Publisher's Synopsis
While self-esteem was linked to how you feel about yourself, self-compassion is about how you handle yourself when things go badly. The aim is to handle yourself with the same kindness and compassion that most people show when they struggle toward their loved ones. The majority of people will respond with kindness and compassion when other people fall short of a target or go wrong. On the other hand, studies show that when they screw up most people are cruel on themselves. Many people are self-punitive, dismissive and hypercritical of their own shortcomings and mistakes. That degrades the consistency of our emotional lives, sadly. This upsets the apple cart physically, as it were. Also people with a high self-esteem are vulnerable to this kind of internal self-punishing beat down. We are our own worst critics too. Although feeling good about ourselves is beneficial, it has been shown that the need to be "special and above average" leads to narcissism, constant comparisons with others, self-defensive anger, prejudice, etc. The other limitation of self-esteem is that it tends to be contingent-it's there for us in times of success but it often deserts us in times of failure, precisely when we need it the most! Self-compassion was therefore the perfect alternative to self-esteem because it offered a sense of self-worth that did not need to be perfect or better than others.
