Parts of the interview have been edited for clarity and length.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>

How would you define self-compassion? Why is it important to practice it?<\/strong><\/p>

I think the simplest way to describe self-compassion is the capacity to treat yourself the same way you would treat a dear friend when they struggle, suffer, fail, or fall short.\u00a0 We’re often quite good at being kind to other people\u2019s suffering. When your friend fails a test or has a hard time with a work situation, we tend to be warm, kind, and supportive, and provide whatever is needed. But when we have the same experiences, somehow our inner dialogue towards ourselves tends to be just the opposite and we tend to beat ourselves up. We feel that something is uniquely wrong, or we demand perfection of ourselves.<\/p>

In other words, self-compassion is cultivating and expressing the care and kindness that we normally have for others but directing it towards ourselves. This sounds logical but it’s actually quite challenging to do for most of us. There’s a growing body of research that suggests self-compassion is associated with resilience. Resilience and a number of other positive qualities seem to be related to this quality of self-compassion.<\/p>

Do you think that there’s a greater need for self-compassion during this pandemic?<\/strong><\/p>

I think that the need for self-compassion hasn’t changed but the awareness of where it could be helpful has become a little more obvious. We feel more alone. We may perhaps find ourselves noticing how hard we are on ourselves, how demanding we are, and maybe a little more distracted by our inner dialogue. More and more folks are discovering this to be true for themselves because of the isolation. They’re starting to notice the tone and tenor of their inner critic. There is a whole range of explanations for why this is, but the more we become aware of our inner critic, the better understanding we will have of the ways our inner dialogue can cause suffering in our lives and limits us. The pandemic certainly magnified that.<\/p>

The other piece of this is the interaction and synergy between mindfulness and self-compassion. The qualities of mindfulness and self-compassion are really interrelated. The capacity to be present to our own experience and the willingness to be kind to ourselves in difficult moments requires us to be truly present with our difficult experiences. In other words, mindfulness and self-compassion actually equip us take on the difficulties that we face, whether it’s difficult emotions, relationships, thoughts, moods, and all sorts of things.<\/p>

The synergistic effects between mindfulness and self-compassion allows us to confront and manage our difficulties more effectively. Our natural tendency is to push away difficulties or try to avoid pain, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but often becomes the very thing that causes us to wall ourselves off from our experiences. Our ability to navigate difficult experiences is compromised when we\u2019re not accustomed to fully encountering them. Our habitual reaction patterns tend to be to avoid them or try to control them. Mindfulness and self-compassion practices can empower us to be present to our full experience, make better choices, take better care of ourselves, and move in more valued directions. We can become skilled at tolerating our own inner experience- good, bad, or indifferent.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t