Building Self-Compassion
Building Self-Compassion

Building Self-Compassion
Module 2
Barriers to Self-Compassion
Introduction

2

Positive Beliefs about Self-Criticism

2

Challenging Positive Beliefs about Self-Criticism

4

Worksheet: Challenging Your Positive Beliefs

5

Negative Beliefs about Self-Compassion

7

Kindness vs Criticism Experiment

8

Worksheet: Kindness vs Criticism Experiment

10

Module Summary

12

About the Modules

13

The information provided in the document is for information purposes only. Please refer tothe full disclaimer and copyright statements available at www.cci.health.gov.au regarding theinformation on this website before making use of such information.

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Introduction

Building Self-Compassion

If developing a sense of compassion towards yourself were simple, then reading Module 1 would be enoughand you would be oozing self-compassion by now without any trouble. But self-compassion is not a simple
or easy road. For most people there will be barriers that get in the way of their self-compassion journey.
So to give yourself the best chance of being able to build self-compassion, it is helpful to check if thesecommon obstacles apply to you too. If they do, then let’s address them from the outset so they don’t messup your journey too much. If these barriers don’t apply to you, well then you can be confident that you arecommencing these modules from the best starting point to get the most out of them.
In this module, we will address the two key barriers to self-compassion that people
are typically unaware of. These barriers relate to the beliefs we hold about what itmeans to us to be self-critical and what it means to us to be self-compassionate.

Positive Beliefs about Self-Criticism“I am such an idiot, I can’t believe I did that, I am so useless, I need to do better, I should be doing better, otherpeople don’t make such stupid mistakes. I am just not careful enough, I have never been careful enough, and now I
am failing and getting what I deserve”
Does this sort of critical self-talk sound familiar to you? Now it may be obvious when we see it on paper inblack and white that this is an unhelpful way of talking to ourselves. However, what we may not realise isthat we can often be in two minds about this. We may not realise that whilst we acknowledge that selfcriticism is unhelpful, at the same time deep down we may believe that self-criticism carries some benefits.
Ask yourself the following questions to see if you hold any positive beliefs about the benefits of being selfcritical:
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•
•
•
•
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Why is my mind critical?
Why does it speak to me in this critical way?
What is its motive?
What is its aim?
What is it trying to achieve?
How might my mind be trying to protect or help me by criticising me?
Or, let’s come at it from the opposite angle, if I wasn’t critical of myself, what do I fear might happen?
Hence, what bad things might self-criticism prevent?

Our minds aren’t stupid and they don’t do things for no good reason. Self-criticism usually occurs to fulfil
at least one of two main aims:
1) Self-improvement. Self-criticism often occurs as an attempt at self-correction. It can be seen
as a means of highlighting weakness and fixing them. It can be perceived as a means of trying tobetter ourselves, motivate ourselves, push ourselves to do better, be stronger, stop mistakes oraddress flaws. It can be intended to keep us down to earth, grounded and humble.
2) Self-punishment. For some, self-criticism is a form of self-punishment. Some people may havethe sense that they are bad or they have done something bad, and may feel that the correct courseof action to be absolved of this is via some form of punishment. And if there is no one else to dishout the punishment, then they will dish it out to themselves.

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Building Self-Compassion
So, common positive beliefs that some people hold might sound something like,Self-criticism…

Motivates me;
Helps me get things done
Toughens me up
Pushes me to excel
Makes me a better person

If you hold any positive beliefs about the benefits of being critical towards yourself, see if you cansummarise your positive beliefs about self-criticism using the following sentence.
Being self-critical helps me because__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now, before we start addressing your positive beliefs about self-criticism, we need to know how much you
believe them.

How much do you believe self-criticism is helpful?
(Circle the percentage that best describes the strength of your belief)
0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Believing that self-criticism is beneficial can create a barrier to giving up self-criticism
and embracing self-compassion. After all, why would you give up something that you
thought was good. So, rather than just blindly accepting the idea that self-criticism
is helpful, we need to check this out a bit further.
One way of doing this is to have a go at challenging or disputing yourbeliefs. That means dissecting your beliefs about the benefits of selfcriticism, by evaluating if they really are accurate and true, and examining
what evidence you base your beliefs on. In this way you will be like adetective, trying to get to the facts of whether self-criticism really is helpful
to you.

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Building Self-Compassion
Challenging Positive Beliefs about Self-Criticism
Below is a list of questions you can ask yourself to challenge whether your positive beliefs about selfcriticism are really true. These questions are to help you do your detective work. An example is given
below of how to use these questions to challenge your beliefs, and on page 5 you will find a worksheet tohelp you do this for yourself.

Evidence For

What makes you think self-criticism is helpful?
What’s the evidence for your positive beliefs?
Can you specifically describe how self-criticism helps?
Is the evidence for your beliefs good/solid/reliable?
Is there another way the evidence for your beliefs could be viewed?

Evidence Against

Is there any evidence that goes against your positive beliefs about self-criticism?
What is the aim of your self-criticism? Does self-criticism really achieve this aim?
Can you achieve your aims without self-criticism? (i.e., instead encouraging yourself or taking action)
Is it self-criticism that is helpful or something else? (i.e., taking action)
What are the negative consequences of being self-critical? How is self-criticism damaging to you? How dothese things fit with the idea that it is helpful?
If being critical is so helpful, would you use it as a way of dealing with a friend or child who was struggling
with something? If not, why not?
Have you ever conducted a proper experiment, comparing the outcome of being critical versus kind to
yourself? If you haven’t done this then how do you truly know that self-criticism is helping you?
EXAMPLE:
Evidence For

Evidence Against

Self-criticism motivates me to fix problems
with myself.
Self-criticism helps me be in control and getthings done properly.

But self-criticism often zaps my motivation so
I feel unable to do things and I don’t feel incontrol then.
Maybe I could try encouraging myself and I
might still be able to tackle my problems andget things done.
It isn’t the self-criticism that helps me, but
taking action. It is possible to take action
without criticising myself.
Self-criticism gets me down, makes me feelanxious, and paralyses me, which completely
contradicts the idea that it is helping me.
I would think that criticism was a cruel andprobably ineffective way to help a friend or achild with a problem they were dealing with.
I have never properly compared self-kindness
to self-criticism to see which is a more effective
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Building Self-Compassion

Challenging Your Positive Beliefs
Belief: Self-criticism is helpful
Evidence For

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Evidence Against

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Building Self-Compassion
An additional exercise that may be useful in rounding off the challenging of your positive beliefs about selfcriticism, is to have a go at the following. What you learn from this exercise you might choose to add into
your page 5 worksheet.
Think about an issue that you often criticise yourself about (e.g., your social skills, work ability, study habits,
tidiness, appearance, etc.). Using the first column below, write the types of things you usually say to
yourself about this issue. Also note the tone of voice with which you say them.
In the second column, pretend it was not you but a close and cared for friend who was struggling with thesame issue. Now write out what you would say to them, and again note the tone of voice you would use
with them.
In the third column pretend you were dealing with a child who was struggling with the same concerns.
Again, write out what you would say to them, and again note the tone of voice you would use with them.

Me

FriendChild

I would say…

I would say…

I would say…

Voice Tone:

Voice Tone:

Voice Tone:

What do you notice? If the way you talk to yourself is very different from how you would deal with afriend or child, think about why this is the case, and what it says about the helpfulness of self-criticism.
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Building Self-Compassion
Negative Beliefs about Self-Compassion
So, if we give up being self-critical, and instead are more self-compassionate, we may fear a negative
backlash. Some people fear they would become lazy, self-indulgent, self-absorbed, undisciplined and out ofcontrol. Some may be concerned that they would achieve nothing, get nothing done, make mistakes,
stagnate in life and never progress forward.
There are a lot of misconceptions about what self-compassion truly involves. Many see it as being too‘wishy washy’ or ‘touchy feely’, giving the impression that self-compassion equals being ‘weak’. Others see
it as equating to self-pity and side-stepping having to take responsibility in life.
See if you can summarise any negative beliefs about self-compassion you may hold using the following
sentence.
The downsides of self-compassion are…_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Just like with your positive beliefs about self-criticism, we need to know how much you believe yournegative beliefs about self-compassion.
How much do you believe self-compassion is unhelpful?
(Circle the percentage that best describes the strength of your belief)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

To address misconceptions you may have about self-compassion, we need to come back to the definition ofwhat true self-compassion is in the first place. A helpful way to do this is to think of people that you
consider to be compassionate human beings.
Write a list of people that you would label as compassionate. These may be famous people, people from
history or current figures in society. These may be people you know and have encountered over your life
time, or people you don’t know, maybe a stranger who’s life story you heard about on a news report.
Take a moment to write down the names of people that you think embody compassion. If none come tomind easily, then be on the lookout for acts of compassion in everyday life, either directly noticing orexperiencing someone being compassionate, or noticing things on TV or in newspapers detailingcompassionate acts by others.
Compassionate People: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Now, write out the particular qualities these people have demonstrated that have led you to conclude thatthese are compassionate people.
Compassionate Qualities: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Building Self-Compassion
Now, have a look at the list of compassionate qualities you wrote down. How do these qualities fit with
the negative qualities mentioned earlier like laziness, self-indulgence, self-absorption, undisciplined, lack ofcontrol, weakness, self-pitying, and under-achievement?
Hopefully the sorts of qualities you noted were quite the opposite of this, and reflected what truecompassion is all about. Qualities like being kind, supportive, warm, caring, non-judgemental, accepting,generous, strong, stable, courageous, knowledgeable, understanding, insightful, resilient, persistent,
tenacious, etc.

Kindness vs Criticism Experiment
So far, we have looked at both your positive beliefs about self-criticism and negative beliefs about selfcompassion in detail. However, the best way to truly assess for ourselves whether self-criticism reallyhelps and self-compassion really hinders, is to do an experiment to find out.
If you believe that self-criticism is helpful and/or self-compassion is unhelpful to you, then you need tocompare what happens when you criticise yourself with what happens when you are kind towards yourself.
This will allow you to judge which approach is more helpful, and see if there are any downsides of either
approach.
In this experiment we want you to alternate between each day of the week, being kind towards
yourself on one day, then self-critical the next day. It should look something like this:Kind Day: On the first day, put all that usual self-criticism to the side as best you
can, saving it up for the following day, and speak to yourself like you would someone
you cared about. Now, this is not about being unrealistically positive (e.g.,“everything will be great”) or heaping yourself with praise (e.g., “I am awesome”), butinstead being encouraging and kind in your words and tone of voice. Now this will
be hard and foreign to you at first, but just do what you can. As you work further
into these modules you will get better at being kind towards yourself.
Be clear about what sorts of things you will say to yourself and your tone of voice on your Kind Day (e.g., I
will say things like “I know this is really hard, everyone struggles with this, just do the best you can and hang in
there”, and I will have a soft warm tone to my voice).
Critical Day: Now, on the second day, purposely be as critical towards yourself as you
can. Berate and be harsh with yourself over every little thing, every mistake, everything
you don’t like about yourself and your efforts never being up to scratch.
Be clear about what sorts of things you will say to yourself and your tone of voice on
your Critical Day (e.g., I will call myself an “idiot” a lot, say that “nothing I do is good enough,and I should do better” and be very cold and hard in my tone of voice to myself).
On Day 3, go back to it being a KIND DAY and on day 4, make it a CRITICAL DAY again, and so on. Keepalternating each day between kindness and criticism.
Before you start the experiment, complete the worksheet on page 10 in as much detail as you can and thencontinue filling it out as you go along.

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Building Self-Compassion
Instructions for completing the worksheet:First, write down what you think will happen on the days you criticise yourself, and what you think will
happen on the days you are kind to yourself. If you think self-criticism has many positive benefits, then you
should predict better outcomes on the days you criticise yourself (e.g., you will be more motivated, youwill do a better job, get more things done, feel more in control, feel stronger, etc). If you think being kindto yourself has many downsides, then you should predict a poorer outcome on the days you are kind to
yourself (e.g., not getting things done, being lazy, not dealing with daily duties, feel weak, etc).
If you are a person who doesn’t believe that self-criticism has any benefits and you do believe that selfkindness will have many benefits and no real downsides, then you can either skip this experiment, or do theexperiment anyway to make yourself even more confident of this.
Now it is time to just give the experiment a go and see what happens.
For each of the next 7 days, at the end of your day, assess any positive outcomes you noticed, negative
outcomes you noticed, how much you got done, and note how you generally felt.
Then, compare what you predicted would happen with what actually happened on those 7 days. Whattended to happen on Kind Days and what tended to happen on Critical Days?
•

If you found poorer outcomes on the days you criticised yourself compared to the days you werekind, then hopefully this enhances your motivation to put all your efforts into building selfcompassion in the modules to come.

•If you found no difference in outcomes between the two days, then it seems you won’t be losing
anything by trying a new kinder way of treating yourself. So, it might be worth giving selfcompassion a try in the modules to come, and see if over time you start to experience the wellresearched benefits of self-compassion. Also, if there was no difference, this could be because you
struggled to be kind to yourself. After working through the coming modules and developing moreskills in self-compassion, you could always revisit this experiment to see whether a difference inoutcomes then emerges.

•

If you found better outcomes on the days you were critical compared to the days you were kind to
yourself, again we would question whether you really were being kind to yourself, and whether you
need more practice to reap the benefits of self-kindness.

So, what did you find?

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Kindness vs Criticism Experiment
Prediction 1: What do you think will happen on the days you are critical of yourself?

Prediction 2: What do you think will happen on the days you are kind to yourself?

Day:

day

day

day

day

day

day

Day

Kind
Day

Critical
Day

Kind
Day

Critical
Day

Kind
Day

Critical
Day

Kind
Day

What positive
outcomes
occurred?

What negative
outcomes
occurred?

Did you get
things done?

How did you
feel?

Compare your two predictions with what actually happened. What did you learn about self-kindness andself-criticism?

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Building Self-Compassion
Your Verdict…
Now that you have challenged and experimented with your positive beliefs about self-criticism and negative
beliefs about self-compassion:
Rate again how much you believe self-criticism is helpful?
(Circle the percentage that best describes the strength of your belief)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

AND
Rate again how much you believe self-compassion is unhelpful?
(Circle the percentage that best describes the strength of your belief)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Ideally we would like these beliefs to be at zero, but that may not happen overnight. If there is someweakening (however small) of your beliefs compared to your earlier ratings, then congratulate yourself. If
there’s no change yet, that’s OK. Changing your beliefs may take time and persistence. You may needlonger than one week doing your Kindness vs Criticism Experiment to further weaken these beliefs andprove to yourself that self-criticism brings no real benefits and self-compassion has no significant downsides.
The aim of this module is to ready you for the modules to come, renewing your enthusiasm to give up selfcriticism and really throwing yourself into trying the various strategies that will be suggested for building
your self-compassionate side.
As we move forward from here, keep in mind that to benefit from the modules to come it will be
important to approach them with an open mind, with an attitude of curiosity, and a willingness toexperiment with new ways of doing things. At times the strategies may seem unusual or foreign to you, but
we would encourage you to have a go. Recognise that what you have been doing so far hasn’t beenworking well for your mental health and well-being, so why not try something new. Be aware that thestrategies recommended will need a lot of practice to be effective. Just like any skill, we need practice,practice, practice, to get better and fully discover if it works for us. Self-compassion is no exception. Selfcompassion is a skill, and the modules to come will be your training program to develop and fine tune thisskill.

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Building Self-Compassion
Module Summary
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Without being aware of it, we can often hold positive beliefs about the benefits of self-criticism andnegative beliefs about the downsides of self-compassion, which will create barriers to building selfcompassion.
Some people think that self-criticism can help them to improve themselves, motivating, toughening
and pushing them to do better. But you have to truly ask yourself what is the evidence that selfcriticism really brings these benefits? And if self-criticism really was beneficial, why is it that mostpeople wouldn’t use it as a way of dealing with a loved friend or child who was upset?
Some people think that self-compassion leads to weakness, laziness, and self-pity. But if you thinkof people you admire for their compassionate nature, would you consider them to be weak, lazy or
full of self-pity?
The reality is that self-compassion reflects qualities most people desire such as being kind,
supportive, warm, caring, non-judgemental, accepting, generous, strong, stable, courageous,
knowledgeable, understanding, insightful, resilient, persistent, tenacious, etc.
To prove the benefits of self-compassion and unhelpfulness of self-criticism to yourself, have a go at
the Kindness vs Criticism Experiment, to really find out for yourself.

Coming up next …

In Module 3, we will prepare you withsome essential skills that lay thefoundation for building selfcompassion…

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Building Self-Compassion
About The Modules
CONTRIBUTORSDr Lisa Saulsman (MPsych1; PhD2)Centre for Clinical Interventions

Bruce Campbell (MPsych1)
Centre for Clinical Interventions

Dr Adelln Sng (MPsych1; PhD2)Centre for Clinical Interventions
1

Masters of Psychology (Clinical Psychology)2

Doctor of Philosophy (Clinical Psychology)

BACKGROUND
The concepts and strategies in these modules have been developed from evidence based psychologicalpractice, primarily Compassion Focused Therapy, which is an extension of and adjunct to CognitiveBehaviour Therapy. These modules particularly draw on the work of Paul Gilbert and Kristen Neff.

REFERENCES
These are some of the professional references that informed the development of modules in thisinformation package.
Gilbert, P. (2009). The Compassionate Mind. Constable: London, UK.
Gilbert. P. (2010). Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features. Routledge: East Sussex, UK
Gilbert, P. & Choden. (2015). Mindful Compassion: Using the Power of Mindfulness and Compassion to Transform
Our Lives. Robinson: London.
Hackmann, A., Bennett-Levy, J., & Holmes, E. A. (2011). Oxford Guide to Imagery in Cognitive Therapy. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Leaviss, J. & Uttley, L. (2015). Psychotherapeutic benefits of compassion-focused therapy: An earlysystematic review. Psychological Medicine, 45, 927-945
Linehan, M. M. (1993). Skills Training Manual For Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford
Press.
MacBeth, A. & Gumley, A. (2012). Exploring compassion: A meta-analysis of the association between selfcompassion and psychopathology. Clinical Psychology Review, 32, 545-552.
Neff, K. (2011). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. William Morrow: NY.

“BUILDING SELF-COMPASSION”
This module forms part of:Saulsman, L., Campbell, B., & Sng, A. (2017). Building Self-Compassion: From Self-Criticism to Self-Kindness.
Perth, Western Australia: Centre for Clinical Interventions.
ISBN: 9780987547903
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Created: March 2017

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