Self Compassion

The nature of the Christian faith is one of virtue and meeting the mark. Many virtues are constantly enumerated into the minds of Christians throughout their spiritual journey. However, self compassion is often looked over as a means to helping Christians to meet the mark. In the frame of our faith we often forfeit self compassion for the sake of holiness. However, true holiness allows for compassion in the midst of rebuke. Christian psychologist Joshua Knabb (2019) wrote a book about compassion practices for Christians where he claimed , “Therefore, we need permission to include ourselves in the circle of our compassion. For Christians, the permission comes from Scripture—from the unconditional love of God. Unfortunately, our capacity to see God as unconditionally loving is tainted by our personal relationship history.”.  In some Christian circles, self compassion along with self love are viewed as means to a selfish end. In a study done evaluating Christians, and their view on counseling and self compassion determined that, “ …Christians with less of a sense of grace would also be more likely to display unhealthy psychological characteristics. Con-versely stated, higher levels of grace were associated with greater mental health. These results are, of course, pre- experimental, and thus do not imply cause and effect. This raises the question of whether persons who are less graceful and also forgiving to others are more likely to be in counseling because of this attitude, or whether they have experienced more hurt at the hands of others and thus struggle to be graceful, leading to counseling.”(Watson et al., 2011). Compassion is the antecedent to forgiveness, and it plays a vital role in a healthy-natured individual. It promotes balance to see the world as it is instead the world shaping or perception. The science behind self compassion explains that ”It appears that self-compassion promotes soothing, “hypo-egoic” (Leary, 2012) responses to negative outcomes that reduce threat system activation and depressive symptoms.”(Johnson & O’Brien, 2013). Overall, Self Compassion is one of the most mindful practices a that promote the Christian faith.