The holiday season is all about happiness and love, gratitude, compassion, and giving. The end of the year also brings lots of self-reflection and looking forward, putting forth hopes for the New Year.
You don’t need to wait until January to start prioritizing your personal growth and doing the things you need to do to feel your best. Now is the perfect time to start being kind to yourself and those around you, and practicing mindfulness and present-moment living.
The Dalai Lama once, so insightfully, remarked,
“If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love others. If you have no compassion for yourself then you are not [cap]able of developing compassion for others.”
Current research suggests the same: greater feelings of self-compassion predicts greater helping behavior toward others.
So, how can we increase our self-compassion?
Findings from past and current research have indicated that self-affirmation boosts one’s self-image by increasing positive self-feelings, including feelings related to self-compassion (sympathy, trust, and less criticism). Further studies have concluded that it was the greater feelings of compassion that fostered greater positive social behaviors, or “prosocial” behaviors. Prosocial behaviors include things such as sharing, charitable giving, volunteering, and offering help to others.
It is, perhaps, not so surprising that feelings of compassion have been associated with increased helping behavior. What may be surprising, however, is that current studies also provide direct evidence that these compassionate feelings are directed specifically toward the self (and not toward others). To increase your desire to give and help those around you, you actually need to be more compassionate toward and less critical of yourself first.
It can be hard to understand and empathize with others whom you disagree with or that seem so different from you.
And though it seems counterintuitive, you have to increase compassion for yourself first, in order to feel real compassion for others. Coming from a place of non-judgment and acceptance for others starts with loving and accepting yourself. Similarly, negative and judgmental feelings toward others may be an indication that you need to do some inner work and address negative feelings you may have toward yourself.
Helping others is not only a benefit to them and a good thing to do, it can also make us happier and healthier (helping others releases endorphins which improve your mood and boost self-esteem). And if you’re happy and feel good about yourself, you’re more likely to want to help others – and the cycle continues!
You still have 24 more days of this year to do and feel your best.
Take advantage of the present moment and start being your own biggest supporter, now. If you are interested in incorporating self-affirmations in your life, try using the Selfpause app! There you will find many recorded affirmations to increase self-compassion and other areas of personal growth, as well as the ability to write and record your own affirmations to reflect on.
Start helping others this Christmas season by first helping yourself! Give yourself the compassion you deserve and see how it increases your desire to help others.
