Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show, you may not
Speaker 1: realize that we have years and years of incredible episodes
Speaker 1: in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may
Speaker 1: be new to you, but if not, it is definitely
Speaker 1: worth another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with
Speaker 1: Kristin Neff. The more you're able to see yourself not
Speaker 1: as just you, but as part of this larger humanity,
Speaker 1: the less self focused you are welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed Throughout time. Great tinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true, And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have, sad of what we do,
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth Living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Kristin Neff, who has been on the show before.
Speaker 1: She is the associate professor at the University of Texas
Speaker 1: at Austin's Department of Educational Psychology. With her partner Chris Gerner,
Speaker 1: she's developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self Compassion,
Speaker 1: which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. She also
Speaker 1: co authored the Mindful Self Compassion Workbook, as well as
Speaker 1: teaching the Mindful Self Compassion Program a guide for professionals.
Speaker 1: Hi Kristen, Welcome to the show. Hi Eron, how are you.
Speaker 1: I am good. I am very happy to have you
Speaker 1: on again. We talked. I don't know how long it's been,
Speaker 1: maybe three four years, who knows, A time just flies by.
Speaker 1: But since we've talked, I think your ideas have become
Speaker 1: much more popular, And I will say in the coaching
Speaker 1: work that I've done, I've realized, over and over, working
Speaker 1: with so many more people since when you and I
Speaker 1: last talked, how critical these ideas of self compassion really are.
Speaker 1: Both in living a better life, but also in actually
Speaker 1: being able to make changes in our life. How important
Speaker 1: self compassion is. So we're going to get into all
Speaker 1: that here in a few moments, but let's start like
Speaker 1: we always do, with the parable. There is a grandmother
Speaker 1: who's talking with her grandson. She says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
Speaker 1: What is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like read and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandmother. He says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandmother says that the one
Speaker 1: you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking
Speaker 1: you what that parable means to you in your life
Speaker 1: and in the work that you do, right, I mean, so,
Speaker 1: that actually is one of the parallels that's kind of
Speaker 1: ubiquitous in the mindfulness and compassion world, or really any
Speaker 1: contemplative practice, because what it highlights is that what we
Speaker 1: practice grow stronger, you know, and the whole revolution in
Speaker 1: terms of understanding neural plasticity that we know if what
Speaker 1: we practice actually can lay down new neural pathways in
Speaker 1: the brain. So it's very much the case that if
Speaker 1: you practice mindfulness and compassion and self compassion, you build
Speaker 1: those neural pathways. If you just you know, kind of
Speaker 1: go down the habitual path of fear and hatred and reactivity,
Speaker 1: then you act just strengthen those neural pathways. So I mean,
Speaker 1: that's what's so remarkable about what we know the science
Speaker 1: of contemplative practice, as you really can change your neural
Speaker 1: pathways with practice based on what you feed. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I think the ability to change our neural pathways and
Speaker 1: neuroplasticity is something you know. I feel like I can't
Speaker 1: pick up a book these days without reading about it.
Speaker 1: But it is so true. It's just doesn't happen as
Speaker 1: quick as we would usually like, you know, that's good news,
Speaker 1: is it can change. Bad news is it takes longer
Speaker 1: than we think, which I think it's just good to
Speaker 1: know that because I think what happens with a lot
Speaker 1: of people as we hear like whoa, this can change,
Speaker 1: and so we try a time or two and it
Speaker 1: doesn't really do a lot, and so then we give up.
Speaker 1: And contemplative practice as well as self compassion practice. My
Speaker 1: experience is the more you do it, the better you
Speaker 1: get at it right exactly, you know. But the nice
Speaker 1: thing about self compassion is every time you fail to
Speaker 1: have self compassion, you can give yourself compassion. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of recursive that way. Yeah, so let's jump
Speaker 1: into self compassion and you know, kind of talk about
Speaker 1: what it is to start, you know, for people who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with the term, let's talk about what is
Speaker 1: self compassion, and then let's talk about why it's important.
Speaker 1: The easy way to think about what self compassion is
Speaker 1: is just treating yourself with the same kindness, support care
Speaker 1: that you would show to a friend you cared about
Speaker 1: when they were struggling in some way. So it's just
Speaker 1: really doing a U turn and giving the compassion you
Speaker 1: would normally show to others to yourself. And so that's
Speaker 1: kind of the simple version my model of self compassion.
Speaker 1: It's a little more complex, and I do think it's
Speaker 1: important because you might say that the components and self
Speaker 1: compassion are also a recipe for how to give yourself compassion.
Speaker 1: So it really starts with mindfulness. I mean, we've heard
Speaker 1: a lot about mindfulness these days, but we really can't
Speaker 1: have self compassion without mindfulness. We need to be able
Speaker 1: to notice when we're struggling, when we're suffering, instead of
Speaker 1: avoiding it or resisting it, or also instead of just
Speaker 1: being lost and it's swallowed up by it. We need
Speaker 1: a little perspective to say, hey, you know, I'm having
Speaker 1: a hard time. So that's a mindfulness, and then we
Speaker 1: do respond with this kindness, you know, again like we
Speaker 1: would treat a friend, as I said. But there's a
Speaker 1: third element that's actually really crucial, and that's framing our
Speaker 1: experience in light of the shared human experience. The third
Speaker 1: component is common humanity, right. And actually the word compassion
Speaker 1: in the Latin come means with passion, means suffer, suffer
Speaker 1: with There's an inherent connectedness in compassion, which makes it
Speaker 1: very different from pity. Right. So, for instance, self pity
Speaker 1: it's not healthy. Self compassion is healthy. What's the difference, well,
Speaker 1: other people, right, So self pity is well as me.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a very egocentric self focus attitude. Self
Speaker 1: compassion means okay, everyone's imperfect, everyone leads an imperfect life,
Speaker 1: and that's really important because when we do that, we
Speaker 1: have perspective, we actually feel connected to others and our
Speaker 1: struggles as opposed to separated from them. And it also
Speaker 1: gives us some perspective which really helps. I've been working
Speaker 1: on a video for people, and I've been talking about
Speaker 1: taking different perspectives, and one of them that's been so
Speaker 1: helpful is the idea that everyone suffers and has a
Speaker 1: hard time, and you know, really touching base with that
Speaker 1: common humanity, like I'm not alone in this, the fact
Speaker 1: that I'm struggling, that I'm suffering, that i didn't do well.
Speaker 1: It's not all like a personal failing. That's the human condition,
Speaker 1: that's right, you know. And so it's not like we
Speaker 1: want to belittle our own suffering by saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: everyone suffers, you know, gosh, they're children nine and El
Speaker 1: Salvador or something like that. That's not the point. What
Speaker 1: the point is really to remember that it's not abnormal.
Speaker 1: Often what happens when we fail or something's really difficult,
Speaker 1: we feel as if something has gone wrong. You know,
Speaker 1: this isn't supposed to be happening. And when we fall
Speaker 1: into that trap, we kind of believe what's supposed to
Speaker 1: be happening is perfection, and that somehow everyone else there
Speaker 1: in the world is not having problems or is leaving
Speaker 1: in a perfect life and it's just me who's struggling,
Speaker 1: or just me who feels inadequate, And that really adds
Speaker 1: insult to injury. It makes it seem much worse than
Speaker 1: it actually is when we think, not only are we struggling,
Speaker 1: we feel all alone and isolated in that struggle. So
Speaker 1: it's really just basically correcting that illusion we fall into
Speaker 1: of being alone. But you know, we also have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge it doesn't mean that all people struggle in the
Speaker 1: same way, or that the amount of struggle is the same.
Speaker 1: It's not. You know, each person's experience is totally unique
Speaker 1: and different, and yet the fact that we do suffer
Speaker 1: is what unites us as human beings. Right, So you
Speaker 1: say that the quinness self compassion question is what do
Speaker 1: I need? So sometimes what we actually need is to
Speaker 1: make a change. Right when we notice we're engaging in
Speaker 1: a behavior that's unhealthy, or maybe we're in a job
Speaker 1: or a relationship that's unhealthy. Sometimes acceptance actually isn't what
Speaker 1: we need. What we need is to take action in
Speaker 1: some way. Maybe we need to leave the relationship or
Speaker 1: maybe we need to, you know, to do something differently
Speaker 1: or you know, meet our needs in a different way
Speaker 1: than what we're currently doing. And so that's really where
Speaker 1: wisdom comes in. You know, what do I need? Is
Speaker 1: the question we need to ask ourselves, and typically wisdom
Speaker 1: can give us the answer or at least point us
Speaker 1: in the right direction. We can't always assume it's going
Speaker 1: to look one way. It's it's going to vary day
Speaker 1: by day. Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about some myths
Speaker 1: of self compassion that I think make a lot of
Speaker 1: people sort of turn away from it prematurely or not
Speaker 1: investigate it. So I thought like we could walk through
Speaker 1: a few of these before we go deeper and how
Speaker 1: to practice it. So the first is this thing that
Speaker 1: people often say, which is, you know, doesn't self compassion
Speaker 1: just mean throwing a pity party for poor me? How
Speaker 1: would you answer that there's basically five main miss of
Speaker 1: self compassion, that that's one of them, that it's self pity.
Speaker 1: And I think that's when people will understand the common
Speaker 1: humanity aspect of self compassion. Right, So, ironically, self compassion
Speaker 1: reduces self focus even though it's got the S word
Speaker 1: in it, It doesn't highlight the sense of self, it
Speaker 1: actually reduces it. So what is self focused is when
Speaker 1: we're saying, oh, I'm so horrible, I'm you know, judging
Speaker 1: myself and I'm blaming myself. It's a very self focused
Speaker 1: state when you say that, hey, this is part of
Speaker 1: the human condition. You know, everyone fails. When you kind
Speaker 1: of relate to your own experience from this larger perspective,
Speaker 1: you actually have less self focused So, for instance, we
Speaker 1: know people with more self compassion, they are less likely
Speaker 1: to ruminate, They're less likely to get stuck in thoughts
Speaker 1: about themselves, are more able to take a broader perspective.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an understandable fallacy that people have, but
Speaker 1: it's actually unjust the opposite. When you have self compassion,
Speaker 1: you take yourself less personally ironically, which is why it
Speaker 1: leads to less self pity. Not more important to note
Speaker 1: that all this work you've done has a lot of
Speaker 1: research behind it, So these aren't just ideas. These things
Speaker 1: have been studied and we know these things to be true.
Speaker 1: And I think that idea of self compassion is throwing
Speaker 1: a pity party for me. I think that the easiest
Speaker 1: way to sort of know this is true for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Is just to think about, when we are in a
Speaker 1: lot of pain, are we more focused on others? Are
Speaker 1: we more focused on ourselves. Where we're more focused on ourselves,
Speaker 1: what our pain is relieved, we're naturally more inclined to
Speaker 1: look outwards towards other people. So self compassion being a
Speaker 1: strategy that relieves some of my own suffering, just by
Speaker 1: its very nature, is going to make me more other
Speaker 1: oriented because I'm in less pain exactly. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: self compassion is a powerful antidote to shame, and shame
Speaker 1: is a very incredibly self focused emotion, right, Shame kind
Speaker 1: of locks you in this dark coal where you can't
Speaker 1: even relate to other people. So absolutely, the more you're
Speaker 1: able to see yourself not as just you, but as
Speaker 1: part of this larger humanity, the less self focused you are.
Speaker 1: One of the other myths is self compassion is for whimps.
Speaker 1: I have to be tough and strong to get through
Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, so that's another common one. We really
Speaker 1: think that somehow that using this hard internal voice, if
Speaker 1: we can stand up to that voice, that makes us
Speaker 1: strong again, you know, with the research actually shows that
Speaker 1: it's just the opposite. At this point, I'm very comfortable
Speaker 1: saying that self compassion has been shown to be one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful sources of strength, coping, and resilience
Speaker 1: we have available to us. So, you know, when the
Speaker 1: going gets tough, the tough gets self compassionate, because having compassion,
Speaker 1: having your own back, being supportive to yourself actually strengthens
Speaker 1: you when times are difficult. Cutting yourself down, shaming yourself,
Speaker 1: you know, calling yourself names actually weak as you and
Speaker 1: so just you know, to take an example, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of research with combat veterans, you know, people
Speaker 1: who've maybe seen action in Afghanistan or Iraq, and they
Speaker 1: find that combat veterans who are more self compassionate about
Speaker 1: what they've experienced, they're less likely to develop PTSD, they
Speaker 1: function better in daily life, they're less likely, you know,
Speaker 1: to turn to drugs alcohol, and they're less likely to
Speaker 1: attempt suicide to deal with their pain. And so we
Speaker 1: know that with combat veterans, with similar findings people going
Speaker 1: through divorce, raising special needs kids, coping with cancer, to
Speaker 1: chronic pain. I mean basically, when things are tough, what
Speaker 1: are are you an inner? Ally? Do you have your
Speaker 1: own back or are you an inner? Enemy. Are you
Speaker 1: cutting yourself down? And clearly you're going to be stronger
Speaker 1: going into battle being an ally as opposed to an enemy.
Speaker 1: That's a great way to put it. And that's one
Speaker 1: of those things when I referenced in in our brief introduction.
Speaker 1: You know all the work I've done, you know coaching,
Speaker 1: I do behavior coaching with people, which is basically how
Speaker 1: do you make changes in your life? And it's stunning
Speaker 1: how much that harsh, critical inner voice actually demotivates us
Speaker 1: and does not make us stronger, actually wears us out
Speaker 1: and weakensis bj Fog in his latest book has a
Speaker 1: line that I loved. He said, people change better by
Speaker 1: feeling good than feeling bad. My experience has shown that
Speaker 1: over and over. Not only is it just more pleasant
Speaker 1: to be inside a brain that is not so hard
Speaker 1: on ourselves, it's also so much more effective, and you
Speaker 1: know it actually helps us to be tougher and stronger.
Speaker 1: That's right. So shame is not exactly a get up
Speaker 1: and go mind state, is it right? Or when we're
Speaker 1: flattened by insecurity, or when we're our heartbeats going crazy
Speaker 1: because we're beating ourselves up and we're stressed and our
Speaker 1: cortisols going, we can't make the best decisions. Performance anxiety,
Speaker 1: for instance, undermines our ability to achieve our goals. So definitely. Now,
Speaker 1: some people confuse harsh self criticism with constructive criticism, and
Speaker 1: they think that self compassion means just saying, oh, that's fine. Right.
Speaker 1: Sometimes compassion is like mama bear, It's like, no, you
Speaker 1: got to make a change, and here's what you need
Speaker 1: to do. But it's coming from a place of love
Speaker 1: and support, not from a place of you know, you're
Speaker 1: not good enough. I will teach you, I won't love
Speaker 1: you unless you succeed. Right, But some of that criticism
Speaker 1: may be quite focused, quite clear, but it's coming from
Speaker 1: a place of wanting the best for you, as opposed
Speaker 1: to again shaming yourself because you aren't good enough. And
Speaker 1: we know, just the same as motivating our children, it's
Speaker 1: actually more effective in the long run to motivate them
Speaker 1: with constructive criticism than with shame and destructive criticism. It's
Speaker 1: the exact same thing with ourselves. Right. I love the idea.
Speaker 1: I think I got it from reading something of yours,
Speaker 1: which is that we tend to think well. Self compassion
Speaker 1: is just giving yourself whatever you want, and you make
Speaker 1: the point of like a compassionate parent doesn't let the
Speaker 1: child eat all of the ice cream that's in the freezer. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not about like you just give yourself everything and
Speaker 1: anything you want. It's about wisdom, but it's about kindness.
Speaker 1: And I love that idea because I think one of
Speaker 1: the hardest things to people wrestle with balancing and I
Speaker 1: know I have and figure out, is like, where do
Speaker 1: you draw the line between sort of giving yourself a
Speaker 1: break and also holding yourself accountable? And what I found
Speaker 1: is that holding myself accountable is fine and is actually
Speaker 1: really important and I need to do it, but it's
Speaker 1: the tone in which I do it. I can do
Speaker 1: that very same activity of sort of you know, holding
Speaker 1: myself accountable and sort of having a standard for my
Speaker 1: actions and how I'm doing and the behavior and choices
Speaker 1: I make. I can do that with either a really harsh, critical,
Speaker 1: mean tone towards myself or I love the example if
Speaker 1: I could do it like I would to a friend
Speaker 1: or to a coaching client or to my son, There's
Speaker 1: a way that I can do it. It's not so
Speaker 1: much content A lot of times, although content is important,
Speaker 1: A lot of it for me is tone. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's not only tone but also the intention. Of course,
Speaker 1: tone often conveys the intention, but you can really feel
Speaker 1: it if the intention is the supportive, constructive one, or
Speaker 1: if the intention is to shame or you know, harm
Speaker 1: you in some way. And sometimes for instance with a
Speaker 1: friend or a child, you might use a really like
Speaker 1: sharp telling stop it, you know, but you know if
Speaker 1: it stop it, it's like because I'm worried about you
Speaker 1: and I care about you, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: kill yourself. I don't want you to harm yourself, versus
Speaker 1: like stop it because you're like, oh you disgust me,
Speaker 1: or that's horrible something like that. So very small variations
Speaker 1: in tone can convey that intention. And so like I said,
Speaker 1: I do like to use a mama their example, or
Speaker 1: you know, the tiger mom for instance. Sometimes we mean
Speaker 1: have to be a tiger mom with ourselves if it's
Speaker 1: coming from a place of care, not from a place
Speaker 1: of I won't love you unless you get it right.
Speaker 1: We kind of touched on this myth a little bit,
Speaker 1: but I'll just I'll bring it out just so we
Speaker 1: can be explicit about it, which is self compassion will
Speaker 1: make me lazy. I'll probably just skip work whenever I
Speaker 1: feel like it and stay in bed eating chocolate chip
Speaker 1: cookies all day, right, kind of the idea that it'll
Speaker 1: make you self indulgent. And so again, you know the research,
Speaker 1: So the research just proves all of it. It says
Speaker 1: we're more motivated, we're more likely to take personal responsibility
Speaker 1: for things, we're less self focused. And another thing is
Speaker 1: that we are less self indulgent. So for instance, we
Speaker 1: go to the doctor more often, we eat healthier, we
Speaker 1: exercise more, we practice safe sex. And that's basically because
Speaker 1: when we care about ourselves, right, we're going to do
Speaker 1: what we need to to be healthy. What is self
Speaker 1: indulgence or laziness? That's kind of we're having short term
Speaker 1: pleasure at the expense of long term harm. You know,
Speaker 1: what makes it lazy as opposed to taking a needed rest. Well,
Speaker 1: the difference is if it's lazy that I mean somehow
Speaker 1: that's interfering with what you need to get done, or
Speaker 1: is taking a needed rest beans Oh, this is appropriate, right,
Speaker 1: and so is it healthy or is it not healthy?
Speaker 1: You know? Is when is having that bole of ice
Speaker 1: cream a useful thing? It's just kind of a treat
Speaker 1: and when does it start becoming self indulgent problematic because
Speaker 1: I don't know, as you know, raising your blood sugar
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so the difference is is it healthier
Speaker 1: is it not? And when you care about yourself and
Speaker 1: you don't want to suffer, you're going to choose healthy
Speaker 1: behaviors and that's what the research shows. So now we
Speaker 1: sort of have talked about why people would want self
Speaker 1: compassion and some of the myths around us. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about practicing self compassion. So if we had to
Speaker 1: give people a very short couple minutes on here's where
Speaker 1: to get started with self compassion, what would you say?
Speaker 1: There's a couple of ways to approach self compassion. Probably
Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do is to draw off what
Speaker 1: we already know, which is how to be compassionate to
Speaker 1: those we care about, right And actually usually the best
Speaker 1: context to think of in terms of how to be
Speaker 1: compassionate is our close friends, you know, because let's face it,
Speaker 1: sometimes our partners or our kids they're almost like too close.
Speaker 1: We aren't at our best with them, and people we
Speaker 1: don't know very well sometimes we also aren't are most
Speaker 1: compassionate with them as well, but usually we have some
Speaker 1: good friends, people we really care about, but who's you know,
Speaker 1: when they fail or they make a mistake, it doesn't
Speaker 1: personally threaten us, which means we're kind of able to
Speaker 1: access a more caring way of helping. And so if
Speaker 1: you think, well, if I had a good friend, have
Speaker 1: the exact same situation happened to them, like they said
Speaker 1: the same thing, or they failed in the same way,
Speaker 1: or they're going through the same health issue, you know,
Speaker 1: what would I say to that friend? You know, what
Speaker 1: tone would I use, what would my body language be like?
Speaker 1: And that's a very template for how to treat yourself. Right,
Speaker 1: So again you just kind of think of what how
Speaker 1: you would treat another and then you do a U
Speaker 1: turn and you you do that with yourself. And it's
Speaker 1: funny for many people. At first, it feels uncomfortable, like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean talking to myself like I'm here
Speaker 1: for you, you know what you need, or you know
Speaker 1: I believe in you or I support you, and it
Speaker 1: seems so it seems so strange to talk to you
Speaker 1: to yourself in this kind of second person way, and
Speaker 1: yet we do it all the time. When we criticize
Speaker 1: ourselves Oh, you're such a fool, You're such an idiot. Right,
Speaker 1: we don't even think about that one because we're so
Speaker 1: used to it, right, Right, So we're actually used to
Speaker 1: speaking to ourselves all the time in this in this
Speaker 1: kind of second person way. So what we're just doing
Speaker 1: is changing the tone and the content of it. And
Speaker 1: it does feel awkward at first, but you start getting
Speaker 1: used to it, you know, after a while, it starts
Speaker 1: to feel more habitual and we start to really listen
Speaker 1: to ourselves. You know. You can also do it in
Speaker 1: the first person, like you know, may I be happy
Speaker 1: or may I be safe or you know, kind of
Speaker 1: phrases like that with the eye if that feels more comfortable,
Speaker 1: but usually it feels it's a little more powerful to
Speaker 1: do it in the second person because when you do that, actually,
Speaker 1: one of the things that gives you is it gives
Speaker 1: you perspective. So instead of being lost in the pain,
Speaker 1: lost in the shame, it's like, oh, wow, you're really hurting,
Speaker 1: how can I help you? And that little bit of perspective.
Speaker 1: Taking to yourself also gives you a little bit of distance,
Speaker 1: so you aren't so identified with the pain. That's one
Speaker 1: way to do it. Another really kind of useful and
Speaker 1: easy way to tap into self compassion is to do
Speaker 1: it physiologically right. So what we know is when we're
Speaker 1: criticizing ourselves, when we're you know, really upset, we're in
Speaker 1: a fight or flight mode, our sympathetic nervous system is activated.
Speaker 1: We're releasing cortisol, adrenaline. We feel frightened because there's you know,
Speaker 1: some fear that I'm not lovable or I'm going to
Speaker 1: you know, makes some huge mistake and my life's going
Speaker 1: to be over right. Your sympathetic nervous system is activated
Speaker 1: naturally that way, and when we give ourselves compassion, it
Speaker 1: actually activates the parasympathetic nervous system. That's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: when we feel connected to others, when we feel cared for,
Speaker 1: we release oxytocin other opiates, Our cortisol goes down or
Speaker 1: heart rate becomes more variable. As we've become more flexible,
Speaker 1: one of the ways we can actually activate this sense
Speaker 1: of safety and the parasympathetic system is through touch. As
Speaker 1: human beings, we're exquisitely designed to respond to touch because
Speaker 1: the first two years of life, right the primary way
Speaker 1: the infant and parents convey safety care back and forth
Speaker 1: is through touched before language sets in right, and so
Speaker 1: the human body is designed to respond to caring touch
Speaker 1: by feelings you know, safe, relaxing, calming down again, releasing
Speaker 1: these oxytope an opiates, etc. So what you can do is,
Speaker 1: you know, put your hands on your heart, or cradle
Speaker 1: your face in your hands, or hold your own hand,
Speaker 1: or give yourself a hug. I mean, people are different
Speaker 1: in terms of what works, and you got to kind
Speaker 1: of check it out. But you can actually start with
Speaker 1: your physiology. And what that does is, first of all,
Speaker 1: like if you just put your hand on your heart,
Speaker 1: it reminds you of your own presence, and then it
Speaker 1: kind of your body says, okay, I'm being held literally
Speaker 1: by myself, and then you calm down, and then that's
Speaker 1: often a really good place to start to be self compassionate.
Speaker 1: So you know, sometimes you don't even need words. But
Speaker 1: if you were to put your hands on your heart
Speaker 1: and say something like this is really hard, I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: it will be okay. Something like that, something you would
Speaker 1: just quite naturally say to a friend or a child,
Speaker 1: your body really responds excellent. Would this be a good
Speaker 1: time for us to do a self compassion break. Sure, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: The self compassion break is one of the most popular
Speaker 1: practices from the Mindful Self Compassion program that I developed
Speaker 1: with my colleague Chris Germer, and it actually uses both
Speaker 1: That uses language of the type of thing you might
Speaker 1: say to a friend, and it also uses a touch.
Speaker 1: So I'd be happy to lead you through that. So
Speaker 1: you may want to close your eyes if that feels comfortable.
Speaker 1: You don't have to, but it often helps if we
Speaker 1: close our eyes to go inward a little bit more.
Speaker 1: And maybe before we do the practice, just taking a
Speaker 1: few deep breaths, because you've just been talking a lot,
Speaker 1: Just kind of imagine releasing some of the tension of thinking. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what I'd invite you to do is to call
Speaker 1: to mind some real situation in your life right now
Speaker 1: that is a little bit distressing. Okay. So this could
Speaker 1: be a relationship issue, it could be something happening in
Speaker 1: your life that's troubling, could be some health issue you're
Speaker 1: going through, right It might be something you're feeling badly
Speaker 1: about or embarrassed about. So some issue that's causing distress,
Speaker 1: and please don't choose something that's really difficult or stressful.
Speaker 1: Because if so, you'll be overwhelmed and you actually won't
Speaker 1: be able to learn the practice. So most most of
Speaker 1: us have two or three things we could think of
Speaker 1: at any one moment. Choose something that's moderately difficult, but
Speaker 1: not very difficult. Okay, So you know, calling the situation
Speaker 1: to mind, reminding yourself of what's happening, what the situation
Speaker 1: is real, were making it real. So what we're going
Speaker 1: to be doing is we're going to bring in the
Speaker 1: three components of self compassion as we're you know, relating
Speaker 1: to this very difficult experience. So the first thing we
Speaker 1: need to remind ourselves is what's happening right now, this
Speaker 1: difficult situation. This is a moment of suffering, right So
Speaker 1: we're just bringing mindfulness to this fact. We're validating, we're
Speaker 1: validating the fact that this is hard. Okay, And i'd
Speaker 1: invite you to use any language that makes sense for
Speaker 1: you to really acknowledge the difficulty of what's happening. Might
Speaker 1: be I'm so sorry this is happening, or out something
Speaker 1: that just really acknowledges and validates with mindfulness the pain
Speaker 1: that's here. Okay. And then we want to remind ourselves
Speaker 1: of the humanness of this, of common humanity, you know, struggle,
Speaker 1: paying difficulty, this is part of life, right, So again
Speaker 1: just using any language that that makes sense to you,
Speaker 1: maybe something like I'm not alone, I'm not abnormal for
Speaker 1: having something like this happen me too. Excuse my French.
Speaker 1: Shit happens, you know. And then we want to bring
Speaker 1: in the kindness, the kind response to this difficulty. And
Speaker 1: so one way to do that is through touch. So
Speaker 1: that invite you to again put your hands on your heart,
Speaker 1: maybe cradle your face with your hands, or you might
Speaker 1: hold the face of a child, or you can hold
Speaker 1: your own hand, some sort of touch that feels good
Speaker 1: to you, that lets you know physically you have of
Speaker 1: your own support. Right, So feeling your hands on your body,
Speaker 1: within the warmth of your hands, and then saying any
Speaker 1: words of kindness and kind of warm supportive tone that
Speaker 1: are just what you need to hear right now, right
Speaker 1: It might be something like you know it's okay to
Speaker 1: be imperfect, or you're doing the best you can, or
Speaker 1: you know I'm here for you. And if you actually,
Speaker 1: if you aren't sure what to say, what you can
Speaker 1: do is you could imagine that you had a close friend,
Speaker 1: someone you cared about going through the exact same thing
Speaker 1: you're going through. Imagine what you would say to that friend,
Speaker 1: and then see if you can try saying something similar
Speaker 1: to yourself. Okay, then when you're ready, open your eyes.
Speaker 1: And so when we do in practice like that, usually
Speaker 1: there's one of three ways we feel. Sometimes we do
Speaker 1: feel kind of soothed and comforted. We feel some compassion
Speaker 1: arising and it helps us feel good. Sometimes we feel
Speaker 1: absolutely nothing. It just like does nothing just gonna nothing happened.
Speaker 1: And the third thing that happens is we might actually
Speaker 1: feel bad. Sometimes we open our heart and we feel
Speaker 1: more agitated afterward. And all three reactions are actually completely normal,
Speaker 1: and none of them are better than the other. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes if we spend a lot of time kind of
Speaker 1: closing our heart down to just deal with life, and
Speaker 1: we let the fresh air of the compassion in, it's
Speaker 1: almost like a house on fire, you know, you open
Speaker 1: the doors of doors of the house and the air
Speaker 1: rushes in and the flames rush out. It's actually termed
Speaker 1: for that called backdraft. Sometimes that happens. It's actually it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're doing
Speaker 1: it right, But just to say, you know, whatever your
Speaker 1: reaction is, it doesn't really matter. What we're doing here
Speaker 1: is we're setting our intention to be kinder to ourselves.
Speaker 1: The practice actually rests on our intention, and we do
Speaker 1: it and we practice, and eventually it starts to bear fruit.
Speaker 1: So whatever you're feeling right now, good, bad, or nothing,
Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter the important things. We just practice
Speaker 1: this new way of being to ourselves. Wonderful. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you for leading us through that. And I really like
Speaker 1: what you said there at the end about we keep
Speaker 1: practicing regardless of how this particular event went. I'd like
Speaker 1: to ask you about doing self compassion in the midst
Speaker 1: of a lot of real self critical thoughts. So an example,
Speaker 1: would I work with a lot of people who, you know,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of self critical thoughts. They tend
Speaker 1: to be the sort of people where I haven't been
Speaker 1: exercising for quite some time, but they start and they
Speaker 1: start by walking a mile a day. But the thought
Speaker 1: that's going through their brain the whole time, what they're
Speaker 1: saying themselves, it's like, well a mile a day is
Speaker 1: not enough. You should be doing way more than that,
Speaker 1: Like how did you even get yourself into this place
Speaker 1: where all you can do is a mile a day
Speaker 1: as an example, how do people work with these really
Speaker 1: strong negative judgments. So one of the ways you can
Speaker 1: work with the inner critic, it's actually quite helpful, is
Speaker 1: to realize that, even though it doesn't necessarily work this way,
Speaker 1: your inner critic is actually trying to help you. It's
Speaker 1: often not helpful. I mean, it's actually usually really counterproductive.
Speaker 1: But what's happening when we criticize ourselves is that part
Speaker 1: of us feels threatened. Right, So that voice saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you only walk a moliday is not
Speaker 1: enough and how did you get yourself into this? That's
Speaker 1: a part of us that feels threatened. Either it's threatened
Speaker 1: because we might be afraid that we aren't going to
Speaker 1: be healthy. We might feel threatened because we think we
Speaker 1: don't look the way we should or other people will
Speaker 1: reject us. We might feel threatened because of something that
Speaker 1: happened in our past or early childhood. Right, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different reasons why we feel threatened, but almost
Speaker 1: owe us self criticism arises from a feeling of threat
Speaker 1: and what we're doing is we're trying to use that
Speaker 1: fight flight or freeze response to deal with the threat.
Speaker 1: Either we attack ourselves that's the fight response, or we
Speaker 1: flee we like, you know, we isolate ourselves in shame,
Speaker 1: or we freeze, we get stuck in rumination. And so
Speaker 1: when we realize that the inner critic is trying to
Speaker 1: actually help us be safe, then what we can do is,
Speaker 1: instead of judging ourselves. For judging ourselves, it's just makes
Speaker 1: things worse, we can actually say, oh, okay, I see
Speaker 1: thank you for trying to keep me safe. I hear you. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're worried, got it? Okay, Well see what we can do, right,
Speaker 1: And then once the inner critic kind of feels heard
Speaker 1: and listen to, then it's actually easier to bring in
Speaker 1: another voice, which is kind of the more compassionate voice,
Speaker 1: which also wants us to feel safe. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of quite remarkable to realize that our inner critic and
Speaker 1: our inner compassion itself, they both want us to be safe.
Speaker 1: But the critical voice suggests, you know, all it knows
Speaker 1: is fear. That's that's kind of the only voice it has,
Speaker 1: whereas we also have this wiser, kind of more mature
Speaker 1: voice that can use the safety of care you know, encouragement.
Speaker 1: And so once once we do that again, we don't
Speaker 1: want to shut down the inner critic. We just want
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, thank you very much for trying to
Speaker 1: keep me safe. I really appreciate it. And then we
Speaker 1: can try to use you know, encouragement. Okay, so maybe
Speaker 1: we can try to do a little more tomorrow. So
Speaker 1: we want to keep high goals, the long term goal high.
Speaker 1: We want to take baby steps, right, Just can I
Speaker 1: just do five percent more or five percent more instead
Speaker 1: of like, you know, three percent more and that kind
Speaker 1: of you know, slow incremental improvement with encouragement. Can it's
Speaker 1: easier to get in to listen to those voices once
Speaker 1: we realize that our inner critic is actually trying to
Speaker 1: help us. Shutting it down just makes it worse, right,
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that I think happens
Speaker 1: a lot with this sort of thing, and I think
Speaker 1: you use the term backdraft for it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But as we use some of these phrases and some
Speaker 1: of these kindnesses, it's almost like we don't really believe them.
Speaker 1: So is it a matter of you know, continuing to
Speaker 1: practice so we come to believe is it a matter
Speaker 1: of continuing to experiment, so we find the phrases and
Speaker 1: ideas that work for us. Both, it's really both. I mean,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to use language that you're having
Speaker 1: an argument in your head with, like oh, that's just
Speaker 1: a blow the molarchy. That's not going to be helpful, right,
Speaker 1: So it is important to find at least the language
Speaker 1: that feels at least the most potentially credible to you.
Speaker 1: And that's going to if here by person. But it
Speaker 1: still may feel a little uncomfortable, not quite right. If
Speaker 1: you aren't saying like oh, this is false, and you think, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about this, but it doesn't completely wing false,
Speaker 1: then you just keep doing the practice. And again, trying
Speaker 1: different ways is to help if you use it, you know,
Speaker 1: an image for instance, maybe I can't believe it, but
Speaker 1: if I think about me as a child and I
Speaker 1: say these words to me as my child self, does
Speaker 1: that help? Right? So you might try taking different perspectives
Speaker 1: like that to see if you get a little more
Speaker 1: attraction with it. There's actually a saying. It's from the
Speaker 1: Jewish tradition, and the saying is a young man goes
Speaker 1: to his rabbi and he says, Rabbi, you know, why
Speaker 1: does torret tell us to place the holy words on
Speaker 1: our hearts? Why doesn't it tell us to place the
Speaker 1: holy words in our hearts? And the Rabi responds, well,
Speaker 1: because as it is, our hearts are kind of closed,
Speaker 1: so we can't put them in our hearts, so we
Speaker 1: place them on our hearts and there they stay until
Speaker 1: one day the heartbreaks and the words fall in right,
Speaker 1: and so that's kind of what we're doing. We're just
Speaker 1: kind of like continually doing the practice again like the
Speaker 1: One You Feed, and eventually it starts to make a change. Well, Kristen,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. Again. I think your work is so
Speaker 1: important and so valuable. Of links in the show notes
Speaker 1: to your website where you have lots of meditations and
Speaker 1: different things, and again, I just really appreciate you taking
Speaker 1: the time to come on. Okay, thanks, it was lots
Speaker 1: of fun. Okay, take care, Thanks all right bye. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
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