Treat yourself the way you would treat a good friend
I was sitting with a friend recently, and as we sat talking, in the wandering and meandering flow of the conversation, we found ourselves talking about goals, ambitions, etc. My friend, to my deep surprise, was heavily critical of themselves and all they hadn’t achieved yet. I was surprised, deeply so, because this friend of mine was in fact one of the most accomplished people I knew! We sat in silence for a moment, with them taking my silence as quiet support of what they had just said.
In actuality, I was sitting there in dumbfounded silence. I just stared at them. I was so shaken by their admission, that it had quite literally stunned me to silence. After what felt like a lifetime but was actually only a couple of seconds, my mouth opened and out poured my admiration, pride, awe for them. My tongue tripped over itself and words jumbled and tripped over themselves in their eagerness to reach my friends ears, travel to their brain and beat the living daylights out of that small dark corner of their brain that was insidiously infecting them with their poisonous whispers.
It wasn’t just the fact that their accomplishments were worthy enough to satisfy even the most demanding Immigrant parent, it was everything about them! Their dogged determination, unrelenting drive and relentless work ethic. I admired this person so much, allahumabarik, but the fact that they spoke of themselves in this way, and felt this way about themselves shook me to my core.
“Would you ever speak to me or anyone else that way,” I asked. With no hint of irony they replied, “ No, of course I wouldn’t.” “Then why do you speak that away about yourself?.”
Dr. Kristen Reff, a world-leading expert on self compassion, describes self-compassion as having three elements:
Self-kindness, or refraining from harsh criticism of the self
Recognising one’s own humanity, or the fact that all people are imperfect and all people experience pain
Mindfulness, or maintaining a non-biased awareness of experiences, even those that are painful, rather than either ignoring or exaggerating their effect.
Many of us are able to extend compassion, gentleness and kindness to others pretty easily, but do we extend that same courtesy to ourselves?
If we stop and check in with ourselves and how we treat ourselves on a bad day when things aren’t going so well, we are often harsher, and more cruel to ourselves. We talk to ourselves in a way we would never speak to someone we cared about. We can sometimes talk to ourselves so harshly, we wouldn’t even speak that way to someone we didn’t like very much at all!
The defining characteristic of our shared human experience is that we are imperfect, and our lives are imperfect. This conceptualisation of our shared human experience is crystallized perfectly in this hadith:
Anas ibn Malik reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “All of the children of Adam are sinners, and the best sinners are those who repent.”
Source: Sunan al-Tirmidhī 2499
You’re not meant to be perfect. When you feel you havent reached a goal, or you’re struggling in life, we feel a sense of abnormality, where we feel this isn’t normal, right? that I shouldn’t be this way, I shouldn’t be failing or struggling.
However it is that abnormality, that isolation, that can be so psychologically damaging. We make it so much worse by feeling we are isolated in our suffering and imperfection, when in fact, that is precisely what connects us to other people!
Challenge:
Lets try this. Everytime we have an intrusive thought, lets try and look at it through the lens of self-compassion. Let’s not let those thoughts try to isolate us, and make it seem like we are somehow unique in our imperfection.
Self-compassion is an act of worship, and embodies the very teachings of Islam. So treat yourself with the same grace, empathy, kindness and understanding you would a good friend, because you are deserving. Always.
