Five Myths That Keep

Business Owners Stressed and

Unable to Achieve Their Goals
Dispel the Myths Negatively Affecting Your Business and Life Success

By Dr. Simone Ravicz

Five Myths That Keep Business Owners Stressed

and Unable to Achieve Their Goals
The word Content is a buzzword these days. The content of our blogs, webinars,
seminars, live events, you tube videos, Google Hangouts, magazines, newspapers,
verbal communication and any form of communicating information may be
viewed or heard by a simple few or by millions.
Information is vital. It is the basis of our learning, informs our decision-making,
helps us understand our world, and is the cement that holds a society and the
world together.
However, the longer Ive worked in the arena of helping people, whether it was as
a psychologist, a businessperson, and now as a certified business and life coach,
brain coach, international bestselling author and speaker, the more scary I see
information can become. Yes, I said scary.
Why would I use that word to describe information? One reason is that verbal
and written communication have power. In terms of the written word, people
tend to believe much of what they read and when they think it is from an expert
(whether or not that is true), they are likely to believe even more. Words can
persuade us, make us change our minds, and determine how we think, feel and
act. They can pose as reality and thus determine our own realities.
The truly scary part is that content can be, well, to put it nicely...inaccurate. To put
it not so nicely, it can be straight out FALSE!! However, once it is out in the world,
it has the power to develop an almost tangible presence. It can become a given,
the truth of which is then rarely questioned. We come to be prisoners of the
thoughts conveyed and no longer use our reason to make choices or select ways
of thinking, feeling and behaving for ourselves.
What follows are some powerful myths that you have come to believe through
presentation of some form of content. I am going to clarify them because they
can be bad for your personal health, well-being, happiness, and business and life
success.

THE SECRETS ABOUT STRESS

Daily negative stress is just a fact of life isn't it? It's just inevitable, right? Wrong.
Therein lies Myth Number One. The stress response is of central importance to
our survival, of course, so don't get me wrong. Our ancestors certainly depended
heavily on it. They were faced with frequent life-threatening situations (i.e., an
attacking tiger) during which they did not have time to think but merely to
respond with the negative stress response or the fight or flight response. Such
reactions often saved lives and because they were positively adaptive they were
thus passed on to subsequent generations.
We certainly still have the need for the negative stress response. Say you're
beginning to cross a street and a car seems to be coming directly at you at full
speed. You don't take your time to assess and ponder the situation. Most likely
you immediately jump back onto the curb out from the car's path without much
conscious thought.
You will experience the physical consequences of the stress response, such as a
racing heart, tension in your muscles, blood flow rushing away from your digestive
system to your extremities, elevated blood pressure, rapid breathing and so on.
You'll also experience emotions such as fear and anxiety. In terms of your
cognitive functions, when you experience negative stress you also have
impairments in problem-solving, decision-making, memory and creativity.
Think of our lives today though. The reality in modern times is that we are
reacting to situations like an angry boss, a critical partner or a traffic jam with the
full-blown negative stress response. These are NOT life-threatening events and
yet we're responding to them as if they were.
A second problem arises because we do not typically act out our stress reactions
these days. Our ancestors, when threatened, would have used their bodies
actively to either fight or run away from the danger. Afterwards, the energy would
have been used, muscles would relax and stress hormones would return to normal
levels. The sympathetic nervous system's activation which led to the stress

reaction would be balanced by the parasympathetic nervous system's activation

(the relaxation response).
These days, however, since we dont generally try to strangle our angry bosses or
run away screaming from a critical partner or battle with drivers in other cars, our
bodies remain activated and stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, stay at
an elevated level. Soon, another minor event deemed as a threat will come
along and elevate our body's systems once again. Over time, what happens so
often is the onset of chronic stress. The results are disastrous. It is now said that
90% of chronic illnesses are based on chronic stress! Elevated cortisol is related to
impairments in memory and aging effect on the brain.
So, Myth Number One that negative daily stress is inevitable may have quite a
negative impact on people. They may assume they cant do much about it and so
not take any steps to modify their thinking or the situation. This is a big mistake
for which people pay dearly. If youre negatively stressed and operating in the
world of business, your performance, productivity, concentration, memory and
other functions necessary to pursue your goals and be successful, will all be
impaired. Equally as important, is how detrimental negative stress is to your
physical health and how important proactive measures are.
Not only is daily negative stress not inevitable but Myth Number Two, that stress
is always a harmful phenomenon, is certainly not the whole story. Not all stress is
bad for you. The results of stress depend upon its arousal level, how you perceive
it, whether you believe you have any control over it, whether you take action on it
and what type of action you take. Your job is to learn how to correctly perceive
and respond to stress.
The midpoint between too much arousal and too little arousal is best for memory,
learning, growth, health and living in a positive, balanced way. Whenever you are
experiencing either excessive or too little arousal, you are experiencing negative
stress or distress. On the other hand, when you experience the optimal level of
arousal, you experience a concept I labeled prostress or positive stress in my
first book, High on Stress.
Prostress arises when your arousal is at that optimal midpoint and you experience
positive, challenging stress that offers fulfillment, action, meaning, growth and

positive emotions without the harmful consequences of negative stress. If you

interpret your stressor as a challenge rather than a threat and handle it actively,
your stimulus can become energizing, positive and growth-promoting (Ravicz
1998).
Prostressors are critical to your emotional and physical health. An interesting fact
is that it is not the momentary peaks of extreme pleasure (winning the lottery,
getting the raise or winning the trophy) which determine happiness so much as
how much time in general you spend feeling good. How much of the time you
spend feeling good depends upon how much time you experience prostressors
which are under your perceived control unlike most moments of extreme
pleasure.
To boost happiness, you should choose activities that are somewhat challenging,
that involve learning, taking action and which you enjoy doing. Then make sure to
schedule them into your life. Choose to learn a new language, take art classes,
play more golf, take the family out on a planned outing, and the like.
Make sure to actually write down these plans in your calendar and even tell other
people you'll be doing the activities so you are held to greater accountability. Jot
down a bit about these events afterwards, including how you felt emotionally and
thoughts you had, so that you can read them and use them for a boost sometime
when you're not feeling particularly up.
As you can see, being in a state of prostress has many social and psychological
benefits, such as boosting your mood, increasing gratitude, enhancing motivation
and the like. There are also physical benefits associated with it. Unlike negative
stress, there is evidence that prostress can actually boost the immune system
rather than disrupt it. In addition, it can undo negative physical effects, such as an
elevated heart rate, caused by distress. It increases healthy cholesterol and muscle
tissue repair, including heart. It's also better for brain health.
So, now you no longer have to fall prey to the myth that negative daily stress is
inevitable or to the myth that stress is always unhealthy. It depends upon how you
choose to perceive situations and events, either as negatives or as challenges or
pleasures, which then impacts how you think, feel and act. You have control and

can largely eliminate daily negative stress thus freeing up your energy and
resources to focus on improving your business and personal success.
THE BRILLIANCE OF THE BRAIN
Brain science or neuroscience is the subject of great excitement these days. It is
the subject of much attention and exploration and youve probably seen the
image of the brain on the cover of everything from hard to find scientific journals
to popular, glossy glamour magazines. Its been move aside J-Lo, here is a picture
of the brain on the cover instead. Neuroscience is basically the scientific study of
the molecular, cellular, physiological and psychological processes of the brain and
nervous system (Lind-Kyle 2009).
Where is the myth here? It involves one of the major discoveries about the brain
which has rocked the scientific world. During most of the 20th century, it was
thought that the brain developed through infancy and early childhood, but after
that it remained largely unchanging. Largely unchanging that is with the exception
of the belief that the brain inevitably began to decline even before middle age.
There is now an incredible amount of evidence supporting the fact that the brain
remains plastic throughout life and that experiences and the environment can
cause significant changes in the brain.
The name for this is neuroplasticity and it is used to indicate that changes in the
synapses (the spaces between brain cells through which information passes) and
neural pathways (the brain's wiring system) in the brain arise from changes in
thoughts, feelings, behavior, experience and the environment.
It works in reverse too. When changes in the brain's neuronal pathways occur,
changes are made to how we think, feel, behave and react to situations. If you
repeatedly think positive thoughts you create new positive neuronal pathways in
the brain. These positive pathways then cause you to think, feel and act more
positively and healthfully. Neuroplasticity is involved in memory, learning,
development and growth.
Think of it. You can actually play a direct role in changing your own brain so that
the consequences include changes in how you act, what you perceive, what you

believe and how you choose to live your life. When you realize this, you will feel
much more empowered and are more likely to take intentional action toward your
goals.
In fact, neuroplasticity includes changes in the anatomy or physical structure of
the brain, as well as the physiology or functional organization of the brain.
Consider a study in which people were instructed to just imagine they were
playing the piano over time. The parts of their brains that would typically be
involved with playing the piano actually grew larger and not a single key had
been played! People in this study weren't actually doing anything. It was the
imagining or visualizing of playing the piano, together importantly with repetition,
which caused the rewiring and growth in the brain.
Since the discussion above clarified that how we react to stress determines our
experience of it and how it impacts us (positively or negatively), let's take a look at
stress and neuroplasticity. This case study will show you that changes in our brains
affect our experience of stress as well. One of my clients, Margie, was terrified
about public speaking and had to give a speech in two weeks about a new
product.
Let me take you on a brief detour so that you can better comprehend the
example. There is a part of the brain called the amygdala which is highly involved
with negative emotions, including fear and negative stress. It exists within the
limbic system which, as one of its jobs, gives meaning to emotional material. The
limbic system, including the amygdala, developed after the most primitive
reptilian part of the brain during evolution.
The last parts of the brain to develop were the higher cortical regions including
the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes can be trained to reduce reactivity and the
stress response to situations which you might perceive as dangerous, but which in
reality are not.
A great example of getting the frontal lobes (more complex, higher cortical
regions) to be in greater charge of the stress-producing amygdala is evident in my
work with Margie. She was very stressed out, she explained, as she had to try to
win over a very important client through giving an upcoming presentation about a
new product. We needed to focus on transferring greater power to her frontal

lobes so they would lessen her anxiety response (reduce the amygdala's fight or
flight response).
The first step in rewiring her brain was to assist Margie to associate her focus to
something positive related to the event. This change in focus involved her frontal
lobes which helped separate her from her intense anxiety about speaking. The
involvement of the frontal lobes helped boost the neuroplasticity required to
rewire her brain.
Initially, she was focusing on an image of herself standing and presenting to a large
group of seated people. This was intensifying her stress and anxiety. To activate
her frontal lobes and soothe her amygdala and thus her stress and fear, we
worked on transferring her focus from the speech to the new product she was
introducing (she felt positive about the product). Concentrating on best describing
the product and its benefits helped reduce her anxiety when she rehearsed.
We worked on further reducing her anxiety through doing some Tapping (Energy
Freedom Techniques) on the upcoming event. There is substantial evidence that
focusing on a feared event and certain phrases while tapping on acupressure
points reduces the activation of the amygdala. Tapping is a wonderful technique
with rapid, lasting results.
She also was able to fuse positive emotions into the task ahead of her by
practicing in front of friends and receiving truthful positive feedback and useful
suggestions. This enabled her left prefrontal cortex (which is associated with
positive emotions) to become more activated and she played back the positive
comments in her mind a number of times, increasing the positive changes in her
brain which made her think and feel more positive.
Finally, she repeatedly visualized herself delivering the presentation in a calm,
confident and professional manner. The brain cannot tell the difference between
reality and what is visualized so her actual performance did improve and her
stress and anxiety lessened further.
She phoned me excitedly after she gave the presentation and stated that she had
done a very good job, had received positive feedback from her boss, and had
signed the client! I told Margie she should continue to practice the positive

visualization over time so the related positive neuronal pathways in her brain
would remain strongly linked from being activated over time. This would keep her
well-prepared for subsequent presentations she would be giving.
What if Margie had bought into the myth that the brain was unchanging and that
she had little control over her thoughts, feelings and actions? She would have
remained frightened, the presentation would not have gone so smoothly and
neither Margie nor her boss would have been at all pleased! Success would have
been unlikely.
Another way to reduce stress, anxiety or fear is to involve yourself in something
requiring action. This activates the left frontal lobe which reduces the overreactivity of the fear-inducing amygdala. The left frontal lobe is more responsive
to action while the right frontal lobe is involved with passivity and withdrawal. The
left frontal lobe is linked with experiencing positive emotions while the right
frontal lobe is associated with negative emotions.
Do you experience negative thoughts and resulting distressing feelings and
sabotaging behaviors? If so, neuroplasticity is once again your friend. When those
negative, habitual thoughts start to tortue you once again, you need to call a
time out.
Let's say you make a minor mistake on something but what rushes through your
mind are incriminating thoughts such as I'm such a loser. I'm a total failure.
Irrational thoughts such as these lead directly to disturbing feelings, such as
depression, frustration, anger and the like. The negative thoughts can also lead
you to behave in unhealthy ways, such as engaging in bad habits in an effort to
soothe or cope.
Right after the negative thoughts, during your time out, you should hold those
negative thoughts up to rational scrutiny to see if theyre really realistic. You can
ask yourself opposing questions. For example, if you have the negative thought,
I'm a total failure, you ask yourself Have I ever succeeded in anything in my
life?
Undoubtedly, searching through your memory, you would find some memories of
times you had obtained some measure of success. Each memory would add proof

to the mounting evidence that the thought, I'm a total failure was irrational and
false.
At that point, you would focus intensively on the positive memories and thoughts
that came up. You should repeat them, write them down and do anything you can
to strengthen those thoughts in your mind. As you do this, you are building new
positive neuronal pathways and new neurons in your brain.
What occurs then is a sort of feed-forward loop. Your positive neuronal pathways
lead to your generation of positive thoughts, feelings and actions. So the thoughts
in your mind affect and change your brain which then affects and changes your
mind and body. Your mood, abilities, relationships, functioning and success will all
improve as the positivity in your brain increases.
Another myth mentioned earlier is that the brain inevitably declines with age.
Actually, there are several interventions which can be made to slow or even
reverse some of the decline of the brain. One of the most effective of these is
exercise. While brain volume decreases as you age, your brain continues forming
new neurons and tuning connections until death.
When you start to exercise, your brain health is improved, you handle negative
stress better, your decision-making, problem-solving and memory improve and
your risk of Alzheimer's decreases. There is also evidence that depression, anxiety
and anger are all reduced.
Studies about exercise and brain changes have been conducted on people of all
ages and incredible results have been observed. One revealing study had elderly
individuals engage in either a walking or stretching program for one year. After the
year ended, the hippocampi (central to memory) in the brains of the walkers were
actually larger while the stretchers had some loss in volume due to normal
degeneration.
The walkers had actually regained more than four years of youth in the
hippocampi of their brains. They also had more brain-derived neurotropic factor, a
substance which enhances connections among neurons, strengthens cells and
axons and stimulates new neuronal development. Finally, the walkers performed
better on cognitive tasks than the stretchers.

John Medina, from the University of Washington, holds forth the magic number of
exercising 150 minutes per week in order to gain brain benefits. The exercise
should make you break a light sweat, huff and puff, but still be able to talk.
Denise Head, Ph.D. and her team (2012) found that exercise can play a role in
changing the brain to help compensate for the genetic predisposition to develop
Alzheimer's disease.
As with the myth that the brain doesn't change after it is formed, belief in the
myth that there is nothing that can be done to slow or reverse the brain's aging
would certainly be a disservice to many. A huge number of people would probably
not be exercising or eating well these days if they did not believe it could greatly
help with the decline in brain condition and performance. The more people who
learn about the falsity of the myth, the more people are likely to embrace healthy
living for its brain benefits.
SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-COMPASSION AND SUCCESS
In our Western society, it is constantly pumped into our minds that we need high
self-esteem and self-confidence if we are to be truly successful. This is certainly
represented by the fact that there are well over 40,000 books available on
Amazon.com alone about self-esteem. People are working hard at raising their
self-esteem in order to be more successful and achieve more.
Recently, studies have indicated that this involves another myth. You may be quite
surprised by this. Weve all been taught to strive to improve our self-confidence
and self-esteem in order to enjoy success in business and in life. There are some
issues about self-confidence and self-esteem that can actually make them
somewhat problematic.
Lets briefly look at self-confidence. Self-confidence is how you feel about your
abilities to do something and it can change drastically from situation to situation.
For example, an entrepreneur might do very well in the business world and feel
confident about himself or herself in that sphere. However, if he or she did not
perform so well in the academic arena, his or her self-confidence would not be so
good if faced with related tasks.

Your level of self-confidence is the result of overcoming certain obstacles or

working to improve a skill or habit. Success in establishing desired traits and skills
can improve your self-confidence. Self-confidence can be seen in how and what
you say, through your behavior, your clothing and appearance and the like. It is
sometimes fairly easy to tell if one has high or low self-confidence.
Lets look at an example of the variability of self-confidence and possible negative
consequences if you rely on it for success. Say youre in charge of running the
weekly executive meeting and feel confident doing so because you do a great job.
One morning, however, whether youre exhausted because you did not sleep well
or whether youre preoccupied because you are having marital problems, you
cannot seem to focus or keep any control over the meeting.
Given the competitive nature of your work environment, you might start to worry
and feel anxious about your poor performance. You might have negative thoughts
about yourself and resulting feelings of self-directed anger or shame. Your selfconfidence plummets and its noticeable in your behavior.
To add to the scenario, your negative stress level is likely to surge interfering with
your brains ability to think clearly, make decisions, problem solve and remember
what you need to remember. Of course, this makes everything worse and brings
you down further.
Others who may want your job may detect your current weakness and try to
swoop in looking for some ways to upset the status quo. So, depending on your
level of self-confidence for success and security can be risky!
Now, lets take a look at self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to how you feel about
yourself overall and is based on your perceptions of yourself. Self-esteem develops
from experiences and situations that have shaped how you see yourself in the
present. Its level is the result of social norms, the judgments of other people in
your life and what you have chosen to believe about your own self. Healthy selfesteem means youre comfortable in your own skin.
However, sometimes self-esteem, as a result of efforts to protect the ego,
becomes overly elevated and leads to selfish and narcissistic behavior. Its

important to have our egos in line to prevent our self-esteem from moving into
the arrogance category.
Unfortunately, self-esteem like self-confidence does not stay at a fixed level. It
fluctuates depending upon internal and external situations so self-esteem does
not always ensure success and performance.
Self-esteem can be quite low if you feel as if you have little control over your life.
This sense of lack of control can come from very early in life from everything
ranging from a chaotic household, to having overly controlling or absent parents,
to being a victim of abuse or discrimination. People with chronic low self-esteem
tend to see themselves as victims and the world as a hostile place. I am in no way
suggesting that those with low self-esteem should not work to improve it to a
healthy level.
As I mentioned, both self-confidence and self-esteem are vulnerable to the impact
of internal and external influences, such as situations, ones self-talk, or the
judgment of others. In modern Western culture, self-esteem is based on how
much above average we are. As Im sure most of you have experienced, it is not
OK to be average in our society.
Many of us spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to reach our
ideals and be better than others in as many areas as possible. Of course, this is
impossible because there is always somebody more attractive, wealthier, more
successful, more intelligent, ad nauseum. Attempts to increase self-esteem
beyond a balanced, healthy level can lead to narcissistic behavior, putting down
others to feel better about oneself, or acting angrily toward anyone who makes us
question just how very special we are.
Many of us try to suppress self-doubts and negative thoughts within our
subconscious. The problem is WHAT WE RESIST, PERSISTS. A common example of
this is to tell you, OK, DONT THINK OF THE HUGE PINK ELEPHANT. Our brains
dont work that way. We will quickly visualize that elephant. When it comes to
negative thoughts, feelings and actions, we might try to repress them but they will
absolutely make themselves known through causing us to feel physical, emotional
or mental symptoms.

The issue then is that if we dont work on learning how to change our thinking and
thus our brains, were going to be stuck in pain. We truly need to be mindful
which means acknowledging our negative thinking, being non-judgmental about
it, accepting its presence and then letting it go.
This is just one method of getting rid of negative thinking and retraining your
brain. These elements are also part of self-compassion which will be discussed
shortly.
As I stated earlier, one danger in having high self-confidence and high self-esteem
arises when an individual slips into arrogance. An interesting note is that
according to Gallup polls, more than 60% of employees dislike or hate their jobs
and the most common reason they claim is narcissistic bosses.
So, the need for high self-esteem, so blessed by our society, actually increases the
likelihood that we deny, ignore or hide our shortcomings as well as negative
feedback we may receive. This way we really cant see ourselves accurately. It is
too painful for the ego to realize such realities. Our judgment can easily suffer.
Living from a position of self-esteem can really cloud our judgment. For example,
90% of drivers think theyre better than other drivers. Other research shows that
a majority of people think theyre better looking, more intelligent, more popular,
more logical, more fun and smarter than others. To top it off, most people also
think theyre above average in THEIR ABILITY TO BE OBJECTIVE. That is obviously
questionable.
So, this is the story. A major surprise to many people is that numerous studies
have shown that self-esteem is not predictive of business success or achievement
attained in school. So, if elevated self-esteem and confidence are not clearly
predictive of success and well-being, whats a person to do?
The field of psychology has recently begun to look away from self-esteem when
attempting to understand the dynamics of achieving goals and attaining and
sustaining success.
So, what could be a better predictor of success than self-confidence and selfesteem? Lets put an end to the old myth which, if you continue to buy into, can

be harmful to your success and your life! Heidi Grant Halvorson in the Harvard
Business Review tells us that a number of studies indicate that self-compassion,
not self-esteem or self-confidence, is your ticket to greatness.
In our modern society, though, self-compassion is definitely not the norm. In fact,
people think it may be judged as being vulnerable or weak or just to WOO WOO.
Other reactions to being self-compassionate include thoughts like, If I focus on
being self-compassionate, wont I just end up being lazy and selfish? Or weak and
unfocused? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Self-compassion is about accepting yourself when youve made errors, found
something you dont like about yourself or are having a hard time. Rather than
ignoring or suppressing these things, take the time out to ask yourself: What can
I do to accept, care and feel better about myself right now? How many of you
can say that you easily acknowledge any mistakes or weaknesses and focus right
away on taking care of yourself like that?
Being self-compassionate means you accept the fact that you have weaknesses
and limitations and that you dont always act ideally. It includes the realization
that you share the human condition with everyone else. You accept yourself with
loving and kindness.
A study by Juliana Breines and Serena Chen (2012) asked if treating oneself with
self-compassion after making a mistake could increase self-improvement
motivation. There were two groups: people in a self-esteem condition were
compared to people in a self-compassion condition. The study showed that the
self-compassionate group did admit to personal weakness more than the selfesteem group. Remember that high self-esteem may often be associated with
increasing the tendency to hide or deny shortcomings and negative feedback.
This can interfere with the intention to openly and diligently work on improving
these areas about oneself.
So what happened to the self-compassionate group who admitted to personal
weakness more than did the self-esteem group? Wouldnt a response of that
nature just lead to depression, a sense of failure and giving up? The answer is a
solid NO. In actuality, the self-compassionate group compared to the self-esteem
group was more motivated to make changes, worked harder after an initial failure,

and reported greater motivation to improve the weaknesses. So, perhaps

surprisingly, having an accepting approach to personal failure or weakness seems
to make people more motivated to improve themselves.
So you see, the drive for high self-esteem, so blessed by our society, actually
increases the likelihood that we deny, ignore or hide our shortcomings and
negative feedback. This way we really cant see ourselves accurately. It is too
painful for the ego to realize such realities. Were wearing our masks.
As you recall, self-esteem may become extreme in an effort to block against
negative self-thoughts. Self-compassion, is an ideal alternative to self-esteem
because it protects us from harmful self-criticism (because we act with acceptance
and by being non-judgmental) but without the need for us to see ourselves as
better than others or as perfect. Self-compassion, through accepting selfassessment and thereby removing potential negative consequences in this case,
provides the same benefit without the drawbacks of certain types of elevated selfesteem.
Besides feeling a lot better than trying to cling to an impossible image of being
unwaveringly awesome, people experience other benefits of having good selfcompassion, including having: a higher level of motivation to improve; decrease in
repetitive errors; superior performance; greater emotional resilience, less anxiety
and depression; more accuracy of self-concept; self-acceptance; improved caring
for self and others; greater success; minimization of narcissism and reactive anger;
higher levels of personal well-being, optimism and happiness and greater wisdom,
curiousity, extroversion and conscientiousness.
Furthermore, self-compassion is negatively associated with negative emotions and
neuroticism (that is, the greater the self-compassion, the fewer the negative
feelings and the less the neuroticism).
There are three elements of self-compassion that you can work on:
1.Self-kindness meaning that youre warm and understanding to yourself when
you fail, suffer or feel inadequate instead of ignoring your pain or beating yourself
up with self-criticism. We cant always be or get exactly what we want. When this

fact is ignored or fought against, we focus on the gap and experience suffering,
stress, self-criticism and frustration.
As mentioned earlier, what we try to suppress or repress will not stay buried in
our subconscious but will make itself apparent, generally through dysfunctional
means, and it tends to grow and interfere more and more with our healthy
functioning. When the fact that we have some weaknesses and problem areas is
accepted with sympathy, a sense of peace and calm is increased and suffering
decreased.
2.Shared humanity is a second aspect of self-compassion. This means we realize
we are all part of one great group known as human beings who inevitably make
mistakes, experience pain and suffering, and are vulnerable to things beyond our
control. This belongingness decreases our sense of being alone in our suffering
and we are better able to be compassionate and understanding of our errors and
problems.
3.The third element of self-compassion is mindfulness. This is a way of living,
thinking and being that I, personally, embrace. Its available for all of us. Basically,
mindfulness occurs when we are wholly focused on the present and the here-andnow. We are non-judgmental and accepting of our thoughts and feelings, both
negative and positive.
We just observe them objectively and do not try to deny or bury them in our
subconscious. Remember, what we resist, persists. We cant ignore our pain and
lie to ourselves while feeling compassion at the same time. Just as we dont
ignore our feelings and thoughts, neither do we become overly involved with
them.
An additional benefit of mindfulness has to do with neuroscience and
neuroplasticity or retraining your brain. Mindfulness lets you feel calm, as well as
alert and engaged. You leave behind the states of distraction, dissociation, denial,
and absent-mindedness. With the mindful awareness of being here and now, in
your body, you sustain the state of simply being while you can rewire the brains
conditioned pathways. It is a safe state for brain change to occur.
JOURNALING OF DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

Here is a brief exercise for you to complete if you would like to get a better sense
about the dynamics of your self-compassion and how you can improve it.
1.Imagine you are feeling really low and down on yourself. You can make up a
situation that would lead to that or use one from your real life:
Jot down the negative emotions youre feeling. Then write down a few examples
of your negative self-talk. Write down the tone of voice you are using in talking to
yourself. Now, write what you typically do in these situations? What do you feel
like doing when youre down and out?
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2. Imagine that a dear friend of yours is feeling very negative about her/himself or
having a major difficulty. How would you deal with your friend (assuming youre at
your best)? Take a moment to write down what you would typically say and do,
and the tone in which you would address your friend in this situation.
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3. Finally, look at the two examples. Is there a difference in how you responded to
your friend vs. yourself? If so, ask yourself why? What issues underlie the
difference in treatment? What thoughts, including about yourself, may help
explain the differences? Jot down some of your answers.
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4. Write down how you believe things would change if you treated your own
suffering as you treated your friends suffering. How would your thoughts, feelings
and actions differ?
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In conclusion, while self-esteem and self-confidence can be important parts of
leading a fulfilling, successful life, you must make sure it is a strong, healthy level,
not an excessively high, narcissistic style. Focusing on self-compassion has proven
to be directly related to success, achievement, persistence despite failure, and is
associated with fewer emotional ups and downs and a happier, more positive,
peaceful way of living in the here-and-now.
PERSONALIZED ASSESSMENT
Now is the time for you to take an assessment to get some practical information
about yourself associated with what youve learned. Go to the following link to
complete Dr. Kristin Neffs Self-Compassion Assessment:
www.selfcompassion.org/test-your-self-compassion-level.html
This is Dr. Simone saying: Stay self-compassionate and enjoy your wonderful
journey to success and in life. Make yourself proud by leading a life of Health,
Wealth and Wisdom.