17: You Matter, Too.
Finding the 'Self' in Empathy
Let’s enter today with a little thought experiment.
Imagine it’s a Sunday afternoon, and you’re meeting a good friend for coffee. They show up ten minutes late due to being stuck in traffic, and they apologise five times for letting you wait. You notice how stressed they look, and after ordering, you calmly look at them and ask how they are.
“I don’t want the bs-answer, I really want to know”, is what you say.
They look at you, eyes wide open, and then they start talking. This week, they had a fallout with someone they deeply care about, and they are afraid of having lost that person for good. Their car broke down just a day after having it fixed at the garage and paying a lot of money for it. At work, there is a rumour about multiple people getting laid off due to internal structure changes – and your friend fears for their position because they missed two important meetings at work due to the car breaking down on the way there. While your friend speaks, their eyes start tearing up.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so overwhelmed right now. I don’t know what to do, I feel like everything is falling apart. I feel like a failure.” Their voice is shaky.
And you? You reach for their hand, and you calmly say: “You’re not a failure. I see how hard you’re trying to make it all work, and that you’re giving your absolute best for the people you care about. You will get through this, okay? I’m here for you.”
Now, imagine there was never a friend – but that week of events was yours. What would you say to yourself if these things happened to you instead?
There’s a particular type of empathy we often forget – the one we’re supposed to meet ourselves with. Self-empathy. We’re much, much harder on ourselves than we’d ever be on someone we’re close with. We’d never tell our hard-working friend that they’re not doing enough. And we’d (hopefully) never say to the heart-broken friend that they’re destined to end up in horrible relationships for the rest of their life or that they’re not worthy of something genuinely good.
So why the hell do we do that to ourselves then?
When it comes to our own lives, we tend to have a zero-fault tolerance. The standards we set are sky-high. We expect the impossible and demand the unreachable. We view ourselves as too flawed, too complicated, with too much baggage for anyone to carry – all while we’re probably in with both hands, helping others bloom. It’s heartbreaking. And if we’re not careful, it can cost us moments that were meant to be ours.
A lack of self-empathy isn’t noble, or humble. It’s destructive.
Belittling ourselves won’t get us anywhere. Holding on to these sky-high standards we’d never even consider demanding from anybody else can be paralysing. Believing that we’re incapable compared to the people around us is an illusion, and still, it’s anchored in many of our brains. It’s so easily looked over, unless we actively choose to unlearn. And the kinder we manage to be while doing so, the more we’ll be able to get out of our own way.
Self-empathy can be the key to feelable change, internally and externally. Once we give ourselves this room to process and explore without immediate judgment from our own side, we’ll be able to identify solutions to ongoing problems, or break patterns we might feel stuck in. And: by holding space for us, we’ll automatically be able to hold more space for others, too.
The beautiful thing: self-empathy can be practiced. And it’s something we deserve by default, not something we have to earn. We have a right to be met with the same kindness we meet others with, but we’re the first ones who need to implement this – by starting to better our self-talk.
Let’s consider treating ourselves like we would treat a close friend – especially in tough situations. Who knows where this could lead to, right?
Carry-On:
This week, take a couple moments in between to just observe your own self-talk. What do you notice?
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Today’s sources:
Helen, this piece resonates so deeply. Your thought experiment perfectly illustrates how brutally we withhold the compassion from ourselves that we freely give to others. I’ve been that friend offering a steady hand while internally berating myself for similar "failures." Your call to practice self-empathy as a default right—not a reward—feels like permission to finally exhale.
But I wonder about those moments when self-empathy itself becomes exhausting. What about people who are too weary to soften their self-talk, who feel they’ve run out of emotional reserves to "hold space" for themselves? When someone’s already at the end of their rope, does "be kinder to yourself" risk feeling like just another demand? I’d love to hear your thoughts on how we might approach self-compassion when even that feels like climbing a mountain.
Your "Carry-On" exercise is a beautiful starting point—I’ll be observing my inner dialogue with softer eyes this week. Thank you for this reminder that we’re all worthy of the grace we extend to others.