Tara Brach - The Gift of Self-Compassion: A Conversation with Tara Brach & Kristin Neff, PhD

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

This conversation includes what turned Tara toward a path of compassion in her early life, the evolution of the RAIN practice to include nurturing/compassion, the spiritual dimensions of self-compassion, and the role of compassion in these current times.   This was initially recorded live for those in Kristin's membership community and includes several question/responses. For more information about Kristin's community, visit: https://self-compassion.org/self-compassion-community/?utm_source=newsletter+&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Tara_Brach

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely, and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste. Welcome, friends. A couple of weeks ago, Kristen Neff interviewed me on the theme of compassion. It's part of a series of conversations that she's doing for her community. And to find out more about her compassion community, her self-compassion community, you can go to self-compassion.org and click on community. So as you'll see in this, it includes both of us talking, but also some wonderful backforce with participants, really wonderful questions.

You know, more than anything, these times call for us to pause and open to the vulnerability that we feel. And it's only possible to do that if we hold ourselves and each other with much gentleness and kindness. I was recently reminded of a short verse by Wendell Berry. He wrote it in 1968, so I just wanted to share this. In the dark of the moon,

in flying snow in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover. in times of upheaval and challenge, whether it's personal, whether you feel it collectively, we have this capacity to seed a growing compassion

in our lives and in our world. So I hope you find this time with me and Kristen and her extended community valuable. Thank you. I've got to tell you the story of how I first got to know Tara and Tara's work. So I had learned about self-compassion from a Tick-Not-Hong group in 96, and then I decided I wanted to research it. And so I got involved in Insight Meditation tradition, and I was reading books by Sharon Salzberg, Jack Cornfield, Christina Feldman, which mainly talked about compassion for others.

But I wanted to think about how can I create a scale to measure self-compassion. And I didn't know Tara personally because she had founded the Washington, D.C., insight meditation, and I was going to Spirit Rock where I was near Berkeley, Northern California. So I read everything I could get my hands on. I created this scale. It created the model, and I published the scale. And then this book came out, 2003. After I published the scale, I got the original hard copy, and I read it, and I opened the first chapter to the trance of unworthiness. And my first response, excuse me, Tara, this is true, was, shit, why didn't she publish this a year ago?

Because I knew this was the book I had been waiting for because it wasn't just about compassion in general. It was really all explicitly about self-compassion. But I read it and kind of nervously because I knew, you know, she kind of, she was coming at it from a more spiritual perspective. And I read it. And first of all, it was just blown away by its beauty and its insight. There's a reason it's still a bestseller.

But at the end of it, I thought, I think I got it right. my self-compassion scale actually maps on to what Tara wrote about in this book. And then when I got to meet her, and she's just been a wonderful guide and mentor to me. So welcome, Tara. So glad we're on the same page about this. Yeah, we've been on the same page. I mean, we keep resonating and resonating. Yeah, kind of separated at birth in some ways.

So can you please tell me a little bit? about, you know, what got you so involved, especially in turning compassion inward? Because not everyone was doing it back then. You were really one of the first Buddhist scholars to really focus on, or teachers, I should say, to focus on the importance of turning compassion inward. So what made you think that that would be a good idea to do? It was just absolutely clear in my own personal experience that there was so much pain in rejecting parts of my own life. It was just like it was so clear. And there was pain in rejecting or judging others. So it was,

it was really about how do I open my heart to myself and to this world. And so it really kind of broke open when I was in college. And I was, I might, you might have shared this story with you, but I was on the track to go to law school as very much the leftist social activist. So I'd go to campaigns and weekend rallies, very us, them, angry, contemptuous. Then Tuesday nights, yoga, meditation, you know, it was like this huge contrast. And I remember one time just after one of the meditations, I walked outside and my body and my mind were in the same place at the same time. And with that, Kristen, you know, there was just this sense of belonging to life.

And it was so clear that everything I wanted in terms of as a social activist to transform this world wasn't going to come from that othering, making others an enemy. It was going to come from a place of compassion and belonging. And I'm sharing that right at this moment because it feels so timely. But it wasn't only the us-them pain. It was also, I was so chronically down on myself. You know, I was, I was in therapy. I was working on it. but, you know, I felt like I was falling short on all fronts.

So, you know, like, was it battle with my body and my weight and in relationships I was falling short, and it went on and on. So yoga and meditation gave me a taste of more connection, you know, more at home. And it deepened when I really started letting the practice be one of compassion, where I would, and it's mindfulness-based compassion, really, where I would notice what was going on and on some deep level feel tenderness to it. So that was it. I, you know, in my doctoral work, I would be weaving psychotherapy and meditation and seeing

how that could help relieve pain. And it just has gone on and gone deeper. And it feels very much about not just our own divides within ourselves and bringing kindness, but extending that really over and over again, extending it to our world. Yeah, but interconnectedness, the common humanity, which is when you wrote about that in the book, that's when I realized I'm so glad I added that third component because that's what you were talking about,

interbeing, interconnectedness, and how important that is, that connection between self and other. And then so to being a therapist also shape, you know, there's a kind of, there was a whole field of contemplative psychologists. So people who were both academics, sometimes therapists, but also insight meditation teachers. And I wasn't the latter, but you were all three. And so how did being a therapist and actually working with people in pain inform your work as a spiritual teacher or as a meditation teacher? Yeah, it was actually wonderful to be weaving them because therapy stops short because it does not necessarily

envision and give the practices that help people keep waking themselves up. But those practices to wake up cannot, sometimes aren't workable unless we have that relational field with another person where we're examining through the stories what's going on. And Buddhists very quickly say, well, it's not about the story, come into the, you know, but the stories are accessed, you know, when we are caught in a story about what's wrong with ourselves or others, the roots of that story are feelings, and we can go then into the feelings and then work with them in a way that transforms. So I just feel like the two zones really come together very synergistically. Yeah, and that is one of the things I really love about.

your work. It is, I love the fact that it's spiritual in the sense that at the end of the day, it is about waking up, discovering our true nature, but that instead of bypassing the pain and the feelings of insecurity and the storyline, as you say, it's by diving into it and embracing it that we actually walk through that door. And that's what I think is really special about you and your work. I also want you ask you a more specific question than I've always meant to ask you. You are a mindfulness-based compassion teacher, your insight meditation teacher. And you used to teach the rain model, which was in mindfulness teacher circles, which used to be recognized, accept, investigate, and non-identify, very much focused on kind of letting

go of the story of separate self. And I think in your 2013 book True Refuge, I think you even had that model in there. But then you changed it. And I noticed that to change the end, to nurture with self-compassion. And why did you make that change? And then what difference does it make do you think when you explicitly bring in the compassion as opposed to just non-identification? Yeah.

Well, first of all, I love this question because it feels really important for our understanding. And Michelle McDonnell, who I want to honor, was brought forward the first original reign. and it worked for people unless there were really strong, sticky emotions. And so I had so many people coming to me and I actually was realizing the same thing saying, you know, I can recognize something and I can accept it, though I'm not sure I'm accepting and I can investigate it, but it's still there. You know, how do you non-identify? How do you not identify?

and what I found for myself and it just feels so clear now. I mean, if we use a metaphor, it would be, and this is, I think, the most useful is like the two wings of the bird of awareness that we need both mindfulness, seeing clearly what's happening, and we need the heartfulness, the compassion. The two wings are absolutely inseparable to fly, to be free. Think of like a sunlit sky, we need both the light and the warmth. And so this was missing the warmth. And we really have to have it.

I mean, if I can speak for myself and just how many times, let's say, I'd feel distanced or angry from someone close and I could see it and I could say, okay, this is happening, but it wasn't until I said, oh, I'm hurting, okay, ouch. That there was that tenderness that actually is actually enlarge my whole sense of being. So that's why I felt like there was a missing step in terms of really a fully awake presence. We were missing the warmth and that's why I put in nurturing. But that's, even though it's the last step, it's not the end of rain. And that's kind of what I wanted to mention here because not identified or non-identifications actually the gift of presence.

It's not a doing. You don't do something to not identify. After you've aroused a very full quality of presence, seeing clearly what's happening and holding with compassion, the gift is you realize, oh, it's like I'm no longer the wave of emotion on the ocean that's being with the wave. It's a shift in identity. So I call that after the rain. After the rain.

Yeah, just because think of a real rain and what happens, that the rain comes, it nourishes things, but it's after the rain that all the blossoming happens. So after bringing mindfulness and compassion to what's here, the experience is one, you might say, of being the ocean, that fullness of presence, but also being no thing. you're no longer identified exclusively with the waves.

It's like I am no longer that angry stuck self. I am the awareness, the tenderness that includes it. So that was the reason for the shift in the rain. It's that when we're stuck, we need to have compassion. And I just realized Tara is as you were speaking. So I was thinking that more of bringing in the, the, kindness element of compassion, the warmth, which makes a difference. But it also intrinsically brings in the common humanity, that sense of interconnectedness. So if you think about recognize,

accept, investigate, or non-identified, they're still kind of in the realm of mindfulness, which is the foundation. But the nurturing, as you say, first it brings in the warmth, the care, but then I love that metaphor, the blossoming, that's the common humanity. That's when we recognize our inseparableness from the rest of life and from other people and beings and just being itself. I think what you're saying, because in a way, the alchemy of compassion is to dissolve separation. Yes. And it doesn't just dissolve the separation within our own, you know, it doesn't just reintegrate

the pushed away parts of our own being. It reveals our belonging. I've come to start thinking of it as when you give your self. self-compassion, you're moving from the self to the compassion, right? So instead of identifying from the self that needs, that hurts and that feels separate and that feels inadequate, you move to the compassion, which doesn't have much self in it. It's interconnected. I really love that, because in a way, the very word self-compassion can be confusing, because what we're really having compassion for is the suffering that comes out of a limited identity.

with self. Exactly. So the very nature of that compassion dissolves that small, you know, tight self and reopens us to our natural, you know, belonging. And that's a great segue because I did want to talk to you more about the spiritual dimensions of this practice. I've always, you know, I think I see self-compassion is a spiritual practice for a long time. I was kind of identified with my academic hat and felt I couldn't really talk about it. But that's really where my heart is, this awakening. So since you're allowed, do you mind talking about how self-compassion can be a pathway to awakening to our true nature, which is not separate?

I love it. The invitation. I can do that in five minutes. I mean, you're allowed, too, honestly. No, I am. I retired from UT Austin, but yeah, you're really allowed, so go for it. Yeah, well, so if we really understand compassion as going towards the suffering that comes from feeling separate, it goes towards the suffering of the pain of separation. And again, I love that, the metaphor of ocean of waves, that when we're suffering, we're caught in like this limited bunch of waves.

This is me, you know, we have forgotten our oceaness. So when we bring the power of awareness and heart, which is mindfulness compassion, to the waves, it reopens us to the oceanless, which is really formless, mysterious. It includes everything and gets not hitched to anything limiting. And the beauty is that the more full we bring a presence and tenderness to the waves to the waves, the more we become that fullness and tenderness. And it's what you said, we become the compassion. We become, you know, we realize that this ocean-ness is more true than any story we've ever

told ourselves about ourselves. And here's the thing that feels important to me is that it takes practice getting to know that ocean-ness. And what I notice happens is people will do a self-compassion or a compassion practice and feel freed up some, but then they'll move on to the next thing they're doing. And that's actually the moment, that moment of feeling freed up, larger, tender, you know, to actually stay and get familiar. And this is really brain science, that the more we get familiar with, that truth of who we are, the more we come to trust it and not believe so quickly when we're inside the small stories. So that's one piece that feels like really a natural way

to wake up to the spirituality of this. And there's another which is self-compassion naturally leads to including others. But we also have very deep conditioning to create some and other, all these biases we don't see, that if we want to truly feel our belonging, we have to intentionally bring compassion to the others that we have pushed out. It's not going to happen just spontaneously. It takes intention because we're in a society that reinforces over and over that some other groups or individuals are bad. And so I feel like especially in these times, and Kristen, I know you're with me on

this, we need to lean in, really dedicate to going beyond other. I mean, if there's anything, it's like I can feel my emotion here. It's a suffering of the times that the chasm is so great and it leads to so much violence. So to go beyond means to actually dedicate when we can sense that we are in some way dehumanizing. And, And by way of example, I've been doing meditation gatherings with both Israeli and Palestinian groups over the last year pretty much. I was talking to one Israeli man, Asaf, who's become a friend, and he shared about being with an Arab friend some years back who was telling him about his suffering, what it was

like to live as a Palestinian in Israel. And Asaf realized that his empathy wasn't really as strong as it would be with his Israeli friends. And what hit him is it was a disease in my soul is what he said. Not like he hated himself for it, but it was just a disease. It was a separation within his being and he decided he dedicated to healing it. And that's what I'm talking about, that dedication when we sense the othering. to heal it because this is the thing, that if we don't, if we think, okay, I'm feeling compassion myself, I'm holding others I love, but we're excluding anyone, any group from our

heart, we're actually not touching the truth of our belonging. We're not living in the truth of who we are. So it's totally a spiritual path, this waking up our hearts to what's here, and it needs to be very intentional because there's so much conditioning. And so given where we are, I mean, so, you know, we both live in the United States. We have an election coming up Tuesday. And I also know you gave a great endorsement for my fierce self-compassion book, because this idea of speaking up, taking action, protecting against harm is also a part of this process. How do you find that balance between taking a firm stand against what, you know,

a lot of people of fear is authoritarianism. I'm just horrific racism and othering. How do you take that strong stand and yet not following to othering? I'm curious about you personally, Tara. What are you doing to get through this time? And then maybe you can help us as well. I love the question. And as you know, because we're friends,

I'm passionate about this. I feel like the fact that most of us are afraid is intelligent. It's intelligent fear. There's a real threat that we're living with. And if we want to respond, it doesn't help to respond from fear. What helps is to sense, what is that I'm really caring about? And I keep asking myself that, whether it's anger, judgment, fear, underneath it, there's something we care about. The more angry and divided we feel, the more it's because there's something we care about.

And what I really care about is the suffering that is in this world, the hatred, the anger. I really care about that I want a world where we're living more from love. So if I can get in touch with what I care about, Kristen, I can act, I can act passionately, I can engage fully to protect what's at stake. and yet be doing it from a place that's tender and caring both. It's what Roshi Joan Halifax called the soft front and the strong back, which you call fierce compassion, which is, I mean, I love your work on fierce compassion. We have to have it in these times.

So what I do to help myself, I'll just name a few things right now. One is that I act. You know, action absorbs anxiety, so I'm engaged. as much as I can be, as much as I can be. And I reflect a lot about how many others are caring, because it really helps when I remember that. And let's just take a pause right here if it's okay. Please, that's great.

Because I just, you know, when all of you came on and I was looking through, looking at the little squares and really feeling you here. And some people I recognize and I know we're here because we care. I mean, really, we're here because we care. So if you just take a moment, if you'd like to let your attention go inward and just to remind yourself of caring that you're here because it matters to you to wake up your heart and mind and to be in a world. where there's more kindness, more justice, more freedom.

And then just to remember, all of us are caring. It's really true. And how many, how many people around the world right now are caring, caring about the suffering of the earth and caring about the suffering of the animals on this earth and caring about the injustices and the oppression, the violence, caring about what's going on in so many places that there's so much caring. And that in the past, just to realize that in the past there's always been people

who are trying to help the countless human kindnesses. And in the future, like our great-great-grandchildren will want to be holding hands, wanting to be helping. And just sense that, that past, present, future, the amazing, dimensionality of that field of caring that we belong to. So that no matter what happens in the days and weeks to come, that can give a sense of refuge and possibility. We're in this together.

That really makes a difference. So, yeah. When you're doing that, I think you is very helpful. And I also had the thought of, you know, the people who are coming from fear. And I think those who are, you know, maybe say I disagree politically is coming from fear, but then it's a part of them that also wants to be safe, right? So try and to remember that for everyone, maybe underneath some layers, it's also coming from care. Just maybe the way it's in it.

And it's hard for me to do. I have to admit because my default is just kind of like don't understand. But that can. So what do you do about that? Like how do you relate to people who have such a different viewpoint in terms of what's going to create safety and what's not? Yeah. So what you're bringing up is actually the next step of my own practice and I know yours too, which is that when we talk about the people that are caring, we're not talking about some limited moral group of ethical better people. Really, it's all of us. Truly it's all of us. Some are living in a more. torqued or tight information field. Some have conditioning that haven't had certain privileges.

There's all sorts of context so that caring gets, it's harder for us to see it. People wear a mask that looks different. But we're not going to be able to heal our world. It doesn't matter what candidate wins unless we can see the value, the beauty, the goodness in everyone. And so what helps me with that, Kristen, is I've been using the Tonglin meditation a lot more recently. It really makes a difference. If you want to learn, there's a lot of versions of Tonglin out there. I'm speaking to all of us. The one I've done most recently, it's available on my podcast and so on.

There's a version I put out that I find helpful. But more generally, it means first we start with exactly what we're feeling, breathing in, letting it touch us, having the courage to feel what we're feeling. But breathing out and sensing we're breathing it into that field of caring, that field, that space of really the heart of the world. It's not a separate small self that's trying to hold the suffering. It's really being held by something larger. So we breathe in and be touched, breathe out, let it be held by that larger space.

Then we widen the field so we breathe in and out for others who are hurting. That next step is essential. So many in, especially in the United States where we're very focused on our self-healing, we forget to extend the field. but we actually don't free ourselves unless we do. So it's just what you're saying, to bring to mind others that might be behaving in ways and having beliefs that are appurrent to us.

And I sometimes imagine, what would I be feeling if I was acting that way or believing that? What kind of a twist or pain or squeeze? And just to breathe in and out for that being suffering too, really helps to free the heart. Beautiful. Thank you, Tara. Okay, so now it's time.

I want to give a chance for the participants to ask questions. I'm going to link to our conversation we just had it. I think it will help us. Sheila, if I'm saying it correctly, S-H-E-L-A-G-H-S-E-L-H-S is Donald Trump suffering? I think it's actually worth us all just. kind of taking a moment to think about that. And so Shannon, if you can bring Sheila up.

But go ahead, Tara, what do you think? I mean, I think the answer is yes, but helping us think through what's going on. Sure. Let me just ask Sheila, you're unmuted right now, so I can just ask you. I think I'm, can you hear me? Yes.

Yeah. Thank you. I mean, it's a bit of an out-thair question, and I'm completely new to mindfulness and your work, Tara. But I was recommended your work by my therapist. But, you know, it's fascinating, everything that I'm hearing today. It's just this about, you said about suffering and being compassionate to the suffering of the other.

the whole us everything collectively. And so just trying not to... Just for a moment, just to say, I think the question is then extending is actually really a wonderful one. So I just want to just say something to it because, you know, is Donald Trump suffering? Are those that are behaving in ways that seem vicious, contemptuous, hurtful, are they suffering?

And very brief metaphor that those that know me well have heard is that if you imagine walking in the woods and you see a little dog and you go to pet it and the dog lurches at you with its fangs bared and you go from feeling friendly to being really angry at this, you know, aggressive behavior. But then you see the dog has its paw and a trap. And then you go, oh, okay, you might not get near it, but you realize, okay, there's something going on here that's making it act that way. My instincts are that people don't behave in hateful ways, enraged ways, hurtful ways, unless they're hurting. Now, they may not be aware of hurting, and I have no way of knowing how their system is experiencing hurting. But it's coming from some dis-ease inside. And you can almost feel it if you sense the expression on the person's face and you imagine your face in that expression,

what would be going on inside? And this is the last thing I'll say. I think it's really important that we imagine. We go inside what we sense might be going on because it helps to soften our hearts. And we realize what Ticknott Han said, which is our enemy is not a man. It's not a human.

The challenge is the forces of anger, greed, hatred, delusion, that live through all of us. Some of us have the privilege or grace not to be as encumbered, but to be humble because they live through all of us and our path is to with kindness and with cleness, and with clarity, wake up through the conditioning, but not to blame those that are more trapped. So thank you very much for your question.

It really is an important one for all of us. Thank you for your answers. It's wonderful. Thank you. Just to say, I recognize that absolutely, being angry because of being hurt or being aggressive because of being hurt. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

One question, a few different people asked a various version of this. And so one by Katie Kaufman, which is talking about the sorrow. So I think many people, when you did that little practice of getting in touch with the caring and the caring of others, underneath that, it's like just an ocean of grief and sorrow. So is that right, Katie? you want to talk, I would like Tara to talk about that sorrow and how do we hold it perhaps? And just sort of that like the feeling that caring alone doesn't seem to be enough. Yeah.

It's true. If caring doesn't have the energy of, so I want to help and we don't in some way act from caring, then it ends up tying us up. to knots in certain ways. So there needs to be action. And I'm also hearing some different level of it also, which is, but what about the hugeness of the sorrow? And my experience is that I have to grieve. As things have unfolded, I regularly, if I can pause enough, and it takes pausing, It takes a willingness to really feel feelings. I find underneath it all an ocean of sorrow for how much suffering there is. I weep and it's good.

I feel like it loosens things, it moisturizes things in a way that actually then move me towards action because embedded in grieving is love. There's something I love that I'm feeling threatened, hurting. loss. So I feel like we need to be willing to breathe together. But it's not alone because if it's alone, we feel a sense of impossibility, like nothing can change. We need to grieve but feel it with each other. And then there's actually a sense of a great love that can inspire us. Love that. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, dear. Appreciate your question. Thank you, Charra. Um, so another

Another question, there's several, there's been a few different variations on this. So I'm going to have Will Oliver come up, who says that recently he witnessed some people making some racist comments and people kind of bypassed it by saying, let's remember we're all basically good. And just to say other variations of this have been things like, how do we draw boundaries? Like, how do we stand up in that situation? Well, I'll let you speak for yourself if you want to frame your question for Tara. I loved your question. It's an honor to be with both of you teachers, and I'm graced by all of these terrific people. Yes, I was in a supportive space with wise folks, but it seemed the teaching that you share around believing in our basic goodness was operationalized kind of as a bypass to owning some responsibility around.

power, race, privilege, and oppression. And so I thought hopefully an opportunity will come to ask you how you can speak to this and help folks differentiate between the need to have difficult conversations and really dig into things in those moments where we might be able to find grace and some healing. Yeah. Well, first I want to pause enough to honor you for bringing this because it feels crucial for these times. I mean, when I talk about bridging divides, I'm not talking about, I look at somebody and go, oh, well, they're basically good.

And then move on. I need to first totally honestly face the reality of the moment, which is the way that our biases absolutely create violence and suffering. And if I can't get in touch with how my privilege impacts you or others, and if I can't get in touch underneath that with a sense of true regret and wanting to make am reparations, if I can't get in touch with that, I am bypassing. I am bypassing. So I feel like this is a path of reality.

That the only people can save us from that bypass is staying close with reality. Which means I face where the divides are. Faced where the divides are in my own heart and how my beliefs and attitudes can divide me from others. And that hurts. We have to be willing to hurt.

I have to be uncomfortable one. Like, I have to be comfortable. for this to work out. I can't just very quickly jump to, oh, everybody's a good human. If I skip over my discomfort as a white person, as a privileged person, then I am actually locking myself into a very separate identity that will never be of service. So I hope that speaks a bit to what you're bringing up because it's so important for us. It certainly does. The multi-layered impact of that is real also. Being someone who is of global majority and in a predominantly white space and being a witness to that, there's a level of othering that's hard to capture and becoming a

teacher under both of you. I'm challenged to figure out how to have that. conversation and flip that. And so you've given me some language and some tools for how to get through that bypass and say, hey, we're all still here. There's a reality. Thank you for that word that we might be missing. Yep. So thank you for that. Well, thank you for what you're burning. Those lessons do. Thank you. Okay. So we have a question by Shupawi, if I'm saying that correctly, she's got a lot of people that want this asked about narcissism. There's also about how do we practice compassion for someone who traumatizes us, but I think maybe the bit that's really drawing the interest is narcissism with people who are

overtly narcissists, and I've had narcissists in my life, and there's some nice narcissists out there in the political world, and I won't put the words in your mouth, but how do we deal with that? Am I saying that right, Shupuwee? Shoe-oh, so much more beautiful. Shupiaway, lovely, Shupiaway, yes. Yeah, first of all, thank you very much, Tara and Kristen, for all your work. You've really just changed my life, but also thank you to everyone participating. It's quite an honor to be with you here.

Great question from Wills, I really like that question. My question is a bit of a tricky one, I guess, because I've sort of been dealing with this narcissism for the most of my life, but only just in the last six months, I don't know what the word is. accepted it, I think. It's probably faced it and then realized I have to accept it. And through that, I think one of the first things I noticed was the need for compassion towards my father because, as you said just now, Tara, like the idea of his face. And if I try and emulate his face when he's in the middle of his rage, I just feel sorrow

and sadness and pain and anger. It automatically brings up this compassion. But at the same time, that all of the... of that rage, all of that anger is directed at me and with the intention of hurting me. And then I start to lose that compassion. And it was interesting when someone was talking about Trump earlier and you could also apply it to racism. It's very similar. It's hold that compassion. And then once it's coming towards me where I'm actually, I might be in danger, that's when I really struggle and I can feel it slipping. I really feel fight of flight immediately. And then I really,

and it's a bit of a battle. And I wanted, how can we learn to make that practice of bit easier, hold that compassion maybe for a bit longer? Yeah, it's a great question. I think it's actually one that every single one of us that is on a path of trying to hold others in our hearts is encountering. Because the mistake we make is that we don't come back to holding tenderly the place in us that's having a hard time. And you have to keep coming back to that over.

over again to have the resilience to be open to another. So if it's your father a narcissist and you're feeling his pain, but you haven't resourced yourself on what it feels like to be on the other end of anger, which is like our human nervous system is designed to feel really threatened. And you're, so you need to take care of your own humanity. And that means you're going to have to come back again and again, shup away. Am I? saying your name right, Shup Away? Shupiway. Shupiway.

I love it. Thank you. Yeah. Come back again and again. Anytime you feel a wavering with him, come back and sense what's hard right now, what hurts, what's painful, what's scary. Breathe in and hold yourself really tenderly until you feel in that holding that possibility of being able to reopen.

And then the other piece, which Kristen, has... has modeled and talked about so much in her writing is the fierce compassion. Right. Where you have to have the boundaries. It's not helping anybody. If you're not to have the boundaries of how much time, energy, you know, be strong in it. And this is the same thing with Will's question, that if we don't have that strong back, that clarity saying, hey, there's something here off. There's a power differential.

You know, this is asymmetrical if we're talking about Israel and Palestine. If we don't have that strong back that sees that clearly, then our compassion actually can be a bypass. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What's quite interesting is that often, like I go see my dad, I cycle, so I cycle home.

And I use that cycle home to somehow try and bring back that compassion. and I often just try to use mindfulness, but what you just said, I could really practice in that moment of saying, right, where am I, how am I feeling, where am I hurt? So that's really helpful. Thank you very much for that. Oh, good. Yep.

I'm actually just going to add it a little tidbit of what I found I had someone in my life who was a really strong narcissist. This is my self-compassion practice. It's called the gray rock technique. Because the narcissist is often, I mean, again, I don't want to other them, but often the pattern comes from the, they're trying to get some energy as a way of, I suppose, healing their cells in their own wound.

So I would just explicitly try to, what could I say that would be as bland and boring, totally non-try, as a gray rock. And I did it, but out of self-compassion, it wasn't like I was capitulating. This was the way I was drawing my boundaries. I would just like pretend to be a gray walk. And it really worked because the narcissist would go on to someone else. So that's just a really, sometimes. Self-compassion as as simple as finding little techniques that may actually work and help you function more effectively.

When you, you know, with your father, you can't do much about it. So anyway. Okay. So, yeah, we have time for a couple more. Cynthia Pyrrannick asked a question, which a couple people also want answered, about the idea of common humanity. And this comes up, it's one of the most common questions. that comes up for me, common humanity is confusing because, you know, some people do suffer

more than others. And some people, especially maybe privileged people who aren't living in war zones with a lot of, you know, with good functional parents, maybe they aren't suffering as much. So, Cynthia, do you want to add anything to that for Tara? Actually, you said it better than anything I could have said. I have been listening to you and I've read Tara's book, so I'm honored to be here just like everybody. I really struggle with that. So I've been trying to practice the self-compassion. When I come to the common humanity, I'm like, this is BS.

I know so many people who, that's not happening to them. And I know a lot of people way worse off. I try to remind myself about people in Palestine and Israel and people in Africa and children who are dying. But I'm human, so I struggle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't, for me, common humanity doesn't mean the same and not different. There's real huge differences in suffering. I mean, we, so many, you just named it.

Common humanity, even, I have a problem with just because what about the animals that are not human? I mean, I, you know, I am so, I get so choked up at the billions of animals that are tortured every year for food. So, it's not that all suffering is equal. For me, the common ground is something way, way different and deeper, which is that we all arise from the same source of awareness, of tenderness. There's a formless source, whether you call it spirit or God or, you know, Buddha nature, whatever word, it doesn't matter, there's some essence, you know, before we distinguish and become separate, that if we really deepen our attention, we can sense that behind the eyes that

I'm calling you, and behind these eyes, in Kristen's eyes, there's an awareness, a sentience, a kind of tender sensitivity and intelligence that's formless. And it's coming through all of us. and it's also coming through the trees and through my dog that's over here. There's just some common, beautiful, mysterious, formless essence. And if we can remember that, we can hold the differences with a tremendous amount of care and respond wisely. So, just to widen that definition when you think about it, because it can be, it's reality, it's a larger reality that we can tap into.

Does that resonate for you? Oh, completely. Completely. Thank you for that. And so, Cynthia, maybe I'll just let you know. I know Tara knows this. So originally, I wanted to call it interbeing, because remember I learned about self-compassion

while studying in the tradition of Tickna Han. Interbeing is exactly what Tara is talking about. The idea that we seem like we're separate individuals, but the reality is, first of all, we're all this awareness. The awareness is coming through. were all the ocean expressing in these various ways, but also really important in the context of compassion

is that so many causes and conditions occur to shape our suffering. And so sometimes they're big tidal waves, sometimes they're little ripples, but what's common is the fact that, you know, how we think, how we act, how we see, even how we perceive, it's totally shaped by things that we normally wouldn't consider us. and that's why it's, you know, it's a way of pointing to something larger than ourselves. So if the word common, I use common humanity because it's just, it's the vernacular.

I knew it would get more access than intubing. It doesn't have to be humans. You know, another way to think about it is that this is a human right, but then you could extend that to a life of all, into the, so in other words, it's not, it's not an individual, compassion. It's not like an individual privilege. It comes with our very humanity and ultimately comes from a very being whether or not you're in human form. So if you want to know the big picture, that's what I was pointing to. And so if the words don't work for common humanity, dump them. Call it connectedness. It's probably actually maybe a little more effective. Nothing special about any of the word. I think it was my own limited

understanding of what that term meant. But it's very, very common. It's actually the thing that struggle with the most probably because the word is not actually that precise. It's heuristic, but so you aren't alone. Okay, well, I would love to keep taking questions, but sadly, we are coming to an end, and I wanted to give you a chance, Tara, is there anything you'd like to let us know about things that are inspiring you or that you'd like to let you'd like to let people know about any maybe projects or passions that you have that you want to share. You know, I'll be announcing more. I'm doing more a couple of in-person and online, live online gatherings,

a year-long way that 2025 can be a time of living from an awake heart because we're going to so need it and we're going to so need to be doing this together. You know, the Ticknat Han says that in these days, the Buddha is the Sangha. It's really experiencing our connection with each other. And in that spirit, Kristen, I want to say, I really love what you're doing to build community. I really do. I think we need that. We need a sangha.

We need people that are like-minded to help remind us. So, yeah, so I just want to encourage people to stay connected and to trust, to trust in the power of heart and awareness that can awaken us. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Tara. I mean, really, people don't know. I call Tara when I'm having a problem or, you know, because she's, she's navigated some things I haven't navigated yet. And she has just been so helpful to me on a personal level.

So I just love you so much. Appreciate so much and coming on here. And you've just really been, you're such a light into the world, such a light into the world. Joy, Kristen. I think we're hand in hand and we're all waking up together. It's beautiful. Yeah. That's right.

Thank you. Thank you.