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The Self-Compassion Guide: Why Loving Yourself Is Harder Than You Think
10 Plays1 day ago
This is the self-love reality check for anyone who thinks it's "cliche" to talk about. The moment when you stop believing that harsh self-criticism equals motivation and start understanding why loving yourself is actually the hardest work you'll ever do. In this episode, I break down exactly why self-love feels impossible and give you practical tools to build self-compassion from the ground up.
We're getting real about:
- Why cultural conditioning taught us that being hard on ourselves equals progress
- How our brains are literally wired for negativity after years of self-criticism
- The perfectionism trap that makes you believe worthiness must be earned through achievement
- Why comparison culture and fear of complacency keep you stuck in self-attack mode
- The discomfort with positive feelings that makes you push away joy
- My practical strategies: self-compassion pause, reframing techniques, boundary setting, and mindfulness practices
- How to implement these tools into morning and evening routines that actually stick
From writing affirmations on bathroom mirrors to asking "would I let someone talk to my friend this way?" - this episode covers the daily practices that slowly rewire decades of negative self-talk.
Because here's the truth: if you've been practicing negativity for years, your brain has gotten really good at it. But you can train it to be just as good at self-compassion.
Self-love isn't selfish - it's necessary.
Subscribe. Share. Challenge yourself to respond to your inner critic like you would defend a friend. You deserve that protection too.
Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨
Join the conversation! How has your inner critic been showing up lately? DM me your experiences on Instagram @YourCoachMari.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome back to another inst installment of the Growing With Soul podcast with me, Marisol Moran. I am a certified life coach specializing in self-esteem and confidence. The Growing With Soul podcast focuses on continual growth and healing, especially in the small steps that we can take every single
Life Coaching and Discovery Calls
00:00:19
Speaker
day.
00:00:19
Speaker
So if you are looking to grow and heal and to connect with your true self, then this podcast is for you. Additionally, I am currently accepting clients, so if you are looking for help or accountability or any kind of assistance when you are on your healing journey or working towards any kind of goals, then definitely hit me up. You can schedule your very own discovery call through the link in the show notes.
Challenges of Developing Self-Love
00:00:43
Speaker
Today's topic is one that I feel like I can never actually talk enough about, and it is self-love. When we come from a place where we don't have self-love, maybe we have low self-worth or low self-esteem, we're lacking confidence, or just overall, if you've been there like I have, or you legitimately hate yourself and who you are as a person, when you are on a journey to heal that, and when you are on a journey to truly embrace and embody and have self-love,
00:01:19
Speaker
it's gonna take a minute. That is not something that you heal overnight or in like six months, especially if you've dealt with, say, low self-esteem or even like self-loathing for years.
00:01:34
Speaker
It's like that that negativity is so deeply rooted into how you think, how you feel about yourself, how you operate. So to truly heal that and to truly embody and like manifest self-love can take a long time.
00:01:52
Speaker
And with that, it's so much more complicated than we could even imagine. Because I have spoken to people and they're like, self-love is so cliche. And it's like, I am so happy for you that you are so filled with self-love that you think it's cliche to talk about.
00:02:09
Speaker
But whoever says that, for one, doesn't actually recognize how difficult it is to build that up at all, let alone as an adult, when you're trying to heal all these different wounds.
Cultural and Psychological Barriers to Self-Love
00:02:24
Speaker
But we're going to talk about some very practical things you can do in order to truly bring about more self-loving in your life. So the first thing we need to do is definitely understand where this resistance is coming from. And the first part is definitely cultural.
00:02:43
Speaker
Before we can actually get into those practical steps, it's really important to look at where this resistance to self-love is coming from. The first aspect to really look at, which I think is incredibly important because it just permeates our whole life, is actually the cultural conditioning that we go through.
00:03:01
Speaker
And that specifically is pertaining to like how we are taught that often self-criticism relates directly to motivation and therefore will equal self-love.
00:03:17
Speaker
So essentially for all of the people out there who are hard on themselves and feel like being hard on yourself is the way to advance. That the only way that you can improve, can get better, can reach your goal is if you are harsh to yourself.
00:03:34
Speaker
If that inner critic is on steroids and essentially any kind of self-love is going to look like selfishness. when that is not the case.
00:03:46
Speaker
And often so many of us who have such a harsh inner critic can shut down, one, shut down easily when someone outside of ourselves comes with any kind of criticism, especially if it is a little bit on the harsher side.
00:04:00
Speaker
But secondly, we can shut ourselves down through our own harsh criticism. And then when we're finally trying to reverse that mindset, but we're trying to sort of just shut that inner critic up.
00:04:15
Speaker
It is so hard because that voice is so well-trained that they just pop up in your mind. Those thoughts just pop up in your mind. Those criticisms pop up in your mind without even trying.
00:04:28
Speaker
The other definitely comes just like how our brains are wired. and Essentially, the more that we practice something, the more hardwired it is in our minds. And essentially, a lot of us have practiced negativity so much that we do have a negativity bias.
00:04:45
Speaker
And through that, it affects how we view ourselves, how we view our circumstances, and definitely how we view how we're going to perform and the outcome of certain things.
00:04:57
Speaker
And that's probably why it is so much easier for you to see your flaws, so much easier for you to see how things are going to perhaps the possibility of something turning out poorly is so much more readily available for you to see as reality.
Impact of Childhood and Achievement on Self-Worth
00:05:13
Speaker
Another one that is really important is also childhood messaging. And the impact of our childhood experiences are incredible, for lack of a better word. Like the impact of our childhood experiences specifically on our relationship with ourselves.
00:05:29
Speaker
And that can look like a myriad of different things. Like maybe somebody was extremely critical of you when you were a kid. Or maybe somebody just made a passing comment.
00:05:41
Speaker
And as an adult, they probably just said it without thinking much of it. It wasn't that deep to them. They just said what they said. But you, in your child's mind, took what they said, gave it so much meaning, and just ran with it for the rest of your life.
00:05:59
Speaker
And now you're an adult, and you have to begin to chip away at that because of that meaning that you gave it does not serve you. And also when it comes to childhood messaging and just childhood experiences in general and our own resistance to self-love, it would be remiss of me to not bring up child abuse as well and how that can impact how we view ourselves, how we feel about ourselves and our resistance to loving ourselves.
00:06:29
Speaker
Another thing as well that I think relates to that first point of being taught to be hypercritical of oneself as motivation is also the perfectsion perfectionism trap.
00:06:41
Speaker
So this is the belief that we must earn worthiness through achievement. So you are only deserving or worthy or worth celebrating if you have some sort of achievement.
00:06:53
Speaker
And I think in my experience especially, this is highly prevalent in really competitive spaces. Again, my experience being in like really competitive academic spaces.
00:07:04
Speaker
So i definitely relate relate to that one where like, unless it was like you were taking you all APs, like it was nothing worth celebrating. Like you're just an average student. Like literally when I graduated from undergrad with my bachelor's degree,
00:07:22
Speaker
ah To me, that was nothing to celebrate because I did what I was supposed to do. Like I got a bachelor's degree, so did the other like 300 people I graduated with. Like, how is this an accomplishment?
00:07:33
Speaker
Like that's how I viewed it. That's how I, this is crazy, but that's how I viewed it. Additionally, competitive environments in general, whether that may be sports or maybe even if your job, your workplace is extremely competitive,
00:07:49
Speaker
that might be also where you would see this perfectionism trap. So what are some common barriers to, say, self-compassion?
Overcoming Barriers to Self-Compassion
00:07:58
Speaker
So once we have that lack of self-love, we definitely are going to need that self-compassion in order to build self-love back up.
00:08:07
Speaker
But what's getting in the way of that? I already alluded to one, or ah at least I mentioned it earlier, and that is the inner critic. So the inner critic is that harsh voice, that internal voice that definitely blocks any kind of self-compassion. Like the inner critic is your number one enemy and they give you no grace.
00:08:29
Speaker
And whatever the most negative thing about yourself that isn't even remotely true is what the inner critic is telling you. The other thing that definitely gets in the way of self-compassion is comparison culture.
00:08:43
Speaker
which is so easy nowadays to do because if we are comparing ourselves, or honestly, first going on social media, it's so easy to just compare what you look like, what your life looks like, what your home looks like, like anything and everything, like your financial status, like everything is comparable as soon as you like go on Instagram and you see somebody else's perfect home or the new car that they bought or the trip that they're on.
00:09:14
Speaker
And the thing is that don't know what the actual situation is. Like maybe they're going into crazy amounts of debt just to have that Instagram lifestyle. You don't know that. But you find yourself comparing yourself to them.
00:09:26
Speaker
And then that makes you feel bad. And then maybe that inner critic is going off on how you're a failure because you don't have those things. Crazy. but we do it. We all do it. The other thing that can sort of get in the way of self-compassion is this fear of complacency.
00:09:43
Speaker
And that is this misconception that self-compassion leads to laziness. So if you give yourself grace, you're only giving yourself an easy way out. If you give yourself grace, then you're just making excuses to not get the thing done.
00:09:59
Speaker
And the thing is, Like, can people do that? I'm sure people can do that. But one, i I have my own opinion on like laziness. I don't think it's an actual thing.
00:10:12
Speaker
So there's that. But secondly, like I dated someone once to who was thought this way and it was a exhausting. it was so exhausting because you're constantly going. Like it's never enough.
00:10:26
Speaker
The amount of work you do is never enough. The work you actually do, it's never good enough. Like there's always something more that you can do constantly, constantly, constantly. There's like no rest. drives you crazy.
00:10:39
Speaker
And the thing is, with this type of mentality, like there there is no contentedness. There's no contentedness. There is always room for improvement, and that means that the current status of something is not good enough.
00:10:55
Speaker
So you're either moving forward or you're falling behind. To stay still is to fall behind. And I think what's really important in life to truly achieve happiness is contentedness, is being happy with what you currently have.
00:11:10
Speaker
And that's not to say you can't have goals or think that you can't like improve it anymore because you can. But also if you're not content in some way about your current state, then you're living in hell.
00:11:26
Speaker
okay, like that is a hellish state to live in and it's time to reevaluate some things if that's the case. But if you can find some sort of contentiveness and find balance between that needing to always improve and move forward and enjoy where you are now, I think that leads to a more healthy dynamic.
00:11:50
Speaker
um Another thing that does sort of create more barriers to self-love is a discomfort in positive feelings. So this would be like why some people actually feel uncomfortable with self-love.
00:12:02
Speaker
Because as soon as you start to feel good, you feel happy, you feel joyful, it's like, oh, the other shoe is about to drop. Something's going to go wrong. Things are going too well. And then you just kind of like push away from that ever even being the case.
00:12:16
Speaker
So you push away from those happy, good feelings. And then that essentially begins to further foster maybe low self-worth, that like overall negativity, that inner critic, all those things kind of come in as sort of a like defense to that perceived potential negativity.
Practices to Cultivate Self-Love
00:12:39
Speaker
With all of that being said, what are some practical things that you can do to cultivate more self-compassion? And I'm talking about a lot of things that we can do sort of like in the moment or maybe something that we can do as a routine. The first one is definitely a practice and a habit that we can cultivate in the moment, especially when we have a harsh inner critic.
00:13:04
Speaker
And that is the self-compassion pause. So essentially you have that inner critic, just like you rear its ugly head, say something horrible to yourself, and then you just pause, okay? You have a little self-compassion pause.
00:13:18
Speaker
maybe 60 seconds, however long you need, but you just pause and let the thought go. Easier said than done, I know.
00:13:31
Speaker
But in that pause, you stop the motion of allowing that thought to really embed itself and make you feel horrible. So you pause, you recognize that it was that inner critic,
00:13:44
Speaker
You recognize that you had the thought and just let the thought pass by and refocus. Another thing to do in those moments, if that if that practice of like just letting it go is really difficult right now, is reframing.
00:14:02
Speaker
One of the things that I did a lot was reframing and When I would have a harsh inner critic, I would pause. And then I would ask myself, like, would i be okay if somebody spoke to a friend of mine like this?
00:14:19
Speaker
No. Like, would I be okay if somebody spoke to my brother or my sister like this? No. Like, so why am I speaking to myself like this? And when we reframe our own thoughts to ourselves like that,
00:14:34
Speaker
it It's a big deal, okay? Or even if it's like somebody you were dating, if somebody you were dating spoke to you like that, would you be okay with that? um No. but Not at all.
00:14:48
Speaker
The other thing as well, especially if you are more of that like, unable to feel contentment in where you are, if you feel like you need to always be pushing in order to get to the next place to become better, if you feel like you fall into that perfectionism trap, one thing to do is to give yourself permission to be imperfect.
00:15:11
Speaker
Because let's face it, you are. I am. Everybody's imperfect. nobody Nobody is perfect, okay? But some of us feel like we have to be. Some of us feel like everything we do has to be perfect.
00:15:23
Speaker
So in those moments when you recognize that you or what you've done is not perfect, give yourself permission to be imperfect. And remind yourself that you are still worthy, even in the imperfection.
00:15:37
Speaker
Another thing that is important to do when we are fostering self-love and that self-compassion is to give yourself boundaries or give others boundaries, but essentially setting boundaries in order to protect your energy, in order to essentially make sure that you are nurturing yourself, nurturing your soul.
00:16:02
Speaker
And this is a difficult one. I'm definitely right. This is maybe like next level self-compassion. Because in order to actually set a boundary, we need to recognize what we need. need to recognize what's not serving us.
00:16:14
Speaker
And then we need to be able to communicate that and then hold the boundary in case we're in a situation where somebody doesn't want to respect it. So that setting a boundary is multi-level self-compassion and self-love.
00:16:27
Speaker
So if you're not there yet, I understand.
Setting Boundaries for Self-Care
00:16:30
Speaker
but If you want to truly practice self-compassion and foster self-love, see if there's somewhere where you need to set boundaries. Maybe it's a small one and begin practicing.
00:16:45
Speaker
The other thing as well that I think is incredibly important too and that will help with the first one I mentioned is a mindfulness practice. This could be meditation, for example.
Mindfulness and Daily Routines for Self-Compassion
00:16:55
Speaker
This could be the practice of just observing your critical thoughts um and without that attachment.
00:17:02
Speaker
i think meditation is a huge one for this because you're forced to sit there and not do anything about the thoughts that come up. You yeah you literally have to practice like, crazy thought, let it go. Like when you are meditating and say you're meditating for like three, four minutes, you think about your whole life in like those three minutes and you're sitting there trying to like just and be still and still your mind or if you're trying to just follow the mantra, but then like you started thinking about like all the chores you have to do or like the project at work that you didn't finish.
00:17:34
Speaker
And you just have to be like, that's not what I'm doing right now. Let the thought go. and refocus, um it's really good practice for when you need to pause and let the inner critic and that thought or that feeling just let it go.
00:17:48
Speaker
So how exactly do you begin to implement these things into your daily life? You can do so by starting off in the morning, a space in your morning routine where you sit with yourself and just have a moment of intention, a moment of maybe meditation in the morning where you can frame your mind, frame your day with self-compassion.
00:18:15
Speaker
So if later on in the day, something comes up that challenges that self-compassion or challenges you and your journey of self-love, you can remember the intention that you set that morning and recenter and refocus during the day.
00:18:30
Speaker
You can also implement an evening reflection if you're more of an evening routine kind of a person. Maybe you're going to be drilling in the evening to see how things went for yourself, checking in with yourself. Or maybe it's a meditation at night or just a simple check-in.
Reframing Self-Love as Essential
00:18:44
Speaker
i would definitely say if it's at the end of the day, acknowledge of the wins of the day. That can go so far when you are working on repairing and healing your self-love.
00:18:56
Speaker
Additionally, you can use your environment, okay? You can create an environment, use reminders. Maybe there are some physical cues, prompts in order to have more self-compassionate moments and a mind frame.
00:19:10
Speaker
um Maybe affirmations. For a while, i would write affirmations on my mirror in my bathroom, so I would see them every day. I would update them. so maybe you could do something similar. People have a lot of different artwork that prompts self-love and overall creates an environment that they really enjoy and fosters just overall health and well-being, especially mental health and well-being.
00:19:32
Speaker
So think about your environment and how you can shift it so that it really adds to your healing journey. Ultimately, do remember that fostering self-compassion and being on this healing journey to have more self-love is a challenging one.
00:19:52
Speaker
But also remember that self-love is not selfish. It is not self-indulgent. It is necessary. It is a necessary and healthy practice that all of us deserve to have.
Engagement and Social Media Connection
00:20:04
Speaker
I would challenge you for the next week that when you notice your inner critic, to respond with, what would I say to a friend if they were in this situation?
00:20:19
Speaker
If you happen to have one of those moments, definitely share with me. I'd love to hear how it goes. But ultimately, thank you for tuning in today. if this episode resonated with you, subscribe and leave a review. And don't forget to share it out with your friends and people on social media. It helps the podcast grow.
00:20:36
Speaker
If you would like more insights like this, I definitely post pretty much all the time on TikTok, Instagram, and Threads. My handle is at yourcoachmari, so i'll go ahead and follow me there as well. And if you are looking for support, again, feel free to reach out to me. You can schedule your own discovery call in the show Until then, keep growing.