You and I are quite similar, in that we both default to taking responsibility for the painful outcomes that come our way. I do think though that there is a flaw in one little bit of this mindset (or maybe it’s just the way you expressed it, so tell me if I didn’t get what you were pointing at). It sounds like your formulation is basically “if an outcome is my responsibility, then I refuse to give myself compassion.” It is possible to accept a high degree of responsibility while still being compassionate to yourself. I know, because I have seen others do it well, and for my own mental health, one of my goals has been to get better at this.
I always find this much easier to apply to myself when I imagine that I’m applying it to a friend, or to a clone of myself, as I tend to be more compassionate to others than to myself. Could their fate have been avoided if they had been more vigilant? Yes, almost always. But you can’t be vigilant about everything, and you still need to take a break from self-flagellation long enough to actually live and get things done.
I might be entirely misunderstanding what you mean by compassion, though. The times that I have been less compassionate to myself than I would be to a stranger have usually been fairly extreme. It has been very valuable for me to do less of that kind of shame spiralling. Unproductive responsibility and shame spiralling can still sometimes be induced by someone important telling me that I am responsible and that I should feel bad. That’s a whole different set of problems though.
That doesn’t mean that I take any less responsibility, or don’t try as earnestly to learn from pain. Making ourselves suffer for our mistakes sometimes feels like a necessary step toward learning, but it does not have to be.
“if an outcome is my responsibility, then I refuse to give myself compassion.”
I wouldn’t phrase it in terms quite this absolutist, but I would say that when something is my responsibility I feel like I deserve much less compassion. That’s pretty much what I say in the second paragraph: “we tend to feel less compassion for someone if we think that they’re responsible for their own misfortune”.
Making ourselves suffer for our mistakes sometimes feels like a necessary step toward learning, but it does not have to be.
This is where my mind has been wandering post writing this essay as well. Is there a way to continue learning and reminding ourselves to improve our vigilance without the self-destructive self-flagellation aspect? There might be, which would be great.
You and I are quite similar, in that we both default to taking responsibility for the painful outcomes that come our way. I do think though that there is a flaw in one little bit of this mindset (or maybe it’s just the way you expressed it, so tell me if I didn’t get what you were pointing at). It sounds like your formulation is basically “if an outcome is my responsibility, then I refuse to give myself compassion.” It is possible to accept a high degree of responsibility while still being compassionate to yourself. I know, because I have seen others do it well, and for my own mental health, one of my goals has been to get better at this.
I always find this much easier to apply to myself when I imagine that I’m applying it to a friend, or to a clone of myself, as I tend to be more compassionate to others than to myself. Could their fate have been avoided if they had been more vigilant? Yes, almost always. But you can’t be vigilant about everything, and you still need to take a break from self-flagellation long enough to actually live and get things done.
I might be entirely misunderstanding what you mean by compassion, though. The times that I have been less compassionate to myself than I would be to a stranger have usually been fairly extreme. It has been very valuable for me to do less of that kind of shame spiralling. Unproductive responsibility and shame spiralling can still sometimes be induced by someone important telling me that I am responsible and that I should feel bad. That’s a whole different set of problems though.
That doesn’t mean that I take any less responsibility, or don’t try as earnestly to learn from pain. Making ourselves suffer for our mistakes sometimes feels like a necessary step toward learning, but it does not have to be.
I wouldn’t phrase it in terms quite this absolutist, but I would say that when something is my responsibility I feel like I deserve much less compassion. That’s pretty much what I say in the second paragraph: “we tend to feel less compassion for someone if we think that they’re responsible for their own misfortune”.
This is where my mind has been wandering post writing this essay as well. Is there a way to continue learning and reminding ourselves to improve our vigilance without the self-destructive self-flagellation aspect? There might be, which would be great.