5. How to Hack Your Nervous System (Kristin Neff)

0:09Hello and welcome to my brand new series, Doing It Anyway. I'm Katty Kay. Today, I want to ask, what if the voice in your head, you know, the one telling you to power through at all costs, is actually the thing that's holding you back? I'm talking to Dr. Kristin Neff. She's a pioneer in the science of self-compassion. And she argues that being kinder to yourself is one of the most powerful tools for confidence, for resilience and success.

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1:28Kristen, thank you very much for doing this. I have been looking forward to this conversation and your work, I have to say, on self-compassion has meant a lot to me over the years because whenever I've been in one of those positions where I've found myself being hard on myself and I am prone to self-criticism, I summon a little bit of Kristen Neff to make myself feel a little bit better and to put myself in the kind of context of just being human, not being a superstar and not being perfect and all of those things that we often try to be, but just being human. So give us the sort of definition, the idiot's guide to self-compassion.

2:06Okay, Katty, happy to. Believe it or not, there is like the dummy's guide to self-compassion. I can do this. Not that our audience are dummies. I don't want to cast any aspersions. Well, self-compassion is one of those things that when you think about it, it's kind of intuitive, but we don't think about it, which is the problem. So we're more familiar with the concept of compassion. So if you break down the Latin roots of the word, passion refers to suffering, calm is with. So it's basically how do we show up for suffering? And normally we think of that as how do you show up for other people when they're suffering or hurting or feeling badly about themselves?

2:41And we're pretty good at that. Most of us are fairly skilled at that. And so self-compassion is really how do we show up for ourselves when we're struggling, whether that struggle comes from making a mistake or feeling like a failure or something just really difficult, challenging, or stressful is happening in our lives. Can we show up for ourselves with the same compassion, concern, support, warmth, encouragement that we might more naturally do for others? When you and I have spoken about this before, you've put it in this great context of treating yourself like you treat your best friend. Yes.

3:15And I think that's a way for people in a kind of non-academic way. And I want to kind of geek out in a minute and get the differences between self-compassion and self-esteem and self-confidence and optimism and all that kind of thing. But I think that's such a lovely way of framing it. And I think particularly for women who are listening to this, because I think we are really good at showing up for our friends, right? I mean, I think that is something we do so well, but we're not always so good at doing it for ourselves. Yeah. So actually, women in particular, we can talk, I won't go too much into gender now, but we're compassion experts.

3:46But all human beings, either you have a good friend or even if you have a pet, we've learned how to be compassionate. And in fact, compassion comes naturally to us. But evolution kind of designed us to be compassionate to others and to be more self-critical. We can go into that later if you want, if you want to geek out on the science behind it. But this is the easy part to understand. We know how to be compassionate. It's not a new skill, what we aren't used to or what doesn't feel so natural to us is turning the lens of compassion inward. And when we do, when we actually recognize that we're having a hard time, we're feeling badly, we need a little support.

4:23And when we show up for ourselves the same way that it's natural to show up for a friend, it makes all the difference. One of the other things that I really liked about self-compassion when I came across it, and I came across it because of your work on it, is this idea of putting ourselves in the kind of human context. I think for me, where self-compassion has been particularly useful is that when I mess up, or which, footnote to my children, actually, I have messed up, even though I think I'm perfect, shocking. When I mess up at something, or when I'm not as good at something as I think, when I'm not the best, let's be honest, I like to do things that I'm good at.

5:06And when I'm not so good at something, the thing that has really helped me about self-compassion is this idea that, well, I'm just human. Put the study of self-compassion from that point of view too, that it's not just about being kind to yourself. It's about recognizing that you're part of this kind of great human experiment and we all screw up and fail and that it's normal to do those things. And I think self-compassion has really helped me with that. So there are actually three elements to self-compassion. And one is mindfulness, just being aware when you're hurting. Sometimes we just kind of push through it.

5:41You know, I'll just have a cup of tea. I'm not going to think of it. You know, shove that down. So we need to be aware that we're suffering. We need to be kind to ourselves. But the third element which you're pointing to, which is actually really key, it's like a three-legged stool. We need all three to be really stable, is the sense of common humanity. Even though the word self is in self-compassion, And actually what we're doing in a moment of self-compassion is we're moving away from identification with the self. It's the self that feels, you know, overwhelmed or hurting or flawed or inadequate, feels separate and isolated.

6:15And we're moving from identifying with this sense of separate self into the field of compassionate presence, which is all about humanity. So it's not pity. It's not self-focused. It's not poor me. It's saying human beings, they make mistakes. You know, this is the human experience. This is actually how we learn. You know, how are we going to learn if we aren't allowed to make mistakes? We're not robots. Yeah. And so it's that sense of feeling connected to the larger whole, which gives self-compassion that sense of safety and stability. If I were to pity you, Cady, you wouldn't like it because I'd be looking down on you.

6:53But if I have compassion, it's like, hey, I've been there. I've made mistakes. It's the exact same thing with self-compassion. It's not self-focused. It's just coming from the perspective of the shared human experience. And when we do that, it makes such a big difference. And it helps us feel less alone and isolated, which is very scary and hard to feel. Claire Shipman and I, when we were writing our book on confidence that you were very helpful with, one of the ways we described it was this idea of being good enough, that sometimes it's okay to be good enough. And I remember talking to you about this and you saying, well, look, if we were all going to be the best.

7:31I mean, it just doesn't work, right? We set ourselves these insanely high standards and we all want to be the best, but just do the maths for a second. I mean, we can't all be the best. I mean, the numbers don't work out like that. And I've always used this phrase, well, it's okay sometimes to be good enough. Not every single piece of work that you hand in, not every single report you write for your boss, not every single essay you write in college, not every single assignment you do, not every single client write-up that you do has to be the very best. It can't, by definition. You can't always be perfect.

8:09And the phrase we use is this idea of good enough. Is that similar to the idea of self-compassion and putting yourself in the kind of context of being human? Yeah. Well, so the place overlaps strongly, and I love that good enough. I say that a lot in my work as well, good enough, is part of what's happening with self-compassion is we aren't taking things personally. So our sense of self-worth isn't totally invested in what we produce and what we achieve, right? And so when what we achieve is good enough and we don't take it personally, in other words, our work doesn't have to be perfect for us to feel good about ourselves, then we can evaluate, is it worth working harder on this or not?

8:51Is it good enough to get the job done? So when we take the sense of identification with it out of the equation, it can really help. But I just have to say here, because I know some of your listeners are saying, well, sometimes I want to be the best. So we taught self-compassion to NCAA athletes for whom they have to be the best. They have to be at the top of their game if they want to keep their scholarships or go on to the pros. when you take the the sense of identification out of it in other words if i maybe my maybe my game wasn't good enough this time maybe i want to get it better so that i can achieve my goal but it has nothing to do with my worth as a person what that does is it moves us from what's called it you know this a performance orientation where i want to be i want to be perfect because that means that i'm a good person you take that out of the equation i'm good regardless of my performance Then it takes away performance anxiety.

9:47Look at the Olympics. When our sense of self is invested in winning that gold, it often tanks us because we're so nervous and it takes us off our game. The more we can take ourself out of the equation, then sometimes when being the best is really important, you're more free to achieve your goals. It actually improves your performance. Those athletes we trained, their athletic performance improved once they took their sense of self out of the picture. So what we're really saying is that, you know, separating, is our work good enough? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And am I good enough? Always. My worth is intrinsic to being a flawed human being.

10:24The only thing you need to achieve to have self-compassion and self-worth is to be a flawed human being. That's a box. I don't know about you, Candy, but I can always check that box. So it raises several issues, what you're saying. Let's start with the kind of gender component of this now, because I know in your latest book, Fierce Self-Compassion, you've studied more the gender component of this. Tell me whether you think women are more prone to the kind of self-criticism which demands us to also have a need for more self-compassion. When we were looking at confidence, when I wrote my book on confidence, one of the things we did find actually was data suggesting that women were more prone to perfectionism than men are, that we want to be the best at things.

11:14And I'm wondering if that also is the case with self-compassion, that you've found that women are more prone to self-criticism and therefore need self-compassion more perhaps than men do. Yeah. So I would say that everyone needs self-compassion because the research is overwhelming. It helps you in so many ways. But this will interest you, Cati. Women are quite a bit more compassionate to others than men are. And by the way, just when we're talking about gender, I'm not talking about biological sex. I'm talking about gender role socialization. And we've studied in a way that can separate the two.

11:49So people socialized as women tend to be more compassionate to others because it's part of our gender role. I don't think that comes as any big surprise to people. Exactly. But we're a little less self-compassionate. It's not huge, but it's consistent. It's a stable funding we've done in meta-analyses, which correlates with the fact that, as you say, we're a little more self-critical. And so part of what's happening is feeling threatened. So a natural response when we feel threatened is to go into fight mode, right? So it's kind of fight, flight, or freeze. So when we feel threatened, personally threatened, we fight the problem.

12:28And so in the case when we're threatened by some maybe feeling we aren't good enough, for instance, we fight ourselves. It's kind of going on subconsciously. We fight ourselves thinking that somehow, you know, if we're perfect, we get everything right, then we'll be safe. And of course, if you're in a hierarchy and you aren't valued as much, you need to be a little bit better. So there's some truth to that, right? But we think fighting ourselves is going to help. Are we fleeing to a sense of shame and isolation? Are we freezing, get stuck, and we ruminate? So this is actually natural when we feel threatened.

13:00And because women historically, well, and still in many contexts, we actually are under more threat than men. You know, some men are kind of assumed when a woman, when a man gets like angry or really passionate, people think, oh, he's great. I love him. He believes in what he's saying. And when a woman gets passionate or is kind of angry or, you know, really voices, states her voice, you'll think, oh, she's crazy. So the environment is a little more threatening to women. And so we naturally respond, all people do this, with self-criticism as a way to deal with that threat. So in a way, it's that we live in a world, particularly, let's put this in a professional context.

13:38We live in a world of the office world, the corporate world. And I don't want to kind of sound all patriarchy-ish about this, but it was built by and for men. I mean, it just was over centuries. So we are trying to kind of fit ourselves, having only come into that world in the last 50 years or so, we are now trying to fit ourselves into a world that wasn't really designed for us. It wasn't designed for our skill set. It wasn't designed to make us feel our best. It wasn't designed to be comfortable for us because we didn't construct it. So in a way, it's normal that we would get into that world and suddenly feel, oh, I don't really fit in very well here or I'm not performing at my best here because it's not a world that is appealing to our best instincts.

14:26Is that oversimplifying it? Because that's what it sometimes feels like to me. You know, I go into these meetings and I think, oh, my God, if it was just women in this meeting, we would be running this differently. I just know we would. So first of all, a couple of points I want to make. It is true. So when I talk about fierce and tender self-compassion, one way to talk about that is fierceness is about taking action to alleviate suffering. Tender self-compassion is about acceptance and kind of nurturing to alleviate suffering. And everyone needs both. So there's a lot of research showing that more compassionate organizations actually help those organizations run better.

15:04So just to say everyone needs both. But what's happened is it used to be the case that in business context, women were automatically viewed as less competent. So if you saw two resumes, one was from John, one was from Susan, people would assume John was more competent. That has actually shifted now recently. So now women and men are viewed as equally competent. Interesting. That's great. Partly because we've been in the workforce, we've been kicking ass. but what's still the case caddy and this is feeds directly into what you're talking about is people like a competent man more if he's competent they think oh i really like him they dislike a competent woman because a competent woman especially in work context it's fine to a competent mother that's great but a competent professional woman and this is true both among men and women they dislike competent woman because they think she's not feminine So, you know, there's backlash being a successful, competent woman.

16:04I'm sure, I'm absolutely positive you've experienced that in professional context. So I may think you're competent, but I'd really kind of like you a little bit more if you're a little more uncertain, a little less confident. And that's real, Katty. You're making it up. It's not just coming in from you. It's coming from you, from other. Women are particularly likely to dislike competent women because it goes against gender roles. So we're kind of between a rock and a hard place. And that's just the way that where we are right now as a society. Okay, I'm going to put a pin in that because in the second half of this program, we're going to look at real life scenarios.

16:37And we have some questions for you. And I'm going to ask because I think this is a question I get asked all the time, particularly by younger women who, when I'm speaking to groups of women, it's how do I avoid this catch 22 of being confident and coming across as confident at work and competent at work, and then not being penalized for those very attributes. So I'm going to ask you how we get around that in the second half of the show. But let's talk a bit more specifically about self-compassion because what I love about your work as well, Kristen, is that you actually look at this sort of physically.

17:10You've taken the science of this and you've seen what the actually pursuing self-compassion and acting on self-compassion, what it can actually do for us in terms of our physical health as well as just our mental health. So talk a little bit about that and why you wanted to explore that and what you found the benefits to people are of self-compassion when it comes to how they actually feel physically. Yes. So both self-criticism and self-compassion act through the nervous system. So I mentioned that when we feel threatened, we go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. That's associated with what's called sympathetic nervous activity.

17:51You know, our heart rate goes up, our cortisol levels go up, we get ready for fight, flight, or freeze. And what happens with self-criticism is we turn that response inward to try to stay safe, right? But so we're actually more activated when we're criticizing ourself. Compassion is also natural, but it operates through the care system, which evolved not to deal with personal threats, but evolved to deal with threats to our offspring, our family members, and our in-group members. So it's also natural, but it actually evolved to take care of others. And that activates what's called the parasympathetic nervous system.

18:27That's the same in men and women? This is human. All humans have this, but there's a few gender roles, but all humans have this. What triggers the systems is a little bit different. So we go into parasympathetic activity, which means we have more heart rate variability. Our cortisol levels go down. Our immune system functions better. we feel calm and are safer. So think about when you're a baby and you're held by a caregiver, you know, maybe you're really upset when you're held, you're soothed, you're comforted, you calm down. And we also calm down when we feel connected to others. So compassion taps in to the parasympathetic nervous system, the care system, criticism of self or others taps into the sympathetic nervous system, the threat system.

19:14So what we're doing with self-compassion is we're doing a hack and the hack works. This is good news. It works. When we treat ourselves like we treat a good friend, we can even do like simple things to activate it, like putting our hands on our heart or our face, like helping our nervous system feel held and cared for. Tone of voice, you know, this is activated by a caregiver's tone of voice to a baby. Babies don't understand the caregiver, but they understand that, oh, oh, I'm here for you. The warm tone of voice, if we use a warm tone of voice and touch with self-compassion, we're actually activating, we know this from the research, parasympathetic nervous system activity.

19:53Cortisol goes down, heart rate variability increases. So we can use the care system for ourselves as a different way to feel safe. And it's much more effective because we aren't so activated. We're calmer. We can see more possibilities. We can think more clearly when we don't feel so threatened. And that's partly what's happening physiologically. Literally just doing that. What I'm not watching on YouTube, literally just putting it. I'm now putting my hand on my heart. You feel it? That is something I'm talking to you, so I'm probably not feeling it as much, but I'm definitely going to try this afterwards.

20:26You put your hand on your heart, you talk to yourself in a calm voice, that will reduce my cortisol levels. Yes, it will. That's the cheapest therapy I've ever had. And actually there's research showing if someone else puts their hand on your shoulder or you put your hand on your body, the body doesn't really know the difference, right? So it reacts the same way. I mean, it does a little bit, but basically it reacts the same way. The sense of safety that comes from self-compassion works through the care system. And the sense of safety that comes through self-criticism works through the threat system.

20:56But unfortunately, the threat system evolved for lions chasing us is actually not that helpful when your threat is like, what are people going to think of me in this meeting? Are they going to think I'm a fool? And then we go into, sympathetic mode, we get anxious, that anxiety actually distracts us and makes it less likely that we're able to deliver our best performance. So we give compassion to ourself, which is basically saying, hey, first of all, whether you blow it or not in that meeting, your worth is intrinsic. Your worth doesn't come from other people liking you. Your worth comes from just the fact that you're a human being when you know that you're going to be there for yourself.

21:34and that gives you a sense of safety that actually reduces your performance anxiety. And what we know from the research is actually allows you to deliver a better performance. Before we take a break and get to some real life questions, I did want to ask about this in the context of the professional world and success, because when I first, okay, full disclosure, when I first came across your work, Kristen and Claire and I were looking at confidence, and we have found that confidence is very much related to action and taking action and taking risks and getting outside your comfort zone. And the more action you take, the more confidence you build.

22:08I've always seen confidence a bit like kind of building a wall and you take a risk and you do something hard for yourself and you've got yourself another brick to put in your wall and no one can take that away from you. And I wondered when I first read your work, whether self-compassion actually just would turn us into kind of marshmallows who sat on the sofa saying to ourselves, well, I'm a wonderful human being anyway, so I don't really need to get off the sofa. I can just be lazy as anything. And that's fine because I'm treating myself with self-compassion. I'm going to get you to push back against that.

22:38And I kind of thought, well, maybe self-compassion and self-confidence are actually kind of in conflict with each other because for confidence, to build confidence, you need action and risk-taking and work. And self-compassion is this nice, warm, fluffy blanket that you wrap around yourself and say, well, I'm good enough anyway. So why am I wrong? So that's why, I mean, not to promote it too much, But that's why I wrote this book, Fierce Self-Compassion, because there's both acceptance and action. It's like yin and yang. We need both. So drawing boundaries, taking action, making change, speaking up, you know, taking those risks.

23:13Those are some of the most self-compassionate acts we can possibly take because they help ourselves. It's a way of supporting ourselves. So put it this way. There's mama bear, which might be, oh, oh. And there's mama bear, which is like, yeah, you threaten my cubs. you know, you want to see someone take action. Both are essential. It's like yin and yang. This is essential to all human beings, but men are socialized more out of the yin, the kind of tender side. Women are socialized more out of that fierce side, which is the problem because we all need both, right? So, you know, parenting is such a good example.

23:47If you just said, oh, when your baby's crying, if you just said, oh, poor thing and like held them and like didn't feed them or didn't work your job to be able to, you know, help them. That wouldn't be compassionate parenting. There's a slight difference in aim. The acceptance is about ourself as individuals, flaws and all. We are, we are worthy of acceptance. And it's also about the fact that sometimes life isn't the way we want it to be. Sometimes we hurt, you know, that that's okay. Can we accept that to some degree? The action is more about behaviors and situations. You know, am I, if I'm doing a behavior that's not very helpful to myself or others, it's not compassionate to accept it.

24:24I can change the behavior. I can say my behavior is unacceptable, even though me as a person, I'm still worthy. Or this situation is unacceptable. You're treating me unfairly. I need to say something. I need to draw a boundary. I need to say no. That's an ultimate act of self-compassion. But our sense of self-worth is kind of a different dimension. So we need both simultaneously. What helped me, the way I saw these two in the end working together after our conversations was almost that self-compassion is your safety net. It is. It's the thing that actually, and I think maybe we could talk about this in the context of professional lives and success, because I actually think self-compassion is directly related to success and to success in the professional context, because it's the safety net that lets you take risks.