#102: The Science of Self-Compassion - Kristin Neff, PhD

29:50Absolutely. That's not woo-woo. We just know that's how the human brain works. That's even more empowering and also just such a motivator because if we do have low self-worth, if we know we're doing it for others, it's an extremely powerful motivator. I mean, the thing about self-compassion being selfish. Are you kidding? It's the best gift you can give other people, your friends, your children, not only because of your behavior, but even just your presence. You know when someone's like a more calmer, warmer, compassionate presence, it impacts you. It absolutely impacts other people. It's a gift you give to yourself and the world.

30:32How do you show up in the world? Do you show up with your heart open or your heart closed? It's really that simple. And it really does just recharge the battery for you to give so much more. Thank you so much for listening so far. I just thought I'd take a quick moment of your time to jump in and let you know that FitMind has recently transitioned to be an NGO. What this means is all of our future courses, the podcast, and everything we release is now free. So you can download the incredible Fitmind app on any of the app stores for free. This also means that we now survive entirely off donations.

31:07Whether or not you can help us financially is not a problem. But if you could just simply share this episode with someone you think that might benefit from it. Or drop a like or comment or even a review on the app store. It massively helps us out and we really appreciate it. Our goal here is simply to help as many people as we can. Now back to the episode. I really hope you enjoy the second half with Dr. Kristen Nath. Your research has been extremely extensive. You've touched on some of the more significant findings. What else have you found, I guess? Well, there's actually, I think one of the things, I guess it's not surprising, but there's a big physiological component to self-compassion.

31:53again because as mammals we are actually built attachment love care it's built into our system so our central nervous system is very activated so for instance um physical touch is a really easy way to practice self-compassion and what we find is that like putting your own hands on your heart increases heart rate variability heart rate coherence reduces cortisol in the same way that if somewhere else someone else would like to give you a hug or put their hand on your shoulder So the body doesn't really know the difference. So there was a study that came out of UC Berkeley a couple years ago that showed just 20 seconds a day of maybe putting your hand in some supportive place and saying a few supportive words can significantly increase your self-compassion levels.

32:40So in other words, it's not like you don't have to. Some people like to meditate. That's great. More power to you. Meditation is not for everyone. They don't know the time or the inclination, but you have at least 20 seconds. you know there's no one who doesn't at least have 20 seconds and it can make it can be enough to really change um the way you relate to yourself so it's it's powerful medicine and because it is part of our physiology it's it's not as hard as you might think to cultivate oh that's incredibly quick and also incredibly you know got 20 seconds i think you do i'm sorry yeah if you at least go do while you go to the bathroom you know or something so how how are you finding it's affecting anxiety depression some of the other um yeah mental conditions that we're seeing yeah kind of official psychopathology kind of negative mental states that cause a lot of pain and problems for us and it makes life a lot harder.

33:50So very strong negative correlations. And we know this, you know, not only do correlational studies, but also training studies. And it makes sense because if you look at like, where does anxiety come from or depression come from? Well, so there's a lot of factors leading to it. Again, so we don't have to take it personally. It's our genetic history. It's our family upbringing, it's environment. But what happens is maybe a negative thought or a thought of sadness or self-judgment comes up. So if we don't meet that with compassion, but instead, like we get lost in it, we over-identify with it, we feel like we're just us, there's something wrong with us for having that feeling, and then we're cold and judgmental because not only do I have this thought, I judge myself for having this thought, then we get a negative spiral.

34:38Then we go in this downward negative spiral, and then a thought of sadness or maybe, you know, embarrassment might develop into depression or a thought of fear. You know, again, why do I have this fear? And I'm the only person who's this happening to, and I feel all alone. So I'm even more afraid and you know, what's wrong with me. And then we're down into anxiety. So what self compassion does is some people call it an emotion regulation technique. It sounds so like so much more than that, but at the very least it is an emotion regulation technique because it helps us deal with difficult thoughts and emotions in a way that's helpful, rather than harmful.

35:17So it stops those negative spirals. The really interesting thing, though, is not only does it reduce negative states like, you know, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, alcohol addiction, body image, I mean, all the negative crap that happens from life, especially when we make it worse for ourself. it also is linked to things like happiness, optimism, life satisfaction, even though the way we measure it is how do you relate to suffering? You know, we don't talk about like, how do you relate to yourself on a good day? We talk about how do you relate to yourself when you make a big mistake?

35:55People who are kinder are, you know, have more self-confidence, they're happier, they're more satisfied with their life. And that's because compassion is a positive emotion. It feels good when you feel connected to others. It feels good when you're present. It feels good when you feel that warmth of kindness. And so we aren't like, it's not like positive thinking. Positive thinking is trying to replace the negative thought with the positive thought. And we know from the research is that helps if you already have high self-esteem, but it makes it worse if you don't. So, and if you're one of those people that knows you're bullshitting yourself is not going to get you very far.

36:31So self-compassion doesn't replace the negative with the positive. It embraces the negative with the positive. It's like, oh, sadness. Oh, I'm so sorry. Give me a, you know, I'm going to, I must be so hard. I care about you. What can I do to help? So you aren't denying the negative. You aren't papering over it. You aren't sugarcoating it. You're embracing yourself in the midst of it, like giving yourself support, warmth, you aren't alone. Hey, I'm here for you. What do you need? And because that warmth and support feels good, it just, it creates this upward spiral. You know, they call it positive psychology, the broaden and build cycle.

37:08And that leads once, once you aren't so hooked in by the negative and you've got more space, then you can, you can notice like opportunities. You know, I'm not so locked into my negative thought. I can say, well, actually I didn't think about that. Maybe I'll try this or maybe I can call that person or maybe there's another way to look at this and then we get the broaden and build cycle so it's actually considered part of the positive psychology movement wasn't sure to do with self-compassion for a while because by definition it's aimed at suffering but now it's considered part of the pantheon of positive things to cultivate um because again it leads to other positive emotions in a very reliable way so it's like magic you can see why i'm so excited by it i mean it makes so much sense um but it's it's counterintuitive if first until you think about it then it makes total sense yeah agreed any any perspective you've given it's like oh yeah that's hard yeah yeah it's like yeah of course well why didn't i think of it that way but again there's two main reasons our conditioning our biological evolutionary conditioning and our cultural conditioning which is really hard to overcome yeah it really is yeah it's not impossible 20 seconds a day yeah it's it's finite as well which is always also a big surprise because it feels infinite initially when you start looking at suffering oh yeah yeah well that's interesting um but of course if you don't look at it you pretend it's not there then it's like the untapped scene is very very scary but when you're when you can look at it when you can face it and you can get through it then it's actually less overwhelming and it feels less infinite and then you realize oh it's a moment of suffering that will that will pass some suffering takes longer to pass than others but you know everything changes as we know so definitely and just the incredibly i mean you touched on it briefly but that becomes a positive feedback loop then at some point yeah it does again that's that broaden and build cycle right so you bring these positive emotions to it and then it this is the really interesting another way i've been talking about self-compassion so it actually can change what you're feeling so it becomes more positive but even when you can't let's say um grief very you know grief just has its core sometimes it's a long-term thing.

39:36It's not going to budge much or, you know, something really difficult. What's happening is with self-compassion, you're moving, you're less focused on what's happening, even if what's happening is painful. You aren't ignoring it, but you aren't identified with it. You become identified with how you're relating to what's happening. So, I mean, I talk about this in my book. I have a son with autism and, you know, he's doing great now, but when he was younger, You know, you'd have these horrible tantrums and I would practice self-compassion. And instead of being like focused on the tantrum, I'd be focused on my open heart in the midst of the tantrum.

40:13Like, this is really hard, Kristen. I'm here for you. You know, you aren't alone. It's going to be okay. I love you. I care about you. And so it's like you move from being lost in what's happening to resting your awareness, so to speak, and the loving kindness and the warmth and connection that's holding what's happening. And so even in the midst of a really bad situation, your mind can still be filled with loving, connected presence. And that's really where happiness is. Happiness is not to be found ultimately in what's happening. It's to be found in who we are. How are we showing up at the moment?

40:52Is our heart open or is it closed? And that's the beautiful thing about it. It doesn't even need to change what's happening, although it does help. It just kind of changes your perspective, which is why it's so powerful. If someone is struggling with self-criticism, what would be the steps that you would recommend to start to cultivate self-compassion? Right. So I think the first step is to recognize that self-criticism is a natural behavior. Again, your brain was designed to criticize itself, to go into fight, flight, or freeze. It's also encouraged by our culture in many ways, sometimes maybe more implicitly.

41:33So the first step is to realize that the reason you're criticizing yourself is because at some level you want to keep yourself safe. At some level you care about yourself. You want to be happier. You want to be safe, which is why you're doing it. So you might say, start with having compassion for the fact that you're self-critical. Please don't say, oh, I heard this Dr. Neff and she says we should be self-compassionate. I'm bad at that. I'm self-critical. Don't criticize yourself for criticizing yourself, right? So realize you're doing it to keep yourself safe. And then the second step is to realize that there's more effective ways to help you be safe and well and, you know, have things go better in your life.

42:15And the encouragement is actually more effective than this criticism. So, you know, it kind of depends what you're criticizing yourself for. And you might need some more tender self-compassion, or you might need some more fierce self-compassion. The tender self-compassion is about acceptance, accepting the fact that, yeah, you're only human. You aren't perfect. Things are going to go wrong. That's okay. You know, it's, um, you aren't alone. And can you bring some warmth and understanding and support to yourself, to the imperfection of yourself or the imperfection of your life? because the self-criticism is like we're trying to control things, which is totally natural.

42:59But unfortunately, it makes it harder to make effective change when we're desperately trying to control things, especially in this kind of violent, negative manner. So you might need some acceptance, some acceptance of yourself or your situation, or you might need some fierce self-compassion, which means some action. So maybe there is something that you can try to change, either in a behavior you're engaged in or in a situation. Maybe you're in a situation that's not healthy for you. Making that change from love and encouragement as opposed to you better do it or else, you know, or that fear of punishment.

43:34Or maybe you need to, you know, give a little more attention to your own needs. Maybe you're so focused on problem solving or meeting other people's needs, but maybe you didn't even have an ask. Do I need to spend more time on, you know, exercising or eating better or maybe taking time for myself or fulfilling something that's going to make me happy. Maybe you love music or nature. Really taking some actions like that. Or again, protecting yourself. Maybe there are some people in your life that maybe you need to draw a few boundaries. Maybe they won't like you as much if you draw that boundary.

44:12But if you like yourself more, is it the end of the world if they don't like you? Sometimes it may be, but sometimes it may not, you know. And so really, once you open the door to self-compassion in its many forms, it's just going to, it's going to help you meet your need for safety and belonging in a much more direct and effective manner. But remembering that self-criticism is kind of an ineffective way to try to get safety and belonging. So kind of honor that part of yourself, you know, thank you for trying to help me be safe and to belong. I appreciate that. And I think this may a little more effective way I could have tried to do it this time.

44:50You know, is that okay? You can have a conversation with your inner critic. You really can. Because the inner critic, if it thinks you're ignoring it, from this point of view, the world's going to end. But if you say, hey, listen, get it, need to be safe, want to belong, good, gotcha, thank you so much for pointing this out. Can we try some ways, other ways, that see if they work a little better you know this kind of draws a little bit i'm pretty good friends with dick schwartz who created internal family system therapy or a part therapy and it kind of is consistent with those principles um yeah yeah i keep meaning to do it i've got the course with lock kelly um oh yeah yeah no i i i love lock kelly yeah great yeah i would recommend it yeah he's great yeah amazing I need to get into it I accidentally bought two and they're both quite extensive so right okay yeah only so much time yeah got it don't beat yourself up Josh yeah that's it so I should have asked you before but if if you feel comfortable could we go through a small um self-compassion exercise sure yeah absolutely um so i one of my favorite exercises is called the self-compassion break because it's very easy what we do is we we're going to call up something that's um distressing in some way or some smallish form of suffering we're just going to bring in the three components of self-compassion we're going to bring in mindfulness so we're timefully aware as opposed to being lost in the difficulty or the negative situation.

46:32We're going to bring in a sense of common humanity, remind ourselves that we aren't alone. And then we're going to bring in some warmth and kindness. And the way we're going to bring in the kindness isn't just through language, but also through touch, which we know is a really direct way to make us feel, again, cared for. All right. So I'm going to close my eyes as I do this. or so you might close your eyes or you can, if you're listening, watching this, you can close your eyes. You can open them if you want, but I'm going to close my eyes. So just, just think of something that's, uh, that's troubling you right now, something real in your life.

47:08Maybe you have a relationship issue going on that's challenging, or maybe you're worried about something. It could be something going out at work, health issue, right? So you can just choose something that's distressing, but not overwhelmingly so, because then you won't be able to actually focus on learning the practice. Just figure out something that feels right to work with.

47:44just let yourself kind of become familiar with what's happening and how you're feeling right now

47:59and so the first thing you want to do is just bring some mindful awareness to the difficulty of what you're struggling with. You know, it's hard. It hurts. So you don't want to ignore this fact. You want to recognize it, but we also don't want to get lost in the pain either. So see if you can just kind of be aware of this fact that it's painful, it's difficult, it's challenging, without getting totally sucked into it.

48:39Okay, this is hard. And then bringing in, reminding ourselves of common humanity. You know, there might be part of you that feels like this shouldn't be happening to you or there's something wrong with you because this is happening or, you know, that you're all alone. everyone else in the world is living a normal perfect life and it's just you who's having this situation so just remind yourself of the truth you aren't alone

49:16there's nothing wrong with you for having this happen this is part of being human

49:25many human beings have things like this happen to them. It's part of life. It's part of what makes us human beings. See if you can just feel your connectedness to other people who are also struggling.

49:54Then we want to bring in some warmth or kindness. So one way to do that is through physical touch. So you might put both hands on your heart or give yourself a little hug or maybe cradle your face. Whatever feels comfortable for you. Some sort of physical touch. Just feeling the physical warmth of your hands on your body.

50:18Getting that warmth kind of seep into you. you're literally holding your distress pain

50:35and then see if you can say some words of kindness and support to yourself and again not sugarcoating just something maybe the type of thing you may say to a good friend like you know I'm here for you I'm so sorry this is so hard what do you need

51:08you know maybe you need some words of acceptance like you know you're doing the best you can

51:17or maybe you need some words of patience you know that won't this won't last forever

51:26take it day by day

51:32or maybe you need some words of fierce encouragement like you know you need to say no or is there something you can do differently that may help and only you know what you need to hear so see if you can say those words that are just what you need to hear right now

52:19And letting the words go, letting the practice go, and opening your eyes.

52:37thank you so much for sharing that was that was beautiful that was really that was really beautiful i i think actually the way you have presented it it's so foundational it felt yeah just just bigger or more powerful in a way and i think Yeah, often people will go in and start to learn. We touched on what the Dalai Lama said earlier, but start to learn loving kindness or compassion and they're missing the self-compassion or that foundational practice. And probably you don't need anything more, as we said, that will then start to, as the self drops out, it will start to expand to others naturally.

53:28it will yeah i do want to just make it make a comment sometimes if there's a phenomenon that's often common called backdraft which is you know when you open the doors of a house on fire the fresh air rushes in sometimes it ignites the flames something actually can happen like that with self-compassion practice if you've had to stay safe to close your heart and you do a practice like that and you open your heart sometimes it's like the love rushes in ignites the old pain and And it can kind of, you know, sometimes you don't feel good after doing a practice like that. It's not the self-compassion that's causing the pain.

54:01What's happening is it's releasing the pain into the fresh air. And it needs to be released to be healed. But at the end of the day, in order to be self-compassionate, we need to say, what do I need to be safe? And sometimes that's a little too much for people. So sometimes you, you know, maybe you don't touch yourself. Maybe that's too much. Or, you know, maybe you just do something else. like to have a cup of tea, a warm cup of tea. So if some people do that practice and didn't feel like the warm fuzzies and felt like, ah, shit, that was a reaction. That's also very natural. You aren't alone and it can happen.

54:35It's actually a good sign. It means you're doing it right, but it also may be a signal to sometimes slow down a little bit. So self-compassion is very individualized as what do you need? You know, some people, it's too much to touch themselves. Maybe they have an abuse history, but maybe you can pet your dog or your cat or, you know, again, or there's a lot. There's really you could customize what it is that you need in a way that feels safe and right just for you. Yeah, good. Good to highlight that. And that reminds me, actually, one of the common issues would be forgiveness. But it feels like with this approach, you might not you might not necessarily need to address forgiveness directly.

55:20Do you find you still need to visit forgiveness? Yeah, so they aren't exactly the same, whether it's self-forgiveness or forgiveness of others. I think compassion for my, so forgiveness, it depends how you define it. But if you define forgiveness as the letting go, the resentment, just letting things go, we're just going to move on, right? I'm ready to just move on, let it go, forgive. I'd say compassion is a first step. and if you jumped but not only the first step it's the necessary step so compassion is opening to the pain of the harm forgiveness is like letting it go and moving on so if i forgive you and don't open to the pain that you've caused me with compassion like self-compassion like really honoring wow that really hurt holding my pain and if i forgive you move on as a way of avoiding the pain, it's not really going to work.

56:15Or similarly, if I forgive myself as a way of avoiding the pain of, wow, I really hurt you, that's not going to be helpful either. So we kind of have to start with compassion, which is opening to the pain of the harm done, either caused by us or done to us. And then sometimes, you know, we aren't ready to move on. Or, you know, maybe I'll consider the possibility of at some point moving on, but right now all I can do is hold my pain. You know, so the letting go of what happened, I think is the second step that can only really happen after we have compassion. And, you know, sometimes it may not be the right thing for some people.

56:56But, you know, here's the thing, like, let's say you hurt me, Josh, and I have compassion for the pain you caused me. I may not be ready to move on, but I don't have to make it personal, I can have compassion for the fact that, you know, who knows what led you to do it? It's your biology. It's your history. It's your all again, all that 95 % of your unconscious processing. I don't have to blame me for it personally, but I may not want to move on in terms of like, maybe we just like call it a day. I'm blocking you from my phone, Josh, or my email. No, just kidding. But you know what I mean? So I think they're, they're, they're kind of slightly separate issues.

57:36Yeah, I agree. And yeah, that definitely points to, I remember I had that thought when I was young, actually, and that was part of the issue I had with sort of the religion I was getting presented at the time. It was like, how could I truly blame that person? Because like, they've been exposed to what they've been exposed to. Yeah. They're not really in control of that. There's so many factors or I think Gabba Mate talks about like the majority of health issues he sees have trauma, like extensive trauma. in the past so of course they're reacting to situations in a certain way and it's not even there's a crazy thing it's not even just like what happened to us but it's stored in our dna and like the telomeres and it's like it's biological and historical as well as your immediate conditioning again so many factors the vast majority of factors that goes into determining what is it that we're thinking moment by moment or feeling moment to moment physically or emotionally totally out of our control.

58:39We're not even aware of the vast majority of it. So who are we to blame ourselves or others for it? At the same time, you've got to draw boundaries. You didn't choose to do that, perhaps, but I also may choose to draw a boundary out of self-protection. Again, we don't have to take any of it so personally. um it's of course it's easier said than done it's but yeah definitely I remember one of my teachers said when you do forgiveness you're not you're not forgiving that person you're forgiving yourself actually it's you that feels the relief it's not that person yeah yeah which I would probably call that what you're really doing is you're giving yourself compassion um and but but these these come in stages you know it's it's a it's a big thing to ask someone to let go of something if someone's really harmed them or even yourself you can have compassion for yourself and say i'm not quite ready to move on to let go and forgive but i can at least start with compassion i can understand uh so definitely and you don't have to you don't have to agree with what what they did or it's not yeah you don't ever have to and you can still block them from your phone so yeah as we start to to wrap up just just given the increasing awareness of um like societal issues and the need for collective action um yeah how can self-compassion support individuals that might be like navigating their roles as change makers or well particularly without succumbing to burnout yeah well and that's why you know the fear self-compassion is so important i wrote the whole book fear self-compassion because i mean we care it's it's not just about acceptance of ourselves or our emotions it means we need to take action and sometimes that means like social justice action, going to protest.

1:00:43But again, we need the fierce and the tender. So if we're all about action as a way of caring for ourselves and others, and there's none alike that recharging of the acceptance of the tender, nurturing part of self-compassion, we will burn out. So if you're a social activist and the world's got a lot of stuff going on right now, I don't need to explain it. It's a tough world out there. And a lot of action needs to be taken if you want to save the planet and kind of minimize the harm done. And it is an act of self-compassion to make change, to protest, to speak up, to say no, to draw boundaries, to do something, to try to be different.

1:01:23But so again, as you do that, which is the fear, self-compassion, it's like yin and yang. You know, the Chinese philosophers, they knew what they were talking about way back when, right? So the yang energy is the active energy, the fear, self-compassion. and the yin is the more gentle, nurturing, kind of accepting energy. As we take our action, we need to make sure that we are still kind of accepting of ourselves as people, accepting of others. So if you dehumanize others as you take your action, if you take action against people, as opposed to just saying standing up for minimizing harm being done to people, then you're just perpetuating the problem, right?

1:02:04Right. So having that acceptance, the yin, the tender is always about the people accepting ourselves unconditionally, accepting other people, not their actions or behaviors, but them as people unconditionally combined with the, okay, what actions are going to be most helpful? What do I need to do to protect people? I call it mama bear self-compassion. You know, we need both. um and but again it's tricky and we're gonna get it wrong and we're gonna get imbalanced and get back but you know it's like a process it's not an end point how do you think how do you think we do get it in more places for anyone that doesn't follow kristin on on social media it's like a bright light in the sea of information and it's incredibly inspiring particularly i've enjoyed on linkedin where you don't often see that kind of post oh yeah i don't i don't think my my person thinks i'm i don't do a lot of linkedin but yeah it's true it's probably probably should do more there because it's not normal yeah yeah it's extremely it's extremely extremely effective i've been reposting you often oh thank you thank you for that but i'm sorry if anyone does want to find out more if they want to learn yeah well i would say just google self-compassion you'll find my website selfcompassion.org i've got a lot of free resources there.

1:03:28I also have a community online where we've got even more resources and practices and a whole video library of information. I have live events. I have people on, like I just said, Dick Schwartz on and Dan Harris and Tara Brock. If you want to go a little further, you can become a self-compassion community member. I also have, I think, five books now. it's another way to start you can find but i would say start at my website because then that's kind of the the hub and then i'll let you know what what um resources are available for you and also take yourself the self-compassion scale if you if you're curious and want to know your level but don't judge yourself if you score low

1:04:14know that you can you can move in a different direction at any point that's right amazing thank you so much i think yeah the work you're doing is incredible and um keep going yeah yeah i'll definitely be keeping an eye on the website and and everything else that you do great thanks josh it's been a pleasure again thank you so much for listening to the episode we really hope you enjoyed it i just wanted to take a quick moment to say that we recently released a 30 days of meditation science and bliss course you can find that here on youtube or over at the app. We do find that the app offers a much better experience and then you get daily reminders and you can really track your mental fitness.

1:04:55So highly recommend checking that out.