How can we be more compassionate with ourselves?

When everything has to be better, faster and more beautiful, our life in its current state will actually never seem good enough. How can we be kinder to ourselves? Belgian doctor and mindfulness trainer David Dewulf has been studying this question for years. 

What is self-compassion?
“The best way for me to explain is by comparing self-compassion to self-esteem. For a long time, we thought it important to improve our self-esteem. There were even plenty of books on how to boost it. I read them too, but for some reason I always felt a stubborn resistance to their message. I didn’t really know why, because self-esteem was presented as a good thing, and said to be important for our wellbeing. Then, when I started reading about self-compassion, I understood my resistance. Self-esteem means: I am good if I am first or the most beautiful or the smartest or best in class.

This might work for a while, but sooner or later someone else is going to catch up, and your self-esteem will collapse. It’s only ever possible for one person to be number one, so you end up being each other’s rivals. And then there’s self-compassion. While self-esteem says, ‘I’m okay when I’m okay’, self-compassion says ‘I’m okay even when I’m not okay’. That’s the point. Will I allow myself to make mistakes, to be vulnerable? Will I allow myself to have needs, to admit that I need recognition? Can I be okay just as I am, without always having to do something?”