While trying to understanding the concept of ‘self-compassion’, it is desirable that one understands the meaning and essence of ‘compassion’ first. The literal meaning of the word ‘compassion’ is ‘to suffer with’. The experience of compassion is quite common to everybody. It involves noticing the suffering by somebody and feeling sympathetic for him. Normally people suffer when they lack something or fail to do something. When one feels compassionate for such people feel, one tries to share their suffering and feels like helping them out of their suffering (Germer& Salzberg, 2009).
Now, let ‘somebody’ in the above discussion be replaced by ‘I’ or ‘me’. One would be led to a situation where one has to be compassionate to oneself. In such a situation, one has to sympathise with oneself for the lack of something or failure to do or achieve something in the same way that one tries to do in case of suffering by others. Such compassion of a person to himself or herself is called ‘self-compassion’ (Van Dam, Sheppard, Forsyth & Earleywine, 2011).
Self-compassion is very important, but the least preached concept in the modern society. There is no person in the world, who will have every thing in life as desired by him. It is almost impossible to come across a person, who is successful in everything he attempts or tries to achieve. Reactions of people in such eventualities are frustration and despondency (Neff, 2003). They feel very unhappy and downcast as if such eventualities are singularly reserved for them. But, if one knows the art of ‘self-compassion’, he will commiserate with himself, regard failure as a one-off occurrence, recoups his confidence and energy and proceeds ahead for the next task or attempt. ‘Self-compassion’ is an excellent antidote to failures and disappointments in life, which can help in avoiding many psychological problems arising out of frustration and failure (Van Dam et al., 2011).
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