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What’s the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion?
We want to feel valuable, loveable, and there are two ways of getting that sense of self-worth: self-esteem (a judgment of worth) and self-compassion (a form of unconditional worth). Because esteem is a judgment, it’s usually based on other things: on success, comparison to others, how attractive you are, how much other people like you. So it’s contingent; a fair-weather friend that’s only there for us in good times. There’s a lot of research that shows the quest for self-esteem can lead to nasty stuff like bullying behavior. But with self-compassion, because the sense of self-worth is unconditional, it’s more stable, more available. It’s a healthier way to feel worthy.
So if you have low self-worth, perhaps trying to work on self-esteem is a red herring?
I think you’d be better off trying to work on your self-compassion. Because you may succeed for a while at proving your self-esteem, but then what happens when you have your next big failure, or someone rejects you? It’s not nearly as stable. And by the way, self-compassion is a form of self-esteem; if you practice the first you’ll have more of the second. But it’s how you go about getting that self-worth that’s important. In the closing chapter of my book I write about ‘the compassionate mess’ – how, instead of trying to get it all together and do everything right in order to have self-worth, it’s about trying to be compassionate to whatever mess you are. That doesn’t mean you can’t pursue success for yourself, it just means you don’t need that success to get your sense of self-worth. For example, you want to write because you love doing it, rather than because you want to develop self-esteem.
When we lack self-compassion, it’s easy to catastrophize. Why do we do that?
The brain evolved to create a sense of self, to project that sense of self into the past and the future, and to look for problems. That was evolutionarily helpful, because people who imagined danger were more threat-focused, and that allowed them to be safer. So the brain’s pattern of getting lost in thoughts about the past (what I did wrong) and in the future (what might happen) seems to be a protective mechanism. Sometimes it’s helpful, but more often it’s not. We get lost in thinking about ourselves, and - from the Buddhist perspective anyway - that’s the main cause of suffering. So anything we can do to have more perspective is helpful. Ironically, that’s one of the things self-compassion does.
If our fear of threat is how we’re trying to protect ourselves, is there a more positive way we can try to feel safe?
We have two safety systems: the first and most easily triggered is our reptilian brain, which says run, or fight, or freeze and play dead. But the second safety system, which evolved later in mammals, is feeling safe because we feel cared for and we belong to a family or group.
Physiologically, we’re used to that care system being used for other people. And so we have to train our brains to treat ourselves the way we would a friend or anyone we care about. It’s not instinctual, especially for people who didn’t have loving parents who made them feel safe. That makes it a little harder, but it can still be done. And when we can do that? It reduces the threat-defense response: it lowers cortisol, it releases oxytocin and increases heart rate variability; and that makes us feel safe. Compassion makes us feel safe. It’s very hard to get out of that fear response without it.
Is that why it’s easier to be kinder, or to have more perspective when bad things happen to friends, because it doesn’t feel like a threat?
Yes, it’s easier, biologically, to use the care system with others and the threat defense system with ourselves. When your friend is hurt or makes a mistake, you don’t feel threatened and your care system kicks in. So what I’m suggesting is a little hack, an extra step, to tap into this other system for ourselves. It is available to us, but it’s not totally natural.
The second reason it’s easier to be unkind to ourselves, is research shows other people like it when we’re self-critical. Let’s say you’ve offended someone, if you say, “Oh, I’m so mean, I’m so stupid,” they calm down.
In moments when it would be better to reach for self-compassion, a lot of us veer into self-pity. What’s the difference?
It’s easy to note the difference with others. We don’t like it when people pity us, but we appreciate it when they have compassion. So what’s the difference? Pity is, “I feel sorry for you, I’m separate from you, I’m looking down on you.” But if someone has compassion, it’s, “I feel you, I’ve been there, there’s no judgement.” There’s the sense that they’re with us. And it’s the same with self-compassion: self-pity is, “Poor me, I feel sorry for myself, I feel separate and isolated from others.” It’s seeking attention. Whereas self-compassion is thinking, “Hey, I’ve been there, other people have been there – this is not just happening to me, it is part of the human experience.” The difference is understanding that sense of connectedness. You have to keep an eye on it, because sometimes you start veering into self-pity and that’s why you need the mindfulness to say, “hey, it’s not just me, it’s the human experience, and it’s okay”.
It’s the trickiest element of self-compassion to teach. Partly because of our self-esteem culture, we have a habitual tendency to compare ourselves to others. And sometimes we feel good about ourselves when we’re feeling better than others too. So there’s a weird way in which, when you tell people that suffering is a part of the human condition, they feel you’re invalidating it. Either because other people suffer more, and they think, Who am I to complain? Or, somehow I’m not special because everyone suffers. That’s the thing people aren’t used to. But when we can recognize there is no totally separate self because we’re all continually affected by other events and other people, then we can feel that sense of safety provided by self-compassion. We’re part of this larger unfolding of human life, and in that sense, we are not alone.
You said after several failed relationships you had come to terms with being single. How did you get there?
I don’t know if I want to live with someone, because I like living alone, but I’m still open to relationships. I haven’t given up on that. But it was important to make sure my happiness wasn’t dependent on being in a couple. Because when you’re alone, all these old and deeply conditioned feelings of fear come up: the fear that you aren’t special, that you don’t count, that you can’t be happy. We’re so socialized – especially growing up reading Jane Austen novels - to think that love is the source of happiness in life. So I had to work through that fear of not counting, of not being complete. Even though it comes up occasionally, I don’t associate the same pain with it that I used to. Maybe it’s easier once you get to middle age. You’ve had more experiences, you find companionship and community, and you realise you aren’t dependent on one form of love.
A lot of women I know who are single have done the work on themselves, and because of the social norms against men being tender and compassionate, a lot of men haven’t done as much. Maybe a lot of us are going to have to get our love from other sources, from friendships, and that is okay. Because the old system didn’t work for us. How many women were in unhappy marriages and were stuck there because they had no other choice? People talk about the men’s revolution, but I don’t think it’s really happened yet. It will come when more men are raised to be sensitive and open to their emotions, but the peer pressure is so intense on them not to be that way, it’s going to take a cultural shift for that change to really happen.
So how did you work through that fear of not counting?
I’m 54 and it was only fairly recently that I interrogated my desire to be in a relationship. This is the longest stretch – two years — that I’ve been totally alone. First, I had to give myself compassion for yearning for love. I didn’t say, “Why are you so needy and dependent?”, because it’s natural to want intimacy. Then I developed self-compassion practices to help myself meet the needs I had for connection in other ways. It was hard because of the pandemic… I wasn’t getting a lot of hugs from other people! But one of the things I’m focused on now is trying to reconnect with my community, to start going to more events. Ultimately, we are human beings and we need other people, we just have to find that connection in lots of different ways.
Today the real source of love for me is my spirituality: an understanding that I’m not separate at a deep, spiritual level. And I think that yearning for connection in a relationship, for love, is a reflection of the yearning for connection and oneness that we all have. So if I meet a man for companionship, that’d be fun and lovely. But I’m not going to compromise anymore, because I know what’s important.
You share your story of dealing with your son’s autism diagnosis, and then discovering your husband had been hiding his affairs with other women from you. When you found about those encounters, how did you avoid self-pity?
I found out right before going to a meditation retreat, which was good timing, because I was able to process it there. I don’t know how I would have gotten through any of it - the autism, finding out about [my husband’s] sex addiction – if I hadn’t spent so long working on self-compassion. My work helped me to have compassion for him, too, instead of hating him or blaming him. I thought, you’ve got a problem. I’m not going to judge you for it, but it’s also not my problem, so I’m going to protect myself. You have to be open to the heartbreak and then hold yourself tenderly in the midst of it — that’s what self-compassion is. You allow the emotions to arrive and you witness them, not in a cold way, in an objective, warm loving way. You don’t try to prevent yourself from feeling anything. And then what happens is things tend to process more easily, more thoroughly, and then you’ve got more wisdom about what next steps to take.
What you wish you’d known about love?
That it is available to us at any moment, if we are open to it. It’s not contingent on anything – not another person, not our circumstances. It’s really about opening to what’s already here.
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