As a Psychologist working in the sexual health space, I see first hand the suffering that occurs for many people prior to seeking support for sexual health and intimacy concerns. Themes of shame, guilt and self-criticism in response to sexual concerns are not uncommon. Our harsh internal voice is often the greatest source of suffering, rather than the direct symptoms eg. physical pain. Self-compassion teaches us how to change this relationship. Alongside specific factors in treatment for sex and intimacy concerns, self-compassion is a helpful modality to assist with these challenging emotions, support help-seeking and help us understand barriers that may exist within us to healing and growth.

Self-compassion is a way of viewing ourselves through the caring and attachment system rather than through self-criticism which is a threat response (fight) turned inward. When we can extend to ourselves the same care, warmth and understanding we might to a loved one, self-compassion can support sexual health and intimacy goals in many ways. It can allow for increased safety and authenticity in emotional and physical intimacy, support with turning towards our nervous system and its responses, e.g. pain, with curiosity and understanding, allow more capacity to be compassionate towards others’ pain or to learn about and communicate our sexual interests and needs with others.

I hope that this blog sparks a curiosity in you to think about the ways judgement and shame might play a role in your sexual identity and experiences and if self-compassion might be a supportive concept.

What does self-compassion look like?

Self-compassion has three main elements according to Dr Kristen Neff: “self-kindness versus self-judgement, common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus over-identification.” A fourth element has also more recently been emphasised; fierce self-compassion or the strength, courage and empowerment to create positive change.

Self-kindness entails showing ourselves warmth and understanding rather than self-judgement in periods of difficulty. Cultural, educational and even early family environments can reinforce the tendency towards self-judgement. We might believe that we need criticism in order to feel motivated and it can also be hard to conceptualise alternative ways of guiding our behaviour and decisions. While this can sometimes lead to desired outcomes, this usually comes at a cost. It is usually not sustainable to expect ourselves to consistently grow, perform well and win. The achievement may feel less satisfying too because it was driven by fear and avoidance of the pain and distress of perceived failure.

Common humanity represents the understanding that to be human is to be imperfect and the recognition that we are not alone in our suffering. When we struggle and turn inwards, feeling that we are alone in feeling as we do and judge ourselves for our imperfections, we increase our suffering.

Mindfulness represents the ability to experience one’s thoughts and feelings in a balanced way, without suppressing or avoiding them and also without overidentifying with them where we risk seeing ourselves in a reductionistic and overly critical way. We can process pain, distress, and negative emotions in more effective ways and allow for actions that can lead to a more balanced and healthy emotional experience.

Fierce self-compassion can be a surprising one for people to hear. Societal norms related to emotions will often see anger as destructive and negative. Social norms are prescriptive rules and scripts about how to behave and what is acceptable that are learnt early in life and are enacted often unconsciously. Western society often reinforces an ideal of a mind in control of emotions and bodily experiences. When we suppress and disconnect from the full breadth of our inner world we struggle to learn from our embodied experience to understand ourselves and guide helpful actions and decisions aligned with our values and needs. Anger can be unhelpful when we do not feel safe to experience our inner world but it can also be a force for good, for example seeing injustice and feeling emboldened to speak up for the need for change.

Drawing all of this together we can look at the story of The Second arrow which is a well known buddhist story that illustrates the importance of our relationship with suffering. It is said that the Buddha told one of his students that when we experience hardship two arrows are let loose in our direction; one is the actual hardship and subsequent consequences e.g. an injury or setback, and the second is our response to the hardship including the judgement and self criticism which amplifies the initial suffering. While life will throw arrows our way from time to time, how we respond to that arrow can make the difference in terms of how resilient we can be in the aftermath.

Utilising self-compassion doesn’t erase pain, but supports us through the experience of secondary suffering. We might feel less alone in our suffering, understand that being human involves feeling the full spectrum of emotions and sensations including those that are distressing. It might also help us advocate for change where it is in our control and allow us to learn, adapt and grow.

What do we need to learn self-compassion?

Self-compassion allows us to meet our own attachment needs.

Humans are wired for connection. In evolutionary terms, this has ensured our survival in an often dangerous and hostile environment (group cohesion tended to keep us safer) and developmentally it drives us to behave in ways that keep us close to caregivers who can, ideally, be attuned and responsive to our physical and emotional core needs. Our early attachment provides learning experiences to our nervous systems that shape how we take care of and regulate our emotions throughout our lives. Subsequent experiences further elaborate on these patterns in helpful or unhelpful ways and tend to play out in relationship and intimacy difficulties in adulthood.

If we haven’t learnt to soothe ourselves through attachment experience, self-compassion teaches us to do this as an adult. If we are under stress, we can seek a secure base in ourselves and be both sensitive to our own distress paired with a capacity to self-soothe, provide self-reassurance and encouragement which dampens a threat response (fight/flight/freeze/fawn) and allows for a return to our window of tolerance. Without self-compassion, a threat response is amplified further through self-criticism and judgement and associated emotions such as anger, fear or disgust become harder to deal with.

These needs map onto the development of a healthy and positive sexual self-concept in a variety of ways.

What is a sexual self-concept?

The sexual self-concept is how you view your own sexuality and encompasses people’s feelings and beliefs about themselves as sexual beings. Like our general self-concept, it takes shape during development and becomes further elaborated on through subsequent life experiences, influencing how we respond and make sense of the present. For example, we all have a need for coherence of identity and a meaningful world (The need for experiencing ourselves as integrated - “Who am I?” - and the world as meaningful, in relation to the us - “How does/should the world work in ways that matter to me?”) and fairness (the world should be just and I have agency to collaborate and cooperate with others to build this). An emergent sexual self-concept needs to learn about sex in a clear and unbiased way so that they can form a meaningful and cohesive representation of healthy sex in their life, to engage in sexual experiences in ways that they need to feel safe and enjoyable as well as to communicate and build a consensual and safe sexual relationship with others. Historically, this has not often been supported and can result in distress (for example powerlessness, loss, confusion, shame…) and contribute to the development of sexual difficulties.

A sexual self-concept defined by self-criticism or negative sexual schemas may also make it difficult to engage in help-seeking to begin with, reinforcing feelings of isolation and shame. When help is sought, it may be a significant factor impacting readiness and openness to therapy and treatment and so working with the sexual self-concept and supporting the development of a compassionate lens towards the self can be a helpful first step.

What gets in the way of a healthy sexual self-concept?

Our core developmental needs, including self-coherence, freedom to express needs, feelings and emotions, realistic limits etc, were not consistently met early in life. For example, unmet needs around expression of valid needs and feelings early in life have meant we learn to subjugate our sexual boundaries and needs contributing to sexual anxiety or difficulties communicating in a relationship.
The taboo nature that has historically existed in directly talking about sex.
A lack of education and understanding about sexual concepts - what safe and pleasurable sex looks like, sexual communication etc or where existing sexual discourse or understanding was driven by shame and guilt.
Trauma; from anxiety, avoidance, hypervigilance, dissociation, detached self-soothing or increased risk taking we can see the ongoing impact of a system that feels that danger is ever present with many elements of sex that can be a trigger for trauma memories. There may also be shame or guilt from feeling unable to reduce its impact on relationships and sex.
Sexism, homophobia, fatphobia, transphobia, racism or any other discrimination and violence may influence the development and experience of our sexual self-concept, what is normalised or marginalised.

Self-compassion can be a helpful tool in recognising and unpacking the legacy of these factors in our lives and supporting the development of a healthy sexual self-concept.

How can I start incorporating sexual self-compassion into my life?

Self-compassion is a practice rather than just a concept and we become more self-compassionate by finding ways to incorporate this into our lives so it becomes more second nature over time. Practising self-compassion in lots of different mindsets/moods and not only when we feel distressed will help with becoming more aligned with this approach. If we only practise when in crisis, we don’t develop the sense of competence and confidence we need when things are really overwhelming.

Here are some helpful strategies to start practising.

Self-talk:

One way we might start incorporating sexual self-compassion into our lives could be through self-talk. When we notice a thought that seems critical or shaming, we can name what is happening, “this is a critical thought” (without piling more shame on the critic), how our history or socialisation might inform this, and think about how a caring, encouraging and soothing friend might respond in this moment to our pain. A gentle hand on the heart or shoulder as you say the words might also deepen the intention of care and love towards yourself.

We might not notice an immediate change in how we relate to ourselves, however, if practised over time, this can support the development of a new blueprint for how you relate to your sexual self. You might also notice that it can take time to build awareness of these critical thoughts, as they may feel habitual and automatic. This too will take time. If there are common thoughts that come up it may also be helpful to think of some phrases in advance.

Guided practice:

One exercise I find helpful is the RAIN of self-compassion, which is a practice developed by Psychologist Tara Brach. It is an acronym that stands for:

Recognize what is going on; the emotions, beliefs, bodily sensations and actions in our present moment experience.

Allow the experience to be there, just as it is; Without trying to fix, suppress or avoid anything, just allowing what you have recognised to be there. Accepting the reality of our experience, including judgements about what we are experiencing.

Investigate with interest and care; Calling on a mindset of curiosity, deepening your understanding of what is showing up for you, what underlying need that our emotions or beliefs might represent and how this might be connected to our life history. You might even be able to link what you notice to a protective or vulnerable part or schema.

Nurture with self-compassion. Once we understand the intention or need driving a distressing thought or emotional state, we can start to show care, warmth and an ability to soothe and validate those needs. There might be words that speak to this care; “I’m here for you… you are enough” like you might offer to a close friend. In schema therapy this might be the healthy adult mode that can guide us toward healthier ways of meeting our psychological needs.

It could also be as simple as taking a step away from a situation and asking ourselves, how would I feel, responding to a good friend if they were in my situation? Often there will be a significant difference in response. Try to remember you are not learning a completely new skill but learning to apply your care and empathy system towards yourself. We might need to hold space for ourselves while we learn, and honour that sometimes even the best strategies won’t always have the same effect or that it is ok to be a learner.

Final thoughts:

We might often try to fight or even or run away from self-criticism or our inner critic when it comes up, however, this may compound or lead to this process becoming more entrenched. The first step in building a more compassionate lens for ourselves can also involve stepping back from this judgement of the critic and understanding its function in the story of our nervous system and evolution as a species.

We can see self-criticism as an understandable offshoot from our basic survival response. If we layer more shame and guilt on top of the critic we end up utilising the same old method for the same outcome. Self-compassion normalises this experience and honours how our nervous system has evolved in an imperfect way to a world that is very different to our own. A helpful metaphor might be to think that our nervous system is running Windows 95 and that the world has changed faster than our operating system is able to keep up. Evolution is a much slower process. Self-compassion contextualises our experience in this way while also soothing, showing care to our distress and encouraging us to engage in new actions where this is in our power to do so.

So in other words - please be self-compassionate about your journey towards learning self compassion.

Resources:

https://www.tarabrach.com/rain/

https://self-compassion.org/ including information, exercises, guided meditations and tips for practice as well as a self-report questionnaire on self-compassion: https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-test/

The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, by Kristin Neff & Christopher Germer, Christopher K. Germer · 2018

This blog post is a brief exploration of this topic and does not replace therapy. At SHIPS, we have practitioners that are knowledgeable and skilled in a variety of areas including sex therapy, relationships and more. If you may benefit from some support, please check out our website resources, or contact us.

We are also always happy to hear feedback about our blog articles. If you would like to share your experience or feel we may have missed something on this topic, please contact us to let us know.