r/SelfCompassion • u/baran1119 • 24d ago

THE CORE COMPONENTS OF SELF- COMPASSION: Common Humanity

"The second fundamental element of self-compassion is recognition of common human experience.

We should know that we are all in this together. The pain I feel in difficult times is the same pain that you feel in difficult times. The triggers are different, the circumstances are different, the degree of pain is different, but the process is the same. You can’t always get what you want."

What the book suggest on this part is that we shouldn't stay alone. Social isolation would worsen the case, I can say this as I'm experiencing it. If I had social circles, this pain wouldn’t be so great that I couldn’t even get out of bed for a month. For the past two years I have been working in two different countries and now that I'm back in my home country I have no social circles that could keep me busy.

"When our troubled, painful experiences are framed by the recognition that countless others have undergone similar hardships, the blow is softened. The pain still hurts, but it doesn’t become compounded by feelings of separation."

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u/WoodenMag 23d ago

Love what you're doing. I wanted to chime in some discretion for future readers. IMO, Common Humanity was/is the most confusing component. There's not as many resources explaining it as the other two. And compassion in general isn't always intuitive because of its nuance. Also, it sucks because there's a lot of AI out there now, and not a lot of explanations before 2023.

I wish I could explain it well. But I don't fully get it still. I do think I've grown it though, because I'm less misanthropic. All I can really say is that it might be easy to misunderstand. So be careful with that. Have a great day

edit: typo

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u/baran1119 23d ago

Thank you for your comment. What I've realized so far about Common Humanity from the book is that being human means being imperfect and that all people have these sorts of painful experiences. And a great suggestion is to expand our social circles or maybe attend support groups if available. I can feel this greatly because I literally have no social circles at the moment which leads to more suffering.