Table 3.
Exemplar quotes: evidence supporting subscale representation in the dataset.
| SCS-SF SUBSCALES | EXEMPLAR QUOTES | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CSR | Mindfulness | I’m working on getting my dentures. For some reason, I wasn’t mindful of not having them but now I’m mindful all the time of not having my teeth. They got lost when I moved apartments somehow. I’ve been like six months without them and I’m very mindful of it. But before the group I wasn’t mindful. I did not care. So now I’m not [sic: read ‘I am’] mindful every day. And that’s helped me with that, and that’s part of my self-esteem also. [05: wk4] | What is it that I bring, the intelligence that I bring that exacerbates that self, that make it so, that elongates it, makes it worse, and these moments of awareness is becoming definitely more common than they were before. [01: wk24] | |
| Self-Kindness | [Can you tell me a bit about kindness toward yourself?] …I was using, and it was cocaine - Very afraid of my heart beating out of my chest and just a lot of fear, I was just, a lot of fear. And I shared with [staff] in the group that I used to simply place my hands on my chest like this when I was laying down with my eyes closed. I’d say with very simple intent, I’d say to myself “may healing relax and reiki energy flow through my hands until it’s needed in my body.” And I did this, I want to say hundreds of times. A lot. Dozens of times. And it’s, just talking about it right now it’s kind of funny how I would say it and I would say 9 out of 10 times if I was in that situation and it was usually when I felt the need to do so, [crosstalk 00:09:31] I probably would have gone and done it. And so, it was kind of like that God has strange ways of bringing you around to, in that sense it was giving myself that kind of care and self-compassion. Healing intent maybe. [01: wk4] | |||
| I think with the meditation and allowing my whole self to calm down has allowed me to be like, “Girl, we are at three milligrams” [buprenorphine dose]. I thought I would have been off by now but we are not. This is where we are and that’s okay too. I keep that attitude instead of, “why cannot we just hurry it up.” I think the meditation has helped just to keep me calmer, which I realized that’s it’s okay, some things just take longer and that’s okay. [11: wk4] | ||||
| Common Humanity | But it amazes me, as long as we have been around, as long as I’ve been around, that somebody will say something or do something, and it’ll bother me. I do not say anything it’s just inside, “That really bothered me.” And then I think about it. “Oh yeah, of course it bothers. That’s your exclusion…”Each time somebody tries to exclude you, you get really pissed. Who does not? And he gets more angry when somebody’s trying to humiliate him. And so, it’s different for different people but I realize when that’s happening, I’m almost reliving that experience, emotionally. [14: wk24] | |||
| And what’s best for me to do is keep my mouth shut first of all and then tell somebody about it. Because that helps me normalize myself and see it in perspective because when I go to these meetings, these little meetings and hear people talk about what’s going on in their day I say, “Wow, I feel much better because I do not feel so crazy anymore.” Because these are the things we do not talk about but when we talk about it, it really helped us. It helps us have empathy and compassion for each other and all of a sudden you realize, “Yeah, everybody goes through that. It’s no big deal. [14: wk24] | ||||
| USR | Self-Judgment | I do feel guilty if I do not do it [meditate] when I say, I’m going to do it at the beginning of the day. [02: wk4] | ||
| Well, when I was on all these drugs and doing all the crazy stuff, I did not really care for myself. I just did not think I was going to get better. [21: wk24] | ||||
| Overidentification | With relapse, it’s helped me in the terms of not being so hard on myself and taking it slower. Because when that did happen it would … I’d be like in a very anxious day. I’d be like, “Oh my gosh, what did I do?” It put me in a state of worrying, doubt and confusion all these feelings come up. And then I’d come in with [inaudible 00:40:28] we’d just practice the mindfulness. So that really helps. [02: wk4] | |||
| Isolation | When I’m alone, it’s very hard to be kind to myself in general. [08: wk4] |
CSR = compassionate self-responding/USR = uncompassionate self-responding. The reader will find that some text segments could be coded in multiple ways given the multidimensionality of self-compassion and the interrelated nature of the constructs.