Learning self-compassion

Intense experiences of both kinds, good and bad, are helping build meaning in life to the same degree, and are complementing each other, according to research.

If a person has mostly good experiences, or mostly bad ones, his life cycle, in a way, is still incomplete.

Particularly in the West, people have adopted a propensity for self-criticism as a cultural value, and tend to self-punish when dealing with setbacks and failures, she says. But excessive self-criticism gets in the way of achieving your goals. 

There are three parts to practicing se...

Self-compassion is being willing to look at your mistakes or failures with kindness and understanding—without harsh criticism or defensiveness. 

Most of us believe that we need to be hard on ourselves to perform at our best, but it turns out that a dose of self-compassion when things are...