Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. I'm really excited to have
Speaker 1: Kristin Nafflin the show today. Kristin is an Associate professor
Speaker 1: of Human Development and Culture and the Educational Psychology Department
Speaker 1: at the University of Texas at Austin. She's author of
Speaker 1: the Self Compassion Scales and the book Self Compassion, The
Speaker 1: Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. Thanks Kristin for
Speaker 1: being on the show today. Oh, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Happy to be here. Your story of how you got
Speaker 1: interested in self compassion is interesting, right, the last year
Speaker 1: in grad school you became interested in Buddhism, and kind
Speaker 1: of this was an outgrowth of your interest in Buddhism,
Speaker 1: Is that right, Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Actually it was
Speaker 1: interesting because the very first night I went to the
Speaker 1: group to learn really meditation to help with the stress
Speaker 1: I was feeling. The woman leading the group talked a
Speaker 1: lot about self compassion, which I hadn't really been expecting
Speaker 1: and lucky for me because it really changed the course
Speaker 1: of my life that one evening. So it kind of
Speaker 1: made immediate sense to me, and I started being kinder
Speaker 1: and more supportive to myself, and I saw the impact
Speaker 1: almost immediately. Yeah, is this something that like, you've struggled
Speaker 1: with your life like most people, kind of having an
Speaker 1: inner critic that is loud. Yeah, it's funny, I want
Speaker 1: to say I'm particularly harsh. You have really harsh in
Speaker 1: a critic is kind of like an averagely harsh and
Speaker 1: a critical are pretty unkind of themselves. Well, really made
Speaker 1: the difference for me is I didn't realize I could
Speaker 1: hurt myself when I needed I was more used to
Speaker 1: relying on other people to help get me through, and
Speaker 1: when those people weren't available, I was kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: up a creek without a paddle, right, So this really
Speaker 1: helped me learn that when I was upset or anxious
Speaker 1: or stress, but also of course, if I was feeling
Speaker 1: shame or bad about myself, that it was a way
Speaker 1: I could really be friendly, supportive and accepting the way
Speaker 1: you know, in good times other people would be toward me.
Speaker 1: But I'd actually just gotten out of a divorce and
Speaker 1: my ex was not interested in being a kind, compassion
Speaker 1: figure to me. I had to do it myself. You know.
Speaker 1: The whole thing was really a mess. It was a
Speaker 1: very messy time in my life, which in hindsight is
Speaker 1: good because it really inspired me to embrace self compassion.
Speaker 1: There's a Buddhist teacher in Scotland who says the goal
Speaker 1: of practice is to become a compassionate mess. So really
Speaker 1: it's like, no matter screwed up your life, as you
Speaker 1: can always be a compassionate mess and if you at
Speaker 1: least see that as you're The aim is not perfection,
Speaker 1: The aim isn't they have your you know, you know
Speaker 1: what together. The aim is just to each moment be kind, compassionate,
Speaker 1: open hearted. And really that's a goal anyone can obtain
Speaker 1: all the time. Really, Oh, I really love that. A
Speaker 1: compassion in mess. Yeah, oh my god. Yeah, But it's
Speaker 1: shoes like we give up our striving for perfection and
Speaker 1: we give up this idea that we aren't supposed to
Speaker 1: make mistakes and we aren't supposed to get it wrong.
Speaker 1: Of course we are. That's what's being human. But what
Speaker 1: we can do is approach all of it with kindness
Speaker 1: and acceptance and compassion, and ultimately having our hearts open,
Speaker 1: at least for many of us, is what we're really
Speaker 1: after in life. Living in an open hearted life. I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in people, the wearing disabilities and kind of
Speaker 1: showing their strengths and things of that nature. Your son
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with lautism, Is that right? Yeah? Did you
Speaker 1: see The Horseboy? No? But I saw an interview with you.
Speaker 1: Should I see the film? Sure? Was on an Amazon
Speaker 1: from you can rent it. Yeah. We took a crazy
Speaker 1: trip to my writing from shaman to shaman on horseback,
Speaker 1: believe it or not. At work, I very much had
Speaker 1: no choice in that situation except to be open minded,
Speaker 1: and we tried everything, including shamanism. It's really horses. My
Speaker 1: son responded radically well to being a horseback. That's why
Speaker 1: he learned all his own language. So we actually have
Speaker 1: an equine therapy center now we run an equine therapy
Speaker 1: center for other kids. Yeah, but I can tell you self,
Speaker 1: compassion save my you know what? Over and over again.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I would have gotten through. He's
Speaker 1: not through in one piece. I mean the fact that
Speaker 1: I managed to get through and I think be stronger
Speaker 1: from it is largely due to my self compassion practice.
Speaker 1: And I hope you teach him how to have self
Speaker 1: compassion for himself as well. No, I do. I do try.
Speaker 1: You know. I teached him put his hand on his
Speaker 1: card and to breathe deeply, so well, very very loving,
Speaker 1: sweet kid, sweetheart. Okay, what is the relationship between mindfulness
Speaker 1: and self compassion? There is a very strong link there, right, Yeah, well, see,
Speaker 1: the way to find self compassion is I define mindfulness
Speaker 1: as one of the core components are really a foundational
Speaker 1: aspect of self compassion. So from my point of view,
Speaker 1: you can't really be self compassionate unless you're being mindful.
Speaker 1: So right to the extent that mindfulness gives us stability
Speaker 1: to be with things as they are, even if we
Speaker 1: don't like things the way they are, but to be
Speaker 1: with it, to turn forward, especially painful feelings, without immediately
Speaker 1: trying to resist or avoid. We have to be mindful
Speaker 1: of our suffering in order to have self compassion. If
Speaker 1: we're just avoiding it, we aren't thinking about it. We're
Speaker 1: just resisting it, trying to fix the problem, fix ourselves.
Speaker 1: We can't really hold the space needed to open our
Speaker 1: hearts to yourself. Also, if you have self compassion without mindfulness,
Speaker 1: what could happen is you could fall into something that
Speaker 1: looks like self compassion that isn't really like I'm going
Speaker 1: to throw compassion at myself to try to make the
Speaker 1: pain go away, right, put my hand on my heart.
Speaker 1: Hopefully maybe I won't have to feel pain anymore if
Speaker 1: I do this, if I see the comfort myself. The fact,
Speaker 1: if you use self compassion as a way to make
Speaker 1: the pain go away, if you lose your mindfulness, it
Speaker 1: stops working. So we say self compassion. We give ourselves
Speaker 1: compassion not to feel better, but because we feel bad. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, when we're feeling bad, we fully accept
Speaker 1: that this is how it is, without resistance. And yet
Speaker 1: we also say, ah, what could I do to help you? Know?
Speaker 1: There's that kind compassionate response. So mindfulness is necessary for compassion,
Speaker 1: but compassion, I mean, people have various points of view
Speaker 1: about this. Certainly compassion isn't almost maybe even relevant if
Speaker 1: your mindful of eating and raisin for instance, compassion doesn't
Speaker 1: really come into play. Compassion also includes being kind to
Speaker 1: the person who is suffering and also recognizing that this
Speaker 1: is part of the shared human condition. Sometimes, if you're
Speaker 1: mindful of eating a raisin, I mean these needs tell
Speaker 1: the elements of compassion aren't really relevant. Maybe there's probably
Speaker 1: no suffering and you don't get passion to the reisin, right,
Speaker 1: but you give compassion to a person who is suffering
Speaker 1: while mindfully accepting that suffering is present. There's a sense
Speaker 1: of care, kindness, you're emotionally moved by the sufferings. Oh
Speaker 1: that's you know, poor saying I'm kindness or encouragement, that's
Speaker 1: the response of the heart. And then also common humanity
Speaker 1: is it's very very important numbering that the human experience
Speaker 1: is one of imperfection. People often forget this, not logically,
Speaker 1: they know it logically, but irrationally, when they make a
Speaker 1: mistake or they fail, or some big struggle happens in
Speaker 1: their life, they feel this should not be happening. Very
Speaker 1: powerful emotional reaction. This should not be happening. Something's wrong.
Speaker 1: Because this is happening, this is abnormal, as if everyone
Speaker 1: else in the world is living this perfectly happy, normal
Speaker 1: life with no problems and it's just me who's failed.
Speaker 1: It just me who said that stupid comment or just
Speaker 1: maybe got that diagnosis, and that sense of should an
Speaker 1: abnormality is really psychologically destabilizing. It makes us feel cut
Speaker 1: off and isolated from others. So compassion compassion actually means
Speaker 1: to suffer with the term come passion, to suffer with
Speaker 1: what our w with when our own suffering. That means
Speaker 1: we recognize that this is a shared experience, it's not
Speaker 1: just us, and that actually allows any moment of suffering
Speaker 1: when help with self passion, to be a moment of
Speaker 1: connection to others, very very important for kind of stabilizing
Speaker 1: us and allowing us to feel yeah, more loving and
Speaker 1: connected toward everyone, not just ourselves. It's so obvious that
Speaker 1: you are very passionate about your research. Yes, it's really
Speaker 1: a way of life. I mean, I guess I'm a
Speaker 1: classic example of a scientist practitioner. You know, I practice
Speaker 1: self compassion in my personal life. I teach people self compassion.
Speaker 1: I spend a large part of my time teaching people
Speaker 1: self compassion. I've developed a curriculum with my colleague pri
Speaker 1: Spermurder teach self compassion. So the science for me, SUFFLE
Speaker 1: meant that. But you know, I sometimes I admit I'm
Speaker 1: not the total pure scientist because I really study self
Speaker 1: compassion to prove but I already know, which maybe is
Speaker 1: not the most objective stance. Nonetheless, you know, I know
Speaker 1: it works. I've seen the work, I felt it work.
Speaker 1: So for me, the science is a way of trying
Speaker 1: to understand how it works, and of course gives support
Speaker 1: for it. You do do good science, Oh thank you. No,
Speaker 1: I mean it's not. But I say that I'm kind
Speaker 1: of joking. Now. Hopefully I don't let my biases that
Speaker 1: get involved in the science, but you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of like to be upfront about it because I am
Speaker 1: passionate about it and I do believe in it. I'm
Speaker 1: not pretending to be neutral. I think other people. If
Speaker 1: other people want to show the problems of self compassion,
Speaker 1: they're welcome to. I believe in the scientific method, but
Speaker 1: I've really just been I've seen so many people whose
Speaker 1: life have radically transformed when they started being more self
Speaker 1: compassionate to themself. I know it's a really powerful tool
Speaker 1: that anyone, anyone can learn to help changeilize for the better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like to take your eight week course. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we just started teacher training, so we've trained about six
Speaker 1: hundred teachers. It's still growing compared to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction,
Speaker 1: We're tiny. Can I be train? Yeah you can. You
Speaker 1: have to take the course first, but yeah, so you
Speaker 1: can take the course either in your local community as
Speaker 1: an a week course. We also offer the Holy Week
Speaker 1: course and a five day intensive. You can find it
Speaker 1: all on the Center for Mindful Self Compassion website. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really taking off like wildfire, and a lot of
Speaker 1: teachers teach both Mindfulness based Stress Reduction and our self
Speaker 1: Compassion program because they really compliment each other. You know,
Speaker 1: we can kind of talk about explicitly what mindfulness based
Speaker 1: stress Reduction kind of talks about. Implicitly. Self compassion is there,
Speaker 1: but it's more implicit. We really really explicitly teach the skill,
Speaker 1: and again we teach a little bit of mindfulness, but
Speaker 1: we can't go deeply into it the way it is.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people are actually saying that taking
Speaker 1: both programs is very useful. I think so wonderful. What
Speaker 1: is the difference between self esteem and compassion? There is
Speaker 1: a difference. There's the difference. Yeah, So when I first
Speaker 1: introduced the idea of self compassion into the field. If
Speaker 1: I say introduced the idea, I mean other people like
Speaker 1: Carl Rogers had talked about self acceptance. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: I came up with the idea, but I kind of
Speaker 1: it was the first to operationally to find and measure it.
Speaker 1: So I really positioned it as an alternative to self
Speaker 1: esteem because I was actually coming off a two year
Speaker 1: postdoc working with the self esteem researcher and becoming very
Speaker 1: familiar with all the problems with self esteem. Not that
Speaker 1: there are problems with having self esteem, but there are
Speaker 1: problems with trying to get it right. We know very
Speaker 1: clearly that, for instance, reason kids start to bully other
Speaker 1: kids is because they want to feel good about themselves.
Speaker 1: It's an attempt to get high self esteem. The reason
Speaker 1: people are prejudiced. Self esteem is very contingent. We have
Speaker 1: at one moment and then we fail, and it deserves us.
Speaker 1: So I was studying all this in my postdoc, and
Speaker 1: I was practicing self compassion in my personal life, and
Speaker 1: I realized, is that really what self compassion does, and
Speaker 1: the evidence supports this. It offers all the same mental
Speaker 1: health benefits of self esteem. Right, with self esteem great
Speaker 1: in terms of less anxiety, less depression, more happiness. Same
Speaker 1: with self compassion. But it's not contingent the way self
Speaker 1: esteem is. And now there was when we fail. That's
Speaker 1: precisely when self compassion steps in, exactly when self esteem
Speaker 1: deserves us. And it's not based it's not based on
Speaker 1: feeling better than others. See I gotta do is be
Speaker 1: your average, compassionate mess like everyone else. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be you know, special, above average. And it's not
Speaker 1: LinkedIn narcissism the way self esteem is. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems to be really offering the benefits of self esteem.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like a type of unconditional self esteem.
Speaker 1: So researchers have talked about unconditional self esteem and it's like,
Speaker 1: well that's great, but how do I get it? Well,
Speaker 1: this is one way to get it. I love that.
Speaker 1: It's like you're married to yourself for better or worse,
Speaker 1: and sick for health. Yeah, So it's like do you
Speaker 1: wanna do you want to have be an inner enemy
Speaker 1: or an inner ally that's really the choice we all face,
Speaker 1: and most of us walk down with an inner enemy
Speaker 1: inside our heads, cutting us down undermining us, pulling the
Speaker 1: rug out from underneath us. And when we switch that
Speaker 1: relationship and start being an inner supportive friend, we are
Speaker 1: so much we are much stronger and more capable of
Speaker 1: dealing with adversity. Some people think self compassion is weak.
Speaker 1: Is it weak to have an inner allies opposting an
Speaker 1: inner enemy? No, it's strict. But people really are afraid
Speaker 1: that self compassion means being weak in fact, so if
Speaker 1: they do, people have this reaction, they oh self compassion
Speaker 1: and can be soft and weak, and we we But
Speaker 1: I think people haven't really thought about it deeply, right,
Speaker 1: So the idea of being kind seen as weakness, whereas
Speaker 1: being harsh it's strength. But in fact, internally, if we're
Speaker 1: harsh with ourselves that we cut ourselves down, we are
Speaker 1: weakening ourselves. We're undermining our self confidence. Whereas if we're kind,
Speaker 1: supportive and encouraging, we're strengthening ourselves. So I think people
Speaker 1: just don't really think it through clearly, and our culture
Speaker 1: doesn't encourage it. But if you look at the coping
Speaker 1: literature like that's coming back to my Raq and Afghanistan
Speaker 1: for instance, they find that the level of self compassion
Speaker 1: is more predictive of whether or not they'll developed PTSD.
Speaker 1: The level of combat exposure that they base. There's absolutely
Speaker 1: a strength. It helps us cope with life's biggest challenges,
Speaker 1: to be an inner friend and inner support and inner
Speaker 1: ally will we need most Sorry, I love it, No,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it red so compassion. By
Speaker 1: the way, if you were your age you are now
Speaker 1: in the sixties, you would be even more popular. I think, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, because you know, what's beautiful now that
Speaker 1: wasn't possible in the sixties. This is a whole field
Speaker 1: of people who are mixing kind of personal practice Buddhism
Speaker 1: typically meditation, with science, rigorous science. In the sixties it
Speaker 1: was a little more hippie tippy, you know. And my
Speaker 1: hippie name is Blosso and pre flower, and I definitely
Speaker 1: had my part of my hippie childhood, so a lot
Speaker 1: of these ideas. You mean, yeah, my father it was
Speaker 1: my official name, but yeah, so I definitely spent some
Speaker 1: time in the hippie world. The thing about it is
Speaker 1: there's an element to it that that was kind of flaky.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a real genuine, good spirituality. I grew
Speaker 1: up with rom Das's be here now coffee book on
Speaker 1: my table. I think it's a brilliant book. We hear
Speaker 1: nor it's really a mindfulness book before it's time. But
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of lack of credibility, we
Speaker 1: got mixed up and a lot of personality cults and
Speaker 1: things went haywharren't and things weren't done responsibly. I think
Speaker 1: whereas now with this approach meditation combined with science, I
Speaker 1: feel like we've got the good of that spiritual movement,
Speaker 1: but without the I don't know. Flakiness is the only
Speaker 1: word I could think of it. With more rigor, more
Speaker 1: more reality, more our feet, more firmly planted on the
Speaker 1: ground in a way that's very useful. So I'm not
Speaker 1: in the sixties. I take it back. You've convinced me
Speaker 1: you're ther perfect time period to do your work. I mean,
Speaker 1: well yeah, and really, I mean my work rides on
Speaker 1: the coattails very closely in the mindfulness movement. If it
Speaker 1: wasn't people like John Cabizin and Pritchie Davison and all
Speaker 1: these people doing rigorous scientific research on mindfulness, my work
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been as readily accepted. So I definitely came
Speaker 1: at the right time in terms of other people had
Speaker 1: done the work for me, so I could kind of
Speaker 1: slot myself in, but absolutely I agree. And you developed
Speaker 1: a scale a twenty six item long. That's the longest
Speaker 1: version of the scale, and then you have a shorter version,
Speaker 1: and it measures different aspects like self kindness, self judgment,
Speaker 1: common humanity, isolation, mindfulness, over identified. Yes, the various componentss
Speaker 1: measures both compassionate and uncompassionate behavior. The scale, because it
Speaker 1: was kind of the only game in town, has come
Speaker 1: under criticism lately about its psychometric validity across populations. I
Speaker 1: just published a new art call that uses a new form.
Speaker 1: It's probably not relevant to your readers, but basically really
Speaker 1: establishes the validity of the Self Compassion Scale using a
Speaker 1: new form of analysis. So this is good. It kind
Speaker 1: of I just collected at a largely set five different
Speaker 1: samples using a new type of analysis. That really shows
Speaker 1: to my point of view, I'm happy with the scale.
Speaker 1: I think it stands up great because you've done there's
Speaker 1: so many studies that have done with this scale. Yeah, hundreds, hundreds, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I just want to just review some of the
Speaker 1: major findings like really almost like every aspect of life,
Speaker 1: human life, you've found a correlation is nothing that it
Speaker 1: doesn't help, probably not with cooking skill or you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a there's only been one published study
Speaker 1: that shows that it might not be such a good
Speaker 1: thing for men only who are low in conscientiousness. In
Speaker 1: the context of romantic relationships. It's like a very and
Speaker 1: I think what's happening is men who are low in
Speaker 1: conscientiousness usually self compassion goes with more conscientiousness. Got this
Speaker 1: weird subpopulation. I think what happens They found that men
Speaker 1: were low on conscientiousness. If you told them to be
Speaker 1: more self compassionate, they actually used it as a way
Speaker 1: to evade taking responsibility in their which I see is
Speaker 1: they were kind of not really opening clearly their heart
Speaker 1: to themselves. They were just using You can misuse anything
Speaker 1: if you're clever enough, So that's kind of what I
Speaker 1: see what was happening. But pretty much, yeah, either it
Speaker 1: seems to be linked to pretty much all good things psychological.
Speaker 1: But if you think it's such a deep process again
Speaker 1: being an inner friend, whether an inner enemy as opposed
Speaker 1: to inner enemy, it's almost nothing that that's not going
Speaker 1: to help. But I was wondering, is can you be
Speaker 1: really high in self compassion and really low and compassion
Speaker 1: for others? What if you like high and self compassion
Speaker 1: but your low and agreeableness on the Big five? What's
Speaker 1: going on there in terms of compassion for others? It
Speaker 1: almost never happens. I want to play with some data.
Speaker 1: I have figured out how it can do the analysis.
Speaker 1: But we created a compassion for others scale using the
Speaker 1: same components, very structurally similar, including the same endpoint, so
Speaker 1: you can kind of look at how often you're compassionate
Speaker 1: versus self compassionate. Almost everybody is more compassionate to others
Speaker 1: than themselves, significantly more so. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: under among college undergraduates, they aren't even significantly related. The
Speaker 1: way people treat themselves and others is radically different. In
Speaker 1: almost every single case, people are more compassionate to others
Speaker 1: than to themselves. I think that two percent of people,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure if we're doing the analysis right,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like two percent of people were significantly
Speaker 1: more compassionate to themselves than others. So I don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on with those two percent, but it's very
Speaker 1: very tiny, right, Yeah, people are much harder on themselves
Speaker 1: than others, and I think there's reasons for that, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen very often that you're compassionate to self
Speaker 1: but not to others. Yeah. I think that's a good point.
Speaker 1: And I think it's important that you distinguish self compassion
Speaker 1: from marciss's and it's very clear that there are different things. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then you might say I'm being self compassionate, which is
Speaker 1: why I don't care about you, which is wanting to
Speaker 1: blow off seeing my kids and move to why or something,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, that's not really self passion. So I
Speaker 1: think if it's true self compassion, which is probably what
Speaker 1: it needs, the mindfulness because mindfulness is where the clear
Speaker 1: scene is and just like looking things straight and face
Speaker 1: and saying, yep, I own that I did that or
Speaker 1: this is my responsibility. The mindfulness helps ground us and
Speaker 1: see clearly. And then the kindness is the warm hearted
Speaker 1: response to that, and common humanity is recognizing that it's
Speaker 1: not just me this stuff everyone faces, but you need
Speaker 1: all three components otherwise it could morph into self pity
Speaker 1: or narcissism or self indulgence. Oh sorry, Okay, Well, so
Speaker 1: the three components, and each one kind of has a
Speaker 1: positive compassion versus uncompassionate aspect. So the first is being kind, supportive,
Speaker 1: and caring to yourself, treating yourself like you a good
Speaker 1: treated good friends, as opposed to being harshly, self critical
Speaker 1: and judgmental, which is the way actually most of us
Speaker 1: are with ourselves. The second component involves seeing our imperfection
Speaker 1: and suffering as part of the shared human condition. This
Speaker 1: is normal. It's normal to make mistakes, it's normal to fail,
Speaker 1: it's normal to have struggles, as opposed to feeling isolated
Speaker 1: in that as if somehow everyone else was leaving a normal,
Speaker 1: perfect life and it's just me who's failed or struggling.
Speaker 1: And then the third component is the mindfulness right being
Speaker 1: able to be aware when we're suffering and see it
Speaker 1: in the kind of balance, stable manner, a clear sided manner,
Speaker 1: as opposed to what I call overidentification. And that's really
Speaker 1: a process where we run away with the dramatic storyline
Speaker 1: of oh this is so terrible, so we're seeing what
Speaker 1: ever happen, you know this is bad and therefore I
Speaker 1: am bad. To that kind of emotional dysregulation really would
Speaker 1: be the opposite of mindfulness. So I call it three components.
Speaker 1: But if you consider what the positive and the negative
Speaker 1: aspect is, who sits? Oh cool? Okay, So you need
Speaker 1: all those components. You need those components because if not,
Speaker 1: it can morph. Like they say in Buddhism that pity
Speaker 1: is in your enemy of compassion. So if you were
Speaker 1: just being kind to yourself, but it had the quality
Speaker 1: of kind of feeling sorry for yourself, if you weren't
Speaker 1: remembering that, hey, this is everyone suffers. And if you were,
Speaker 1: you know, getting lost in an exaggerated storyline of how
Speaker 1: bad things are, if you weren't seeing things clearly, self
Speaker 1: compassion could easily turn into self pity. We need the
Speaker 1: mindfulness and the common humanity to keep it from being
Speaker 1: self pity and to keep it just being this stable,
Speaker 1: clear sighted, open hearted way of relating to yourself. Are
Speaker 1: there some people that really shouldn't be self compassionate? Like
Speaker 1: do you think Donald Trump like could use more self compassion?
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on with I think that's
Speaker 1: one area that we need to look at more closely.
Speaker 1: And I'm not a clinical psychologist, but some people have
Speaker 1: asked me, should you teach narcissists self compassion, and I
Speaker 1: actually don't know the answer to that. So know, there
Speaker 1: are different types of narcissism, and sometimes narcissism is stemming
Speaker 1: from underlying self hate, and in that case it may
Speaker 1: be a good thing. If not, I'm not sure. At
Speaker 1: this point. I don't think we can clearly say that
Speaker 1: there's anyone who wouldn't benefit from self compassion. Certainly some
Speaker 1: people have a more difficult time with it. People, for instance,
Speaker 1: you've got with the trauma background, early childhood, history of
Speaker 1: neglect or abuse. It can be scary actually to be
Speaker 1: self compassionate because those feelings of warmth and care that
Speaker 1: we hopefully normally got from a carrying caregiver, if it
Speaker 1: gets mixed up with other feelings like fear neglect, then
Speaker 1: it can actually activating that whole self soothing system can
Speaker 1: actually be a little frightening. Public glovert calls it fear
Speaker 1: of compassion. So although it is harder for some people
Speaker 1: and some people have to go slower, I recommend that
Speaker 1: some people when they go down the self compassion path,
Speaker 1: they do it with the help of the therapist, because
Speaker 1: you know, really most of us have closed our hearts
Speaker 1: to suffering most of our lives and we start opening
Speaker 1: our hearts. There's a term we use for it in
Speaker 1: our program called backdraft, like you let in the fresh
Speaker 1: oxygen of compassion and the pain comes rushing out, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like a boom is more mild. But this
Speaker 1: is normal because sometimes it does help to have a
Speaker 1: little support as you're going down the path of self
Speaker 1: compassion in case you get overwhelmed by the pain that
Speaker 1: you actually touch. But pretty much anyone so far that
Speaker 1: we've seen can learn self compassion. It just make you
Speaker 1: just need I feel it yourself. Be a slow learner
Speaker 1: is all better people, for instance, to Traunta histories who
Speaker 1: learn to be more self compassionate. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most effective ways of coping with one's past and moving
Speaker 1: on from it by giving yourself what maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: get from your early childhood. So yeah, and the thing
Speaker 1: is it's not rocket science. I think that's the thing
Speaker 1: that surprised me that I thought it might be harder
Speaker 1: for people who are really, you know, habit your self
Speaker 1: critics to learn these new ways. The thing is, most
Speaker 1: people have a fair amount of experience being compassionate to
Speaker 1: those that care about friends, family members. They know what
Speaker 1: to say, they know the tone of the voice to you.
Speaker 1: They kind of had a lot of experience being a caring,
Speaker 1: compassionate friend to another. So all you have to really
Speaker 1: do is give yourself permission to relate to yourself that
Speaker 1: way and to remember. But if you just ask people, okay,
Speaker 1: the way you spoke to yourself right now, would you
Speaker 1: say that to someone you really cared about? No, I'll
Speaker 1: what would you say cared about? And then you get
Speaker 1: them to do that, and then they kind of have
Speaker 1: this tool already. I will ask you something I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about. Shouldn't sometimes you actually be? Shouldn't you be
Speaker 1: hard on yourself? Sometimes? Well? So self compassion mean you
Speaker 1: don't see yourself clearly. And in fact, one of the
Speaker 1: most useful aspects of self compassion is it allows us
Speaker 1: to hold our shame. Sometimes we feel shamed for very
Speaker 1: good reason. We've done something really harmful, and self compassion
Speaker 1: gives the strength to own it. In fact, people who
Speaker 1: are more compassion and take more responsibility than others for
Speaker 1: the harm that caused because they have the strength of
Speaker 1: so self compassion. It doesn't mean you condone bad behavior.
Speaker 1: In fact, just the opposite. What it's saying is it's
Speaker 1: allowing that I am imperfect, and yes, in an ideal
Speaker 1: world I would have not made that mistake, absolutely, But
Speaker 1: you know, it also acknowledges the truth that we aren't
Speaker 1: in total control. Right. We do the best we can,
Speaker 1: but we didn't choose our genes, how reactive our wiringness.
Speaker 1: What if you didn't do the best you can? What if,
Speaker 1: like you intentionally did something bad? Well, so okay, this
Speaker 1: isn't let me start getting the philosophy here, right, What
Speaker 1: is it that made you choose that action in the moment?
Speaker 1: Most likely that choice was tingent upon thousands of causes
Speaker 1: and conditions that you actually didn't choose, right, So this
Speaker 1: is you know, this is kind of the philosophical position,
Speaker 1: And you know, I kind of take the more Buddhist
Speaker 1: view that we are in part of a larger, interdependent
Speaker 1: whole and there's no separate self that is capable of
Speaker 1: radical choice independent of all other causes and conditions. So really,
Speaker 1: the wisdom of self compassion is saying, hey, this is
Speaker 1: what I was capable of doing at the time. Does
Speaker 1: that mean I am a bad person? Usually? You know, again,
Speaker 1: we do think self compassion is possibly linked guilt, which
Speaker 1: is I did something bad. It's negatively linked to shame,
Speaker 1: which is, and there I am bad. And this is
Speaker 1: where the common humanity comes in understanding the complexity. Self
Speaker 1: compassion sees very clearly, I made a mistake, I did wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm really going to try to commit as much as
Speaker 1: I can not to doing it again. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: say and therefore I am a hopeless, worthless and you know,
Speaker 1: start calling yourself names, which actually that type of behavior
Speaker 1: is usually it keeps people from taking responsibility in the
Speaker 1: first place. They don't want to admit that, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: a horrible person. No I'm not just be your fault,
Speaker 1: you know. So, yeah, some of it is kind of
Speaker 1: your philosophical approach. Do I think self compassion has to
Speaker 1: be earned? I think all human beings, by their very nature,
Speaker 1: were all born into this world as innocent babies. You know,
Speaker 1: we don't have a lot of control. We certainly didn't
Speaker 1: choose our games. We don't have a lot of control
Speaker 1: about how we're we're raised, the influences that condition our
Speaker 1: habitual patterns. And therefore, I personally I think all people
Speaker 1: are intrinsically worthy of compassion, but that doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: condone behavior. Paul Gilbert has a great phrase for this.
Speaker 1: He says, it's not your fault, that it is your responsibility. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of existential philosophers talked about that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, and I think that's the view of self compassion.
Speaker 1: And again, the empirical support seems to show if you
Speaker 1: help people, Like a study by Greens and Chan out
Speaker 1: at Berkeley, they had people think about something they had
Speaker 1: done to hurt someone they felt really bad about, and
Speaker 1: half the people they helped them by thinking about the
Speaker 1: three components of self compassion in relation to what they did.
Speaker 1: I think they had a self esteem control group and
Speaker 1: a neutral writing control group. People who were helped to
Speaker 1: be self compassionate about what they did were more likely
Speaker 1: to take responsibility to own it. Wow. I really messed up,
Speaker 1: more and more motivated to try to repair the harm.
Speaker 1: I like that. I really like that. It sounds like
Speaker 1: you're a very compassionate person yourself. Well, that's the way
Speaker 1: of life. I certainly walk my luck. Not that I'm
Speaker 1: always perfectly compassionate. That's your whole point. Yeah, A nice
Speaker 1: thing about practicing self compassion. You don't claim. I don't
Speaker 1: claim to be mindful all the time, or never to
Speaker 1: be reactive or never be out of line, but I'm
Speaker 1: pretty quick always to come to a place of self
Speaker 1: compassion because what choice do we have. I mean, if
Speaker 1: it's a choice between being self compassionate mess or being perfect,
Speaker 1: good luck with the perfection. That's what most of us
Speaker 1: try to be. Okay, I just will never make a mistake.
Speaker 1: I will be perfect. And it just tried really really
Speaker 1: hard to be perfect. You know, good luck, it's just
Speaker 1: not reality. Have you found a link to levels of perfectionism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so basically, you know, if you look at there's two
Speaker 1: part way measuring perfectionism. One is how high you strive
Speaker 1: your standards, the goals you set for yourself. The other
Speaker 1: is how you treat yourself and you don't meet your goals,
Speaker 1: and so self passion is unrelated to how your standards,
Speaker 1: how how you know the aims you adopt for yourself
Speaker 1: with the goals you set for yourself. But it's very
Speaker 1: negatively linked to how much you beat yourself up if
Speaker 1: you don't meet your stand So it's negatively linked to
Speaker 1: what they call maladaptive perfectionism. There's nothing wrong with aiming high.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just that if you aim high and
Speaker 1: you fail and you beat yourself up, you can become
Speaker 1: afraid of failure. You can stop trying. So all that
Speaker 1: doesn't happen is self and that links to your earlier
Speaker 1: point that consciousness is positively correlated with it is Yeah,
Speaker 1: end motivation. A lot of people think that self compassion
Speaker 1: is going to undermine your motivation. The data shows just
Speaker 1: the opposite, right, So again, fear a failure, performance, anxiety,
Speaker 1: underminding your self confidence, all of these are associated with
Speaker 1: self criticism. That's going to undermine your motivation. But being
Speaker 1: a support like kind of think of that encouraging, kind,
Speaker 1: supportive coach. You may give you criticism, but it's going
Speaker 1: to be constructive criticism as opposed to harsh, belittling criticism.
Speaker 1: That type of support is much more effective for motivating
Speaker 1: ourselves than our usual pattern, which is just to say
Speaker 1: I'm a hopeless loser, I'm ashamed of myself. You know
Speaker 1: how good a motivator is that. I don't think Trump
Speaker 1: ever says that to himself. He doesn't know, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to wrap up just for the listeners. Some
Speaker 1: like amazing findings you know. You found that self compassion
Speaker 1: is linked to less anxiety depression. It's linked to a
Speaker 1: lack of self criticism, less rumination, low levels of stress
Speaker 1: as well as the stress hormone cortisol, higher levels of
Speaker 1: well being, a higher motivation to learn and grow, like
Speaker 1: a mastery mindset. Found self wish to be be found to
Speaker 1: help people after divorce, cope with divorce, cope with early
Speaker 1: child to traumas, cope with chronic physical pain. It's important
Speaker 1: for relationships. It's not selfish, it actually improves, really very
Speaker 1: important point. Well, yeah, great point. And there's also cultural
Speaker 1: differences in self compassion. Is that right? Or is our country?
Speaker 1: Are we like whoe in? Yeah? You know, I wish
Speaker 1: more people do research on this. I did a study
Speaker 1: with two of my grad students, like in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. Almost nothing has been done, which is kind
Speaker 1: of annoying because I don't have time to do everything.
Speaker 1: But I had a super from Thailand and a student
Speaker 1: from Taiwan, and the idea is, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: like a simple East West difference. In Thailand, people were
Speaker 1: most self compassionate. They actually it is more infused in
Speaker 1: the culture. Buddhism is a book part of the culture.
Speaker 1: Like for instance, most men they go on a weak,
Speaker 1: silent meditation. We can be where they get married, we
Speaker 1: take it seriously. Taiwan is more confusion and they use
Speaker 1: self criticism as a way to motivate themselves. So we
Speaker 1: found that highest levels were in Thailand, lowest levels were
Speaker 1: in Taiwan, and the United States is in between. But interestingly,
Speaker 1: in all three cultures we've got the strong, the same
Speaker 1: strong positive association between self compassion and wellbeing. But even
Speaker 1: if you're in a culture that doesn't promote self compassion,
Speaker 1: you're still gonna personally benefit by having more order than
Speaker 1: less of. It still helps. Well, that's just wonderful. That's
Speaker 1: a great place to end, I think, because anyone except
Speaker 1: maybe narcisst can benefit. Thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: generosity today. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast with
Speaker 1: doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode
Speaker 1: just a stot provoking and interesting as I did. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to read the show notes for this episode,
Speaker 1: or here are past episodes, you can go to the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast dot com.