There are way more than 3 reasons why compassion and self-care are crucial yet, lets start with 3 most important ones.
Self-care and compassion often suffer in times of stress. In our prior article about what Empty Nest Syndrome is, we determined that a decline in self-care can be a sign of depression. In times of stress, self-care can suffer.
Self-care and compassion often suffer in times of stress.
Marriages can be stressed also. We live in such a busy world. Everywhere you go you hear about either being more, doing more, or buying more. With everyone in the family either going to off to school or working, “busy” is the new normal.
1. Self-care often falls by the wayside in times of stress,
2. Spending quality time with others is minimal at best, and worst of all,
3. Compassion becomes a luxury not a necessity.
The Benefits of Compassion
Compassion boosts your health and well-being. There are many benefits to taking on being compassionate both for yourself and, equally as important, for others:
For Yourself
- Feeling good about yourself.
- Exuding more confidence.
- Having a softer, gentler, kinder demeanor.
- Attracting more positive people, situations, and experiences in your life.
- Your health improvement brings more energy, better sleep, and life experiences.
For Others
- You are a contribution to others when you show compassion.
- Compassion lets them know they are not alone.
- Other people may reap the rewards of feeling related, understood, and full of hope.
- People who are equally kind and compassionate will draw near to you.
- How you treat yourself is an example of how they should treat themselves.
- You’re a model for others on how to improve their relationships.
- You can create a ripple of compassion, that positively affects many people.
How Self Compassion Changes Your Life
Being Compassionate to yourself is a new way of being, and brings improvement to many areas of your life. When you are compassionate to yourself, you reap the benefits and the rewards. And your family benefits also.
Self-Compassion allows you the opportunity to take care of your own needs by being kind and gentle to yourself in times of adversity; as self-care and compassion can suffer in times of stress.
As humans, we all fall short. Sometimes we do not reach our goals and sometimes the actions of others impact us negatively. We make mistakes, forget things, loose our cool, and overreact. We are human. Understanding the basic fact that we are human allows us to be kind and compassionate and ask ourselves what we have learned from this experience. I read a great article written by Debbie Hampton of The Best Brain Possible. She says, “Not to be confused with self-pity, complacency or arrogance, self-compassion involves acknowledging your own suffering, faults, and mistakes and responding with kindness, caring, and understanding, without any judgment or evaluation”.
Being compassionate to ourselves is a better use of energy.
Imagine the time and trouble it takes to feed a negative mindset in reaction to a mistake. We can, instead, take time to self-soothe. Self-soothing is shown to have many benefits. We can move forward more quickly rather than ruminating on our mistakes. We can learn and grow and keep moving forward – the real definition of life.
More importantly, when we show ourselves compassion, we train others to do the same. If we beat ourselves up, we are basically giving others permission to do the same. When we show ourselves compassion, we model how we expect others to treat us, as well.
The Impact of Compassion on Your Relationships
While we are all interested in changing and improving our lives for the better, what about the impact compassion has on our relationships? Navigating through life means taking responsibility for our actions; however, we are also navigating many relationships within families, work, and socially.
Showing compassion offers us the opportunity to make a difference in someone else’s life.
People need to know we understand and that we are there for them. Loving and supporting others is the catalyst for helping them through the rough patches of life. What is better than being a contributing factor to changing the direction of someone else’s life? Now that is powerful!
In conclusion, when we offer compassion to others, we feel good about ourselves and make a difference to them. These are the 3 ways compassion and self-care are crucial, especially because self-care and compassion often suffer in times of stress.
Take care of yourself and exercise self-care every day. Help yourself to this set of Self-care Planner Sheets. When we focus on what needs to get done in stressful times, it can take the focus off of ourselves. This frees us to show compassion and love to ourselves and others. Click the Picture Below.
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