I started a story series on Instagram called In My Feels Friday, where I talk about what’s got me in my feels that week. It’s usually psychology related but not necessarily, and always with a cow. I have also decided to start blogging about some of the topics so this post is derived from that! Last Friday I talked about self-compassion, specifically one of its three components, common humanity. I was lucky enough to do research on self-compassion when I was in school and it is still a concept that helps me to this day. I think of it as “the secret sauce” of life, the stuff that brings it all together, makes it make sense.
So often we feel different from others, from making mistakes, feeling embarrassed or ashamed, feeling like we’ve done something wrong, or even worse that we are wrong. We might feel like there’s parts of ourselves that we couldn’t possibly share with others, something just so inherently bad or gross or dumb or lazy (which reminds me of the four things that social psychologists say we attribute to others when we don’t understand them, but that is probably for another time). Our fear of ourselves closes us in, makes us small, makes us hustle, makes us do things for which we do not understand our intention. Then once we have done something selfish or dumb or embarrassing, there we are at the beginning again, saying that we should be better.
If we zoom out a little bit and try to think logically, we can understand that all people make mistakes. We are conditioned by our nature and our upbringing to hide our mistakes and failings from others as a defense mechanism. And maybe a lot of people don’t even realize how much they accommodate, but we have all heard the phase “putting up a front.” While the exterior can be pretty, I would say it creates a pandemic of perfectionism and self-hatred. This poem by Shel Silverstein comes to mind:
It’s also important to let our brains wrap around the fact that it is impossible for anyone to have all the information. If we think about how incomprehensible the universe is and then try to apply that to our own experiences you can see that everyone is running around feeling as lost as you are. Which would be depressing, but hold on, I’m about to make my point:
Common humanity tells us that these things we feel might make us different from others are actually the reason we’re all connected.
This might feel like a leap to believe that you are connected to others BECAUSE OF your failings and mistakes. Especially if you are critical of yourself and very identified and think that you are your mistakes. Trusting in our common humanity might feel like you’re exposing a really big ugly wound to someone else and you might fear that they might say “ew that’s the grossest wound I’ve ever seen!” but in reality, if it’s someone that we trust, they might say, “I’ve had that same wound too.”
So, I think it is really important to think beyond ourselves when we suddenly become aware of a mistake we’ve made. We can let ourselves spin around and criticize ourselves for it endlessly, or we can give it some space and try to connect with the larger picture: you are one human part of a very imperfect humankind, and you are trying your best. Hopefully you will realize it is the limitations and failings that connect us all.
If you are interested in learning more about self-compassion I recommend looking into the work of Kristin Neff. Her website even has her psychological test used in research to be able to tell how much self-compassion you have! It’s a good place to start. The other person I recommend checking into is Tara Brach – she is one of the only people who I would follow blindly anywhere, she has talks and meditations and books and honestly she is one of the reasons why I want to be a counselor.
Thanks for reading, sweet friends.