Events and experiences beyond your control can drastically change the way you view the world, and how you react to it. Even the simplest of pleasures and everyday tasks, can be ‘coloured’ by strong emotions that you feel powerless to tame.
This is often when you need a therapist to guide you towards coping strategies and therapies that might work for you. One of the options is compassion therapy, which is considered an effective way to untangle emotions and feel more at peace. It is especially helpful if you feel shame, guilt or a lack of self-worth, due to how your strong emotions are currently affecting other people in your life.
It is even harder to move beyond grief, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, if you are constantly worried that your partner, children, parents or siblings are also ‘suffering’ because of your responses and actions. A belief that you are ‘letting others down’ just adds to your frustrations and poor mental health.
What is compassion focused therapy?
This is something you can try as an individual, or as part of a group or 1-2-1 therapy session. It is a type of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
CBT is a broad term for a range of talking therapies, that are highly effective at tackling the symptoms of various mental health issues. It examines how you think, feel and act, and then works towards a more positive interaction between those three things.
Compassion therapy can make CBT more productive, as it helps you to first address any feelings of shame, guilt and anger. It moves you towards a better understanding of those emotions, and helps you to be kinder to yourself.
You can also start to show more empathy for other people too, and find emotionally intelligent ways to deal with everyday situations.
According to one review of research on this topic: “There is a growing body of evidence within the healthcare community that suggests that developing feelings of compassion for self and others can have a profound impact on physiology, mental health and well-being.”
(source: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elaine-Beaumont/publication/304373257_A_narrative_review_exploring_the_effectiveness_of_Compassion-Focused_Therapy/links/5778e97908ae1b18a7e61c89/A-narrative-review-exploring-the-effectiveness-of-Compassion-Focused-Therapy.pdf)
Feeling calmer and more accepting can also improve your stress levels and general health too.
What are the origins of compassion therapy?
The concept was developed by a British clinical psychologist called Professor Paul Gilbert OBE, who founded the Compassionate Mind Foundation charity (see below for a link to his excellent book).
The basis of his Compassion Focused Therapy is that it's human nature to care and to show a sensitivity to suffering. From that, comes a desire to try to prevent and relieve suffering in ourselves and other people.
At times of grief or trauma, we can find our ability to care about ourselves and others becomes complex, fraught and difficult to manage. Compassion therapy – or simply learning to ‘forgive’ yourself and others – can help to restore your ability to self-soothe and find the strength and moral courage to help other people.
How is compassion focused therapy delivered?
Working with your therapist – or self-managing compassion therapy – involves considering human nature, and accepting how individuals all respond in their own personal way. Then, you progress to being more deliberate in your self care-giving.
This can involve constantly reminding yourself that you deserve to feel better and move forwards, and any backsteps are not a disaster. From this point, you start to move on to practicing compassion with other people, and forgiving them or learning more positive ways to perceive them.
If you are working with a therapist, they may help you to achieve greater compassion for yourself and others using a related technique, including Imagery Rescripting. This focuses your mind on situations and people, so you can start to view them in a more positive way, and manage your emotional response.
What else builds compassion?
Other things you may want to try in connection to compassion therapy – or self-managing a more empathetic response – includes expressive writing. For instance, writing a letter to yourself, a person who has died or someone who has ‘wronged you’ can be a significant step in your healing process.
You could try to find easy to achieve and practical ways to show compassion every day, so it becomes a more natural response to your own set-backs and the interactions you have with others.
Importantly, you also need to find self-sooth methods that work for you. That is, those little things that help you to replace feelings of self-critism, anger, shame and frustration, with a positive action.
Your self-sooth 'go-to' could be breathing exercises, listening to music, a brisk run, cooking something delicious for a friend, or crafting for example. You could also use mindfulness and positive affirmations, to stay in the moment, and avoid strong emotions overwhelming you.
The aim is to ‘switch’ yourself from negative and self-deprecating responses to greater acceptance of yourself and others, and a willingness to create a positive action or response.
Helpful resources:
Book on the topic by Paul Gilbert called “The Compassionate Mind (Compassion Focused Therapy)”
Book on expressive writing to create better mental health.
Keep revisiting The Elephant in the Room, to find more ways to deal with poor mental health, grief and other strong emotions that are holding you down, or back.
And remember – It’s okay, to not be okay.