Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 239: How to Go Easy on Yourself in a Pandemic | Dr. Kristin Neff

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

It's easy to add insult to injury in this pandemic by beating ourselves up. Why are we not exercising more? Eating less? Or boosting our productivity? Kristin Neff, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, says we need to give ourselves a break. To be clear, that does not mean relinquishing our high standards. Neff is one of - if not the - world’s leading experts on self-compassion. That's a squishy-sounding term, but there is a lot of hard-nosed evidence behind it. Per Neff, not beating yourself up does not equate to being lazy. It's about knowing the difference between healthy perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism. It's about going easy without going soft. The smart, sparing use of the inner cattle prod. This was exactly the conversation I needed to have right now. Where to find Kristin Neff online: Website: https://self-compassion.org/ Social Media: Twitter: @self_compassion / https://twitter.com/self_compassion Facebook: Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. / https://www.facebook.com/selfcompassion Other Resources Mentioned: Richard Schwartz, Internal Family Systems / https://ifs-institute.com/ Evelyn Tribole, Intuitive Eating / https://www.evelyntribole.com/ Chris Germer / https://chrisgermer.com/ Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Health Care Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kristin-neff-239 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. Hey y'all is your girl K, I still hung a blanket up on the shower. to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Okay, I also hung a blanket up on the shower, which hopefully, how is this sounding? And also in back this hardly any lawn. So if he comes back here, hopefully, won't be too long. We'll just see. Why don't we give it a go and then just, if you're okay, I've already worn my son that I'm on a podcast so Most of it difficult for you to am with your kids. Do they understand that dad needs to be in a quiet space? Well, I only have one kid and he's currently lying under this chair that I'm sitting in my wife's closet So sweet okay, so I asked him if he could be quiet

And he said maybe if he could be quiet and he said maybe. Okay. For maybe see, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, we decided to leave in a few snippets of the technical difficulties that our guest and I experienced well endeavoring to record this podcast because they are rather innocuous encapsulation of the difficulties, both small and large, that we're all facing these days. In this pandemic, our little mishaps also speak directly to the message that our guest,

whose name is Kristen Neff, is bringing to the table in this episode. If we're going to survive this situation, we need to have patience, flexibility, and humor, and perhaps most importantly, we need to give ourselves a break. Kristen is an associate professor at the University of Texas in Austin and is one of, if not the world's leading expert in self-compassion. That's a squishy sounding term,

but there is a lot of hard-nosed evidence behind this concept. And Kristen has really led the charge on the research in this area. So in this episode, we talk about how to bring self-compassion to bear on things like overeating or exercising during a pandemic. The guilt, some of us may feel over having it relatively easy in this time. The guilt, some of us may feel over having not been our best, or having lost our temper on occasions. And the shame, some of us, I'm not gonna name any names, but his initials are Dan Harris,

may feel about not being as productive as we would like. Not coincidentally, these are all issues with which, as I just indicated, I have personally been wrestling during this time. To be clear, though, and you're going to hear Kristen argue this strenuously, not beating yourself up does not, in her view, equate to being lazy. This is not about relinquishing your high standards. It is about, she says, knowing the difference between healthy perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism. It's about

going easy without going soft. The smart, sparing use of the inner cattle prod. This was exactly the conversation I needed right now, and I think there's a chance it's something you may need to hear as well. So here we go, Christ enough. So I'm just curious to start, how are you doing in the midst of all this? I'm really doing okay. The thing I was most worried about was my son, right, who's home, and he's, you know, he's autistic, so he really likes the structure of school, and this is a pretty big disruption. But thankfully, he's adjusting well. He's adjusting to his online classes,

as long as the Zoom works properly, but everyone gets upset when the Zoom doesn't work properly. But so because he's adjusting, I think, I'm okay with it all. So I'm definitely busier than normal. I think a lot of people are understanding that self-compassion isn't important at a time like this. I'm doing a lot of interviews and podcasts, but personally, I'm okay.

So thank goodness. I'm very grateful for what I have put it that way that I can work from home, for instance. So how about you? I'm okay. You know, on the subject of self-compassion, I do notice that I, you know, I like you and busier now than I hear the leaf lower. It's okay, it's okay, let's power through it.

Okay, yeah, you just come back. Well, I mean, actually, maybe that's a subject we should discuss, which is... Okay, yeah, the vagaries of doing this on the fly with like, okay, let's talk about it, but I'd be kind of funny for your audience, actually. I mean, to me, the subject that it brings to mind is perfectionism. Yes. And how, a lot of us are perfectionists, I'm a perfectionist. It is very hard times for perfectionists right now.

And how could self-compassion be useful in this context? Right. So in other words, when you're trying to do a professional interview when the leaf blowers go in the background and you can't control it, how do you deal with that? Yeah. Well, so I know one thing that I have done personally, is I found it first for the

first couple of weeks of the pandemic. I was all focused on making sure I had like a month worth of food in case the supply chain breaks down, making sure I have, you know, hand sanitizer gloves, masks, all those things. And I kind of, you know, it took me a couple of weeks. And by the way, I think it's appropriate for sometimes just to be on full-on emergency mode. You don't think about your emotional stuff.

It thinks sometimes compartmentalization is useful to get the job done. But then once things were a little more secure and I felt like I had the supplies I need, I really had to let myself feel the stress of it all. And so I actually did use self-compassion. For instance, mentally, I haven't felt a lot of stress, but my body's carrying a lot of stress. I noticed. So the stress is going somewhere. I felt a little, you know, nauseous, tiny bit of nauseous, and my stomach's a little bit off. And of course, the first thing is, it's just, am I one of those asymptomatic COVID carriers, And that stress comes up. But I really,

I don't know for sure, but I'm coming to believe that it's probably just this is where I'm carrying my stress. So I've done a lot of work just kind of pausing, giving myself the time. I typically do it in the morning when I wake up or in the evening when I go to bed, just feeling the stress, it in the morning when I wake up or in the evening when I go to bed, just feeling the stress, validating the fact that it's difficult. Yes, many people have it more difficult, but it's difficult for all of us. And kind of using me, I like to use physical touch. I put my hand on my stomach where I'm feeling the stress and feeling the slight nausea. And I kind of imagine that I'm flooding myself with kindness and warmth and care and concern and reassurance.

And for me, it's really made a big difference, right? It means that instead of just powering through, I'm still powering through, but I have a little more emotional resources at my back as I do that. So I know personally I've found it very effective. And Chris Germer and I, my partner, we've also led a couple gatherings, math online gatherings for people, like thousands of people have signed up

so that we can actually process the emotions of this situation, which is something you have to take the time to do intentionally. And it's been very helpful, I think. Let me just hone in on this morning and evening practice you described, putting your hand on your bill. Just for anybody who's listening who may share my proclivities, my skepticism,

my anti-centre-mountality, that you invoke things like putting your hand on your stomach and sending yourself reassurance and well wishes. And if somebody's feeling like, wait a minute, I would never do anything like this. I think the retort to that is science. Right, yeah.

So again, we have enough, we don't have as much as I would like, but we do have a fair amount of physiological data on what happens to the body when we give ourselves compassion. And it's very simple, right? So we know there's the sympathetic nervous system, which is the reactive fight or flight response. And then there's parasympathetic nervous system, which is we feel safe, we feel secure, and it's related to feeling affiliated with others, belonging. And so what you're doing with self compassion, quite literally, is you're tapping

in to this system. Sometimes it's called the tendon or friend response or the attachment system or there's a lot of names for it, but basically it's parasympathetic. In other words, it calms us down and it helps us feel safe. And a lot of the pathways to this system are physically, because if you think a baby, when a baby's born, they feel safe and calm based on their parents, but there's no language.

The parents can't communicate to the baby by talking to them. The signals are things like tone of voice, physical touch. The brain is designed to process things like tone and physical touch as a signal of safety. When you tap into that through self-compassion, and again, we aren't used to doing it, but the system still works, right? So for instance, when you bond with your son, you're doing all these things that I'm not even thinking about it. You're bonding, you know, I know he's a little older now, but when he was a baby, you're bonding with him through this care system that we as mammals all have access to. And so the cool thing about self-compassion is what we know from the research,

is you can also access that system through things like saying kind, supportive words to yourself, especially in a tone that's caring, using physical touch. It helps us calm down, we reduce cortisol, we increase things like heart rate variability, we feel safer. And that sense of safety allows us to function more efficiently. So get a little granular about what you're doing for you. Right. Walk us through the steps. So if we want to do it a version for ourselves. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, so I've been so busy lately. I like to have a regular

meditation practice where I sit for 20 or 30 minutes on my cushion. Recently I found it been so busy that's actually been hard to do. So I just, like I say, I do this first thing when I wake up at the morning that you know that time when I don't have to wake up at a particular time. So I can lay in bed for 30 minutes when I'm not really quite ready to get up or when I go to bed. And this is actually when I practice. It's a good time to practice because you relax, you're in bed, you're laying down. So for instance, usually, it always

has to start with mindfulness in the sense that you need to know what you're experiencing in order to respond in a kind of compassionate way. And believe it or not, because we're so busy and because we're in, you know, fix it mode or, you know, what do I have to do or prepare mode? At least we were for a long time. I think maybe we're in the next phase now. We often aren't even aware of our struggles.

You know, we feel little tense, but we're just kind of working through with this tense feeling without pausing to say, oh, wow, I feel really stressed and tense. Where do I feel that in my body? And so that's what I had to do quite literally. Where do I feel this in my body? I had to pause. Okay, oh, I see, yes, that's, actually, I realized how that nauseous feeling is actually stress.

And so I just work with it, but you put my hands on my stomach. And I actually, you might say bring in some love. And I know love is in a scientific term, but it's really conveys what we're doing, right? Feelings of warmth, of care, and connectedness. And so I bring those feelings of love and care to myself, for my own struggle, for my own stress.

So the mindfulness kind of validates it. This is suffering, right? So you know, Dan, I have a three component model of self-compassion, but it's not just theoretical. It's actually almost like a step-by-step guide of what to do. First, you need to bring in the mindfulness, and then you need to bring in kindness, right?

But you talked about the kindness of care and warmth and love. But then very important for it to be compassion as opposed to self-pity is bringing in awareness of other people, of interconnection of common humanity. And that's just really been a fascinating process in the midst of this pandemic. Because normally our instinctual reaction is to feel like this just me,

as if everyone else in the world is having a normal perfect life. And it's just me who's struggling with this health issue or with this relationship issue or the mistake I just made. This is really a very rare opportunity as human beings for us to practice common humanity because quite literally billions of people are dealing with similar issues in terms of dealing with the COVID issue. Yes, people are dealing it with it to different extent. Some people are actually sick. Some people have lost a loved one. Some people are just scared.

But nonetheless, we are all basically, our life has been changed from the same circumstance. And so actually taking some time to contemplate that and to realize that we are experiencing this, you know, literally as a shared humanity. And what happens when you do that, when you start feeling your connectedness, is it naturally starts to counter those feelings of isolation we have, especially the isolation of being shut in, not being able to meet our friends and go out in the world? And so you really need all three pieces. I have found personally in my practice to sustain a state of self-compassion. So, I'm going to continue to be granular here.

That's fine. This three-part process that you're describing, I use this, it's been really been useful for me. So just back to you in bed in the morning or right before you go to bed, it would look like the first step is mindfulness one way to rephrase that just to be a little glib is the first step is admitting it, you know, to seeing it clearly. Or noticing it, validating it. Validating is also a very good word. Like, wow, this is hard.

This is hard. This is hard. Sometimes I say this is a little judgmental, but sometimes I just my language that I like is this sucks. You know, that works perfectly well. You know, and for your common humanity phrase, you know the good one is, **** happens.

You know, if that works for you, it conveys the same message, right? It's not unusual. Now of course, this particular situation, well, it is unusual, right? Hopefully it's the once-in-a-lifetime event. We don't know for sure. But in many ways, you ways, if you look historically, it's not unusual. There have been world wars, there have been pandemics before.

And in some ways, what happened is because we hadn't had a big global event like this, we've gotten to a little bit of a bubble thinking that this is normal and that something happens at a worldwide level is abnormal. But historically, it actually isn't abnormal. And again, this is not to downplay that pain of it, it's not to belittle any of it.

It's just to kind of open our minds to the fact that this is part of how life unfolds. And what that does when we can acknowledge that is it helps us soften our resistance to it. Right? And so what we know from all the mindfulness research is the more we resist reality and say this shouldn't be happening and I'm trying to fight what's happening, the actually the more suffering we cause ourselves, both physiologically and mentally and emotionally.

So when we can recognize, oh, okay, this is part of life. You know, everyone deals with their own version of this type of situation, this type of pain. It gives us a little more perspective. For instance, yeah, my pain's difficult, but there are people experiencing worst pain absolutely, so it gives some perspective and wisdom. And it also allows us to fight it a little bit less. All right. Okay. It's not like anything is wrong. This is just the way life works. It happens.

When you do that, you can almost feel the relaxation in your body when you stop fighting it as something that shouldn't be happening, you open to the fact that it is happening, and then that opens the door to thinking, well, then how can I get through this in the best way possible? A teacher I know who's been important

to both of us, my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, I know you studied under him too. He has an expression, part of his teaching technique is to use these phrases over and over again, little sort of mantras or slogans. One of them is anything can happen at any time. And I like to keep that in mind because you think you've got a big plan for the day, but then you spray your ankle or then your mom calls and something, cariboules happen or whatever.

And that is just the law of the universe. Anything can happen at any time. You know, another slogan that I've been using a lot, and I use this a lot before this happened, is happiness is not dependent on circumstances. Right? So when your happiness depends on circumstances, being a certain way, you're gonna be unhappy a lot of the time.

But when you get to the point, and by the way, I'm not always like this, but sometimes I am, I'm able to experience this, that happiness is not dependent on circumstances, happiness kind of comes from how you relate to whatever's happening. Can you relate to what's happening in kind of an from how you relate to whatever is happening. Can you relate to what's happening in kind of an accepting, loving way in which you realize you're actually part of this

larger unfolding that is your approach and what's happening from a very ego-based standpoint. You actually are happier. And so when I use that slogan, it helps me to let go of wanting circumstances to be a particular way and getting my happiness from the way and relating to whatever is happening. And if you look at the people who are really, you know, admire so much like Joseph Goldstein or a lot of these amazing teachers or his holiness, the Dalai Lama, part of the reason they're so happy is because their happiness is dependent on things being a certain way. Their happiness comes from, you know, how they are relating to the life,

which is constantly changing moment by moment. But the way you hold what's happening can be more sitting constant. Yes. Okay. So back to you in bed. The first step is using mindfulness to hone in on the raw data of the physical sensations, emanating from your abdomen. And now, yeah, any emotions, and so, of course, the emotions are part cognitive, part physical. So, how am I feeling? And often, especially in a situation like this, where I can be a little bit obsessive compulsive, maybe that's not the right word for it, but I can really focus and get stuff done. And that's, that can be a good thing. But, but I can really focus and get stuff done. And that's, that can be a good thing.

But what happens when you really focus and get stuff done is when you're so focused and being focused means you're focused on the particular goal and you're tuning everything out. And that's what focus means. And it's a useful skill. But if you're too focused and you tune out the other information, which is really important, like, how am I doing? So I have to kind of consciously ask myself, well, how am I doing emotionally? And I actually intentionally take a pause to check in with myself, how am I doing? What am I feeling?

And if I notice, which often is the case, oh, there's some stress, there's some worry, there's some frustration, whatever's going on, then I actually intentionally work with it by, again, bringing in the sense of connectedness and the kindness. And I have to say, the love really is the key factor. It seems to make the biggest difference bringing in the love. It changes everything when love is present. Let me just jump it because I

I agree so but I just want to make sure I'm being super clear about the steps of the listener So one is what's going on? Can I see a clearly mindfulness? Two is taking a moment to contemplate the fact that you're not the only person dealing with this and I'm not alone. Yes And three is the love. Yes. There's not like an absolute rule if you wanted to go first to the kindness, then to the common humanity. You could really switch those around.

Well, you can't really switch as the mindfulness, because if you aren't aware of what you're going through the pain, then the other steps are kind of almost irrelevant. So you need to start with mindfulness. It's kind of the foundation. And not only you have to be aware of it, you have to be willing to be with it. So you might be aware of it and go,

whoa, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah, whoah,ah, who notices and then is able to be with whatever is arising without too much resistance. And then you bring in the connectedness and the love and the order you do it isn't so important for my experience anyway. Point well taken. When it comes to the third step, which can also be the second step, the love part, I know that for me, I use the traditional love and kindness phrases. May I be happy or may I be free from suffering things like that What do you what do you recommend? So, you know, I think people are really different

Personally, the traditional loving kindness phrases aren't so effective for me and here's why and they are for many people and they're wonderful But because I find that if I say may I be well, may I be happy and I'm feeling like crap, it almost sets up a type of resistance. It's almost like I want things to be other than they are. May I be happy, I'm not happy. So for me, what's more effective is to say, I'm so sorry, you know, I kind of use, I address myself in the U form. I'm so sorry you're feeling this way, darling. Is there anything I can do to help? I kind of express my sympathy for the pain. And so I kind of implicit in, is there anything I can do

to help this, in a sense, that I want you to be happy? But for me, the may I phrases don't work for some people they do. So for instance, in the Mindful Self-Comp Compassion Program, which my colleague, Chris Gurmer, and I developed, actually Chris developed as a wonderful practice for people to find their own phrases. And he asked people, what is it that you wish someone would whisper in your ear right now, which is exactly what you need to hear, right? And for some people that maybe,

what they want whispered in their ears may be happy. For others, it's something else. I love you, it's gonna be okay, you aren't alone. And so really tailoring the phrases to what speaks to you is really worth taking the time to do that. Because like I said, for me, I mean, after 20 years, the loving kindness phrases still don't really sit with me because I have that reaction and feeling that it's,

my brain wants to grab onto that as a form of resistance, although I can say for many people, they work wonderfully, so. Back to your phrase of, you know, I'm sorry, is there anything I can do to help, you know, referring to yourself as darling? Is that a little skitzoidle, like, you know, like, wait, who's talking to who here?

Right, well, so I really do think that the whole idea of part psychology has a lot of validity. So there's an amazing therapy system called internal family systems developed by Dick Schwartz, which talks about that we have different parts of ourselves. Right, and yeah, for some people, it can be like schizophrenic by Dick Schwartz, which talks about that we have different parts of ourselves. And for some people, it can be like schizophrenic when you actually believe the parts are different.

But naturally, we have different perspectives. So for instance, Dan, I've heard you talk often about, you might look in the mirror and you might say, oh, you aren't looking so good, Dan, or some sort of critical comment. So we do it naturally all the time with our self-criticism, right? We speak to us as you are this, you're such a this, you're such a that, or you weren't good enough. And so we're just actually used to that different voice.

And so we can actually learn to develop an inter-compassion of voice, or you might say are listened to the part of ourselves that is already compassionate. And then you can actually have a dialogue. This is really cool between your inner compassionate voice and your inner critical voice. And I think it's all metaphorical because not only

are we not literally part, you might even say we aren't literally a separate self. We are all part of this larger unfolding process of life. And we know that in many ways, the idea that we're separate from life as an individual is all an illusion. So in many ways, it doesn't matter how the illusion is playing out, whether the illusion is that you're one self, whether the illusion is that you're five different selves. As long as you have got some basic awareness that none of it's actual real, you know, reified concrete.

Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I mean, I've been, there's, there are two things that are interesting there. One is the Buddhist notion that the self is an illusion. But the other thing that just came to mind as you were talking there is, I've done a tiny bit of reading about the sort of modular model of mind in psychology

that we, just as you said, we have these different programs that are competing. And so, I think that's a lot of things that are different. And so, I think that's a lot of things that are different. And so, I think that's a lot of things that are

different. And so, I think that's a lot of things that are different. And so, I think that's a lot of things that are different. And so, I think that's a

lot of things that are different. And so, I think that's a lot of things that are different. And so, I've actually done a lot of internal family systems therapy. And it was for me the most by far the most effective therapy I've ever done because it does recognize that we have these different parts. Or you can think of them as habit patterns, right? Each of these habitual ways of reacting have been formed by different types of

circumstances. And so they have some coherence in the same way that a pattern, any habit has coherence, right? So, if you have a habit of, let's say, overeating or you have a habit of, I don't know, slouching or something like that, these are coherent patterns of behavior that they aren't like, they don't have their own ontological status, they're just habit patterns, but they do have coherence over time because they've been reinforced behaviorally in through situational context. And that's what I think of these parts are. Though some people, I have to say, some people from one more spiritual perspective see the

compassion itself as not something that's conditioned by habit. So from a Buddhist perspective, or from, I think, a lot of people from religious perspectives, maybe a Christian perspective, for instance, they might see this compassionate, loving self as coming from the outside, maybe, you know, God, for instance. From my point of view, I think it's not so important, whether or not we think of that as the condition habit pattern or something larger, I think what's important is that we have access to all these parts of ourselves. It's so interesting. Let me go back to where we began this discussion, because I don't want to give short shrift to perfectionism. We talked about your three-step process for self-compassion, which personally I found to be incredibly helpful. Would that be something we could

bring to bear on perfectionism in an era where the perfect seems very firmly out of our reach, just this podcast as an example. We're continuing bumping up. My son's knocking on the door. Your leaf blower guy is out there. So how can we be self-compassionate at a time when we can't achieve the perfection we'd like? We never can, but definitely now it's really hard. Right, yeah, I mean, so this is exactly the time to practice self-compassion, right? So first of all, so let's take a little example

about the guy doing my leaf blowing is outside and or hearing his sound occasionally. So the first thing to do is actually just notice, oh that's a little irritating, you know, there's actually a little bit of suffering is too strong a word for it, but there's a little bit of an agitation there because both you and I would like the sound to be without these distractions, right? So just noticing, okay, there's the sound and it's a little irritating, okay? Well, you know, sounds like this, things that are happening like this, it's part of life,

right? That's kind of just the way it works. It happens. And then can we be kind to ourselves? Maybe the kind of thing to do, which you and I have chosen to do, is just, well, it's okay. You know, it's not the end of the world. We will just work through it. And we aren't going to let ourselves be, if our interview be derailed, because it's a

tiny, annoying sound in the background. Now that, that may be the kind of thing to do in this situation when there's not a lot of control, but in other situations, the kind of thing to do may be to try something different. And that's why wisdom is so important in self-compassion. So the wisdom to know, when is it time to accept the things we cannot change, like the Srenderdi prayer, and when is the wisest thing to do to try to change something when we actually can change it? And both approaches are aimed at the alleviation of suffering. Sometimes the best way to alleviate or suffering is to accept what is.

Sometimes the best way to alleviate or sufferings to try to change what is. You know, and you give it a try and it works or it doesn't work and you either try again or you let go. I mean, we don't really know. It's moment by moment. But again, the eye is always on the prize, which is the alleviation of suffering. And so perfectionism causes a tremendous amount of suffering. And yet what motivates perfectionism, right, if you really look at what motivates perfectionism, it's really wholesome ideals. You know, you want to maybe you want to be you know, you want it. Maybe you want to be a service to others. Maybe you want to be the best person you can be. Maybe you don't

want to be criticized by others, which would be painful. You know, the reason you're perfectionistic, if you really were to unpack it and peel it, comes from these wholesome desires to be free of suffering, to be safe, to kind of, you know, to thrive and be happy. That's why you're perfectionistic because you want to thrive and be happy. And when she realized that, I see, that's why I'm acting this way. Well, is the way I'm approaching it,

is it really helping me to thrive and be happy? Or is it actually causing unnecessary suffering? So this healthy perfectionism and maladaptive perfectionism. Healthy perfectionism is just having high goals for yourself, you know, shooting for the moon, trying your best. And then, well, we know from the research quite clearly, it's self-compassion leads to healthy perfectionism, having high standards, but not maladaptive perfectionism, which is if you don't reach your goals and you beat yourself up.

Then once you start beating yourself up for not reaching your goals, a whole cascade of negative events happen. You become more anxious because you've just beaten yourself up. You become more fearful of whether or not you can succeed. That performance anxiety actually interferes with your ability to do your best, and you might develop fear of failure and eventually you may just give up, right? Or you maybe don't give up but you're so stressed that you aren't happy and you know you start snapping at others. So adaptive you might

say perfectionism or healthy perfectionism you shoot for the best if it doesn't work maybe you try something different. You pick yourself up and try again, maybe you make adjustments, maybe you keep on the same path, maybe sometimes the wisest thing to do is just let go of that goal and try something else. But, you know, what we're really doing is, what we're trying to do is achieve the alleviation of suffering and to be able to thrive and be happy. All of these roots are going toward that same goal, but just somewhere a little more effective than others. Compassion is, again, the research shows pretty clearly that compassion is a more effective way to achieve that goal

than things like self-criticism. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ More 10% happier after this. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brownauer,

we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone.

So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So if it's cool with you, Chris, and I'd love to keep ticking through various ways in which I and I think many others have the potential to make this bad situation, the pandemic, worse for ourselves. So we talked about perfectionism, but let's go to a related issue which is productivity. So I noticed that somehow the story I'm telling myself about how much I need to get done is on steroids.

And there have been some great articles, one in the New York Times in particular about how like, you know, we should maybe take a moment and stop trying to be so productive, not try to use optimize every second of every day to get things done. And for somebody who was telling me about a tweet from some productivity expert on that gut sent out

and said, you know, if you haven't used this downtime to start a new business, then you're a failure. Oh my goodness. And so I would love to hear reflections from you and maybe even practices from your end for this psychology that I think is quite pervasive and pernicious around productivity. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm the very productive person myself. You know, I've gotten a lot done and I have that drive in me to get it right into achieve. But another one of my little mantras is good enough. Right? So in other words, you want it to be good. but another one of my little mantras is good enough, right? So in other words, you want it to be good, and at some point it becomes good enough, even if it's not perfect. And so when I do something,

and I know it could be better, but I realize it's actually not worth the extra effort in terms of the toll on my resources to do it one more time. I'll say, is it good enough? And if it is, I can actually stop there. And so that's one way. And that's the very self-compassionate phrase is good enough, right? It wouldn't be self-compassionate if it's really bad. And because if it's really bad that it isn't help you, it doesn't help other people. And that's not, you know, meeting the goal of trying to do good in the world.

But if it's good enough, then that's, you know, then you can't stop there. So I think it is important to take some downtime. So for instance, with me, that's one of the nice things about having my son at home is he's in school from 10 to 2. And he's pretty good at entertaining himself and contacting his friends by Skype and stuff.

But because I've had to make sure that, you know, not that I entertain him, but that I meet his knees because he's home more, we've been taking walks almost every single day. And that's been really nice. And so I've been able to use the time with my son as downtime. So I can just say, okay, let it go. You don't need to get that done. It will be okay. Let's take an hour or two, just

to take a walk and spend that time with my son. In other words, I appreciate the urge or productivity because I'm one of those people to, but I have found that if I really listen to myself, what do I need in the moment that I am able to stop and say good enough? So I like this example of you taking a walk with your son. The analog on my end would be we started. One really good thing that's come out of the pandemic for my family is that we now have

a routine of evening meals together. But I noticed occasionally I'm sitting at dinner and maybe there's a lull of the conversation or my son is, you know, going over his favorite Scooby-Doo monsters and I'm tuning out where the dialogue comes up. Oh, what's on my to-do list? And beating myself up for not having gotten enough done and I forgot to make this call, et cetera, et cetera.

So would that be a good moment for the aforementioned three-step self-compassion sort of on the fly? Yes, absolutely, right? And so, you know, this is interesting. You beat yourself up for not doing your to-do list. I beat myself up for not paying attention to my son. So you can use those lots of angles there to feel like you aren't doing what you want to do.

I'm, cause I do the same thing. I'll slightly tune out. And I'll start thinking of maybe some, maybe I'm writing a paper and oh, it has a really good point. I should go make that point in the paper. And my son does actually, he'll actually go like, he'll get in my face, they'll make direct eye contact with me. And so that I can't tune him out. In the case of a really good reminder. And so I be myself, oh, Christy, I'm treating tune him out, in the case of a good reminder. And so I would be like, oh, Chris did it. I'm tuning my son out. I shouldn't do that. So I think all of it is worthy of compassion, right? And so I've talked to you before.

One of my favorite, another one of my favorite compassion phrases is that the goal of practice is to become a compassionate mess, right? And so there's many ways we can be a mess. We can be a mess by being over-focused and tuning out important things like our children or taking down time. We can be a mess by not being productive enough. Life is messy and we're always getting it wrong.

That's the nature of life. And so, if your goal is actually just to be compassionate toward whatever form the mess is taking in that moment, I can get you through it. And so let's say specifically your example, you're at the dinner table, your son's watching Scooby-Doo, you think, oh gosh, this is a moment I could actually get something done. And the part of you that's really into productivity says, you know, Dan, you aren't getting enough done.

First of all, you can just pause and say, okay, well, how do I feel about this? What's coming up for me? Okay. You know, actually, it's a little bit of suffering or maybe, again, maybe that's too strong a word. It's kind of uncomfortable when I hear that voice saying, Dan, you aren't getting enough done. So, you're mindful of the pain. Then you can remember common humanity. Well, you know, of course, in this situation, we can't be productive 24-7. You don't even want to be productive 24-7. This is just part of life. You know, we have human limitations. We can't get it done all the time. And then you could just kind of think about, well, what do you need to support yourself in that moment?

Maybe some words like, it's okay, you can get to it later. Or I'm gonna ask you, Dan, what would you need to hear in that moment? Let's say you had a good friend, a colleague, who was telling you, hey, Dan, you know, I'm at the dinner table and I'm beating myself up because I'm not productive enough.

What would you say to that friend? Well, I think for me a lot of what is driving the productivity is, and I've done some work around this, so I'm, is fear or a sort of sense of lack of, I won't be safe if I don't kick every aspect of my life. And I think I have got 10% of the time I can remember to kind of whisper myself, you know, this is a situation that's out of your control. It might be a good time to take it a little bit easier. And no matter what happens, most likely, you're going to

be okay. Obviously, if I get super sick and end up in the ICU, that may not be true. But right. Most likely, I'm going to be okay. And if I don't finish and end up in the ICU, that may not be true, but most likely I'm gonna be okay. And if I don't finish everything I might to do list, I'm almost certainly gonna be okay. Right. And so does it help you to say something like, it's gonna be okay? Or something, so sometimes,

because sometimes it's not okay, right? So if you get sick or in the ICU, it may not be okay. But something like, I'll support you whatever happens, would that be effective? Or is it more messages like, I care about you and I really wanna make sure that you aren't overstressing yourself and I'd really love to see you relax a little bit right now because I think that would be good for you.

So there's different ways you could give the message. It's funny, I might say a cousin of that to a friend. I don't know, that's interesting to think about how I would say that to myself. Uh-huh. For me, I have this barrier that you and I have discussed and that I get some podcast listeners get on me about this of having this resistance to sapiness.

Right. So can you say it in a non-sapy way? Yeah, that's an interesting challenge. Well, let me think about how I was, what would I say to a friend? I would say... I would say a colleague, another person who's a very well-known professional and has got a lot on their plate. What would you say to a colleague who's told you, hey, Dan, this is what I'm experiencing?

I think I would say, I think you're doing a great job. And I think you need to remember that we're in a crazy situation that would have been hard for most of us to predict and is completely out of your control. So I think now you ought to be thinking about both continuing your work to the best of your ability, but also taking advantage of this moment to give yourself a break. Is that Sappy? Doesn't feel Sappy to me. Okay, so it's a really good way

to figure out what works for you in terms of the type of language that lands, and then you can just try it out with yourself. Yeah, I like that. What would you say to the, I'm gonna pretend like I'm asking for a friend. And by the way, the reason I'm going to pretend like I'm asking for a friend. The reason I'm sappy is because with my son, I'm very just naturally darling sweetheart.

I do that all the time with my son. And that's just, so that lands for me, but it doesn't land for everyone. And there's no one way to do it. Well, it's funny you mentioned that because I'm sappy with my son. You know, sometimes I'll say, I'll look at him, I'll say, I gotta tell you something. What do you think I'm gonna say to you right now? And he'll say, I know, I know, you love me. And so I'm really happy with him, but I have this block that I see the silliness to it.

I also think it's not uncommon. It's not uncommon. And gender roles also play into it. We didn't choose to have these gender roles, right? They were kind of enforced on us. So interestingly in my family, my dad is the sappy one of my mother is not. I'm more like my mother, but my father used to say to me, you have a Jewish mother. It's just not your mother.

Okay. So it's, I'm sure it's gender roles, but it's not, I mean, in my case, it's just not your mother. Okay. So I'm sure it's gender roles, but it's not, in my case, it's a little bit more interesting. So what would you say to, I'm gonna pretend like I'm asking for a friend here, but I suspect this is also in my psychology. I hear from a lot of people that, it's this inner cattle prod,

it's this inner driving, lacerating voice that if I didn inner cattle prod, it's this inner driving, lacerating voice that if I didn't do this, I would never get anything done. Right, so that's an assumption, right? But have you really tested it out? And so again, I think a lot of people make a false dichotomy. They think either I'm driving myself forward with a cattle prod or I'm being lazy and doing nothing, right?

But there's this third way of encouraging yourself, warmly, to move forward because you care. And again, I like to use the context of parent to child because I think that's familiar to a lot of people. You aren't being a good parent if you're just letting your child not go to school, eat all the junk food they want, not learn anything because if you care about your child, you're going to want them to grow and develop and all those things. But you don't have to use the cattle prod with your child to get them to go to school and

eat, right? You can say, hey, I want you to go to school because it's interesting and I care about you and this healthy food is so much better for you, right? We can motivate with kindness or we can motivate with the cattle prod. And there's a lot of research that shows that motivating with kindness is more effective than motivating with the cattle prod. And so it really is kind of an experiment. But remember that I think a lot of people are confused because they think the choice

between the cattle prod and doing nothing as opposed to trying this third way, which is motivating with encouragement. I like that. And also, the cattle prod has so many unwanted side effects that it actually ends up undermining your motivation, stress, anxiety, all these things that actually undermine your ability to think creatively and to see various opportunities, whereas if you're really stressed and have a negative mindset, you're actually not able to think as creatively. So it's hurt your ability to do your best.

And there's brain science here, you know? Yeah, exactly. When you're a migdala, the stress, one of the areas in the brain associated with stress, is activated, the prefrontal cortex, the part where you can think creatively, clearly, you get shut down and constricted in many ways. And so I think about a migdala activation a lot,

both in my relationships with other human beings, like not wanting to get them so stressed that they can't think clearly, but also with myself. Yeah, exactly. So the sense of safety provided from the kindness and the acceptance. And again, the acceptance isn't that what you're doing is okay.

Right. It may not be okay, but you're okay. Right. So the acceptance is toward the person like the bottom line is if you fail, you know, you're still okay as a human being. I still love myself. But for in terms of the behavior, you know, you're still okay as a human being. I still love myself. But, in terms of the behavior, we're also going to try to have the behavior be as healthy as possible, precisely because we care.

And that's a problem with the cattle prod. It's a cattle prod, it's like personal. It's like, you are bad, as opposed to saying, you know, this thing you're doing isn't really working out so well, can we try something different? This is all incredibly helpful. Let me ask about another, I think, psychology that is contributing to people making this pandemic worse for themselves than it needs to be sometimes. Is I see from, and my team members, the producers who work on this podcast, we've talked about

this. A sense of guilt that am I doing enough, am I lucky or privileged in a way that's making me not as touched by this pandemic as others? Was it wrong for me to go to my summer house? Not that anybody in my team has a summer house, but I know people have summer houses. So I think there's a running dialogue for a lot of people of self-castigation here around, am I getting away with something as opposed to other people who are getting sick, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, so I think really the important question here is is my behavior harming or helping people, including myself, right? So for instance, if you go to your summer house, are you harming anyone by that? In fact, you know, perhaps you can argue that, you know, you're actually helping people because you're in a more isolated area

and you're reducing the chances of transmission. So in other words, if we increase our own suffering, that doesn't make other people happier. Now that's not to say that sometimes we do engage in behaviors that make things worse, right? So like some of the UT Austin students or my college decided to go to Cabo San Lucas and came back infective, and that was actually a choice

that ended up harming other people. And so what self-compassion does, this kind of, I think it's important here to make a distinction between shame and guilt. So guilt is, I've done something that's harmful to someone else. Self-compassion is actually linked to guilt. It allows you to admit, oh wow, I did something that was harmful. What can I do to repair the situation?

Shame is somehow I am bad. I'm a bad person because I've done this. Shame doesn't help anyone. Right? Guilt can be helpful, but guilt's only relevant if you actually done something that's harmed someone else. And if you haven't, then I think there's no need for guilt. But on the other hand, you know, you may want to think about is there a way I can contribute. So just to give a personal example, a lot of people, you know, I'm very happy, I love to be on the showdown, but I've

been getting a lot of podcast requests to the point where it's like, I'm not getting any of my other work done. So it's a balance. I want to be able to help because I think self-compassion can be very helpful in a time like this. I try to do as much as possible, but I'm always weighing it against. I need to also get my own work done. I also need to keep my sanity. If I were just to think about, oh, helpful, I need to help, I need to help, I need to help, and not take into account my own needs. That's not sustainable and that's not balanced, right?

That's a little different than the example you gave, but we don't want to feel guilty for being fairly okay in this pandemic. And here's another reason we don't want to do that. The people we come in contact with are constantly picking up on our emotional mind state, just like we're constantly picking up on others. We aren't really individual, we constantly interact and we're emotionally resonating with each other and you know, we can have upward spirals or downward spirals of emotional reaction. If you were to stay, not go to your summer house and stay in the city and be really stressed

and, you know, whatever you're experiencing, then all the Zoom interactions you have with other people, they're going to interact with someone who's more stressed and negative than they would if you were in your summer house and you're more peaceful and relax, then you're probably going to have more positive interactions with them. So it's kind of a false dichotomy that somehow I'm suffering that it's not going to take away anyone else's suffering. The more happy and well I can be, the more I'm able to have resources to help others, and the more my interactions will be more positive with others.

Yeah, I really strongly agree with that. I mean, I, oh, sorry, I cut you off. No, no, I was just going to say, but we also need to be aware that sometimes our behavior is selfish, you know, and we need the self-compassion to say, you know, actually, maybe I didn't need to buy those 10 packs of toilet paper, you know, it's not that I'm a horrible person. I'm still an okay person. Maybe that behavior was not helpful. Maybe I should change that in the future if I can. Yeah, just back to the happiness. Sylvia Borstein, who was on the show recently,

he was making the point. We sometimes feel guilty about feeling happy or having moments of delight or joy or pleasure in the middle of a pandemic. Her argument was you should definitely take advantage to those because it will fortify you to be your best, to do your best, to be of most use in the middle of a terrible situation

where a lot of people are suffering. So I really agree with that. Let me ask one last question before I let you go sensitive to your time. I think another area, and there was a big piece in the New York Times about this recently, where a lot of us are doing a lot of suffering and self-laceration in the middle of this pandemic

is overeating or not exercising enough, feeling like, oh, I need to get on that bike or I can't believe I just ate a bag of Cheetos, et cetera, et cetera. How can we bring self-compassion to this kind of self-care stuff that can get out of control? Yeah, yeah.

And so I've certainly felt that as well. Like even with my son and myself, we're eating maybe a little less healthy than we would normally. In a way, just kind of for comfort. And I do think it's really important to kind of step back and see the big picture of what we need to get through this, right?

And so behaviors that normally may work against your well-being in the long run. In this time, maybe it actually doesn't hand your well-being, right? So in other words, taking it easy on ourselves, trying to give ourselves a little more slack, maybe having some comforts like that bag of Doritos that we might not normally do that actually could help us feel a little more calm at the moment or a little more rewarded, right?

Bag of Doritos is a reward. And we aren't getting a lot of rewards now because we're, you know, stuck at home. Maybe that's a good thing. So really taking the time to have a bigger picture of perspective and think, how can I care for myself right now in a variety of different ways, which maybe didn't apply a month ago? You know, the bagadredoritos wouldn't have been taken care of myself a month ago, but maybe a bag of Doritos now is taken care of myself. Because it gives me that sense of a treat or something, you know, happy, something kind of fun

that I normally wouldn't have. So I really do think compassion is just so important that we ask ourselves, I mean, every single day, every single moment actually, what do I need right now to be healthy and happy? And the answer to that is going to change. Sometimes it actually may be a bag of Doritos. Believe it or not. So I think the more we do that, the more we're able to meet our own needs, to be kind to ourselves. And again, it doesn't necessarily mean totally slacking off. Maybe the kind of thing we can do is to start that new project and just really let wisdom come

in and ask that question, I ask it all the time, what do I need right now? And then I pause. And usually the answer comes to me, right? And so just being willing to ask the question is a really useful one. Yeah, I mean, that kind of level of mindfulness intentionality, sort of a state-ly pace to your life where you are checking in on the regular rather than the way in which I conduct myself most of the time, which is kind of a frantic flinging from one thing to the next, can really help. And as it pertains to eating, you know, my, one of my favorite people these days

is Evelyn Tribalai, who sort of came up with this idea of intuitive eating. And she likes to have people ask themselves, what sounds good, and how do I want to feel? And if I can actually muster the intentionality to ask myself that before I eat, it can be really useful. and sometimes it is a cookie. And then sometimes when I eat 75 cookies

and I'm feeling bad about myself afterwards, that's where a little self-compassion can be useful. It's like, all right, that didn't go so well, but this feeling's gonna pass and you're gonna have another opportunity to eat tomorrow. And maybe you can do a better job of, you know, not making yourself feel sick. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's really important during this pandemic,

this idea of good enough, right? And also the idea of acknowledging, but we don't have to feel good. You know, maybe good enough is not very good. In other words, it does suck. It is difficult. And that's okay. And can we be the compassionate mess? Can we allow our lives to be frustrated and feel narrow and confined and maybe we're gaining weight because we aren't eating as well or exercising as much? But can we just bring compassion to that? And it also will pass, right?

This too shall pass. So it's okay if in in this moment, we aren't totally happy and fulfilled and growing and being positive about it. Maybe this is the time where collectively we can just say, this sucks. Ah, right. It's in other words, it's the awe. It's the care that kind of kindness toward the discomfort, which is most important. And that's also which is most important. And that's also which is going to carry us forward. It's such a pleasure to talk to you.

Is there anything I should have asked, but didn't? I'm trying to think. I don't know if it's worth talking a little bit about the loneliness people are feeling. Yes. Yes. Two days ago, we posted an episode with Dr. Vivek Morthy, a former surgeon general who's written a book about loneliness and we talked a lot about how to

handle the loneliness so many of us are feeling in the middle of this pandemic. So how do you think we can bring self-compassion to bear on the feelings of being cut off? Yeah. So this is where self-compass compassion is really, really helpful, right? Because loneliness, some of it is physical loneliness when we aren't actually having interaction with other people. But a lot of our loneliness comes from our own minds, right? Feelings of isolation, feelings that were somehow cut off from others, that we aren't connecting with others.

And again, this isn't necessarily physically. We could feel isolated in the middle of a party, right? When we feel that somehow we're different, that what we're experiencing is really different than things that other people are experiencing. And so the common humanity component of self-compassion actually allows us to tap into the truth, which is, you know, everyone suffers in their own way. What we're feeling is shared by other people. Again, the way it's maybe manifested a little bit differently, the amount where they're experiencing is differently. But suffering is part of being a human being, right? And loneliness is also part of being a human being.

And we can actually meet our own needs for connection to a much more powerful degree that we ever dreamed possible. So I'll give you a personal example. You're getting personal, Dan. So right now I'm currently not in a relationship, right? And I miss that. I miss those feelings of connection and so on saying, you know, I love you, Christian. I care about you, Christian, all those things that we like to get out of a relationship.

And I've actually taken it as a practice to just say those things directly to myself. And it's amazingly effective. It's not quite as good. But, you know, it really helps. So, for instance, if we're alone and we can't see other people, we can just say, you know, what would I like to hear from a friend? We could say, hey, Christian, you know, I'm really enjoying your company. Or that was a really fun thing that you just did. Or just, I really like you, or just whatever, whatever comes to mind,

the types of things we would like to get from other people, we can actually give it to ourselves directly. So that's one way self-compassion can help. We can actually meet our needs for connection personally, self-to-self, and then also just what it does is it cuts through the illusion of isolation and separation, right? Because it is an illusion. And this pandemic has really shown us that this separation is an illusion.

We literally are all in it together. And so when we can open to that truth through compassion, we just naturally feel less alone. So, you know, there's many ways we can do with the loneliness of what's happening, but a really important way is to connect with ourselves emotionally to help decrease that feeling of loneliness. But from a Buddhist perspective, it's interesting this practice that you teach. On the one hand, it can properly understood, help us connect to the undeniable truth of inter-connection.

And on the other hand, the critique you sometimes hear help us connect to the undeniable truth of interconnection. On the other hand, the critique you sometimes hear from Buddhists is self-compassion can reinforce the sense of a self, which is, of course, what Buddhism is hoping to undermine, the idea that we're a separate ego against the rest of the world. So actually, what the research shows, self-compassion reduces the sense of separate self. It actually reduces self-focus. It actually reduces identification with the ego.

And so also, and they talk about this in Buddhist traditions as well, there's kind of the relative self, the relative truth, and the absolute truth. So when I say, Christian, I love you, you might say, and I know it sounds snappy, but I do say that to myself, especially if I'm feeling like I need to hear it from someone else and that there's no one available at the moment.

So you might say, by relative self is connecting to my relative self, I also am able to realize that both of them are kind of an illusion, right? That I am part of this larger whole. And so you can work with what is, which is our ego structure. And I even sometimes talk about it

just my ego structure or my personality. You can work at that level with also the awareness of knowing that it is not absolute truth. You can do both simultaneously. And when you do that, when you kind of help that ego structure feel safe, feel loved, feel valued, feel connected, then it's not so frightened that you might say that habit of mind isn't so frightened, doesn't cling so tightly to wanting to take over your prefrontal cortex because it's so frightened that it's going to die, right?

So you help that ego structure feel safe, feel connected, and recognize the truth that is actually not alone, that's not the way things work. And when you do that, you're able to soften the grip of separate self and actually see the larger interconnectedness. Another mantra of mine I like to say is the only way out is through. That can be used in a lot of context. One is with pain. The only way out of pain is by accepting or paying with kindness and then eventually it will pass. I also think the only way out of this illusion of separate self is by working with that illusion of separate self, with a lot of kindness and compassion, and then it feels safe enough so we can let go. Beating yourself up, shame and self criticism

are not exactly the best, most effective tools for softening our sense of separate self, right? Nope, nope. Well said, everything today by you has been well said. I really appreciate your time and you're navigating the various technical difficulties that the universe has thrown at each of us during the course of

this morning. But thank you. Yeah, thank you. And again to the listeners, I'm sorry if the noises have been too distracting. But you can be a compassionate mess, hopefully, with it. Great job, Kristen. Thank you. Really appreciate it. So much fun to talk with you. I love it. It's not like the standard interviewer. People just ask the same questions. I love it. It's so much fun. Big thanks to Kristen. Really appreciate hearing from her and also watching her models such patience in the face of the relentless onslaught of technical mishaps. If you really like Kristen and what she has to say and you want to hear more from her,

you can check out the previous episode of the show on which she appeared. Episode 209, it's entitled Crypto Knight for the Inter Critic that aired in October of 2019. You can also find out much more about her work on our show notes page, which can be found at 10%.com slash podcast Before we go a quick item of business if you want it my first book 10% happier is available at a discount for limited time through Monday April 20th 10% happier is on sale for 199 as an ebook and $699 as an audiobook.

The eBook is available through Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and the audiobook is available at Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Google. And yeah, go check it out or give it to somebody you think might need it or somebody who needs a door stop. Big thanks to the team who helped put this together. Samuel Johns leading the charge. Big thank you, Samuel. Matt Boynton at Ultraviolet Audio is our editor,

Maria Wartel is our production coordinator. We also drive a ton of ongoing wisdom from our 10% colleagues such as Ben Rubin, Jen Poyant and Nate Toby. Also, big thank you to my guys at ABC News, Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan. We'll see you on Friday for a bonus meditation and then we'll be back with another proper episode on Monday.

Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com-survey. Perfect.