The three main components of self-compassion: kindness, common human nature and mindfulness are important not only when we dislike something about ourselves, but also when we love something. It is often harder to see what is good in oneself than what is bad.

If we take stock of our good qualities and think about them, we can easily be tempted to think that we are vain, so instead of rejoicing in what is healthy and wholesome in us, we become overwhelmed by gifts, talents, guilt and shame.

We may have a superstitious fear that if we say something is good or going well, we will lose it. So we tend to deny to ourselves all the good we see in ourselves.

If we get into the habit of focusing on our weaknesses, it can seem very strange to focus on our good qualities. It can feel like something inside us is dying. The self-critical part of us is fighting for its life, its right to exist, with a real fear of death. Surprising as it may seem, it is important to turn to the self-critical part of us with gentle compassion, thanking it for its desire to protect us from danger and reassuring it that it is safe even when we are focusing on our good qualities.

We can be afraid that if we do well and are praised, we will always be expected to do the same. So we cannot enjoy the praise because we attribute an ulterior motive to it: we see it as a list of expectations.

We may also fear that we "outshine others" and that, because of this, others will turn away from us out of envy. Even though we live in a competitive culture and want to be above average, we fear excellence because at the top we are lonely. A part of our psyche recognises that excellence comes with isolation. Despite our desire for high self-esteem, we also instinctively sense the downside: if we are better than others, we can easily lose our connection with them.

We are plagued by a paradox: if we say good things about ourselves, we fear that others will see it as bad, so we focus on what is bad about us to feel good about ourselves. As absurd as it may seem, we all struggle with this paradox.

Self-compassion helps us celebrate our good qualities without falling into the trap of egoism. If we accept that all people have good and bad qualities, we become able to enjoy our own good qualities without becoming superior, arrogant, irrationally self-confident.

We recognise our own goodness and beauty not because we think we are better or more beautiful than others, but because we are human, and like all human beings, we are an admirable expression of the goodness and beauty of human nature.

We can make a list of the qualities we like about ourselves, our successes, and the positive aspects of our life. We can look through this list, searching for that inner attitude where celebrating all of these things does not separate us, but deeply connects us to each other.

The first step in self-appreciation is to become aware of the positive aspects of our good qualities, our successes, our life circumstances, which we can celebrate. Being mindful helps us to recognise these, as the default functioning of our brain makes us tend to notice what we need to improve. It takes effort to become aware of what is good in ourselves, in our actions, in our environment.

Common human nature in terms of self-appretiation means that we value ourselves not because we are better than others, but because there is this goodness in every human being that connects us to all humanity. We realize that all that is good in us does not oppose or isolate us from anyone, but that valuing our own goodness is in fact a gratitude to all those and all that have shaped us into who and what we are. Self-appretiation honours all that exists in the world.

The third step of self-appretiation is to turn to ourselves with tender love and to rejoice heartily over our good qualities, our successes, our good circumstances in life. We celebrate them. We give them a safe, life-giving space to continue to blossom, to grow, to bear fruit.