The third element of self-compassion is to recognize that suffering is part of our common human nature. What distinguishes self-compassion from self-love is that self-compassion has an essential element: other people. The literal meaning of compassion is 'to suffer with someone', and it expresses the essential reciprocity inherent in the experience of suffering.
Compassion stems from the recognition that the human experience is imperfect. When we are in touch with our shared human nature, we remember that our shortcomings and disappointments are part of the shared human experience. This distinguishes self-compassion from self-pity. Whereas self-pity says "poor me", self-compassion takes into account that everyone suffers and offers comfort by making us aware that it is a shared experience that binds us together.
The pain we feel in the face of our difficulties is the same pain that another person feels in the face of their difficulties, only triggered by something different, the circumstances are different, the degree of pain may be different, and so is the capacity to tolerate pain. Yet the process is the same.

Because we take it for granted that things will go well, if something doesn't go the way we want it to, we think that everyone else is doing well but us. This will make us feel isolated and we will hide in shame from others who we think are more vital, more fortunate and more successful than ourselves. It helps if we realise that the experience of suffering, as some shared intimate secret, is in fact a bond that connects us to all people.
One of our central needs is to feel that we belong. The main cause of many mental problems is that people feel isolated from others. Feeling connected activates the green system, which reduces the anxiety triggered by the red system. Therefore, people who feel connected to others experience less anxiety in the midst of difficult life circumstances.
People who find it difficult to maintain good relationships with other people lack this support. But even in the most optimal circumstances, there is not always someone around to make us feel that we belong and are accepted. We all have the fear that people would reject us if they knew our weaknesses. And hiding our weaknesses from our loved ones makes us feel even more alone.

To fill the gaps in the reassuring power of our relationships, it is important to remind ourselves in moments of suffering that the shared human experience of suffering connects us to all the people who are alive now, who have lived before us and who will be born after us. It is a very profound, almost mystical, yet very concrete experience, a unity with all of humanity based on the experience of suffering.
We want to belong to groups because clear group boundaries give us a sense of security. However, although belonging to a group gives us a sense of identity, it can be very limiting. As long as we identify with groups rather than with the whole humanity, we are in fact distancing ourselves from our fellow human beings. Self-compassion awakens us to our unity with all humanity. If we allow this oneness to affect us, it turns on our green system, we continue to feel our pain, but the feeling of loneliness is no longer added to the pain.
The recognition of suffering as a universal human experience can also become a weapon to be used against ourselves or each other. This can happen when we deny the legitimacy of our unpleasant feelings by saying that everyone else is suffering. We compare our suffering with the suffering of others and say to ourselves: 'it's worse for others, it shouldn't hurt so much', or 'this is a perfectly normal life situation, there must be something wrong with me if it's hurting me so much'.

These sentences are very far from a self-compassionate attitude. They carry judgment and invalidation of our emotions. They only increase suffering by filling us with anger, shame, helplessness and dissatisfaction. In contrast, self-compassion gives space to pain. Instead of saying 'it shouldn't hurt so much, it's no big deal, it hurts someone else more' or 'it shouldn't hurt, it hurts someone else but they don't care', it says 'it can hurt, it hurts everyone. I wonder how I can tenderly embrace this pain?"
It could also be that we carry a very negative attitude about humanity. We have grown up with our parents conveying to us that our family is the last oasis, the world around us is corrupt. Or we may have had disappointments as adults that led us to conclude that people were evil, untrustworthy. This attitude, this conclusion, is not only present in our thoughts, but may be deeply embedded in our gut. In this case, there is resistance when we try to understand that suffering is a shared human experience that connects us with others. Because we have a negative view of ourselves, the idea that we are deeply connected to other people, that we are essentially very much like them, threatens our self-image: 'I am no different from anyone else, I am also depraved, I have also been caught up in a deserved misfortune'.

​Cleansing ourselves of the negative world- and human image that is written in our gut is a long process. As a first step, it can help to realise that what we recognise as value in ourselves is somehow also present in others. Even if it is not visible, even if it is often hidden by people's limitations. The more this togetherness in values can resonate in us, the closer we can allow ourselves to be togetherness in our limitations, our mistakes, even our sufferings.
When we experience suffering, we can say to ourselves that our suffering connects us to other people. And we can watch how this awareness of this affects us.