Using self-compassion as a tool to cope with your narcissistic parent
Unlocking your own game-changing strength
I became fascinated by the concept of mindful self-compassion because like many of us with hyper-critical mothers, I have been extremely harsh on myself for most of my life. It’s how I was raised to treat myself. And it wasn’t working out for me. I would push myself to strive and inevitably disappoint my mother in a cycle that sent me down a spiral of self-blame, sadness, and confusion.
The contrast of my external life helped me realize that I was capable of maintaining rich and fulfilling relationships. It carried the whisper that perhaps these constant emotional eruptions from my mother weren’t my fault. Looking back now, I am so grateful for that whisper. Self-compassion has helped me to give that whisper a stronger voice.
It’s a way of cultivating the inner voice of your wise mind.
How can self-compassion help?
Dr. Kristin Neff is the authority on mindful self-compassion. Her work describes the self-protective nature of self-compassion - calling it the yawn of self-compassion.
In other words, learning to say no.
Learning when to stop.
Backing up to protect yourself.
There are three facets of self-compassion: self-kindness, mindfulness, and recognizing our shared humanity.
Self-kindness is how you treat yourself. Do you treat yourself like you treat your best friend? This could sound simple, but upon examination for myself, I realized that if my friend had been going through what I was going through with my mother, I’d feel a rush of kindness, warmth, and sadness. But then when it comes to how I was treating myself, I kept wondering why I wasn’t “over it.” This was a survival instinct that I developed early in my childhood, to move away from what hurt so I could make the relationship work. Even the instinct to not talk bad about my parents in therapy was a survival instinct.
In practicing self-kindness, I treat myself like a friend and say “I’m sorry that happened, I know it hurts to have a lot of love for someone despite your differences. It’s unsettling to have a disagreement with your mother. I see you. I’m with you. Do you want a hug?”
I have to practice saying those words because I wasn’t told those words when I was a child. Affirmations are a powerful way of telling yourself the things you’ve always needed to hear.
Narcissistic parents love to tell you to get over it. They want us to go back to our circus-bound state of high-achieving, tending to them, fawning over them, or just amusing them as a form of entertainment.
That’s why it’s so important to nurture yourself. You are not an act in their three-ring circus. You are on a journey to find a better way to re-parent yourself. It’s time to rebel against the abusive cultural norms that you grew up knowing.
That’s why self-compassion is so interesting to me: it’s a way I can buy into talking to myself differently.