Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hello, Happiness Lab listeners, and welcome to twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: If you're like me, you're probably hoping that the next
Speaker 1: twelve months will be a lot better than the year
Speaker 1: we just had. You may even be considering changes you
Speaker 1: can make in your own life, and of course you're
Speaker 1: not alone. Lots of people will be adopting New Year's
Speaker 1: resolutions this January to alter the way they look, think,
Speaker 1: and behave now. Don't get me wrong, I think making
Speaker 1: changes in our lives, especially at fresh start moments like
Speaker 1: the New Year, is a great idea. The problem is,
Speaker 1: if we're not careful, our lying minds may wind up
Speaker 1: leading us off in the wrong direction, telling us to
Speaker 1: do things that will make us less happy than we think.
Speaker 1: We're picking strategies that will make us lose morale and
Speaker 1: give up before we even get started. The big temptation
Speaker 1: at this time of year is to be really hard
Speaker 1: on yourself, to ruthlessly identify all the faults of your past,
Speaker 1: to set the bar super high for what you want
Speaker 1: to achieve, and to set out on some surprisingly punishing
Speaker 1: regimes in order to reach your goals. I know this
Speaker 1: temptation well. I fall for all the time, but the
Speaker 1: science just doesn't back it up. Strict diets, brutal exercise plans,
Speaker 1: and going cold turkey on the personal habits you want
Speaker 1: to shed. These strategies just don't work. But there is
Speaker 1: good news because the psychological research points to a more
Speaker 1: effective path. Over the next four episodes of this special season,
Speaker 1: I'll explain why the secret to fulfilling all your New
Speaker 1: Year's goals is simply to be nicer to ourselves. If
Speaker 1: you're ready to learn more and kick those bad habits
Speaker 1: through kindness, then join me. Doctor Laurie Santos as the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab presents our mini season on smartest strategies for
Speaker 1: achieving your New Year's goals. If I constantly told you
Speaker 1: that you are lazy, stupid, and unfit, that you weren't
Speaker 1: really good at your job, and that your house was
Speaker 1: a terrible mess, you'd probably switch off this podcast. But
Speaker 1: when the new year comes around, many of us create
Speaker 1: even worse mentalists cataloging how much we suck. It's as
Speaker 1: though our inner monologus get taken over by some cruel
Speaker 1: drill sergeant who yells at us about our faults and
Speaker 1: past mistakes. We call ourselves names and start hurling these
Speaker 1: awful insults. You're dumb, you're greedy, you're weak. We all
Speaker 1: know this bootcamp brutality doesn't feel good, but we think
Speaker 1: that it's what we need to do in order to
Speaker 1: break our bad habits and get motivated. But we're wrong.
Speaker 1: All this self flagellation is just self defeating. That's the
Speaker 1: big message that comes from the lovely work of today's
Speaker 1: guest author and psychologist Kristin Neff Okay, is that good? Yep,
Speaker 1: I can hear you fine, and then the sound quality
Speaker 1: sounds great. So wait, that's not working. Let's see. Kristen,
Speaker 1: who is also an associate professor at the University of
Speaker 1: Texas at Austin, has identified a more effective way for
Speaker 1: people to meet their goals and one that makes us
Speaker 1: happier in the process. But like a lot of us,
Speaker 1: she still had to overcome the hostril sergeant inside her head.
Speaker 1: My life was a mess. I had just gotten through
Speaker 1: a divorce, and it was a very messy divorce, and
Speaker 1: I was feeling a lot of shame because of the
Speaker 1: way that the marriage ended. I was really beating myself up,
Speaker 1: hoping that it would make me a better person, that
Speaker 1: I would never make the same types of mistakes again.
Speaker 1: Talk about what that was doing to you. You mentioned
Speaker 1: this sort of the shame that you were going through.
Speaker 1: Kind of what it can do from a personal sense, right,
Speaker 1: So self criticism and shame and know they're slightly different,
Speaker 1: but they're very related. So self criticism is when we
Speaker 1: actively haranging ourselves or a cruel things were unkind to ourselves,
Speaker 1: and shame is kind of the end result of self criticism.
Speaker 1: Shame is a very hollowed out feeling where we identify
Speaker 1: as being a bad person, and so criticism can be
Speaker 1: aimed at our behavior or ourselves. Criticism of our behavior
Speaker 1: isn't actually necessarily a bad thing. So guilt, they find
Speaker 1: in psychological research, isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you
Speaker 1: feel guilty about something you've done, if you harm someone,
Speaker 1: being critical of what you did, it's actually healthy. Right.
Speaker 1: We don't want to pretend that everything we do is okay,
Speaker 1: because often it's not and it needs to change. But
Speaker 1: criticism aimed at ourselves. So believe that just because I
Speaker 1: made a mistake, you know, I am a mistake, I
Speaker 1: am bad. That's really not healthy at all because, first
Speaker 1: of all, it shuts down our awareness. When we feel shame,
Speaker 1: we kind of feel hollow. Sometimes we even dissociate from
Speaker 1: our bodies. We cut ourselves off from other people. It
Speaker 1: makes it a lot harder to apologize to others because
Speaker 1: we feel so full of shame. It makes it much
Speaker 1: more difficult to see the truth about what we've done
Speaker 1: because you know, we're just blinded by our shame. We
Speaker 1: can't even take it in. And it also takes away
Speaker 1: our energy and motivation to try to do better next time.
Speaker 1: It's like pulling the rug from underneath you when you
Speaker 1: feel shame. It's not a motivating mindset. It's actually debilitating mindset.
Speaker 1: What's so shocking about that, though, is that that kind
Speaker 1: of self criticism isn't uncommon, right, especially at this time
Speaker 1: of the year, in the New Year. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's so many people who think that motivating themselves to
Speaker 1: gain positive habits in the new year requires being this
Speaker 1: awful self critical drill sergeant. It almost like institute's shame
Speaker 1: rather than avoids it, right, right, And I think there
Speaker 1: are some reasons for this. I actually think some of
Speaker 1: it is physiological. So when we feel threatened and every
Speaker 1: time we make a mistake or we fail at something,
Speaker 1: we actually feel threatened, and so when we feel threatened,
Speaker 1: we going to fight flight or freeze response. When the
Speaker 1: problem is ourselves and then we've done some mistake we've made,
Speaker 1: we fight ourselves. We attack ourselves. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: think logically about what went wrong, what happened. We just
Speaker 1: think danger, I'm the danger, I'm a problem, and we
Speaker 1: attack ourselves and somehow we think that's going to keep
Speaker 1: ourselves safe. We're going to beat ourselves up so that
Speaker 1: we won't make mistakes anymore. We'll be able to control
Speaker 1: ourselves in our behavior through this harshness. And actually the
Speaker 1: flea response that goes along with shame, that feeling and
Speaker 1: wanting to isolate yourself from all of the people, that's
Speaker 1: actually what happens with shame. It's a safety behavior. When
Speaker 1: we hang our heads in shame, we're actually feeling safe
Speaker 1: because we're protecting ourselves from the perceived judgments of the group.
Speaker 1: And the freeze response is also related to this. When
Speaker 1: we get stuck and we just ruminate and all we
Speaker 1: can think about is I'm so bad, I'm so bad,
Speaker 1: and we kind of feel stuck and we can't do
Speaker 1: anything about it. That's the freeze response. It's part of
Speaker 1: us thinking that, well, maybe if I just play dead
Speaker 1: to danger will go away. And so it's actually a
Speaker 1: natural response to threat. And by the way, I don't
Speaker 1: feel as threatened when my best friend makes a mistake,
Speaker 1: which so I'm actually more able to be kind and
Speaker 1: carrying and supportive to my best friend than I am
Speaker 1: to myself. And so it's a natural behavior. It makes sense.
Speaker 1: The problem is is actually totally counterproductive. It doesn't make
Speaker 1: keys safe at all. It actually makes you less safe
Speaker 1: because it inhibits your ability to make productive change. So
Speaker 1: on the Happiness Live, we talk a lot about the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, our mind lies to us. You know,
Speaker 1: we have these strong intuitions about how we can build
Speaker 1: better habits, and those intuitions tend to be wrong, and
Speaker 1: self criticisms needs to be a really strong one. You know,
Speaker 1: people don't want to hate themselves or beat themselves up.
Speaker 1: They just think that that's the only way to motivate themselves.
Speaker 1: And so talk about the research showing why this is
Speaker 1: so wrong. Right, just before I get into the research,
Speaker 1: just a really useful thought experiment you can do is
Speaker 1: think about if your child came to you who've made
Speaker 1: a mistake. Maybe they got a really poor grade on
Speaker 1: the test. And imagine the effect on your child if
Speaker 1: you shame them, if you said I hate you, I
Speaker 1: don't love you anymore. You're horrible. You do better next
Speaker 1: time or else. You know, what we say to our
Speaker 1: children is, hey, I love you regardless. It's okay everyone fails,
Speaker 1: But how can I help you? How can I help
Speaker 1: you to get better grades? Excidem or how can I
Speaker 1: help you to learn from this? And we do that
Speaker 1: because we love our children, and so we naturally use
Speaker 1: war constructive approaches, but it also has to be acknowledged
Speaker 1: not always right. So some parents are actually not only
Speaker 1: self critical, but they're also very critical of their children.
Speaker 1: They tell them, you know, just buck up, stop complaining.
Speaker 1: Maybe our parents weren't all us supportive, maybe they didn't
Speaker 1: always meet our needs right, and maybe we've got some
Speaker 1: wounds because of that. But as adults, we have the
Speaker 1: ability to be good parents to ourselves. We can meet
Speaker 1: our own needs, we can support ourselves, we can be
Speaker 1: warm and accepting and encouraging to ourselves, even if our
Speaker 1: parents didn't happen to model that for us. And the
Speaker 1: research absolutely supports us right, and the research has in
Speaker 1: a few different ways. One is by just seeing people
Speaker 1: who naturally have higher levels of self compassion you know
Speaker 1: is measured through a self compassion scale, or if you
Speaker 1: help people after a failure, just them relate to themselves
Speaker 1: more compassionately about that failure. What we know is, first
Speaker 1: of all, people are much more motivated to try again.
Speaker 1: They try harder, they persist longer. They're more likely to
Speaker 1: pick themselves up after a failure again and try again.
Speaker 1: They have more grit, they have more determination. So, just
Speaker 1: to give you an example, there was a great study
Speaker 1: and they came out of UC Berkeley. The study was
Speaker 1: they gave all the Berkeley students an incredibly hard vocabulary
Speaker 1: test from the SAT that everyone failed, right, and so
Speaker 1: they had three groups after the failure. One group they
Speaker 1: told the students to be self compassionate about it, you know,
Speaker 1: try not to beat yourself up. It happens to everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, it's okay. Another group they try boosting their
Speaker 1: self esteem. Don't worry about it. You got into Berkeley,
Speaker 1: you must be smart. And the third group they told nothing,
Speaker 1: which meant that the students were probably beating themselves up
Speaker 1: because that's what most of us do. And what they
Speaker 1: found is the group that we're told to be self
Speaker 1: compassionate about the failure when given the chance kind of
Speaker 1: unobserved to see how long would they study for the
Speaker 1: next exam so they can actually improve the great on
Speaker 1: the tab, the people who are told to be self
Speaker 1: compassionate studied longer and tried harder to succeed on the
Speaker 1: next exam than the people who are told nothing or
Speaker 1: who their self esteem was boosted, just as the type
Speaker 1: of research we do to show that actually this carrying
Speaker 1: supportive stance toward ourselves actually gives us the emotional resources
Speaker 1: we need as an alternative to self esteem. And this
Speaker 1: is really critical because I think sometimes it's really easy
Speaker 1: if you don't know the literature, to confuse self compassion
Speaker 1: and self esteem. So talk about how these two concepts
Speaker 1: are different and why self esteem might not measure up
Speaker 1: to this approach of self compassion. Yeah, so self esteem
Speaker 1: is basically a positive judgment of self worth. I am
Speaker 1: a good person, you know, I'm a success, I'm beautiful, whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, your positive judgment is that you think
Speaker 1: positively of yourself. And we know for mental health is
Speaker 1: important of high self esteem is supposed to hating yourself,
Speaker 1: because if you hate yourself, you're going to be depressed
Speaker 1: and anxious. You might even think about suicide if it's
Speaker 1: really bad. Because of that, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: tried to boost the self esteem of children, for instance,
Speaker 1: in school, thinking it's going to give them better mental health,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's not a problem to have high
Speaker 1: self esteem. The problem is how do you get it.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of unhealthy ways to get high
Speaker 1: self esteem, right, So, for instance, you have to feel
Speaker 1: special and above average. You've got to feel better than
Speaker 1: other people, which leads to constant social comparison that leads
Speaker 1: to things like bullying others. We know that's why little
Speaker 1: kids start to bully others because they're trying to boost
Speaker 1: their self esteem. They're trying to feel good about themselves
Speaker 1: in comparison to others. But the biggest problem with self
Speaker 1: esteem is that it's contingent is contingent on success. So
Speaker 1: we have self esteem when other people like us, or
Speaker 1: when we feel that we're attractive, or when we succeed,
Speaker 1: whether it's at school or business, you know, athletics, whatever
Speaker 1: is important to you. Then we have high self esteem.
Speaker 1: But what happens when we fail. When we fail, that
Speaker 1: self esteem deserts us. It's contingent on success as opposed
Speaker 1: to failure. And that's a problem because as human beings
Speaker 1: were constant really going to fail, right, And so self
Speaker 1: compassion is the perfect alternative because self compassion isn't dependent
Speaker 1: on success or failure. Self compassion is simply a process
Speaker 1: of being kind, supportive and warm to yourself and also
Speaker 1: remembering that failure is part of the shared human condition.
Speaker 1: It's actually not self focused at all. It's not it's
Speaker 1: not like self pity, like woe is me? Self compassion
Speaker 1: is to saying, hey, part of being human is being imperfect.
Speaker 1: We're all in the same boat. Can I be kind
Speaker 1: and warm and supportive to myself in the midst of
Speaker 1: my feelings of failure, in the midst of mine happiness
Speaker 1: or my struggle. So self compassion kicks in precisely when
Speaker 1: self esteem deserves us, and that is when we fail
Speaker 1: or make a mistake. And you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: like positive thinking. You aren't telling yourself lies, you aren't
Speaker 1: saying you know, I'm great. It's actually just the opposite.
Speaker 1: What it is is opening to the truth of your
Speaker 1: imperfection at saying yes I am imperfect. Yes I'm a
Speaker 1: human being who is lot I can accept that. We
Speaker 1: talked about the sort of the bad divorce part of
Speaker 1: the story and things talk about how you snapped out
Speaker 1: of that form of self criticism, what you learned right, Well,
Speaker 1: so I learned about it when practicing mindfulness meditation to
Speaker 1: help me deal with my stress. But much to my
Speaker 1: surprise of woman leading the class, talked a lot about
Speaker 1: self compassion, about the difference it can make when you're
Speaker 1: kind and warm and supportive to yourself, especially when you're
Speaker 1: going through a hard time, which I was. And what
Speaker 1: I found was when I gave myself warmth and support
Speaker 1: for what had happened, I was more able to kind
Speaker 1: of take responsibility for how things went wrong. I was
Speaker 1: more able to apologize to my ex husband, but I
Speaker 1: was really more able to commit to doing things a
Speaker 1: better way. And what I found over and over again,
Speaker 1: whenever I make mistakes, the more I'm able to respond
Speaker 1: to my mistakes with compassion, actually, the more able I
Speaker 1: am to make changes. It's kind of the interplay of
Speaker 1: acceptance and change. Carl Rogers actually said the curious paradox
Speaker 1: is that when I accept myself, then I can change,
Speaker 1: and that's what self compassion does. It gives us the
Speaker 1: warmth to accept the fact that we're imperfect, but it
Speaker 1: also gives us a feeling of care to want to
Speaker 1: do better next time. I hope this conversation has helped
Speaker 1: you notice how harsh and self critical your mental drill
Speaker 1: Sergeant can be. But the good news is that we
Speaker 1: don't need a nasty inner voice to make positive changes
Speaker 1: in our lives. This is a message that can be
Speaker 1: hard to accept at first, but after the break, Kristen
Speaker 1: will share all the research that backs us up. She'll
Speaker 1: explain what self compassion actually consists of and how you
Speaker 1: can bring it to bear in your everyday life to
Speaker 1: more effectively reach your goals. The Happiness Lab will return
Speaker 1: in a moment. Most of us dream of a world
Speaker 1: which our friends, colleagues, and even total strangers consistently treat
Speaker 1: us with kindness, understanding, and compassion. It is kind of puzzling, then,
Speaker 1: that so many of us have such a hard time
Speaker 1: treating ourselves with the same kind of respect. True self
Speaker 1: compassion seems amazingly rare. Before Kristin f began her research
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and six. It was a really
Speaker 1: poorly understood virtue. So what even is self compassion? Well,
Speaker 1: scientists define compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering, and
Speaker 1: so self compassion is the desire to alleviate our own suffering.
Speaker 1: And there are three parts to it. So part is
Speaker 1: being kind, warm, and supportive, and that's more the emotional
Speaker 1: tenor of self compassion, treating ourselves like we had treat
Speaker 1: a good friend. There's alf with two other elements, so
Speaker 1: that are really important. What is actually mindfulness and not
Speaker 1: Everyone defines self compassion or compassion for others as necessarily
Speaker 1: having to include mindfulness, but I think it has to
Speaker 1: because without being mindful of suffering, without being a to
Speaker 1: turn toward and be with pain, to actually face our
Speaker 1: mistakes or actually recognize how hard it is for us
Speaker 1: a moment, we actually can't be self compassionate, right, And
Speaker 1: so if we just try to avoid our pain and
Speaker 1: you know, like stiff aprill lifts shove it down, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to acknowledge it, we can't be self compassionate. Alternatively,
Speaker 1: if we're lost in our drama, like, oh this is
Speaker 1: so terrible it's the worst thing that ever happened. I'm
Speaker 1: such a terrible person. Like, if we're fused with our pain,
Speaker 1: we have no space that mindfulness gives us. We have
Speaker 1: no perspective. If we have no perspective, then we can't
Speaker 1: step outside of ourselves to say, Wow, I'm having a
Speaker 1: really hard time. I need some warms in support right now.
Speaker 1: And you mean mindfulness in a particular way. Right, You
Speaker 1: mean accepting you're suffering without trying to change it, non judgmentally. Right. Mindfulness,
Speaker 1: especially in the context of self compassion, really just means
Speaker 1: that we are present and aware of whatever painful feelings
Speaker 1: we're having or difficult thoughts or emotions, and it also
Speaker 1: means that we accept that they're there. Mindfulness is really
Speaker 1: kind of the foundation of self compassion, and then there's
Speaker 1: a warm, supportive response, but really important because we don't
Speaker 1: want self compassion to be self pity. Self focused. Self
Speaker 1: pity is not helpful to anyone and needs recognition of
Speaker 1: common humanity, a recognition of interconnection. What differentiates compassion from pity.
Speaker 1: If someone pities you, it doesn't feel good because looking
Speaker 1: down on you, there's a sense of separateness. But we
Speaker 1: like it when people give us compassion, when they say like, hey,
Speaker 1: I've been there, you know. So compassion in the Latin
Speaker 1: actually means to suffer with there's an inherent connectedness and
Speaker 1: compassion there but for fortune go I. And so with
Speaker 1: self compassion, it's not really self focused at all, even
Speaker 1: though the word self is there. It's just saying, hey,
Speaker 1: life's difficult for everyone. All human beings make mistakes. I'm
Speaker 1: not alone, and that ability not to feel alone is
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful aspects of self compassion. I mean,
Speaker 1: loneliness is a huge problem in our society, and when
Speaker 1: you remember that, actually we're never alone. Not like everyone
Speaker 1: suffers the same amount. That's certainly not true. I mean
Speaker 1: people with privilege suffered less than people who are pressed.
Speaker 1: So there are differences that need to be honored. But
Speaker 1: it's also true that no one escaped suffering. You know,
Speaker 1: we all struggle. And I know you've talked about your
Speaker 1: personal experience with self compassion and this part of it
Speaker 1: in particular, this idea of a recognition of common humanity
Speaker 1: being really important. I know you talked about that with
Speaker 1: your son and going through a really stressful diagnosis with
Speaker 1: him too, right, Yeah, yeah, So my son's autistic and
Speaker 1: the ability to have self compassion absolutely saved me. I
Speaker 1: had already had about seven years of solid self compassion
Speaker 1: practice at that point, and when he got the diagnosis,
Speaker 1: it's easy to feel self pity, why me, Why can't
Speaker 1: I have like a normal child like everyone else? But
Speaker 1: what self compassion helped me to do? First, the mindfulness
Speaker 1: helped me just to accept all my feelings, because you know,
Speaker 1: when you're uns diagnosed, especially as you have feelings you
Speaker 1: think you aren't supposed to have, like a disappointment. How
Speaker 1: can I be disappointed? I love him more than anything
Speaker 1: else in the world, and I feel feeling disappointed. What
Speaker 1: do I do with that? But with mindfulness, I just
Speaker 1: allowed myself to have all the feelings I fear, anxiety, disappointment.
Speaker 1: I just really opened to it all and then I
Speaker 1: was again kind and supportive to myself. But what really
Speaker 1: helped me was instead of feeling isolated, I remember, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: most kids aren't autistic, well a lot of them are,
Speaker 1: so I'm not alone in that. But also, even though
Speaker 1: it's not autism, all parents struggle with their children. Instead
Speaker 1: of thinking like this isn't supposed to be happening. I remember, well,
Speaker 1: wait a second, who said so? You know, who said
Speaker 1: parenting was supposed to be perfect. Every single parent has
Speaker 1: struggles and challenges with their children. Maybe it's not autism,
Speaker 1: but it could be other mental health issues or physical challenges,
Speaker 1: or at the very least, all parents I have conflix
Speaker 1: and difficulties while raising their children, because that's actually what
Speaker 1: it means to be a parent. And so making that
Speaker 1: refrain really allowed me to avoid feeling self pity with
Speaker 1: autism diagnosis. It helped me feel more connected to other people,
Speaker 1: other parents. It really gave me the emotional resources to
Speaker 1: be there for myself. Like, for instance, he's doing great now,
Speaker 1: but when he was younger, his autism was pretty severe.
Speaker 1: He would have these horrible tantrums, these horrific tantrums, and
Speaker 1: he wasn't toilet trained until he was five. It was
Speaker 1: it was a rough time. But what I found is
Speaker 1: the more I could give myself compassion for the difficulties
Speaker 1: of parenting him, you know, this is so horrid. I
Speaker 1: can't believe I have to change his pants again, and
Speaker 1: you know, I can't believe it's tantrumine and I would
Speaker 1: just it's okay, Kristen. You know I'm here for you.
Speaker 1: It's okay, It'll be okay. You know, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: This is so hard. I found that the more I
Speaker 1: could give myself warmth and support and acceptance for my situation,
Speaker 1: the more I could give my son warmth and support
Speaker 1: and accepted for who he was. And so some people
Speaker 1: think that self compassion is selfish. They get self focused,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of a shame that the word self
Speaker 1: is in there. You know, if I had to redo it,
Speaker 1: maybe I'd call it just inner compassion, because compassion is compassion.
Speaker 1: All we're doing is we're including ourselves in the circle
Speaker 1: of compassion. And actually, the more compassion can flow inward,
Speaker 1: the more can flow outward. It's not like if we've
Speaker 1: got five units and if I get three to myself,
Speaker 1: I only have two left over for someone else. It's additive.
Speaker 1: And so the more we give ourselves compassion, the more
Speaker 1: resources we have actually to give to others. And I
Speaker 1: absolutely found that with my son to be true. And
Speaker 1: it's funny that we often think about mindfulness and kind
Speaker 1: of just kindness in general is so tough, because evolutionarily speaking,
Speaker 1: we're really built to be kind of kind and to
Speaker 1: help others when they're going through suffering. Right, yeah, So, well,
Speaker 1: the reason mindfulness is so difficult evolutionarily is because our
Speaker 1: brains actually aren't designed to be mindful of you know,
Speaker 1: we've the default mode of our brain is to be
Speaker 1: mind wandering, you probably know at and so to create
Speaker 1: a sense of solve and think about the past and
Speaker 1: the future and look for problems and so, in some ways,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, compassion is easier than mindfulness because
Speaker 1: mindfulness is we need to kind of get quiet, We
Speaker 1: need to fight against the fact that our brain wants
Speaker 1: us to worry. But kindness is something that we develop evolutionarily,
Speaker 1: you know, Charles Darwin much more than talking about the
Speaker 1: survival of the fittest, he talked about survival of the kindest,
Speaker 1: because this capacity to bond with others, to feel warmth,
Speaker 1: to feel care actually helped our species to survive. And so,
Speaker 1: whereas self criticism taps into the threat defense system like
Speaker 1: I talked about self, compassion taps into the mammalion care system,
Speaker 1: this system that's built him. We know when we feel
Speaker 1: close to others, when we feel connected, where our parasympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system gets activated, our sympathetic response goes down. Release
Speaker 1: oxytocin and opiates, you know, increase heart rate, very ability,
Speaker 1: We feel safe. And so what we're doing with self
Speaker 1: compassion is we're actually tapping into that care system. The
Speaker 1: only thing is again, because when we feel threatened, were
Speaker 1: we more automatically going to fight flight or flee response.
Speaker 1: What we're doing is we're actually switching our source of
Speaker 1: safety from the defense system to the care system. So
Speaker 1: you might say that it's not totally natural, all right,
Speaker 1: So we've got to do a little jiggling and treat
Speaker 1: ourselves like we would treat a good friend. But once
Speaker 1: we do that, once we do that, it's actually not
Speaker 1: difficult to be self compassionate because it goes along with
Speaker 1: all these skills that we have. You know, we know
Speaker 1: how to be warm to a friend who's having our time.
Speaker 1: We know what to say, we know how to hold
Speaker 1: our bodies, we know how to use our voice. So
Speaker 1: these are skills that we already have inside of us.
Speaker 1: All we really need is to be able to speak
Speaker 1: to ourselves like we speak to a good friend, and
Speaker 1: we already know how to do it. It's more about
Speaker 1: giving ourselves permission to do it and also remembering to
Speaker 1: do it because again, our habitual immediate reaction is to
Speaker 1: go and to fight flatter fully response. And my good
Speaker 1: friend Mark Leary said, you know, the research is becoming
Speaker 1: really boring because it all finds the same outcome, which
Speaker 1: is it self compassion. It's really good for you. It's
Speaker 1: good for your mental health, right, it's a less depression,
Speaker 1: anxiety and stress, greater happiness. It's good for your physical health.
Speaker 1: It's more and more research showing it enhances immune function.
Speaker 1: People sleep better, they have fewer cold takes and pains.
Speaker 1: It reduces physical pain things like that, and increases learning.
Speaker 1: It promotes growth goals and learning goals as opposed to
Speaker 1: just like trying to look good. It's linked to greater motivation.
Speaker 1: People try harder, they're more persistent, they're more likely to
Speaker 1: re engage in their goals and they get knocked off balance.
Speaker 1: It's good for relationships. It increases your ability to be
Speaker 1: a good partner in a relationship and at least to
Speaker 1: more satisfying interpersonal relationships. There's one study show this linked
Speaker 1: better sex. You know, there we go, and links to
Speaker 1: more exercise, you know, going to the doctor more often,
Speaker 1: taking better care of yourself. Really, if you look at
Speaker 1: the range of behaviors that lead to being a happy,
Speaker 1: healthy human being, self compassion really really helps. It makes
Speaker 1: a huge difference. It's like we have the superpower in
Speaker 1: our back pocket. We don't even know we have it.
Speaker 1: We've got this ability to support ourselves, to help us
Speaker 1: effectively create change. We just we instead are still into
Speaker 1: the illusion that we think beating ourselves up is going
Speaker 1: to be a better way to achieve our goals when
Speaker 1: it's really not. And I think that comes from some
Speaker 1: of them as conceptions we have. I mean one of
Speaker 1: them as conceptions that I often get when I talk
Speaker 1: about self compassion to my students. You know, my kind
Speaker 1: of type a you know Ivy League students is you know,
Speaker 1: they think self compassion is kind of weak. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the weak thing to do. But but your
Speaker 1: work is shown it's just the opposer, just the opposite. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's a lot of research on combat veterans,
Speaker 1: veterans who action in Iraq or Afghanistan, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people when they go through a trauma like that,
Speaker 1: a lot of soldiers they develop post traumatic stress syndrome.
Speaker 1: And what the research shows is that those soldiers who
Speaker 1: are able to be compassionate to themselves about what happened
Speaker 1: when they were overseas, they're less likely to develop PTSD.
Speaker 1: They function better in daily life when they come home,
Speaker 1: and they're less likely to turn to drugs or alcohol
Speaker 1: because they kind of support themselves with compassion as opposed
Speaker 1: to having to turn to alcohol, and they're less likely
Speaker 1: to commit suicide. You know, if you think about what
Speaker 1: makes you weak or what makes you strong when you
Speaker 1: go into battle and you know life's a battle. These
Speaker 1: soldiers actually had actual battle, but for all of us
Speaker 1: at some level, life's a battle. What's going to make
Speaker 1: you strong? Or would you go into battle if the
Speaker 1: inner voice inside your head is an enemy who's cutting
Speaker 1: you down, who's shaming you, I hate you, you aren't
Speaker 1: good enough? Is that going to make you stronger? Or
Speaker 1: is it going to be stronger? If you're in allies,
Speaker 1: I got your back, I'm here for you. You can
Speaker 1: do it. How can I help? Clearly, having an ally
Speaker 1: inside your head is going to be make you stronger
Speaker 1: than having an enemy inside your head, and so you
Speaker 1: know it makes sense. But yet people for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: they don't, they don't think that they think that self
Speaker 1: compassion is just about like slacking off, easing up. So
Speaker 1: actually there are two sides of self compassion. I like
Speaker 1: to call it fierce and tender self compassion. So tender
Speaker 1: self compassion is just about self acceptance. Sometimes what we
Speaker 1: do need to do is just accept ourselves as we are. Okay,
Speaker 1: we aren't perfect, that's okay. You know this is painful,
Speaker 1: and that actually allows us to heal the Sometimes compassion
Speaker 1: needs to be fierce. If you're suffering, is because you're
Speaker 1: in a second story building and the story beflow you
Speaker 1: is caught on fire. You don't want to just be
Speaker 1: with yourself in a tender way. You want to like
Speaker 1: jump out the window if you need to. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: need to be brave and take action to alleviate our suffering. Right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes we need to protect ourselves. We need to say
Speaker 1: no to others. We need to draw boundaries. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: need to make changes. You know, we're stuck in a
Speaker 1: toxic relationship or an unhealthy job, or we're engaging in
Speaker 1: behaviors that are really bad for us. It's not compassionate
Speaker 1: to just let those slide. It's compassionate to actually make
Speaker 1: a change. And also it's really important that we provide
Speaker 1: for our needs. Right. We don't want to sometimes if
Speaker 1: we just aren't being fulfilled, if we aren't happy, we
Speaker 1: don't want to just let that slide. We want to
Speaker 1: do something about it to give ourselves what we need.
Speaker 1: So that's more of the fierce side of compassion. We
Speaker 1: always need both at some level, and it's a balance
Speaker 1: between the yin and young that's actually most effective. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about how we can actually
Speaker 1: get self compassion. I hope our listeners are convinced that
Speaker 1: it's a good thing that we should embrace it, right,
Speaker 1: But how do we do this right? Like, how do
Speaker 1: we really stop beating ourselves up? And you've kind of
Speaker 1: given your students a specific set of steps that they
Speaker 1: can use to kind of experience this themselves. It's not
Speaker 1: rocket science, right, because the reason it's not rocket science
Speaker 1: is because people already know how to be compassionate. That's
Speaker 1: the cool thing. It's not like learning a radically foreign
Speaker 1: Skill's actually three doorways in One is just being compassionate
Speaker 1: to yourself directly after time. You can do that all
Speaker 1: those a little awkward at first. Another one is imagine
Speaker 1: what would I say to it, dear friend, in the
Speaker 1: exact same situation, what would I say? How would I
Speaker 1: say it? And then you can say that to yourself.
Speaker 1: And the other way is using your experience of when
Speaker 1: people have been compassionate to you, like what would a
Speaker 1: really compassionate friend or maybe grandparents, so many of experience
Speaker 1: has been very, very compassionate. What would they probably say
Speaker 1: to me? Right now? We can access that as a template,
Speaker 1: So that's easy. The other thing you can do is
Speaker 1: bring in the three components of self compassion and it's
Speaker 1: almost like a recipe, you know. The first is mindfulness.
Speaker 1: First of all, just being aware that this is really
Speaker 1: hard right now. If we're suppressing our pain or if
Speaker 1: we're just two lost and problem solving, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't have the perspective needed to say, hey, hey, this
Speaker 1: is really hard, so kind of validating our pain's first.
Speaker 1: The second step is remembering that we aren't alone. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we think like something has gone wrong when we
Speaker 1: make a mistake. Actually, whoever said that? You know, it's not.
Speaker 1: Everyone else is being perfect and it's just you. It
Speaker 1: may feel that way, but the reality is everyone is
Speaker 1: making mistakes. This is what we all do This is
Speaker 1: actually part of being human, and then you actively give
Speaker 1: yourself kindness and that can be again through words like
Speaker 1: you'd say to a friend. Also, touch is a really
Speaker 1: easy way to give yourself kindness because we are tapping
Speaker 1: into the mammalion care system, and as mammals the first
Speaker 1: two years of life, at least for humans, we don't
Speaker 1: have language. So the primary way parents canvey care and
Speaker 1: compassion to infants who are crying and need to be
Speaker 1: soothed and calm down is to touch. So you can
Speaker 1: give yourself some touch to help you feel so supported
Speaker 1: and cared for. And that's also very powerful. And my
Speaker 1: guess is that doing this the first couple times, because
Speaker 1: I've now tried this myself a little bit, to be totally,
Speaker 1: it can feel a little bit weird and phony because
Speaker 1: you're really advocating to literally talk to yourself, literally hug
Speaker 1: yourself in some ways for the touch part, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: or put your hands on your heart or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. It does feel awkward at first, right, It
Speaker 1: doesn't feel awkward at all to beat ourselves up, you know,
Speaker 1: because we're just so used to that. It's funny that
Speaker 1: it feels phony to treat ourselves like a friend, but
Speaker 1: it feels perfectly natural to treat ourselves like an enemy.
Speaker 1: But over time it gets easier, and then what will
Speaker 1: happen is at some point you'll let a little bit
Speaker 1: of it in, and you'll actually let your warmth in.
Speaker 1: You'll actually allow yourself to be moved by your own struggle,
Speaker 1: the way you might be moved by a friend you
Speaker 1: cared about who was telling you something that was very difficult.
Speaker 1: And once you actually see the impact of oh, I see,
Speaker 1: actually I can be moved by my own struggle. I
Speaker 1: can be warm, I can be supportive, And once you
Speaker 1: see the immediate difference that makes and your ability to cope,
Speaker 1: then it's like, Okay, I want to do this again.
Speaker 1: Someone said the goal of practice is simply to become
Speaker 1: a compassionate mess. You know, you're still a mess, but
Speaker 1: when you're a compassionate mess, everything changes. So when you're
Speaker 1: a self critical, shaming mess, you're just hopeless, right does
Speaker 1: and you can do you can't get out of bed.
Speaker 1: But when you're a compassionate mess, you're still a mess.
Speaker 1: You aren't pretending you aren't, but because you're carrying that care,
Speaker 1: you know, motivation Okay, well, because I care, is there
Speaker 1: anything I can do to help? That compassionate approach also
Speaker 1: allows us to get over something else that can be
Speaker 1: hard when we're starting new habits, which is sort of
Speaker 1: procrastination or just this terrible fear that we're going to
Speaker 1: just fail. Right. Absolutely, there's actually a lot of research
Speaker 1: on self compassion and procrastination and how it reduces it,
Speaker 1: because what procrastination is fear of failure. And one thing
Speaker 1: that self compassion gives you is it makes it safe
Speaker 1: to fail when you know that if you fail, you
Speaker 1: won't desert yourself. You'll still be there for yourself, You'll
Speaker 1: still be kind and supportive to yourself. What it does
Speaker 1: is it makes it safe to fail, and really, really importantly,
Speaker 1: it allows you to learn from the failure. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a truism. Failure is our best teacher. We all
Speaker 1: know it's true, We've all experienced that is true, and
Speaker 1: yet we're so afraid of failing. But if we want
Speaker 1: to learn, how are you going to learn without failing?
Speaker 1: A failure is our best teacher. You know, it really
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, Oh it does if you think
Speaker 1: about the fact that people feel ashamed by failing, and
Speaker 1: because of that, they don't want to fail. The motivation
Speaker 1: of self criticism is a motivation of fear. You better
Speaker 1: do it right or else I'm going to shame you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hate you unless you get it right. And
Speaker 1: it kind of works. A lot of people have gotten
Speaker 1: through grad school based on this fear, but it creates
Speaker 1: so many unintended consequences. Like it creates fear of failure,
Speaker 1: it creates anxiety, undermines your self confidence, all things which
Speaker 1: work directly against your ability to achieve your best. So
Speaker 1: self compassion makes it safe to fail. And the motivation
Speaker 1: comes from love. You know, I want you to do
Speaker 1: better because I care about you. I don't want you
Speaker 1: to suffer. I care about you. I want you to
Speaker 1: reach your goals. How can I help? And that supportive
Speaker 1: attitude is actually so much more effective in helping this
Speaker 1: actually reach your goals. And so for all of those
Speaker 1: folks who are starting this new year thinking that the
Speaker 1: drill sergeant approach is going to be their best way
Speaker 1: to you know, get the perfect beach body or clutter
Speaker 1: less or whatever their new year's resolution is, what's your
Speaker 1: final advice for them? Yeah? So I would say, imagine
Speaker 1: that you had the ultimate compassionate coach first of all,
Speaker 1: who's very wise, and you can't bullshit this coach. You know,
Speaker 1: this coach knows what needs to change, not gonna You know,
Speaker 1: it's not a good coach if he or she's going
Speaker 1: to pretend that you're fine just the way you are,
Speaker 1: because maybe maybe you aren't feeling healthy, or maybe you
Speaker 1: really should declutter a little less because it's kind of
Speaker 1: causing problems in your life. So that wise coach can
Speaker 1: help you decide what does need to change, and the
Speaker 1: good coach is going to help you get there as
Speaker 1: opposed to you know, you may have had a coach
Speaker 1: in the past it just called you names and yelled
Speaker 1: at you all the time, but you were just so
Speaker 1: afraid of that coach you probably just gave up whatever
Speaker 1: they were trying to get you to do it all together,
Speaker 1: because who wants to be yelled at all the time?
Speaker 1: I help Kristen's work on self compassion has convinced you
Speaker 1: that a kinder approach is in order this new year.
Speaker 1: In the episodes that follow in this mini season, we'll
Speaker 1: turn to how we can apply the strategy to some
Speaker 1: of our most common New Year's goals. We'll tackle topics
Speaker 1: like food and dieting, exercise and body image, and how
Speaker 1: to deal with our emotions. But for any of that
Speaker 1: to make sense, we all first need to accept that
Speaker 1: a bit more self compassion is in order. It sounds
Speaker 1: so easy, just be a good friend to yourself, but
Speaker 1: I know from personal experience that our reflex is to
Speaker 1: be meaner to ourselves than any real life enemy. So
Speaker 1: I want you to take some self compassion baby steps
Speaker 1: right away. Find the right words and use a nicer
Speaker 1: tone when you talk to yourself. It takes practice, but
Speaker 1: the research shows you can become a kind coach. And
Speaker 1: if you need more points, I highly recommend Kristen's awesome
Speaker 1: books and her step by step self compassion meditations. You
Speaker 1: should also be sure to check out her new book,
Speaker 1: Fierce Self Compassion, which is hitting stores this June. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley.
Speaker 1: The show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original
Speaker 1: music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the
Speaker 1: entire Pushkin crew, including Mia LaBelle, Charlie Migliori, Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: Sophie Crane, mckibbon, Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and NIF Doctor Laurie Santos