Few of us have had formal training in emotional resiliency. Emotions are an important part of who we are, but we spend many years training other parts of ourselves – mind, body, and spirit. But our emotional training comes from observations of others who practice the common approach to “just deal with it.” What this really means is that we are taught to push challenging emotions deep within ourselves with the hope that they will go away. The following table illustrates how we have learned to handle emotions, and how we might learn to handle them more skillfully. It also describes how MSC can benefit the other parts of ourselves (mind, body, spirit).
Two Different Perspectives
| Topic | What we learn by observation (little-to-no teaching) |
A self-compassionate response (can be learned) |
| Supporting others who are suffering | Be kind and understanding with soothing & supporting words | Be kind and understanding with soothing & supporting words |
| Support ourselves when suffering | Ignore pain or try to will it away. | Be kind and understanding with soothing & supporting words |
| Support ourselves when failing or viewing self as imperfect | Set a high bar for definition of success. Abuse ourselves with self-criticism | Give credit for trying something new. Adjust expectations of self. Kind & soothing support |
| Life doesn’t go exactly as planned or expected | Angry that life is not fair. Become a victim of circumstances as they actually are. | Understand bigger picture and overlapping cause & affect of all the moving parts of life. Recognize that these things happen to everybody, and it is not a personal attack. |
| Recognize suffering | Set a high bar for things considered suffering. | Recognize suffering no matter how small. |
| Basis of Self-worth | Self-Enhancement bias. Need to be above average when compared to others. Contingent on most recent actions. | Being Human with need for compassion and understanding. No contingencies. Intrinsic sense of self-worth. |
| Relationship to others | Self-absorbed. Putting others down. Angry at those who hurt us. | Recognize all going through this together. Being supportive. Non-reactive and resilient to external criticism. |
| Relationship to self | Angry at yourself for not being good enough | Recognize that perfect isn’t reasonable. Being supportive. Non-reactive and resilient to internal criticism. |
| Self-Realization | Mostly delusional where we hide, distort, or ignore personal shortcomings. Extreme emotional swings. | More awareness of personal strengths & weaknesses, and how to live with all of it. Limited emotional swings. |
| Personal Accountability | Less responsible for actions. Blame others. Don’t recognize growth opportunity. Feel shame (negative self-worth) | More responsible for actions. Do not feel like victim. Recognize need for action to reduce personal suffering. Feel Guilt (remorse with desire to amend) |
| Brain Function | Busy, distracted, limited, and mechanical | Still, focused, aware, and intentional |
| Body Function | Higher blood pressure, stress, health care issues & cost | Lower blood pressure, stress, health care issues & cost |