Self-care through the practice of Mindfulness and self-compassion

Emotional self-care is a complex process that involves making use of various resources from the world of Psychology.

In this article we will focus on two of them, closely related to each other: Mindfulness (or Mindfulness, in Spanish) and self-compassion. How do they help us achieve a state of emotional balance?

Related article: "The 4 types of Mindfulness and their characteristics"

What is Mindfulness?

The term "Mindfulness" has two meanings. On the one hand, a state of consciousness characterized by the fact that focus our attention on the present from a perspective free of prejudices and value judgments, limiting ourselves to describing and recognizing the existence of the thoughts, emotions and feelings that are passing through our mind.

On the other hand, Mindfulness is also the set of exercises used to deliberately reach that state of consciousness, through exercises inspired by Vipassana meditation, an ancient tradition. These are easy activities to adopt as a habit and that in some cases can also be carried out by boys and girls, following very simple instructions.

There are many variations and versions of Mindfulness exercises, some of which can be done in a few minutes. Therefore, it is a resource that can be easily incorporated into the schedule: after eating, before going to sleep, during work break, etc.

But Mindfulness is not only a pleasant experience, it is has therapeutic potential; That is why many psychology centers use it to help our patients, and even to professionals who participate in workshops and courses in the field of training programs promoted by the companies.

Its usefulness is noteworthy for managing excess anxiety or pain, and for promoting interventions to prevent relapses into depression. The key is in the way in which it allows us to "reset" the mind and not feed psychological rumination, helping us to stop in their tracks the negative thought loops associated with our worries, our fears and our obsessions

• You may be interested in: "The 7 attitudes of Mindfulness applied to insomnia"

What is self-compassion and how does it influence self-care?

Many people take it for granted that the term "self-pity" has negative connotations, as if incorporating it into ourselves would mean living in a bubble based on finding comfort in sadness and lamentations about how little we are worth. However, this is a biased view of this phenomenon.

It is true that in popular culture this term is often used to refer to the immobility of those who assume that they are worth much less than others and that for Consequently, he cannot expect anything of himself nor can he contribute anything to others (and therefore he can only ask, seek the protection of the society). But In Psychology, the meaning of the word self-compassion changes, and in fact, it becomes an emotionally beneficial element.

From this point of view, self-pity means the mentality of not using problems and crises as a crisis to "crush" ourselves, and therefore on the contrary, to show a degree of understanding with ourselves that we would demonstrate to someone who we see has made a mistake, but who deserves new opportunities. In essence, this form of self-pity means not asking ourselves for a degree of perfection and moral neatness that is much higher than what we would expect from the rest simply because we are ourselves.

Thus, self-pity is one of the psychological elements that They help us “avoid” those trap thoughts that predispose us to self-sabotage. It involves embracing the mindset that problems and discomfort exist, but that we are not helpless in the face of them, nor are we predestined to suffer from them simply because we are who we are.

It also means assuming that it is normal to go through moments of crisis throughout life, and that even in the cases in which we are the main responsible for the bad that happens to us, we should not let guilt paralyze us, because although it seems contradictory, guilt can become a refuge that we use as an excuse not to move along.

This fits perfectly with the principles of Mindfulness; Mindfulness leads us to focus on the here and now avoiding fixing our attention on value judgments, and putting emphasis on being able to understand and describe what happens at that moment, instead of adopting the role of judge who estimates the moral aspects of the experience. In this way, we perceive problems for what they are, without "inflating" them by feeding on our fears.

Are you looking for psychological assistance services based on Mindfulness?

If you are interested in incorporating Mindfulness into your life, get in touch with us; on Psychotools We have experts who use Mindfulness both in therapy and in training sessions for individuals and professionals. You will find us in Barcelona, ​​and we also hold sessions in the online format by video call.