Self-Compassion vs Narcissism: What’s the difference?
Last post we discussed how self-love can lead to being alone and unloved.
We want to be a part of the flow of love with other people and with ourselves.
Loving yourself is as important as loving others; the two work together. At least, that’s what some of our great thinkers believed.
Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Jesus Christ
Respect and value yourself and others will respect you. Confucius
Accept yourself, and the whole world accepts you. Lao-Tzu
You, as much as anybody, deserve your love and affection. Buddha
But if we don’t understand what real self-love is, we can fall into selfish narcissism. That’s when we put ourselves first and become a taker. It’s when others don’t like to put up with our selfishness, so they leave us alone and we end up unloved; out of the love-pool.
Meet Henry. Henry used to be a narcissist, a taker. He used to “love himself” so much that he would deny himself nothing: drugs, women, men, and financial embezzlement. I love myself! Good old Henry! I’ll take care of number one!
Deep down, however, he felt empty. He had no real friends and he became depressed. He had no self-respect or self-acceptance.
Through long therapy, Henry discovered love and compassion: giving love to others and to himself. He found a job which made him money but which also directly helped others. He saw the difference he made in others’ lives. People thanked him. At first, he felt unworthy of their thanks. Now, through self-compassion, self-respect and self-acceptance, he accepts thanks and praise and believes that “good old Henry” may actually be worthy of love. He is.
Henry moved from narcissism to self-compassion and to having love and compassion for others. We’d better look at the difference between narcissism and self-compassion.
How narcissism affects relationships
Narcissism sees love as limited: I have to get more love for myself and that means less for others. It takes: me first, like a black hole sucking everything in and letting nothing out.
It is selfish and even wishes that others were servants and slaves. It sees others as rivals or enemies rather than as family or friends. It doesn’t rejoice at others doing well. It’s miserable until it gets on top and stays on top. It’s a sore loser.
Narcissism wants success for itself at the expense of others. The net result is less love in this world.
Narcissists attract people only superficially and mostly by deceit. Once their narcissism is felt, however, others tend to avoid them to protect themselves. This leaves narcissists feeling lonely and unloved. It’s unhealthy self-love.
Each of our brains organizes the universe around us; we see and experience the universe through the lens of our own consciousness. Our innate narcissism is born of this; it is part of natural self-preservation. We all have a degree of narcissism, but we keep it in check to get on with others and to be accepted, even by ourselves.
In psychiatry, narcissism is a disorder, and people with this disorder can make life hell for the people around them.
They themselves are at a heightened risk of depression.
How is Self-Compassion different from Narcissism?
Compassion sees love as limitless and infinite, something that multiplies when you share it. Self-Compassion is seeing yourself as “another person worthy of love.” Self-compassion is being kind and caring towards yourself, being understanding and cutting yourself some slack when things go wrong. You’re human. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Self-compassion is wishing your own good while wishing the good of others.
Self-compassion gives.
The net result is more love in this world. It’s feeling for yourself and being helpful to yourself. The brain circuitry for compassion combines the feeling limbic system with the thinking frontal lobe. Compassion asks the question How can I be helpful towards this person? In self-compassion, that person is you.
By now you’ll have the idea that narcissism – always getting our own selfish needs first – is not love. It’s a one-way street that blocks the flow of love.
Self-compassion – treating ourselves with care and kindness and being understanding and accepting as we treat others with care, kindness, understanding, and acceptance – is part of the give and take of love.
We will never be totally on top of our innate narcissism. It will always be there. Our narcissistic nature is part of the “self” we are and can share with others. We will always want to preserve ourselves and we will always see life from our own point of view.
But the more we can use healthy self-compassion as an expression of love towards ourselves, the more we keep ourselves in the flow of love with everyone around us.
We share certain love with other people according to the role they play in our lives: some people are friends so we share friendship-love, some people are family so we share belonging-love, some people are strangers so we share hospitality-love at times, and some people are lovers with whom we share romantic-love. Your role in your life is your “self”, so you will share self-love with yourself. Just as you use compassion with others, you can use self-compassion for yourself.
But, practically speaking, how do we show ourselves self-compassion? This question will lead us to our final post on self-love.
Five ways to show yourself self-compassion
So you’re into self-love. You want to practice self-compassion. You want to care for, be kind to, and understand and accept yourself as you would for others. And you want to do this without getting into too much selfishness or narcissism. How do you do it? Here are Five Great Ways.
1. Know what you like in yourself
This is not as easy as it sounds. To do this, you need to know yourself, understand yourself, and accept yourself as well. There are many things you like about yourself and many things you don’t. With self-compassion, we grow to understand and accept these and grow to appreciate them and even celebrate them.
Too often we want to do or be something or someone we’re not. We get influenced by internet images and ideals. But what are your strengths and your limitations? Can you understand and accept these? Can you really appreciate your qualities – your kindness, sense of humor, quirkiness or quietness – without wishing you had other qualities?
Make a list of things you like about yourself. Appreciate them as you would the good qualities in a friend. Make a list of your limitations and weaknesses. Can you understand and accept them as you would accept them in a good friend?
2. Caringly guide yourself to good outcomes.
Self-Compassion means caringly guiding yourself to good outcomes; like a life-coach or a trusted friend with good advice for decisions or for when you drink too much. Talk important decisions through with yourself, as you would with a parent or friend. What would you tell a friend? What would a trusted friend tell you?
Make a list of where you need help in life. Can you caringly be a help to yourself? Can you encourage yourself to get help and guidance from others when you need it? It shows self-compassion if you can.
3. Be gentle with yourself
I screwed up again! How often do you say this to yourself?
Sometimes good friends will leave you, but in self-compassion, you will be the trusted friend who stays. You give yourself a break. You are gentle with yourself.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. This is when your self-compassion will offer yourself a small time out or a good cry in your bedroom. After the crying, however, be the trusted friend who says so you’re only human, huh? It’s OK. I’m here and I’m staying. We’ll get through this together. Just like the rest of us, you’re only human. You are prone to mistakes.
Stand by yourself when you screw up. Then, when you’re ready, gently dust yourself off, pick yourself up and go back to 2: Caringly guide yourself, still being that compassionate friend to yourself. That’s self-compassion.
4. Encourage yourself to be useful
This seems to be a strange request, but let me explain. Part of self-compassion is developing self-respect. It’s hard to love yourself if you don’t even respect yourself. Many of us have little respect for ourselves, and I work a lot with many people in this situation. The way to build self-respect and be self-compassionate is to gently encourage yourself to do whatever you need to do. Come on, get up, time for school; time to get to work; you’ll feel good after you clean the house; hey, the baby needs feeding! This is the un-glamourous side of self-compassion, but by carrying out our life duties, whatever life calls on us to do, we gain self-respect and grow in self-compassionate love.
What is life calling on you to do? Do it to the best of your capabilities with encouragement from your trusted self-compassion to grow in self-respect and self-love.
5. Share love with other people
Whoa! That’s really strange! I thought we were talking about loving ourselves? We are. This is the real clincher. We grow in our ability to love ourselves through loving others. We grow to understand self-compassion through being compassionate towards others.
You want more love, right? That means you want to share more love with others, which will happen when you love them; they love you back and you experience how lovable you are.
You easily love yourself more when you see how loving you can be. Even if you get it wrong, when you try to give love to others, you get to love your good intentions. It will also bring you more friends and that’s a real treat for you.
How can you share this love? With the different love types, you can share love through:
Storge—with parents and children you can share belonging love
Philia—with trusted friends or new friends you can share friendship love
Eros—with a love partner you can share romantic love
Xenia—with strangers you can share hospitality love
I discuss these love types in my book The Seven Love Types: navigating love in a fractured world. In this book, I go into the different ways you can express love in more depth. You can also search the internet for much more information on love (but make sure it’s a trusted source).
Self-compassion is your best pathway to real, authentic self-love. But it takes effort and perseverance. It’s a worthwhile journey through
1. Knowing what you like in yourself (and accepting what you don’t)
2. Caringly guiding yourself (to help make good decisions)
3. Being gentle with yourself (when you get it wrong)
4. Encouraging yourself to be useful (to gain self-respect)
5. Sharing love with other people.
You might be wondering, why didn’t any of these major steps include making yourself a good cup of coffee, treating yourself to a vacation, or buying yourself a new outfit. Self-compassion isn’t just giving yourself treats.
Sure. You can get into those things, but to really love yourself with self-compassion, we have to go deeper than mere passing pleasures. You have to become to yourself a trusted friend, trusted mentor, trusted confidante, and trusted ally.
It’s not about the pleasures, it’s about lovingly being on your side and wanting the best for yourself, just like a trusted friend.
And remember: love wants only to love and be loved in return.
And then there is self-love. But what is it really? Find out more on our YT video: