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Clinically reviewed by Dr. Chris Mosunic, PhD, RD, CDCES, MBA
By Vivian Nunez
We all need some extra encouragement on anxious days.
Anxiety can be hard to understand, explain, and assuage. Often, it can be helpful to build a toolbox full of different healthy coping mechanisms you can turn to if anxiety knocks on your door. Mantras or positive affirmations that center on self-compassion can be one of those tools.
While it’s true that a few words strung together won’t immediately get rid of anxious thoughts or feelings, practicing self-kindness and self-compassion may help. The habit can serve as your long-term commitment to being gentle and encouraging with yourself, even when your circumstances or feelings are doubling down on self-criticism.
Since we know that turning to self-compassion isn’t easy, we pulled together some self compassion mantras to help you get the ball rolling even on the hardest days.
You’re not alone if you struggle with meeting your basic needs when battling anxiety or self-criticism. Gently remind yourself that you are allowed to take care of yourself and that taking care of yourself still counts even if it takes you twice as long or you need added support.
You are human whether you’re anxious, bored, or dancing with a friend. We all live with the ups and downs of being human, yet we all need to repeat “I am human” multiple times a day to remember this.
Many factors, like your energy levels, stress levels, or circumstances, can contribute to what your “best” looks like on any given day. Practice reminding yourself that every day is different and you’re different every day, too.
No matter what kind of day you are having or how much anxiety is sitting on your chest, you are deserving of love and support. On the days when it feels impossible to find the words to ask for help, use prompts like, “Can you remind me why you love me?” or “I need your help in figuring out what to have for dinner tonight.”
To practice self-compassion, sometimes we need to give ourselves enough time to stop, breathe, and assess how we’re feeling and where we’re feeling it. Pausing for a moment can be the greatest first step in practicing self-compassion.
Self-criticism is often the loudest voice in our heads when it decides to share its opinions. It’s an act of kindness toward yourself whenever you interrupt your inner critic’s monologue with questions that challenge those negative thoughts.
It’s not uncommon to look at the past and believe we should have (or could have) done better. This self-compassion mantra can help you practice acceptance and treat yourself as kindly as possible.
Two things can be true — you can struggle with anxiety regularly, and the exact feeling you are feeling on a bad day can eventually ease up. Encourage yourself to focus on your present-day and how this present feeling may shift.
Being human sometimes means believing that experiences can only be binary, like, “I can only be anxious, or I can only be happy.” Amid binary thinking, self-compassion can look like repeating that two feelings or experiences can exist simultaneously.
Anxiety rattles our bodies and minds, making it easier to believe when the inner critic tells us we can’t trust ourselves. Don’t be afraid to push back on that voice with a constant stream of “I trust myself,” no matter how many times you need to say it.
As we said at the start, self-compassion mantras or self compassion meditations aren’t the solution to anxiety; they are just another tool in your mental health toolkit. Once you have one tool that works, there’s a bigger chance you can reach for others (like one of Calm Health’s meditations) to help ease your nervous system and mind.
Calm Health is not intended to diagnose or treat depression, anxiety, or any other mental or physical health condition. The use of Calm Health is not a substitute for care by a physician or other health care provider. Any questions that you may have regarding the diagnosis, care, or treatment of a health condition should be directed to your physician or health care provider. Calm Health is a mental wellness product.
We’ve made it easy to take the first step. Just download the Calm Health app, create your account, and answer a few simple questions to help us understand how you’re feeling. You’ll get instant recommendations for the Calm Health programs that will be the most helpful for you.
Our programs are created by licensed psychologists, and you can explore them at your own pace, in any order you like.
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