Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive

The author of Self-Compassion follows up her groundbreaking book with new ideas that expand our notion of self-kindness and its capacity to transform our lives, showing women how to balance tender self-acceptance with fierce action to claim their power and change the world. Kristin Neff changed how we talk about self-care with her enormously popular first book, Self-Compassion. Now, ten years and many studies later, she expands her body of work to explore a brand-new take on self-compassion. Although kindness and self-acceptance allow us to be with ourselves as we are, in all our glorious imperfection, the desire to alleviate suffering at the heart of this mindset isn't always gentle, sometimes it's fierce. We must also act courageously in order to protect ourselves from harm and injustice, say no to others so we can meet our own needs, and motivate necessary change in ourselves and society. Gender roles demand that women be soft and nurturing, not angry or powerful. But like yin and yang, the energies of fierce and tender self-compassion must be balanced for wholeness and wellbeing.

Drawing on a wealth of research, her personal life story and empirically supported practices, Neff demonstrates how women can use fierce and tender self-compassion to succeed in the workplace, engage in caregiving without burning out, be authentic in relationships, and end the silence around sexual harassment and abuse. Most women intuitively recognize fierceness as part of their true nature, but have been discouraged from developing it. Women must reclaim their power in order to create a healthier society and find lasting happiness. In this wise, caring, and enlightening book, Neff shows women how to reclaim balance within themselves, so they can help restore balance in the world.

Kristin Neff, PhD, is an Associate Professor in Human Development at the University of Texas and has been researching and studying self-compassion for the past decade. She published the first journal article that explicitly defined and examined self-compassion. She also created the Self-Compassion Scale, which has been translated into over a dozen languages and is currently being used by hundreds of researchers worldwide. She gives lectures on self-compassion worldwide and conducts workshops for those who want to learn more about developing self-compassion, and she is the author of the book Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind.