Why is Self-Compassion Important for Chronic Pain

Self-compassion can be an important part of chronic pain management and can help you to reduce your pain. It can be an essential part of reducing the fear often associated with chronic pain.

What is Self- Compassion?

Compassion comes from Latin and is about being with suffering. When you feel compassion for someone else, you are with them and their suffering. Compassion involves mindfulness, common humanity and kindness. It can be given to ourselves or others.

Self-compassion is giving yourself the compassion you would give to a struggling friend or family member. It’s giving yourself support, care, and comfort when you’re struggling with a life challenge, feeling inadequate, or dealing with a mistake you made.

Self-compassion is the opposite of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for whatever you feel you did wrong or for how you are inadequate. It brings kindness and understanding to your suffering, mistakes, and shortcomings.

Self-compassion is often accompanied by action. The actions are taken because you care about yourself rather than because you see yourself as worthless or unacceptable. Self-compassion involves accepting and honouring your humanness. Encountering frustrations, losses, mistakes, and limitations is part of the human condition—a reality we all share. When you are open to this reality, instead of fighting it, you can connect with compassion to a greater degree.

How Can Self-Compassion Benefit Those with Chronic Pain?

Self-compassion can be very important when you have chronic pain. The burden of chronic pain can bring guilt and shame around the things you wish you could do and leave you feeling like a burden to those around you. It can bring fears about your future and how you will cope with life. You are not just suffering from the physical pain but also the emotional pain of what your pain has cost you.

Unfortunately, the pressure of feeling like you are not living up to your role in life can also intensify your pain. Physical and emotional pain share the same pathways in the brain. Pain can be both a reaction to danger and a source of threat. Your body uses pain as an alarm signal to alert you to a threat. Yet, if your pain is severe, it can also become a perceived threat.

Self-Compassion Can Help Break the Fear-Pain Cycle

Self-compassion can be an important part of the effort to break the fear-pain cycle, where pain intensifies due to pain being perceived as threatening. It can help you get to a better frame of mind where the pain doesn’t feel as distressing.

Self-Compassion Can Lead to Better Regulation for People with Chronic Pain

Those who engage in self-compassion may find that they can regulate the following better:

• Mood
• Outlook
• Acceptance
• Level of comfort
• Emotions

How Can Self-Compassion Reduce Chronic Pain

Self-compassion can help reduce pain by affecting several systems and cycles that affect pain.

Self-Compassion’s Effect on the Pain System

Self-compassion can lower the threat level that your nervous system perceives and help desensitize the extra sensitivity it has developed. It can also help fix the “bugs” in the pain system or misinterpretations that the brain has made.

Self-Compassion’s Effect on the Fear-Pain Cycle

Self-compassion can help reduce the fears that contribute to the fear part of the fear-pain cycle. By reducing the fear, you can reduce the pain.

Self-Compassion’s Effect on the Nervous System

Self-compassion can activate the care system that releases oxytocin, which increases feelings of trust, safety, and calm. Self-compassion can also help reduce distress, which can help your nervous system get to a more regulated state.

How to Use Self-Compassion with Chronic Pain

Acknowledge that You Are In Pain and How It Is Affecting You

Being fully present helps us be aware that we are struggling and experiencing a challenging moment. Understandably, we want to fix, avoid or resist the pain, discomfort or unpleasant feeling and make it go away. However, suppose we are unaware or unwilling to accept that we are in a moment of struggle. In that case, it can leave us feeling more frustrated or critical and create more resistance towards any changes we desire. This resistance can cause tension in our nervous system, preventing us from achieving desired results. Being aware without judging and accepting your current reality is the first step to change and the first step in extending compassion.

Acknowledge that You Are Trying Your Best

Living with chronic pain is hard. Disappointments and frustrations are a part of the experience. You may have failures and struggles dealing with the pain. You have been trying, but the results may not reflect your efforts. The important part is that you are trying. You may lack the knowledge or skills to make your efforts as effective as you want them to be. The important thing is to acknowledge that you are doing your best within your current capacity and the knowledge you have.

This element of self-compassion is about extending comfort, support, reassurance, and a sense of love toward yourself amidst the suffering. The way this is done will be different for each person. The essential aspect of self-compassion is that it connects with you, and you feel the love and support you are giving yourself.

Acknowledge that You Are Not Alone

Pain is a common human experience, as are feelings of shame, self-criticism, and anger. Everyone experiences these things to some degree. They make us human. Being in pain can be isolating. Hearing stories from people who are facing similar struggles can help you feel more connected and self-compassionate with what you’ve been going through on your journey. It can help you see that having pain isn’t a failure on your part; you did nothing wrong, and you’re not alone.

Self-compassion is a way of being with yourself and supporting yourself as you navigate the difficulties of chronic pain.

Some Common Struggles with Self-Compassion for People with Chronic Pain

Struggles with Positive Affect, Compliments, or Being Shown Compassion

Some people may struggle with self-compassion because they are not used to positive affect, compliments, or having care shown to them. This is a common consequence of childhood emotional neglect. If this is you, please continue to persist in showing yourself self-compassion. You are worthy of care and compassion. It’s just that your nervous system is not used to receiving these things. It will come with time.

Struggling to Connect with Self-Compassion

Don’t be afraid to switch it up. Sometimes, the self-compassion strategies don’t connect because it’s not what we need in that moment. It’s not what works for others but what works for you. It’s about showing compassion and care for yourself, not following criteria or rules that work for someone else. Personalize it to what you are currently going through. If one type of self-compassion doesn’t work for you, try a couple of others that seem like they might work. You can also switch up what you tell yourself as part of the self-compassion mindfulness techniques to try to connect differently with yourself.

Core Beliefs Interfering with Self-Compassion

You deserve self-compassion. Sometimes, due to trauma or life circumstances, we end up believing that we don’t deserve good things, are unworthy of compassion and care, or are not good enough to receive those things. Know that those beliefs were created during a time when you were trying your best to cope with the challenges you were facing at the time or were based on lies or gaslighting. You deserve care and compassion and are worthy of care and compassion. You might be telling yourself that you are a burden because of your pain and, therefore, don’t deserve self-compassion, but that’s not true; you still deserve to have the care and support of self-compassion.

Self-Compassion Can Be Combined with Other Strategies and Therapies that Can Be Effective for Chronic Pain

Pain Reprocessing Therapy

Self-compassion can complement Pain Reprocessing Therapy by adding components that reduce fear and increase safety within the body. It can be a great tool to use when pain is too severe to do Somatic Tracking.

Exposure Therapy

Self-compassion can help you cope with exposure to fears and can induce changes in functional connectivity between brain regions that play a crucial role in emotion regulation. Combining self-compassion and exposure therapy can reduce avoidance and improve quality of life.

EMDR

Self-compassion can be an added resource for EMDR and can be used to instill strength and wellbeing. When combined with EMDR, self-compassion can enhance the healing of self-critical thoughts and shame.

Conclusion

Self-compassion can be an essential tool for both coping with chronic pain and reducing your pain. It can be combined with other strategies and therapies to enhance your healing and wellbeing.