A Simple Self-Compassion Practice: Three Steps You Can Use Right Away

When you’re feeling overwhelmed, anxious, ashamed, or emotionally stuck, your first instinct may be to judge yourself or push the feeling away. Self-compassion offers another option: responding to yourself with the same care you would offer someone you love.

Research on self-compassion, led by psychologist Dr. Kristin Neff, shows that practicing self-compassion is associated with lower stress, less anxiety and depression, and greater emotional resilience. But the most important part is that it is also something you can practice in everyday moments.

Here is a simple three-step way to begin.

1. Notice What You’re Feeling

Self-compassion starts with awareness. Before you can support yourself, you have to recognize what’s happening inside.

This step is simply naming the experience without minimizing it or overreacting to it.

Examples:

• “I’m feeling anxious right now.”

• “This is sadness.”

• “I notice tension in my chest.”

• “I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

Instead of:“I shouldn’t feel this way,”

Try:“This is what I’m feeling right now.”

The goal is not to fix the emotion immediately—just to notice it.

2. Remember You’re Not Alone

When we struggle, we often feel isolated, as if everyone else is managing life better than we are. Self-compassion reminds us that suffering is part of being human.

Everyone experiences fear, disappointment, loss, and stress. You are not the only one.

Examples:

• “Other people feel this too.”

• “This is a human moment.”

• “Struggle is part of life.”

• “I’m not alone in this.”

Instead of:“Something is wrong with me,”

Try:“This is something many people go through.”

This step helps soften shame and brings you back into connection.

3. Offer Yourself Kindness

Once you’ve noticed the feeling and remembered you’re not alone, the final step is offering yourself warmth instead of criticism.

This can be as simple as speaking to yourself kindly or placing a hand on your heart.

Ask yourself: What would I say to a friend right now?

Examples:

• “May I be gentle with myself.”

• “This is hard, and I deserve support.”

• “I’m doing the best I can.”

• “It’s okay to feel this way.”

• “I can take this one step at a time.”

Instead of:“I need to be stronger,”

Try:“I need compassion right now.”

Kindness doesn’t remove the problem, but it changes the way you carry it.

Putting It Together: The Three-Step Reset

In any stressful moment, you can return to these three steps:

1. Notice what you’re feeling“This is anxiety.”

2. Remember you’re not alone“Other people feel this too.”

3. Offer yourself kindness“May I be kind to myself right now.”

This practice takes less than a minute, but over time it can shift your relationship with yourself in powerful, healthy ways.