Self-Compassion after Trauma

August 1st, 2011
By Susanne M. Dillmann, Psy.D., Post Traumatic Stress / Trauma Topic Expert Contributor

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A common but not frequently recognized side effect of traumatic life experiences is an excessive harshness towards self, which often times co-exists with a healthy degree of care and concern for others. While this harshness towards self can be expressed in a multitude of ways, a commonality is the existence of different standards – be it the standard regarding fairness, worth, acceptability, love, etc…– for yourself and others; with the standards for self being more stringent, unrealistic and possibly even unattainable. Phrased another way, you judge yourself with more rigorous criteria than you use for anyone else. Ultimately, this demandingness does not lead to increased achievement but rather perpetuates the emotional mistreatment and ensuing wounds you experienced in your past.

Healing through this harshness towards self is pivotal in your ability to embrace and live a meaningful as well as desirable life, which contains more peace than misery, more joy than pain. A cornerstone in this healing is the development and growth of self-compassion.

Before exploring what compassion is and how to cultivate it, let’s clarify what compassion is not. Often times people equate compassion with an almost spineless, sugary form of kindness or a type of hall pass – granting one total permission to wallow in endless complaints and accusations of unfairness. Compassion is neither. Nor is compassion the contemptuous or indulgent variant of pity that many independent individuals regard as kryptonite. Finally, unlike sympathy, sorrow or commiseration, compassion entails at minimum a hint of action or desire to help. So then what is compassion?

Compassion is an awareness of hurt, suffering, difficulty, unfairness, etc…, which progresses past mere recognition. This awareness stokes a soft gentleness towards the pain and elicits a turning towards the source. Within this turning towards in an inclination to alleviate the pain, to rectify the experience; either with an edge of urgency or with a sense of longer term dedication.

These four components of compassion (recognition, tenderheartedness, a pulling alongside the source and a proclivity to alleviate) take a powerful stance against wrongs which have been done and champion healing; thereby making compassion diametrically opposed to callousness, indifference as well as heartlessness.

A prerequisite for compassion is an unabridged recognition of life’s experiences as they were and as they are. Revisionist history is not fertile soil for compassion. Many survivors of painful life events struggle with accepting the full impact as well as the wide range of emotions that were/are unleashed by the untoward life event. For many there is an unspoken trade along the lines of, “if I censor or deny the magnitude of this experience then I will be protected from any further damage”, making a complete accounting as well as inventory implausible.

Once there has been an acceptance of life as it was/is, then you can practice having a tender, nurturing stance towards the pain, difficulty or struggle, you are experiencing. Such a stance requires that you relax or abandon rigid judgment – for rather than determining your situation, your behaviors, thoughts or feelings as being, “good” or “bad”, “legitimate” or “ridiculous”, you are acknowledging them as simply being. The reason for this inherent requirement is that if you maintain a judgmental stance you will evaluate whether your situation is worthy of compassion and odds are you will determine your situation as not meeting the requirements for compassion.

For example, imagine that you have a beloved dog as both your pet and companion. One day the two of you are out on a walk and your dog stumbles – due to not noticing a divot in the road; if you judge your dog as being irresponsible because he was not watching where he walked, you will most likely express some irritation and keep on walking, if on the other hand you do not apply judgment to the situation, but rather assess that your dog stumbled and scraped his leg, the odds are higher that you will literally and emotionally turn towards your dog, whisper gentle words, determine whether he can keep walking and make your decision based on what will alleviate your dog’s discomfort. It is only by skipping judgment and assessing the reality of the situation as it is that your compassion can flow freely.

So, how do you begin to grow your compassion? Well, we will look at that in the next few articles, but for now just start small. The next time you experience some stress or a hurt feeling practice acknowledging the reality of the turn of events, recognize your emotional pain as being present and legitimate, tap into your tenderness and extend a dollop of this nurture from yourself to yourself.

Keep in mind that growing compassion, just like any other skill takes practice. You will grow more proficient at it, and don’t forget to practice extending compassion to yourself even as you are working on growing self-compassion. Finally, as always, feel free to harness the wisdom and knowledge of a trained professional to help you practice developing this worthy skill.

©Copyright 2011 by Susanne M. Dillmann, PsyD, therapist in Escondido, CA. All Rights Reserved.

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