How to Exercise Self-Compassion: The Key is Empathy and Vulnerability

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“I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.” —Brené Brown

We’ve all heard the advice, “love yourself” and “be kind to yourself” more times than we can count, right?

I don’t know about you, but when I started down the road of personal development years ago, I doubted this sage advice. Mostly because I didn’t even understand what it meant.

I tried affirmations like “I love myself,” or “I am worthy,” and hoped they would work. And they did, kind of.

I could love myself, but only when I was doing, being, and living up to my (very high) expectations of myself. What this manifested was virtually the opposite of this great advice: I started to love myself only when I would achieve ___ (fill in the blank). It was completely conditional, and this began to spill over into my relationships with others as well.

To be honest, I almost gave up entirely on the whole self-love thing until I started Life Coaching school, and suddenly was faced with a lot of hard questions about my sense of self and self-worth. I realized I needed to revisit the whole “love yourself” thing. I found an amazing coach who, among other coaching methods, follows the…