Less Grit, More Grace: Why Pushing Through Anxiety Keeps You Stuck (Part 3)

By Jordan Ryan, LPC

In part 2, we talked about how the inner critic uses shame and anxiety to drive you to push through life’s problems, but this often leaves you feeling even more stuck. The irony is, the more you battle with your inner critic, the stronger and louder it becomes, reinforcing the very cycle you’re trying to break through sheer willpower.

When I talk to my clients about self-compassion, I can sometimes see and feel a visceral recoil, as if some part of them is putting up a giant force field to protect themselves from the very thing that could heal them and relieve their suffering. This part of them usually believes that compassion will make them weaker or less capable. These well-meaning clients have come to therapy seeking strategies to motivate themselves through willpower, often hoping I’ll teach them more effective ways to shame themselves into change.

But not only would it be deeply unethical and immoral for me to shame a client into changing, this would also reinforce the same damaging relational dynamics that led to the burden of shame in the first place. Instead of shaming, we must learn to offer ourselves the compassion and understanding that was often missing in our past.

Don’t just take my word for it. Research shows that self-compassion is the antidote to shame, anxiety, and depression (the three most common reasons people come to therapy!). When parents combine guidance with self-compassion, their children grow into adults with healthier self-esteem, while also learning how to work hard and navigate challenges with resilience. This approach fosters both self-respect and the drive to achieve, without relying on shame or harsh discipline.

But we don’t necessarily need research to prove this. Humans have known this for a long time. As Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, beautifully put it, "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." In other words, healing and growth don’t come from gritting our teeth and pushing harder with willpower, but from gently unraveling the fortress we’ve built around our hearts, allowing self-compassion to slip through the cracks and soften us from the inside out.

Remember that shame activates your autonomic nervous system (ANS), sending you into fight-or-fight mode where you feel paralyzed and disconnected. Compassion does the opposite. It activates your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which calms your body and creates more space between you and your burdens, even if just for a moment of respite. Your PNS also helps you digest food, so if you are constantly dealing with an upset tummy, shame might be one reason for that.

If you are thinking to yourself, “I’ve tried self-compassion before, and it didn’t work,” you are not alone. I believe you. You’ve probably tried to be kind to yourself, only to feel like it didn’t make a difference, or even made things worse.

Here’s what’s happening: when you’ve experienced a lot of pain in your life, your mind and body can become stuck in protective patterns to shield you from more hurt. Self-compassion can feel unfamiliar, and when you’re stuck in survival mode, anything unfamiliar can feel threatening. Self-compassion asks you to slow down and soften, something that goes against your body and mind’s instinct to stay on alert. Your mind and body fear that letting down your guard will leave you vulnerable and exposed, and in that space of fear, self-compassion might seem impossible.

So it’s not that self-compassion doesn’t “work.” Rather, it takes time for your body and mind to feel safe enough to accept more self-compassion. If past pain is like ice, then self-compassion is the warmth that gradually melts it, softening what once felt hard and unyielding.

Many of my clients tell me that well-meaning people in their life, including their own therapists, tell them they just need more willpower to change. Trying to force change through willpower is like trying to make a flower bloom by yelling at it. Sure, you might feel like you’re doing something useful, but you’re probably just stressing yourself out (and maybe the flower? I like to think they do have feelings). Self-compassion, on the other hand, is like gently watering that flower. This nurtures its growth and helps it bloom on its own. Self-compassion doesn’t rush the process.

The more you let yourself experience these small moments of care, the more your system begins to recognize that it doesn’t have to work so hard to keep you safe anymore. This means offering yourself the same patience and kindness that you would offer anyone else who has been through the pain you have experienced in your life. This gentle approach allows your mind and body to shift out of survival mode and into a space where healing can truly take place.

So while this process may feel slow, it is exactly what your body and mind need to heal so that they do not feel as anxious anymore. In this space of gentleness, healing will unfold the more you return back home to yourself, one small, compassionate moment at a time.