Gentle with friends, harsh with yourself?

Why are we gentle with friends and so hard on ourselves?

When a friend makes a mistake, you'd probably say "don't worry, it happens to everyone". When it's you, the first line in your head is often "how could you mess up again". Many of us hold this double standard without noticing. This exercise asks you to write down both voices, what you'd tell a friend and what you actually told yourself, tone included, and look at them side by side.

It's adapted from "How would you treat a friend?", a self-compassion exercise by the American psychologist Kristin Neff. Neff has studied self-compassion for many years: treating yourself, when things hurt or go wrong, the way you'd treat a good friend. It's a common first exercise in the Mindful Self-Compassion programme she developed with the psychologist Christopher Germer.

Many people worry that going easy on themselves will make them slack. The UC Berkeley psychologists Juliana Breines and Serena Chen ran several experiments and found the opposite: after failing a test or doing something wrong, people guided to look at themselves with understanding put more time into studying and improving, and were keener to make amends and not repeat it. A new tone isn't lower standards; it gives you the strength to look at the thing again.

This exercise suits a middling amount of self-blame: a slip at work, some criticism, feeling you don't measure up. It isn't therapy and doesn't replace professional support. If the self-blame is heavy, keeps coming back, or is affecting your sleep and daily life, facing it with a counsellor or psychologist will take you further.

This exercise is adapted from "How would you treat a friend?", a self-compassion exercise by the American psychologist Kristin Neff. The steps and lines here are our own, written for this method.

How it works

1. 1Think of something recent you've been blaming yourself for, write a line or two, and rate how much you're blaming yourself now (0 to 10).
2. 2Picture a good friend going through exactly the same thing; write what you'd tell them, and pick a few words for your tone.
3. 3Back to you: write what you said to yourself afterwards, exactly as it was, and pick a few words for that voice's tone.
4. 4Put the two side by side, say how different they are, and think about why you're harder on yourself.
5. 5Rewrite your line in the tone you'd use with your friend; rate your self-blame again, note when that voice usually shows up, and keep it all on your new tone card.

References

1. Neff, K. D. Exercise 1: How would you treat a friend? Self-Compassion (self-compassion.org).
2. Breines, J. G., & Chen, S. (2012). Self-compassion increases self-improvement motivation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(9), 1133–1143.
3. Neff, K. D., & Germer, C. K. (2013). A pilot study and randomized controlled trial of the Mindful Self-Compassion program. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 69(1), 28–44.