Self-Empathy: How To Affectionately Connect With Ourselves

How are you today? What are you feeling right now? What needs, feelings and desires are there in your mind? Self-empathy is an exercise in psychological health and well-being that we tend to neglect. Looking within is the first step to any kind of external empathy and, in turn, the starting point for any enriching relationship with oneself and others.

Now,  why do we sometimes overlook such a decisive competence?  Throughout our lives, we have always been reminded of the importance of empathic concern. In other words, few things are as important as knowing how to understand who we have in front of us, having the ability to put ourselves in the other’s shoes to understand them and then act accordingly.

However,  few explained to us that the best way to practice this art is starting from emotional self-awareness. Only the empathic self that is able to read its own needs and emotions and respond in harmony in accordance with this personal universe is capable of achieving happiness.

What is self-empathy?

Self-empathy is the ability to connect with yourself in a caring and respectful way. It is important to focus on these last two dimensions: “affection” and “respect”. Because while it’s true that we all practice self-talk and have the ability to connect with our being, we don’t always do it properly. We are, for example, very inclined to nurture negative dialogue.

We are also defined by a subtle tendency towards criticism, weariness, that self-communication that fills us more with noise than calm, which inflames concerns and offers no solutions. Thus,  this lack of valid and enriching self-empathy leads us to foster states of stress and anxiety. We are also those people who are used to giving others more than we give ourselves.

Thus, although Daniel Goleman did not talk about self-empathy in his book Emotional Intelligence , he included this competence in what is known as “emotional self-awareness”. It’s about monitoring your own internal states, preferences, intuitions, needs and every emotion that comes up.

We will understand how to do this below.

Keys to developing self-empathy

Godfrey T. Barrett-Lennard is a professor of psychology at Murdoch University (Australia) who has conducted research on this topic. Something he explains in this work is that the task of  every therapist during psychotherapy is to train the person in the basic and essential competence of self-empathy.

The reason is that many people spend a good part of their lives neglecting the way they feel. There are many people who are diluted in their immediate environment (partner, children, etc.) and who no longer know how to access themselves, their emotions, thoughts, desires, deficiencies… Therefore, we should not leave this task aside. Restoring self-empathy is a priority issue.

Those would be the keys to getting it.

Observe without judging, respond with openness

Self-empathy requires that you perceive and recognize that you are there, that there is a part of you that feels, suffers, is excited, sad and hopeful. It implies that you are able to observe yourself without judgment, without criticizing yourself for experiencing certain things, without scolding yourself because you feel irritated, worried or afraid today.

Serving yourself openly and continuously (without leaving it for later) will increase your ability to generate changes that bring you closer to well-being.

Talk to yourself as if you were your best friend

If you don’t talk to yourself respectfully, who will? If you can’t communicate with yourself in a loving way, how can you expect others to? Be aware of this: self-empathy requires that you talk to yourself as if you were your best friend.

Emotional self-awareness is nurtured by understanding and the capacity for absolute listening from which we accept ourselves as we are. No filters, no cracks or shame.

Forgive yourself today, tomorrow and always

Self-empathy, to be useful, authentic, and meaningful, must not come from rejection or criticism. You may be angry with yourself because in the end you always end up making the same mistakes. It’s possible that it hurts that you left behind opportunities, that you feel uncomfortable with yourself for not being brave enough for certain things…

These feelings of self-rejection prevent you from exercising healthy, restorative self-empathy. So it’s always a good time to start forgiving yourself as you deserve. Offer your forgiveness for making mistakes all those times in your life; after all, you had no experience. Forgive yourself for allowing certain people to hurt you, because no one has a crystal ball to know what was going to happen.

Self-Empathy: Life is a challenge and I accept my lights and shadows

Anger, anger, fear, disappointment, anguish, worry… Life is a continuous challenge and it will always put us to the test. In adverse circumstances, it is normal to experience complicated emotions. Neglecting this internal anatomy, looking away from what you feel, think, need, and care about will lead to helplessness, loss of control, and increased amounts of stress and anxiety.

Self-empathy is putting up with all those turbulent oceans that sometimes sail inside you. Accepting what you feel and giving yourself the love you need is a cathartic and ideal way to start generating change, from that starting point towards balance and calm.

Alfred Alder said that empathy was the ability to look with another’s eyes, listen with another’s ears, and feel with another’s heart. Well, let us always remember that it is not possible to do any of this with authenticity and competence if we are not able to look at each other with curiosity, to listen frankly and to make our hearts beat for the love of ourselves.