Self-care and self-compassion are not selfish.

We hear the words self-care and self-compassion thrown around quite a bit these days. Being a therapist who was trained at a Buddhist university for experiential and contemplative study, the recent mainstream buzz about the inherent health of these concepts is music to my ears. Writing prescriptions for both self-care and self-compassion seems to come into play with most of my clients during the course of therapy. (And for myself and my loved ones, for that matter!) Okay, so what's the difference between self-care and self-compassion? Self-care can take the form of setting healthy boundaries with others, bracketing time for relaxation and personal-care, socializing, making art, and doing other enjoyable activities. Self-compassion is a way of relating to yourself when you are having a difficult time, in the very moment of suffering.

Actively engaging in self-care is traditionally met with negative feedback involving words like "selfish" or "indulgent" or "self-centered." When I became conscious of creating space to honor myself in these ways in my own life, I would share this with others in hopes that it might allow them to consider the same. For example, if I got a massage or took a day off work to rest, the phrase I heard in response quite often was, "Must be nice!" which implies that it's a luxury to do so, and the person speaking that would never consider this as an option for themselves. The idea of including self-care in your life, for many of us, is a process of unlearning and shifting mindset. It's about giving yourself permission to include this healthy way of being into your awareness and your schedule.

This Spring, I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Kristin Neff speak at a Women's Symposium at Stanford about the importance of both self-care and self-compassion, and why helping professionals need self-compassion in order to be at all effective in working with others. (You can read more on her thoughts by clicking here.) Her talk excited me. She is speaking my language:

Not only are concepts of self-care and self-compassion NOT SELFISH, they are KEY to helping others.(You know, just incase we needed to convince the naysayers.)

Those of us who help others (whether therapists, doctors, teachers, parents, adult child of aging parent, etc) sit with the pain of others daily. Doing so can bring up discomfort, fear, and eventually burnout. That's why engaging in empathic work with others must start with first having compassion for ourselves. Many of us did not grow up with the message that it is okay to acknowledge our own pain or vulnerability and make it known, so a "grin and bear it" or "stiff upper lip" sort of mentality develops. That's a natural response to receiving such a message, but this is not useful to our personal growth, or in caring for others. This is why an integral part of my passion and my work is in supporting caregivers and helping professionals in developing realistic, workable ways they can make space to honor their own suffering (humanity) in order to avoid empathy-fatigue.

I work with my clients on exercising their self-love muscles, which have often atrophied by adulthood due to disapproving introjects and societal messages around weakness or selfishness. I collaborate with my clients to develop and teach practical, doable ways of working self-compassion and self-care into their daily living.

Over the next few weeks, I will be publishing a series of blog posts here devoted to  specific ways of doing this. Be sure to follow along on facebook or twitter to see when the next entry is posted for inspiration for your own journey.

Empathy art

As an art therapist, I make a habit of engaging in a practice called empathy art or response art. Empathy, of course, is the idea of sharing the feeling of another -- to feel with, or to feel alongside someone else. Empathy art (which can be called "response art" interchangeably) is defined by art therapist Joanne Kielo as "post-session artwork created by the art therapist to develop empathic capacity with a client, responding silently by rendering feelings into form." This sort of practice is not only useful for therapist-client relationships, but it can also be very helpful with any sort of caregiving relationship, such as parents and children.

When an art therapist shares their response art with a client, it can deepen the relationship in that the client can "feel seen" and witnessed in a concrete way. Many times, response art can be made in the "handwriting" of the client, so to speak. Meaning, it is often done in the style and/or with the symbols the client has brought into their own art process in therapy.

Empathy art sample, October 2004

The practice of creating empathy art can also be healing for the art therapist, and regarded as a form of self-care. Art therapist Bruce Moon supports the idea that empathy art helps the therapist to clarify feelings, release affect, and allows a therapist to metaphorically exhale images s/he may have "inhaled" in during a therapy session.

Another function of empathy art is that it can be gifted to a client when it is time to end the therapeutic relationship. In this way, the art serves as a beautiful transitional object and a container for the symbol of the therapist's presence and support.

Empathy art sample nest, April 2005

If you are a care provider, you may choose to make art about your relationship to a patient or client of yours. If you are a parent, perhaps you can make empathy art about or for your child/ren. The idea of self-care for moms is one of great interest to me as both a therapist and as a mom. I see firsthand how sharing visual responses with a client or a child can deepen connection in profound and transformative ways. How can you bring the practice of empathy art into your life?