“I tried my best.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.”
“I wish I’d done better, but it’s not the end of the world.”
To people raised with the “everybody’s a winner” high-self-esteem mind-set, statements like these might sound like lame excuses, sad-sack give ups, hallmarks of weakness.
Rather, the self-compassionate attitude in these statements has tremendous power to help achieve goals, reduce stress, and promote mental, physical and emotional well-being.
An exciting and fast-growing body of research is finding that practicing self-compassion has quantifiable benefits. It can facilitate weight loss; speed emotional recovery after divorce; help inoculate members of the military against PTSD. It soothes women struggling with negative body image; stressed mothers of autistic children; people coping with the realities of aging. It leads to healthier behaviors, such as going to the doctor and exercising. It can help alleviate test anxiety and fear of public speaking.
[For more of this story, written by Sophia Dembling, go to http://www.dallasnews.com/life...-self-compassion.ece]
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