Caregivers Book Corner: Fierce Self Compassion Review

We’ve highlighted self compassion multiple times at Kapok, as it’s a powerful tool for helping you to connect with yourself and begin to meet your own needs. In fact, self compassion could be one of the greatest tools for overcoming resistance to self care (something that many caregivers struggle with). 

Dr. Kristin Neff is the leading expert in this field. She does an amazing job at explaining the concepts of self compassion and teaching people how to apply them. 

The big issue for us is that most of her work doesn’t directly focus on caregiving. That’s why I was so excited when Fierce Self Compassion came out. 

Unlike most of Kristin’s other books, this one focuses on strength and action. It’s about much more than just being kind to yourself. And – it is specifically targeted at women. As most caregivers are women, Fierce Self Compassion seems like the perfect book and concept for us, so is it? 

How Fierce Self Compassion Could Help Caregivers

Self compassion itself is what the name suggests – the idea of being compassionate to yourself, much like you would to a friend. 

Doing so is more than not beating yourself up for past mistakes. Instead, mindful self compassion approaches also look at ways to be gentle and kind to yourself in the moment, even when you’re in the midst of an overwhelming situation. 

The ability to practice self compassion wherever and whenever makes it powerful for caregivers. After all, you can’t always step away from the current crisis to take care of yourself. Sometimes you simply need to weather the storm – and self compassion can help with that. 

Fierce self compassion follows a similar idea, except that there’s also an aspect of moving forward, of acting, of making a difference. At one point, Kristen Neff describes this as being like a Mama Bear protecting her children. 

The video below highlights the basic tenets of the idea. 

This is a powerful approach for caregivers, as it’s so easy to keep giving and giving and giving, even when we have nothing left. Kristen Neff’s discussions and exercises can help caregivers to see when they’re not taking care of themselves, along with what they can do instead. 

More than that, the energetic shifts that come with self compassion could help you to start drawing boundaries, even if you struggled to do so previously. 

The book also acts as a useful introduction to the basic concepts of self compassion, as Kristen Neff spends a decent amount of time on her original model as part of this new book. 

The Limits of the Book

Fierce Self Compassion does have useful information. But, time is a precious commodity, especially for caregivers. A book needs to be more than simply decent for it to warrant further investigation. 

And, unfortunately, Fierce Self Compassion has some serious limitations that make it more difficult to connect with.  

The Political Angle

First, despite the name, Fierce Self Compassion isn’t just about a different model of self compassion. 

Huge amounts of the book are highly politicized instead. They focus on the way that women and women’s emotions are often marginalized and how women are expected to behave in very specific ways. 

For example, Chapter 10 of the book talks about how to care for others without losing yourself. It’s easily the most important chapter for caregivers, yet begins with statistics about how women provide care much more often than men – and a huge list of other inequalities. 

Don’t get me wrong, such inequalities are well researched and important. But, hearing them over and over again isn’t helpful at all and limits the practical benefits of the book. Kristen Neff does eventually get to the point in this point and others – it just feels like it takes her far too long to do so.   

At times, Fierce Self Compassion felt mostly like an angry rant and justification of why women need to take care of themselves. The information about what fierce self compassion actually looks like and how to practice it is much more limited. 

This is frustrating, especially as the book is promoted as a tool for empowerment. 

The Repetition

Another frustrating thing was the amount of time spent going over the same ground. There was a ton of information about the socialization and conditioning of women, along with an almost endless collection of statistics to back up those points. 

There were plenty of personal stories as well, along with repeats on the basics of self compassion. Some of those stories also felt a bit too personal and the same points could have easily been made in other ways.. 

In contrast, the practical side to the book was thin on the ground. 

I found myself waiting chapter after chapter for Krisiten Neff to get to the point about what fierce self compassion is and how to use it, but she never seemed to quite get there. While there are some exercises and useful descriptions, most aren’t in-depth enough. 

Repetition like this is incredibly frustrating if you’re short on time. You might even find that you get more from the short video linked above than from the whole book (there’s another interesting video here).   

The Lack of Nuance

Many aspects of Fierce Self Compassion seemed to lack nuance. This isn’t incredibly surprising, as it’s impossible to cover every angle and every situation within a single book. 

Still… it felt like Kristen Neff was so strongly focused on the idea that women shouldn’t sacrifice themselves that she missed the way the value that can be found in being a giver. 

There are also many situations (including times with caregiving) where you choose to prioritize another person’s needs over yours in the short-term. This is particularly true when you’re supporting someone with limited capacity. 

Some reviewers mentioned other examples of lack of nuance too – like Kristen Neff focusing entirely on feminism from a white perspective, without considering the differences in cultures, values, and challenges between groups of women. 

The Limits of Fierce Self Compassion Itself

Then there’s the underlying idea of fierce self compassion. 

As one Fierce Self Compassion review on GoodReads mentioned – fierce self compassion itself mightn’t actually be a useful concept. 

Instead, most of what Kristen Neff talks about is experiencing strong emotions (particularly anger), being self compassionate about these emotions, then using them effectively to create change. 

Is this really a different type of self compassion or just a different way of applying the original model? 

What’s more, the way she conceptualizes fierce self compassion also entirely ignores the fact that being compassionate about anger then acting on it isn’t always the right approach. 

Sometimes anger isn’t appropriate at all and we need to lean into other perspectives, like compassion and understanding. Other times, acting from anger clouds our perspectives and leads to poor decisions. 

There are even times in the book (like an early example of calling another mother some awful names), where Kirsten’s anger seems entirely inappropriate and she could have made much more headway by simply explaining the situation clearly. 

Being compassionate towards ourselves about strong emotions like anger is important. But, this doesn’t negate personal responsibility. It certainly doesn’t give us the right to simply act on this anger whenever we feel like it. We still need to be wise about how we act. 

Kristen Neff could have spent much more time talking about this distinction, including how to determine which responses are appropriate. While she does touch on that idea, there isn’t enough depth to make her discussions truly helpful. 

Is Fierce Self Compassion Worth It?

Despite the limitations, I think that Fierce Self Compassion could be a helpful book for some caregivers (particularly female caregivers). It is excellent at stirring up passion and fire, reminding us that we are not obliged to sacrifice everything for the caregiving role. 

Kristin Neff also makes some helpful points about the difference between caring for and helping other people, and doing so at the expense of ourselves. 

These aspects mean that Fierce Self Compassion could be an exceptionally useful book if you struggle with caregiver guilt or feel that you’re constantly giving with no respite. Some of the information could also be highly relevant for caregivers with a martyr mentality, partly because Kristen Neff’s rhetoric is fairly aggressive. 

However, I strongly recommend caution when reading this book and applying its lessons. There simply isn’t enough practical wisdom to allow this book to truly change lives in the way that it hopes to. 

Final Thoughts

In the end, Fierce Self Compassion will work well for some people and poorly for many others. 

Even then, it’s not the best option out there. 

I suspect that many caregivers would do better by picking up one of Kristen Neff’s earlier books, like The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook and a separate book on boundaries. Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend is a great example if you don’t mind a distinct Christian focus. There’s also Set Boundaries, Find Piece: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Tawwab. 

Combining a boundaries and a self-compassion book like this gives you most of the same principles that Kristen Neff is highlighting in Fierce Self Compassion. However, you’re also getting many more practical examples and ways forward (along with political rhetoric).