Self-Compassion

I recently heard mention of a book titled Self-Compassion. Judging by the title alone, I can guess that the book is about the idea of having compassion for oneself. This almost sounds like a contradiction to me. Compassion is a feeling that is only expressed towards others, isn't it? But I suppose that, with a strong enough imagination, one can make an "other" of oneself. That is, one can imagine a stranger with the exact same qualities as oneself. If this is the case, than I suppose that a person can imagine oneself as a fictional "other" and then have compassion for that "other person."

The purpose of even trying to have compassion for an "othered" version of oneself is to develop compassion for one's actual self. We are often our own worst critics. We tend to be harder on ourselves than we are on anyone else. We should treat ourselves better than that. We deserve to be treated better than that by ourselves. We deserve the peace of knowing that we're on our own side and that we've got our own backs. We should have empathy for ourselves, if only because we know exactly what we've been through and we're probably the only people on Earth who truly do.

If for no other reason, we should have compassion on ourselves because Jesus Christ, our Exemplar, has compassion on us. God loves us, so we should love ourselves as well, not in a self-centered sort of way, but in a self-compassionate sort of way. We should forgive ourselves as readily as Christ forgives us. We should love ourselves just as God loves us. Jesus Christ has commanded us to "love thy neighbor as thyself" and to "love one another as I [Jesus] have loved you." He's basically telling us to love our neighbors just as much as we love ourselves and to love our neighbors just as much as He loves us. The love we have for ourselves should be just as great as the love we have for others, which should be just as great as the love Jesus has for us, which is infinite. We should have infinite love for everyone, including ourselves, and some of that love should manifest as compassion.

God wants us to feel love and compassion for ourselves, and who am I to disobey God? I should have compassion for myself, if only because that's what God wants for me.