Speaker 1: The more you're able to see yourself not as just you,
Speaker 1: but as part of this larger humanity, the less self
Speaker 1: focused you are welcome to the one you feed Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Kristin Neff, who has been on the show before. She
Speaker 1: is the associate professor at the University of Texas at
Speaker 1: 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 er right, how
Speaker 1: are you? I am good. I am very happy to
Speaker 1: have you on again. We talked. I don't know how
Speaker 1: long it's been, maybe three four years, who knows. At
Speaker 1: time just flies by. But since we've talked, I think
Speaker 1: your ideas have become much more popular. And I will
Speaker 1: say in the coaching work that I've done, I've realized,
Speaker 1: over and over, working with so many more people since
Speaker 1: when you and I last talked, how critical these ideas
Speaker 1: of self compassion really are, both in living a better
Speaker 1: life but also in actually being able to make changes
Speaker 1: in our life. How important self compassion is. So we're
Speaker 1: going to get into all that here in a few moments.
Speaker 1: But let's start like we always do, with the parable.
Speaker 1: There is a grandmother who's talking with her grandson. She says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. What is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandmother. He says, well, grandmother, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandmother says that the one you feed. So
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off by asking you what that
Speaker 1: parable means to you in your life and in the
Speaker 1: work that you do, right, I mean, so that that
Speaker 1: actually is one of the parallels that's kind of ubiquitous
Speaker 1: in in the mindfulness and compassion world, are 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 we
Speaker 1: what we practice actually can lay down new neural pathways
Speaker 1: in the brain. So it's very much the case that
Speaker 1: if you practice mindfulness and compassion and self compassion, you
Speaker 1: build those neural pathways. If you just you know, kind
Speaker 1: of go down the habitual path of fear and hatred
Speaker 1: and reactivity, then you actually just strengthen those neural pathways. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what's so remarkable about what we know
Speaker 1: the science of contemplative practice is you really can change
Speaker 1: your neural pathways with practice based on what you feed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. I think the ability to change our neural
Speaker 1: pathways and neural plasticity is something. Know, I feel like
Speaker 1: I can't pick up a book these days without reading
Speaker 1: about it. But it is so true. It's just doesn't
Speaker 1: happen as quick as we would usually like, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a good news, as it can change. Bad news
Speaker 1: is it takes longer than we think, which I think
Speaker 1: it's just good to know that because I think what
Speaker 1: happens with a lot of people as we hear like whoa,
Speaker 1: this can change, and so we try a time or
Speaker 1: two and it doesn't really do a lot, and so
Speaker 1: then we give up and and contemplate if practice as
Speaker 1: well as self compassion practice, my experience is the more
Speaker 1: you do it, the better you get at it right exactly,
Speaker 1: you know. But the nice thing about self compassion is
Speaker 1: every time you fail to have self compassion, you can
Speaker 1: give yourself compassion. You know. It's kind of recursive that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So let's jump into self compassion and you know, kind
Speaker 1: of talk about what it is to start, you know,
Speaker 1: for people who aren't familiar with the term. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about what is self compassion, and then let's talk about
Speaker 1: why it's important. The easy way to think about what
Speaker 1: self compassion is is is just treating yourself with the
Speaker 1: same kindness, support, care um that you would show to
Speaker 1: a friend you cared about when they were struggling in
Speaker 1: some way. So it's just really doing a U turn
Speaker 1: and giving the compassion you would normally show to others
Speaker 1: to yourself. And so that's kind of the simple version
Speaker 1: my model of self compassion. It's a little more complex,
Speaker 1: and I do think it's important because you might say
Speaker 1: that the components and self compassion are also a recipe
Speaker 1: for how to give yourself compassion um. So it really
Speaker 1: starts with mindfulness. And we've heard a lot about mindfulness
Speaker 1: these days, but we really can't have self compassion without mindfulness.
Speaker 1: We need to be able to notice when we're struggling,
Speaker 1: when we're suffering, instead of avoiding it or resisting it.
Speaker 1: Are also instead of just being lost in its swallowed
Speaker 1: up by it, we need a little perspective to say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm having a hard time. So that's a
Speaker 1: mindfulness and then we do respond with this kindness, you know, again,
Speaker 1: like we would treat a friend, as I said. But
Speaker 1: there's a third element that's actually really crucial, and that's
Speaker 1: framing our experience in light of the shared human experience.
Speaker 1: The third component is common humanity, right. And actually the
Speaker 1: word compassion in the Latin come means with passion, means suffer,
Speaker 1: suffer with There's an inherent connectedness in compassion, which makes
Speaker 1: it very different from pity. Right. So, for instance, self
Speaker 1: pity is not healthy, self compassion is healthy. What's the difference, Um, well,
Speaker 1: other people, right, the self pity as well as me.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a very egocentric, self focused 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 in 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 is 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's somehow everyone else there
Speaker 1: in the world is not having problems or is leaving
Speaker 1: a perfect life, and it's just me who's struggling, or
Speaker 1: just me who feels inadequate, And that really adds insult
Speaker 1: to injury. It makes it seem much worse than it
Speaker 1: 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 quintessential 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: the behavior that's unhealthy, or maybe weren't a job or
Speaker 1: a relationship that's unhealthy. Sometimes acceptance actually isn't what we need.
Speaker 1: What we need is to take action in some way.
Speaker 1: Maybe we need to leave the relationship, or maybe we
Speaker 1: need to you know, to do something differently or um,
Speaker 1: you know, meet our needs in a different way than
Speaker 1: what we're currently doing. And so that's really where wisdom
Speaker 1: comes in. You know, what do I need is the
Speaker 1: question we need to ask ourselves, and typically wisdom can
Speaker 1: give us the answer or at least point is in
Speaker 1: the right direction. We can't alwe us assume it's gonna
Speaker 1: look one way, it's gonna it's gonna vary day by day, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some myths of self compassion that
Speaker 1: I think make a lot of people sort of turn
Speaker 1: away from it prematurely or not investigate it. So I
Speaker 1: thought like we could walk through a few of these
Speaker 1: before we go deeper and how to practice it. So
Speaker 1: the first is this thing that people often say, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't self compassion just mean throwing a pity
Speaker 1: party for poor me? How would you answer that? There's
Speaker 1: basically five main myths of self compassion, that that's one
Speaker 1: of them, that it's self pity, And I think that's
Speaker 1: when people will understand the common humanity aspect of self compassion. Right. So, ironically,
Speaker 1: self compassion reduces self focused even though it's got the
Speaker 1: S word in it, it doesn't highlight the sense of self.
Speaker 1: It actually reduces it. So what is self focused is
Speaker 1: when we're saying, oh, I'm so horrible, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: judging myself and I'm blaming myself. It's a very self
Speaker 1: focused state. When you say that, hey, this is part
Speaker 1: of the human condition. You know, everyone fails when you
Speaker 1: kind 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're less likely to ruminate,
Speaker 1: they're less likely to get like stuck in and 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 be 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 and I think that idea of self compassion is
Speaker 1: throwing a pity party for me. I think that the
Speaker 1: easiest way to sort of know this is true for
Speaker 1: ourselves is just to think about when we are in
Speaker 1: a lot of pain, are we more focused on others?
Speaker 1: We more focused on ourselves When we're more focused on ourselves.
Speaker 1: When our pain is relieved, we're actually 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 it was
Speaker 1: shame kind of locks you in this dark coal where
Speaker 1: you can't even relate to other people. So absolutely, the
Speaker 1: more you're able to see yourself not as just you,
Speaker 1: but as part of this larger humanity, um, the less
Speaker 1: self focused you are. One of the other myths is
Speaker 1: self compassion is for whimps. I have to be tough
Speaker 1: and strong to get through my life. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: another common one. We really think that somehow that using
Speaker 1: this harsh internal voice, if we can stand up to
Speaker 1: that voice, that that makes us strong again, you know,
Speaker 1: with the research actually shows that it's just the opposite.
Speaker 1: At this point, I'm very comfortable saying that self compassion
Speaker 1: has been shown to be one of the most powerful
Speaker 1: sources of strength, coping, and resilience we have available to us. So,
Speaker 1: you know, when the going gets tough, the tough gets
Speaker 1: self compassionate because having compassion, having your own back, being
Speaker 1: supportive to yourself actually strengthens you when times are difficult,
Speaker 1: cutting yourself down, shaming yourself, you know, calling yourself names,
Speaker 1: actually weak as you and so just you know, to
Speaker 1: take an example, there's been a lot of research with
Speaker 1: combat veterans, you know, people who may be seen action
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan or Iraq, and they find that combat veterans
Speaker 1: who are more self compassionate about what they've experienced, they're
Speaker 1: less likely to develop PTSD UM, they function better in
Speaker 1: daily life, they're less likely, you know, to turn to
Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol um, and they're less likely to attempt
Speaker 1: suicide to deal with their pain. And and so we
Speaker 1: know that with combat veterans, similar findings people going through divorce,
Speaker 1: raising special needs kids, coping with cancer, to chronic pain.
Speaker 1: I mean basically, when things are tough, what are you
Speaker 1: or 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 the in our
Speaker 1: brief introduction. 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 this out
Speaker 1: and weakensis b. J. Falg in his latest book has
Speaker 1: a line that I loved. He said, people change better
Speaker 1: by feeling good than feeling bad. My experience has shown
Speaker 1: that over and over. Not only is it just more
Speaker 1: pleasant to be inside a brain that is not so
Speaker 1: hard on ourselves, it's also so much more effective, and
Speaker 1: you 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 so? Or
Speaker 1: when we're flattened by insecurity, or when we're our heartbeat
Speaker 1: is going crazy because we're beating ourselves up and we're
Speaker 1: stressed and our cortisols going, we can't make the best
Speaker 1: decisions of performance. Anxiety, for instance, undermines our ability to
Speaker 1: achieve our goals. So definitely, Now, some people confuse her
Speaker 1: self criticism with constructive criticism, and they think that self
Speaker 1: compassion means just saying, oh, that's fine, right. Sometimes compassion
Speaker 1: is like Mama there, it's like, no, you gotta make
Speaker 1: a change, and here's what you need to do. But
Speaker 1: it's coming from a place of love and support, not
Speaker 1: from a place of you know, you're not good enough.
Speaker 1: I will hate you, I won't love you unless you succeed. Right,
Speaker 1: but some of that criticism may be quite focused, quite clear,
Speaker 1: but it's coming from a place of wanting the best
Speaker 1: for you, as opposed to again shaming yourself because you
Speaker 1: aren't good enough. And we know, um just the same
Speaker 1: as motivating our children, it's actually more effective in the
Speaker 1: long run to motivate them with constructive criticism than with
Speaker 1: shame and destructive criticism. It's the exact same thing with ourselves. Right.
Speaker 1: I love the idea. I think I got it from
Speaker 1: reading something of yours, which is that we tend to
Speaker 1: think well self. Compassion is just you know, giving yourself
Speaker 1: whatever you want, and you make the point of like
Speaker 1: a compassionate parent doesn't let the child eat all of
Speaker 1: the ice cream that's in the freezer. Right. It's not
Speaker 1: about like you just give yourself everything and anything you want.
Speaker 1: It's about wisdom, But it's about kindness and I and
Speaker 1: I and I love that idea because I think one
Speaker 1: of the hardest things that people wrestle with balancing and
Speaker 1: I know I have and figure out, is like, where
Speaker 1: do you draw the line between sort of giving yourself
Speaker 1: a break and also holding yourself accountable? And what I
Speaker 1: found is that holding myself accountable is fine and is
Speaker 1: actually really important and I need to do it, but
Speaker 1: it's the tone in which I do it. I can
Speaker 1: do that very same activity of sort of you know,
Speaker 1: holding myself accountable and sort of having a standard for
Speaker 1: my actions and how I'm doing and the behavior and
Speaker 1: choices I make. I can do that with either a
Speaker 1: really harsh, critical, mean tone towards myself or I love
Speaker 1: the example. If I could do it like I would
Speaker 1: to a friend or to a coaching client or to
Speaker 1: my son, There's a there's a way that I can
Speaker 1: do it. It's not so much content a lot of times,
Speaker 1: although content is important, a lot of it for me
Speaker 1: is tone. Yeah, so it's not only tone but also
Speaker 1: the intention. Of course, tone often conveys the intention, but
Speaker 1: you can really feel it if the intention is the supportive,
Speaker 1: constructive one, or if the intention is to shame or
Speaker 1: you know, harm you in some way. And sometimes, for instance,
Speaker 1: with a friend or a child, you might use a
Speaker 1: really like sharp telling stop it, you know. But you know,
Speaker 1: if it's stopped it, it's like because I'm worried about
Speaker 1: you and I care about you, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to kill yourself. I don't want to harm yourself, versus
Speaker 1: like stop it because you're like you disgust me, or
Speaker 1: that's horrible something like that. So very small variations in
Speaker 1: tone can um convey that intention. And so, like I said,
Speaker 1: I do like to use the mama their example, or
Speaker 1: you know, the the tiger mom for instance. Sometimes we
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 will
Speaker 1: make you self indulgent. Um. And so again, you know
Speaker 1: the research, so the research just proves all of it.
Speaker 1: It says we're more motivated, we're more lucky to take
Speaker 1: personal responsibility for things, we're less self focused. And another
Speaker 1: thing is that, um, we are less self indulgent. So
Speaker 1: for instance, we go to the doctor more often, we
Speaker 1: eat healthier, we exercise more, we practice safe sex. And
Speaker 1: that's basically because when we care about ourselves, right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do what we need to be healthy. What is
Speaker 1: self indulgence or laziness? That's kind of we're having short
Speaker 1: term 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 So this is appropriate, right,
Speaker 1: and so is it healthy or is it not healthy?
Speaker 1: You know when is when is having that bowl of
Speaker 1: ice 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, it's 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 gonna choose healthy behaviors,
Speaker 1: and that's what the research shows. So now we sort
Speaker 1: of have talked about why people would want self compassion
Speaker 1: and some of the myths around us. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about practicing self compassion. So if we had to give
Speaker 1: people a very short couple of 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. Um.
Speaker 1: Probably the easiest thing to do is to draw off
Speaker 1: what we already know, which is how to be compassionate
Speaker 1: to those week here about right, And actually usually the
Speaker 1: best context to think of in terms of how to
Speaker 1: be compassionate is our close friends, um, you know, because
Speaker 1: let's face it, sometimes our partners or kids they're almost
Speaker 1: like two close we aren't at our best with them,
Speaker 1: and people we don't know very well sometimes we also
Speaker 1: aren't are most compassionate with them as well. But usually
Speaker 1: we have some good friends, people we really care about, um,
Speaker 1: But who's you know, when they fail or they make
Speaker 1: a mistake, it doesn't personally threaten us, which means we're
Speaker 1: kind of able to access the more carrying way of helping.
Speaker 1: And so if you think, well, if I had a
Speaker 1: good friend, have the exact same situation happened to them,
Speaker 1: like they said the same thing, or they failed in
Speaker 1: the same way, or they're going through the same health issue.
Speaker 1: You know, what would I say to that friend? You know,
Speaker 1: what tone would I use? What would my body language
Speaker 1: be like? And that's a very good template for how
Speaker 1: to treat yourself. Right, So again you just kind of
Speaker 1: think of how you would treat another and then you
Speaker 1: do a U turn and you and you do that
Speaker 1: with yourself. And it's funny for for many people. At first,
Speaker 1: it feels uncomfortable, like, what do you mean talking to
Speaker 1: myself like I'm here for you, you know what you
Speaker 1: need or you know, I believe in you or I
Speaker 1: support you, And it seems so it seems so strange
Speaker 1: to talk to you to yourself in this kind of
Speaker 1: second person way. And we do it all the time
Speaker 1: when we criticize ourselves, Oh you're such a fool, you're
Speaker 1: such an idiot, right, we don't even think about that
Speaker 1: one because we're so used to it. Right, So we're
Speaker 1: actually used to speaking to ourselves all the time in
Speaker 1: this in this kind of second person way. So what
Speaker 1: we're just doing is changing the tone and the content
Speaker 1: of it. And it does feel awkward at first, but
Speaker 1: you start getting used to it, you know, after a while,
Speaker 1: it starts to feel more habitual and we start to
Speaker 1: really listen to ourselves. You know. You can also do
Speaker 1: it in the first person, like you know, maybe happy
Speaker 1: or maybe say for you know, kind of phrases like
Speaker 1: that with the eye, if that feels more comfortable, um,
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
Speaker 1: perspective taking to yourself also gives you a little bit
Speaker 1: of distance, so you aren't so identified with the pain.
Speaker 1: That's one way to do it. Another really kind of
Speaker 1: useful and easy way to tap into self compassion is
Speaker 1: to do it uh physiologically right. So what we know
Speaker 1: is when we're criticizing ourselves, when we're um, you know,
Speaker 1: really upset, we're in a fight or flight mode. Are
Speaker 1: are sympathetic nervous system is activated. We're releasing cortisol, adrenaline. Um,
Speaker 1: we feel frightened because there's, you know, some fear that
Speaker 1: I'm not lovable or I'm gonna, you know, make some
Speaker 1: huge mistake in my Life's gonna be over right. Your
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system is at debated naturally that way, and
Speaker 1: when we give ourselves compassion, it actually activates the para
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system. That's kind of you know, when we
Speaker 1: feel connected to others, When we feel cared for, we
Speaker 1: release oxytocin other opiates. Our cortisol goes down or heart
Speaker 1: rate becomes more variable as we've become more flexible. One
Speaker 1: of the ways we can actually activate this sense of
Speaker 1: safety and the parasympathetic system is to touch. As human
Speaker 1: beings were exquisitely designed to respond to touch, because the
Speaker 1: first two years of life right, the primary way the
Speaker 1: infant and parents convey safety, care back and forth is
Speaker 1: through touched before language sets in. Right, and so the
Speaker 1: human body is designed to respond to caring touch by feelings,
Speaker 1: you know, safe, relaxing, calming down again, releasing these oxytocin opiates, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So what you can do is, you know, put your
Speaker 1: hands on your heart or a cradle, your face in
Speaker 1: your hands, or hold your own hand, or give yourself
Speaker 1: a hug. I mean, people are different in terms of
Speaker 1: what works, and you've got to kind of check it out.
Speaker 1: But you can actually start with your physiology. And what
Speaker 1: that does is, first of all, like if you just
Speaker 1: put your hand on your heart, it reminds you of
Speaker 1: your own presence, and then it kind of your body says, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm being held literally by myself, and then you calm down,
Speaker 1: and then that's often a really good place to start
Speaker 1: to be self compassionate. So, um, you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: don't even need words. But if you were to put
Speaker 1: your hands on your heart and say something like this
Speaker 1: is really hard, I'm so sorry, it will be okay,
Speaker 1: something like that something you would just quite naturally say
Speaker 1: to a friend or a child. Um, your body really
Speaker 1: responds excellent. Would this be a good time for us
Speaker 1: to do uh self compassion break? Sure? Yeah? Okay? So
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, um,
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: Maybe before we do the practice, just taking a few
Speaker 1: deep breaths, because you've just been talking a lot. Just
Speaker 1: kind of imagine releasing some of the tension of thinking. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what I'd invite you to do is to comp
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
Speaker 1: go going through, right It might be something you're feeling
Speaker 1: badly 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 is,
Speaker 1: making it real. So what we're gonna be doing is
Speaker 1: we're going to bring in the three components of self
Speaker 1: compassion um as we're you know, relating to this very
Speaker 1: difficult experience. So the first thing we need remind ourselves
Speaker 1: is what's happening right now, this difficult situation. This is
Speaker 1: a moment of suffering, right, So we're just bringing mindfulness
Speaker 1: to this fact. We're validating, validating the fact that this
Speaker 1: is hard, okay, And I invite you to use any
Speaker 1: language that makes sense for you to really acknowledge the
Speaker 1: difficulty of what's happening. Might be I'm so sorry this
Speaker 1: is happening, or ouch, something that just really acknowledges and
Speaker 1: validates with mindfulness the pain that's here. Okay. And then
Speaker 1: we want to remind ourselves, um of the humanness of this,
Speaker 1: of common humanity, you know, struggled paying difficulty, this is
Speaker 1: part of life, right, So again, just using any language
Speaker 1: that that makes sense to you, maybe something like I'm
Speaker 1: not alone I'm not abnormal for having something like this
Speaker 1: happen me too. Excuse why French ship happens, you know.
Speaker 1: And then we want to bring in the kindness, the
Speaker 1: kind response to this difficulty. And so one way to
Speaker 1: do that is through touch. So that invite you to
Speaker 1: again put your hands on your heart, maybe cradle your
Speaker 1: face with your hands, or you might hold the face
Speaker 1: of a child, or you can hold your own hand,
Speaker 1: some sort of touch that feels good to you, that
Speaker 1: lets you know physically you have your own support. Right,
Speaker 1: So feeling your hands on your body, within the warmth
Speaker 1: of your hands, and then saying any words of kindness
Speaker 1: and kind of warm, supportive tone that are just what
Speaker 1: you need to hear right now, right. It might be
Speaker 1: something like you know it's okay to be imperfect, or
Speaker 1: you're doing the best you can, or you know I'm
Speaker 1: here for you. And if you actually, if you aren't
Speaker 1: sure what to say, what you can do is you
Speaker 1: could imagine, um that you had a close friend, someone
Speaker 1: you cared about, going through the exact same thing you're
Speaker 1: going through. Um, 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 practice like that, usually there's
Speaker 1: one of three ways we feel. Sometimes we do feel
Speaker 1: kind of soothed and comforted. Um, we feel some compassion
Speaker 1: arising and it helps us feel good. Um. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: feel absolutely nothing. It just like does nothing just gonna
Speaker 1: nothing happened. And the third thing that happens is we
Speaker 1: might actually feel bad. Sometimes we open our heart and
Speaker 1: we feel more agitated afterwards. Um. And all three reactions
Speaker 1: are actually completely normal, and none of them are better
Speaker 1: than than the other. Uh. You know, sometimes if we
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time kind of closing our heart
Speaker 1: down and just deal with life, and we we let
Speaker 1: the fresh air of the compassion in, It's it's almost
Speaker 1: like a house on fire, you know, you open the
Speaker 1: doors of the 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 backdrop. It sometimes that happens. It's it's
Speaker 1: actually it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means
Speaker 1: you're doing it right. Um. But just to say, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever your reaction is, it doesn't really matter. What we're
Speaker 1: doing here is we're setting our intention to be kinder
Speaker 1: to ourselves. The practice actually rest on our intention. We
Speaker 1: do it, and we practice and eventually, um, it starts
Speaker 1: to bear fruit. So whatever you're feeling right now, good, bad,
Speaker 1: or nothing, it doesn't really matter the important things. We
Speaker 1: just practice this new way of being to ourselves. Wonderful. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for leading us through that. And I really
Speaker 1: like what you said there at the end about we
Speaker 1: keep practicing regardless of how this particular event went. Um,
Speaker 1: I'd like to ask you about doing self compassion in
Speaker 1: the midst of a lot of real self critical thoughts.
Speaker 1: So an example would be I work with a lot
Speaker 1: of people who you know, they have a lot of
Speaker 1: self critical thoughts. They tend to the sort of people
Speaker 1: where I haven't been exercising for quite some time, but
Speaker 1: they start and they start by walking a mile a day.
Speaker 1: But the thought that's going through their brain the whole time,
Speaker 1: what they're saying themselves, it's like, well mile a day
Speaker 1: is 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 is 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 the only Waca Moliday is not enough
Speaker 1: and how did you get yourself into this? That's a
Speaker 1: part of us that feels threatened. Either it's threatened because
Speaker 1: we might be afraid that we aren't going to be healthy.
Speaker 1: We might feel threatened because we think we don't look
Speaker 1: the way we should and other people will reject us.
Speaker 1: We might feel threatened because of something that happened in
Speaker 1: our past or early childhood. Right, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different reasons why we feel threatened, but almost always self
Speaker 1: criticism arises from a feeling of threat. And what we're
Speaker 1: doing is we're trying to use that fight, flight or
Speaker 1: freeze response to deal with the threat. Either we attack
Speaker 1: ourselves that's the fight response, or we flee. We like
Speaker 1: you know, we isolate ourselves in shame, or we freeze,
Speaker 1: we get stuck in mumination. And so when we realize
Speaker 1: that the inner critic is trying to actually help us
Speaker 1: be safe, then what we can do is, instead of
Speaker 1: judging ourselves. For judging ourselves, it's just makes things worse,
Speaker 1: we can actually say, oh, okay, I see thank thank
Speaker 1: you for trying to keep me safe. I hear you. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're worried, got it. Okay, we'll see what we can
Speaker 1: do right. And then once the inner critic kind of
Speaker 1: feels heard and listen to, then it's actually easier to
Speaker 1: bring in another voice, which is kind of the more
Speaker 1: compassionate voice, which also wants us to feel safe. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of quite remarkable to realize that our inner
Speaker 1: critic and our inner compassion itself, they both want us
Speaker 1: to be safe. But the critical voice suggest, you know,
Speaker 1: all it knows is fear. That's that's the kind of
Speaker 1: the only voice it has, whereas we also have this wiser, um,
Speaker 1: kind of more mature voice that can use the safety
Speaker 1: of care, you know, encouragement. And so once once we
Speaker 1: do that again, we don't want to shut down the
Speaker 1: inner critic. We just want to say, okay, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for trying to keep me safe. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And then we can try to use you know, encouragement. Okay,
Speaker 1: so maybe we can try to do a little more tomorrow.
Speaker 1: So we want to keep high goals, the long term
Speaker 1: goal high. We want to take baby steps, right, Just
Speaker 1: can I just do five percent more or five percent
Speaker 1: more instead of like, you know more and that kind
Speaker 1: of you know, slow incremental improvement with encouragement, um can can?
Speaker 1: It's it's easier to get in to listen to those
Speaker 1: voices once we realize that our inner critic is actually
Speaker 1: trying to 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 kindness is it's almost like we don't really
Speaker 1: believe them. So is it a matter of you know,
Speaker 1: continuing to practice so we come to believe. Is it
Speaker 1: a matter of continuing to experiment till we find the
Speaker 1: phrases and ideas that work for us? Both it's really both.
Speaker 1: I mean, So you don't want to use language that
Speaker 1: you're having an argument in your head with, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just a bloatable anarchy. 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 differ by person. But it still
Speaker 1: may feel a little uncomfortable, not quite right. If you
Speaker 1: weren'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 um doing the practice. And again,
Speaker 1: trying different ways is to help. If you use a
Speaker 1: you know, an image for instance, maybe I can't believe it,
Speaker 1: But if I think about me as a child and
Speaker 1: I say these words to me as my child self,
Speaker 1: does that help? Right? So you might try taking different
Speaker 1: perspectives like that to see if you get a little
Speaker 1: more attraction with it. There's actually a saying. It's it's
Speaker 1: from the Jewish tradition, and the saying is um. A
Speaker 1: young man goes to his rabbi and he says, Rabbi,
Speaker 1: you know, why does torret tell us to place the
Speaker 1: holy words on our hearts? Why doesn't it tell us
Speaker 1: to place the holy words in our hearts? And the
Speaker 1: rabbi response, well, because as it is, our hearts are
Speaker 1: kind of closed, so we can't put them in our hearts,
Speaker 1: so we place them on our hearts and there they
Speaker 1: stay until one day the heart breaks and the words
Speaker 1: fall in right, And so that's kind of what we're doing.
Speaker 1: And we're just kind of like continually doing the practice
Speaker 1: again like the One You Feed um, and eventually it
Speaker 1: starts to make a change. Well, Kristen, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to come on the show.
Speaker 1: I again, I think your work is so important and
Speaker 1: so valuable. Of links in the show notes to your
Speaker 1: website where you have lots of meditations and different things,
Speaker 1: and again, I just really appreciate you taking the time
Speaker 1: to come on. Okay, thanks, it was lots of fun. Okay,
Speaker 1: take care. Thanks bye. If what you just heard was
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