By Kacey Clark

It’s no secret that our society is facing a mental, emotional, and spiritual crisis: toxic productivity. Also known as hustle culture, toxic productivity is the concept that our inherent self-worth is tied to our level of productivity and our contributions or lack thereof to a capitalist system. In our society, time is literally money, and money is how many measure success and self-worth. But who really benefits from this perception of reality? Hint: it’s not you. 

Capitalism encourages us to neglect  our most basic needs such as sleep and rest, nourishment, interpersonal connection, play, love, and sense of belonging in exchange for a bigger paycheck and a bigger promotion to have a “better” lifestyle. But what we miss out on when we’re constantly chasing success and validation from a system that profits off of our own neglect of our personal needs and true desires is an authentic and intrinsically meaningful life. How do we rebel against the assertion that our worth is nothing more than the money we make, the car that we drive, or the house that we own? Enter self-compassion.

Self-compassion is a concept popularized by Dr. Kristin Neff, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, through her aptly titled book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and her Ted Talk that received over 1.3 million views. Although self-compassion is trending  in the self-help genre, it has been around for over 2,500 years as a fundamental part of Buddhist philosophy. Buddhists believe mindfulness and compassion make up each wing of a bird, and as a result, predominantly Buddhist countries (like  Thailand) have shown to have higher levels of self-compassion and better psychological health than capitalist, self-deprecating countries such as the United States. Self-compassion is not a frivolous form of self-care or an act of social negligence: it is an act of resistance that reaffirms our inherent worth as human beings, regardless of our contribution to a backwards social, political, and economic system. Here is how self-compassion can be a countercultural, revolutionary practice, as demonstrated by its three leading principles. 

Self-kindness vs. self-judgement

Capitalism requires that we be ruthlessly critical of ourselves. We judge whether we are “busy enough” or “productive enough” or whether we are entitled to take a break, without acknowledging that rest is a basic human need (for example: how many times have you skipped your lunch break to get extra work done?) Self-criticism has shown to interfere with goal progress and has been associated with rumination and procrastination A better alternative? Self-kindness.

According to Dr. Neff, “Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.” This might sound revolutionary, and well, it is. The vicious cycle of self-criticism requires us to chase after the next sign of validation and that next hit of dopamine–like getting an acknowledgment from a boss or reaching a certain number of likes on your latest Instagram post. This cycle benefits capitalism at the expense of our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health, making self-kindness inherently contradictory in a system fueled by worthlessness.

Forgiving ourselves and embracing failure will allow us to accept ourselves as imperfect, flawed human beings. It is a step towards realizing our  worth is not tied to our perfection or lack thereof. It has been found that those with the highest levels of nonjudgmental thinking also have fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. Being able to show up as our true, authentic selves, and allowing success and failure to coexist on an equal playing field diminishes the power that a toxic productivity mindset has over our well-being. Our wholeness is and should not be tied to our production, salary, or any other measure of worth as defined by capitalism; self-kindness reaffirms this.

Common Humanity vs. Isolation

Western individualist cultures often emphasize that we are our own agents of change, our own drivers of our destiny, and our own leaders of our lives. At face-value this may seem like an empowering notion; however, it  downplays the social, political, and economic dynamics that creates barriers to opportunities for marginalized groups. It’s easy to assume that when people get laid off or are unemployed it’s because they’re not productive enough.

When a relationship ends we think,  “I wasn’t good enough”, or when we struggle in school we believe we aren’t disciplined enough. We then adopt a “why me?” mentality, in which we believe that we should be, should do, and should have something other than what we already have, never being fully satisfied. This mindset disregards the difficulty of being a human being living in a complex society that often mitigates our personal development and instead, shapes our identity around the ideals set by our environment. As Dr. Neff explains, “When we focus on our shortcomings without taking the bigger human picture into account, our perspective tends to narrow. We become absorbed by our own feelings of insufficiency and insecurity.”

Acknowledging our common humanity allows us to recognize that struggle is not unique or a form of punishment, it is interwoven into the human experience. Loneliness, sadness, confusion, fear, and insecurity are integral to our navigation of life, as are happiness, joy, connection, love and belonging. Ironically, the idea that we are the only ones who suffer or that we are living under worse circumstances in comparison to others, only disconnects us from people  because we disregard our commonalities. If we expand our point of view to encompass the entire human experience, we would see that everyone is going through a hard time and facing their own challenges. There is no spectrum of suffering because we each react differently to pain or during times of distress. While this mindset shift won’t necessarily get rid of our negative thoughts and feelings, it helps us feel less lonely and more connected with our fellow humans, which is a positive step towards healing from self-deprecating beliefs we have deeply internalized from systems of oppression.

Mindfulness vs. over-identification

Emotions take a lot of time, energy, and focus to work through and process, which is why they inherently conflict with the demands of capitalism. When work is prioritized over our need to take a step back to self-reflect, we typically ignore our feelings (or at least believe we do) . We over-identify with our emotions when we attribute our negative emotions to inherent flaws in our character and allow them to dictate the way we see ourselves and how we move through the world. We may also under-identify with our emotions and not allow them to surface at all – we keep them suppressed until we over-identify and are consumed. If you over- or under-identify, it’s not your fault. We are taught since  a young age that emotions are weak, or even a waste of time because it keeps us from being productive. Building upon the earlier aspects of self-compassion, it is important to recognize that feelings are not something to be ashamed of, as they are not signs of inadequacy or failure and are essential to the human experience. It’s capitalism that has convinced us that this is the case.

According to a study at Stanford University, those who have self-compassion abilities have increased mindfulness and happiness and decreased stress and emotional suppression. Fully feeling our feelings is an act of rebellion in that it liberates us from our compulsion to uphold systems that profit at the expense of our well-being. By nonjudgmentally observing our thoughts and feelings while  linking these experiences to the greater whole of humanity, we can connect with ourselves and others in a way that empowers and emboldens us, rather than suppressing and oppressing us.

Self-compassion doesn’t happen overnight. It is a long, challenging  journey that requires us to confront our deepest fears, lies we tell ourselves, and long-buried truths, but it is also the path to reaching our most authentic selves. When we uphold our innate self-worth, we dismantle a belief system that profits off of diminishing it, and what is more revolutionary than that? Resistance can be bold and loud. It can look like  protests on the streets, a thread of witty tweets on your feed, political ads on Instagram, or voting. It can also be the subtle art of self-kindness, human connection, and emotional empowerment. If we are to truly resist the detrimental implications of capitalism and patriarchy, we need to begin by finding the courage to be compassionate to ourselves despite the structures that attempt to limit our growth. How badass is that?