rather than the pain caused by failure.  This is a crucial difference.”[iv]  By developing mindfulness, we develop the ability to recognize what we are feeling.  Through this recognition, we gain control over all of our negative self-criticism and this facilitates our ability to be self-compassionate.



Kirstin Neff spends some time discussing suffering, which she argues is caused by resisting pain.  When disappointments and failures occur in our lives, Neff argues that we experience pain.  The temptation is to resist that pain; to fight against it.  Yet, when we resist pain that is beyond our control, then the resistance only exacerbates our suffering.  As she concludes, “Pain is unavoidable [in life]; suffering is optional.”[v]

            To summarize, there are three core components to self-compassion:  (1) Self-kindness; (2) Recognizing and acknowledging that our set-backs are part of the human experience; and (3) Mindfulness.

If you live in the Lincoln, Nebraska area, come, join us this Sunday, August 28th, at Christ United Methodist Church, as we continue with the second of our five-week study concerning self-compassion as a Christian virtue.  Our classic worship services are at 8:30 and 11:00 on Sunday mornings. 

Everyone is welcome and accepted because God loves us all.



[i] Kirstin Neff, Self-Compassion, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself (New York:  William Morro, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2011).

[ii] Neff, 42.

[iii] Neff, 63.

[iv] Neff, 81.

[v] Neff, 94.

No comments:

Post a Comment