Top Highlights

• When we feel anxious or frustrated, we talk to ourselves more harshly than we’d find acceptable by anyone else.
• Self-compassion improves people’s participation in groups and is associated with a more adaptive attitude to failure. People who are self-compassionate recover better from psychological knocks, like relationship breakups and career setbacks. One way to show yourself compassion is through self-talk.
• There are four elements of self-compassion: using a tone of kindness, recognizing that pain is a universal human experience, taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions that neither suppresses or exaggerates them, and expecting yourself to make the best decision you can in the situation you’re in.
• Sometimes, compassionate self-talk is a gentle and supportive nudge. For example, I like to ask myself, What do I need right now?
• Sometimes, self-compassionate talk is an irreverent challenge of beliefs. For example, I’ve written hundreds of blog articles. Some have over a million reads. Yet sometimes I’ll doubt myself. I’m not very good at this. I have nothing unique to say about this. Instead of taking these thoughts seriously, I will lightheartedly say to myself, Yup, you’...

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