Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 360: Self-Compassion Ain’t Always Soft | Kristin Neff

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

There’s a widely held assumption that if you have a warmer, friendlier relationship with yourself, you will not only slack off and be ineffective, but also that you will be a doormat. My guest today says: not true. She’s making the case that self-compassion, when properly understood, can lead to a kind of ferocity. It can help you stand up for yourself and others.  Kristin Neff is the central pioneer in the field of self-compassion research and her work has had a massive impact on me and my own work. She is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s the author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and now she has a new book, called Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.  This conversation is for everyone, whether you identify as a woman or not. These concepts are universal, although, as you will hear Kristen argue, there is special importance for women. And speaking of gender, we are dedicating this week to that subject. Coming up on Wednesday, we’re going to talk about masculinity with a guest named Daniel Ellenberg. In this episode with Kristin Neff, we talk about: tender self-compassion vs. fierce self-compassion; the three main forms of fierce self-compassion; how to take a fierce self-compassion break; destructive vs. constructive anger; why she wrote the book specifically for women, and why you should read it, regardless of your gender socialization; how men can help the women in their lives develop this kind of ferocity; and how self-compassion can help us face our biases. For more resources on self-compassion, you can download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/kristin-neff-360 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. to baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey gang, there's a widely held assumption, I believe, and this is an assumption I have succumbed to over and over, that if you have a warmer, friendlier relationship with yourself, you will not only slack off and be ineffective, but you might also be a dormat. My guest today says, not true.

She is making the case that self-compassion when properly understood can lead to a kind of ferocity. It can help you stand up for yourself and for other people. Kristen F. is the central pioneer in the field of self-compassion research. While I at first did admittedly have some trouble connecting to this material, perhaps, really because of internalized sexism, if I'm being honest, Christen's work ultimately has had a massive impact on me and on my own work.

She is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She's the author of the book Self-compassion, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. And now she has a new book called Fear Self-compassion, How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive. I do very quickly want to make super clear that this conversation is for everybody, whether you're a woman or not. These concepts are universal, although as you will hear, Kristen argue there is special importance for women, she believes. Speaking of gender, we are dedicating this entire week to that subject. Coming up on Wednesday, we're going to talk about masculinity with a guest named Daniel Ellenberg,

very provocative conversation, very useful for me. best name Daniel Ellenberg, very provocative conversation, very useful for me. In this episode though, we talk to Chris and Neff about tender, self-compassion versus fear, self-compassion, the three main forms of fear, self-compassion, how to take a fear, self-compassion break, destructive versus constructive anger. Why she wrote this new book specifically for women and why you should read it regardless of your gender socialization. How men can help the women in their lives develop this kind of ferocity. And how self-compassion can help all of us face our biases.

If you're a long time listener, you've heard me talk many, many times about our companion meditation app. You might even be a little sick of it. So you might ask why does Harris keep talking about this? If I want to meditate, can I just go on YouTube and search for a guided meditation for free or sit in silence on my own or use another app? Well, first of all, yes, all of that. You can do all of those things. There are many different ways to learn how to meditate.

And if you've already found one or more ways that works for you, that's great. Keep going with it. However, I do think there's nothing special, if I do say so myself, about the relationship between what we do here on the podcast, interviewing world renowned experts, getting their take on issues that impact our minds on a day-to-day basis,

and the app where we share practices specifically chosen to help you apply the lessons you learn here on the podcast. There's a kind of deliberate symbiosis. In our conversation a few weeks ago, the meditation teacher, Seb and A. Celaci, hit on something key about this relationship. Let me just play you a quick quote from her.

I'm a big proponent of what I would call integrating study and practice. So combined with our practice, what we call insights, that's why this tradition is called insight, is these aha moments, and you're so great at articulating that and bringing people on to discuss that, what is it that we're learning, and then how do we re-incorporate that back into the practice? I will be honest, it makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable hearing, Seb, praise my interview skills.

She may or may not be right about that, but what I do think she articulates brilliantly is why we're so gung ho about the aforementioned symbiosis between the work we do here on the podcast and the work that we do over on the app. Practice and study work best in concert because you're working several parts of the mind at once. That's how I learned from my teachers, you know, engaging my prefrontal cortex through reading books or articles or having conversations. Many of those articles and books were recommended or sent directly to me by Seb. But then also doing

the practices that help me sort of integrate the wisdom into deeper parts of my mind and my body. And that's really the experience we're striving to bring you here at 10% happier. The wisdom of experts explained in a relatable way alongside practices that help you apply what you've learned. So I encourage you to give it a try by downloading the 10% happier app for free wherever you get your apps So end of pitch, but thanks for listening Okay, here we go now with Kristen F Kristen F. Thanks for coming back on the show

Thanks for having me Dan. I always love talking with you Yes, you are one of my favorite guests and your work has had a really significant impact on me So it's great to have you back on the show So let's talk definitions for a second. What is the difference in your mind between fear, self-compassion, and tender self-compassion? Self-compassion has, I like to call it a yin and a yong aspect, right? So there's a way in which self-compassion just allows us to accept ourselves with kindness and warmth. It's more of a gentle, nurturing energy.

The type of energy a parent might have for their child who they can be screaming their head off, but a parent loves that child unconditionally and accepts them as they are. And so that's part of self-compassion. We tend to hold ourselves, we hold our pain, we're nurturing, we're warm, we're understanding. But compassion in the broader sense is about alleviating suffering, right? That really defines what compassion is, concern with alleviating suffering. And although we may need to accept ourselves, sometimes we don't want to accept our behaviors, or we don't want to accept a situation

wherein it's causing harm. And that's where fear self-compassion comes in. Fear self-compassion is the action-oriented side of compassion is supposed to just the accepting side. We say to ourselves, hey, this behavior you're doing, it's not working for you. You need to change it because it's causing you harm. Or it might be, hey, I want to

encourage you to try this new thing or to reach your goals or motivate change because I care about you and I want you to be happy. Or in terms of situations, it might be, I kind of like to call it mom-of-bearer self-compassion, right? That protective side of self-compassion that says, hey, you're crossing my boundaries. It's not okay what you're doing. You're treating me unfairly. So for example, I see the Black Lives Matter movements or the Me Too movements as self-compact fear self-compassion movements as people rise up, feel empowered to say, Hey, that's not okay. You're harming me. So a lot of it is where the compassion is aimed, and we need both in order to be healthy and whole.

It seems like, and I'm guessing here, that this might in some way be a reaction to one of the biggest points of resistance that I understand you face in your incredibly worthwhile and valuable and impactful mission to propagate the practice and study of self-compassion, which is people say, well, if I do that, I'm going to become a blob who, you know, let's, I'll let myself go or I'll become a doormat that people walk on. Right. Exactly. There's this misconception that it makes you weak, it makes you soft, it makes you complacent. And that's really why I felt there was a need to highlight this fear side of self-compassion

because people do misunderstand it. At the same time, you know, there is some choose to the fact that if you were just focusing on tender self-compassion, if you were just focusing on acceptance, and that was it, that actually wouldn't be healthy, right? Then you might become complacent. So as you know, there's been a lot of criticisms of the mindfulness movement saying that well, it's just about sitting on your couch and being mentally balanced and having equanimity, but meanwhile, the world's going to hell in a hand basket. Now, I think that's also not an accurate criticism because people

are understanding that even with the mindfulness movement, we need to use our ability to pay attention and to see clearly, to make productive change as well. But I think the language helps. Having these two different terms, discussing the two different sides of compassion, love, care, is really helpful to highlight for people that it's not just one thing. Can you say a little bit more about what you mentioned me too in Black Lives Matter, but what else would fear self-compassion look like, just so people can really conjure it in their minds? Speaking up of someone's treating you unfairly, maybe in a work context,

maybe someone's bullying you at work, right? Speaking up and saying, hey, that's not okay, or doing something about it, whatever the proper thing to do is maybe to go to the HR department or again, that would depend on the situation. But the willingness to do something to take action, whether it's speaking up, whether it's protesting, the woman's march, I see as the self-compassion movement, actually any social justice movement,

where people band together to say, hey, harm is being caused, it's not okay, we need to do something about it. I see as self-compassion movements. And in some ways, when you're talking about groups of people, the difference between compassion for others and self-compassion kind of gets blurred. And for a good reason, because if society is causing harm, since I'm part of society, it also harms me. And so we really need to include ourselves

in the circle of compassion, whether I'm externally focused social justice movement, or if it's saying to myself, like, hey, Kristen, you gotta exercise because your body is not healthy, you aren't feeling well, you're harming yourself, I know it's a pain, but really you got to do yoga because you know, harm is being caused. And so it can be faced internally, it can be faced externally. You know, Daniel, you may know

this, if you look at a brain on someone doing compassion meditation, the parts of the brain associated with planned movement, motor movement are activated. So compassion isn't like just an emotion, it's not just a good feeling, hearts and flowers feeling, it's this readiness to help. And that's built into our evolution, it's built into our biology, this readiness to help. And so again, this readiness to help sometimes actually the most helpful thing to do, and you probably know this from,

I don't know, arguing with a secure wife or something, sometimes the most helpful thing to do is just to be there, just to listen, just to accept, just to be with, not to try to change everything, sometimes that's precisely what's needed to alleviate suffering. But sometimes that's not the most helpful thing.

Sometimes action is required. And so the ability to draw. Sometimes action is required. The ability to draw on both is really important. And it also takes some wisdom to know what to do. You know, we'll get it wrong. Then you can give yourself compassion for getting it wrong. It's like a process as opposed to a set destination. I didn't have this on my mind to ask this question going into the conversation, but it just

came up in my mind while I was listening to you speak there. Maybe it's a cliche that you sometimes hear is that you, if you don't love yourself, or if you're not compassionate with yourself, you can't love other people. You can't be compassionate with other people. Do you think that's true? I know. I'm pretty sure it's not empirically. It's not true.

That's for sure. There's a lot of people and you may be one of them, when you may know some of them, they're genuinely compassionate to others. They aren't faking it. They really do care about others that kind, warm, supportive to others, and they aren't self-compassionate.

There's almost no one who goes the other direction who's genuinely compassionate, warm, supportive to oneself and not to others. I mean, there's a lot of reasons for this. I think there's some physiological reasons as well as social reasons. We aren't taught that it's a good thing to be compassionate to ourselves. Having said that, what we know is that especially when you help people increase their self-compassion levels, it also increases their compassion for others.

And really importantly, it reduces burnout. There's a big problem if you look at people in caregiving professions, whether they're healthcare professionals or teachers or parents, caring for your elderly parents, people who are spending a lot of energy caring for others and don't include themselves in the circle of compassion. Actually, they will burn out and they won't be able to sustain giving that compassion to others. So what self compassion does is it gives you the resources to care for others. It does increase it, but it's not the case, it's necessary, even before you can have compassion for others. And in fact, if you look at the physiology of it, and I did say, I think there's some physiological reasons, as human beings, we involve the care system, right?

This is the mammalian care system when we're filled close and connected to others, we release oxytocin, opiates, we feel good, we feel safe. The system was designed to prompt parents to care for their infants so their infants can survive and those infants passed on their genes and also that prompted infants to want to feel safe and be close to the parents. So the care system evolved to care for others, to be an interpersonal experience. The system that's more relevant in terms of evolution for self is actually the threat

defense system, right? When we feel threatened in some way, we go and fight flight or free mode, and we try to use fight flight or flee to keep ourselves safe and we try to, you know, use fight, flight, or flee to keep ourselves safe so we don't get eaten by predators. So, habitually, what happens, let's say when you fail or make a mistake, is the first thing gets triggered is, oh no, there's a problem, there's a threat. I go into fight, flight, or freeze mode. And so we fight ourselves, we beat ourselves up, thinking that's going to keep ourselves safe. We flee into shame.

We kind of emotionally flee from others thinking, oh, the people are going to attack me. I'm going to hide my thing, my head and shame to be safe. Are we free? Is we ruminate thinking if I just don't do anything, maybe I'll be safe? The care system, although we can use it for ourselves, it's not instinctual because it actually didn't seem to evolve to care for ourselves, it evolved to care for others. So what we're doing is we're kind of tapping into another system, it's almost like a hack. We're tapping into this other system that comes online for others. By the way, if your best friend gets fired from her job, you aren't threatened

personally. That's why you can more easily tap into the care system to help her, right? But maybe your child something happens to them. If you do feel threatened, that's when you can't fight flight or freeze mode. So in other words, I think there are some physiological reasons, why it's easier to feel compassion for others than for oneself. And I, you know, that's why I don't think it's necessary to feel compassion for yourself first. So, you know, that's why I don't think it's necessary to feel compassion for yourself. So the evolutionarily that one really necessarily makes sense. Having said that, when you're able to make that new turn and harness the power of compassion to help yourself, then it helps you sustain giving to others and it does enhance your capacity

to give to others. It enhances relationships, for instance, it enhances forgiveness, it enhances perspective taking. So it helps, but it's not like absolutely a precondition. It can put whatever capacity you have coming out of the womb or coming out of whatever culture you come out of, it could put that on steroids. Yes. And it can help you keep doing it without burning out. Precisely.

Precisely. Yeah. I mean, that seems to fit right into fierce compassion, learning how to be a good citizen, a good spouse, a good parent, a good colleague without running out of gas. Yeah, exactly. So in fact, I talk about three main forms of fierce self-compassion. This probably more, but these are the three identified. So basically, if you're goal is to take action

to alleviate suffering, there may be like dozens of types of actions that will be required. But one of them is providing for yourself, providing for your own needs, even if sometimes that means saying no to others. So it may be going on that meditation retreat or taking time for yourself or taking a class you want or not overburdening you yourself in terms of work commitments.

This is an important way we take action to care for ourselves. And this is really important, especially for people, let's face it, people like us when we say yes to them. People like us so more agreeable. They like us to help them out all the time. For some people, their self-esteem is actually contingent on approval from others. One of the things that self-compassion gives you, and they work hand in hand, is when

you can accept yourself, that's more the tender self compassion. It means you aren't so your self-esteem, your sense of worth isn't so contingent on other people liking you, which actually empowers you to take for your section to say, no, I'm sorry, I'd love to help you, but I can't. I need to do this for myself. So it all works in concert. While we're at it, can you tell me or us about the other two variants of fear self-compassion? One is providing for yourself, providing for your needs. Another one is protection. Again, very, very important. This is the word fierceness, really evokes this protective mama bear stance.

But this is drawing boundaries. Let's see, you have a relative pushing their political views on you or something like that. The willingness to speak up and say, I'm sorry, I don't want to hear it. Or again, like I say, the Me Too movement, if people are crossing your boundaries in terms of being inappropriate in a work context or doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable standing up and saying, I'm sorry, that's not okay, right? Or protesting injustice. If you feel you or maybe a group you belong to

or actually any group of people are being untreated unfairly, part of alleviating suffering is do what you need to do. That could be protesting, it could be marching, it could be passing laws, it could be doing petitions. It can just be talking to people, trying to get them to see a different point of view. So protection is a really important form of self-compassion. And then finally, motivation, that's a key way in which self-compassion expresses itself. So

motivation is all about taking action, you know, just do it. And people get so confused because when they think of self-compassion just as acceptance, then how does acceptance relate to action? And the thing is what you're doing, the reason they actually help each other is you're accepting yourself as a person. Again, you aren't necessarily accepting your behaviors. So I teach self-compassion to athletes. They say, but, you know, my performance has to be excellent. It has to be better. I can't accept my current level of, you know, athletic skill.

Well, yes, that's true. You cannot accept your level of athletic skill at the same time that you accept yourself. And what the research shows really clearly is that when you accept yourself as a person, you know, shame yourself, you don't criticize yourself. The baseline is unconditional self acceptance. That actually gives you more ability to change your behaviors, to work harder, to, you know, to reach your goals. So again, the two really do work in concert, but people get confused about them, which is

why I think it helps differentiate them. How do we practice fierce self-compassion? Because everything you're describing sounds, it really makes a lot of sense. You're a scientist, of course, we want to do it scientists say, how do we actually get better at this skill? Yeah, so that's why I'm really excited about my new book, Fear Self-compassion, because it's not just the ideas I've actually developed, practices specifically designed to increase more of this fear's quality of self-compassion. They're pretty much all adapted from the Mindful Self-compassion program that I developed with Chris Gurmur, and I've just tailored them to focus on developing these particular qualities. So for instance, the self-compassion break is a practice I often teach.

And generally, it's focused more on the tender self-compassion about being warm towards yourself, supportive, accepting, caring. And so I just tweaked a little bit. So for instance, body posture, I found, and this mainly comes from because I've been teaching fierce self-compassion workshops the last couple of years. Standing up straighter, holding your body posture. It's kind of like that power posing in a weird way. You know, when you hold your body more upright, it tends to energize you. The language you use is different. So, for instance, the three components of self-compassion, which are kindness, a sense of common humanity and mindfulness, in their tender form, it feels like loving connected presence, right? And kind of tender accepting that the kindness is loving,

you feel connected when we remember our common humanity and very present with mindfulness. But in fierce protective form, the three components feel like brave and powered clarity. Very different. Right? The kindness manifests as bravely like this kind of ferocity, willing to do what you need to do to protect yourself or to say no or draw boundaries. The common humanity is very interesting and I didn't even really realize this at first when I was putting together the model.

When you can bond with others while you're standing up for yourself, when you don't feel so alone, this is what empowers social justice movements. If you look at social justice movements, the reason they aren't just one person, they're collective movements is because when we feel alone and it's just me, we feel kind of weak, we feel helpless. When we bond with others, then we actually gain power, when we realize, hey, if you're harming me, you're harming lots of other people, and we aren't going to stand for anymore. So it's a sense of empowerment. And then mindfulness, mindfulness people sometimes

they think it's just about acceptance, just about being present with what is. But as you know from your practice, mindfulness gives you a lot of clarity, a lot of discernment. You can actually see more clearly what's causing harm and what's not causing harm. So that clarity can also be used to identify harm and find ways to speak up in a clear way. So the self-compassion break, I just tailored it.

So you're kind of evoking bravery, and you're evoking, remembering your feelings of empowerment, and you're evoking this clarity about what you see as acceptable or not acceptable or healthier and healthy. It feels really different. And so I developed a lot of practices like this. So tell me what it would look like for this self-compassion break.

How would I do it? We use language to evoke the three components. So first of all, you focus with the clarity. You usually start with the mindfulness in the self-compassion break, because you have to have the awareness. So really just seeing clearly identifying some threat, some harm, some unfairness, some boundary violation. So you really just let yourself see. threat, some harm, some unfairness, some boundary violation.

So you really just let yourself see. I see clearly acknowledged that this isn't okay. You know, oftentimes you just kind of want to sweep it under the rug because it's kind of a hassle to have to deal with. So I'd really rather not look at it. Oh, well, you know, maybe it's not a big deal. That's just the way men are, whatever it is.

It's just the way bosses are. So you're saying, this is not okay, real clarity, or whatever it is you're feeling, this person's crossing my boundary, you sat. And then you remember with common humanity that I'm not alone in this, right? If someone is harming me, they're harming other people. When I stand up for myself,

I'm actually standing up for anyone who's being treated unfairly or harmed in some way. So you kind of connect with that feeling of empowerment. And then to evoke bravery, instead of maybe putting both hands on your heart, maybe you put a fist on your heart, right? Or some gesture that feels more supportive or maybe both hands on your solar plexus, and you really hold your back up and your shoulders back. And then you say, you know, I commit to protecting myself. I will do what needs to be done, even if it's a little scary for me. You really evoke that sense of commitment and bravery.

And then here's the thing with all my fear, self compassion practices. You evoke the fear of energy. But the last step is always some integration with tenderness. Because if you're two fears without an uptenderness, you know, you might be hostile or aggressive or make, we may get out of balance. So I might, you might have your fist on your heart. Go ahead and do it with me, Dan. Put your fist on your heart. Okay. Here we go. I've got a hurry and cat on my lap. So I'm full. All right. Well, but you can, you can, you can make room for your fist to put your fist

in your heart. So just kind of feel that, you know, it feels a little more empowering. You got your fist on your heart. The body could really evoke sensation. And then if you put your other hand over it kind of gently, the idea is you're really integrating these two energies, your fears, your brave, your powerful in terms of willing to take action in the world.

But the hand, the gentle hand, is also you're also accepting yourself. In other words, we aren't striving to control, we aren't striving to control other people or to harm other people, we're simply being strong and powerful, but also loving at the same time. And so integration is really key. So this fierce self-compassion break that you're describing these three steps, is that something where we would be stepping away from our desk or whatever,

and actually sitting and meditating while we do this? Or is it a free range exercise? The reason we call it a break is because you can do it in three minutes, especially once you have fine language that works for you. It's kind of like hitting the reset button on a computer. It's not something that you would probably do as a meditation, although maybe you want to do it at the beginning of your meditation.

So the self-compassion break is always aimed in a particular situation. So if I teach people the self-compassion break, I'll say, okay, call up a situation in your life where you feel you need to stand up for yourself. But in actual practice, that situation would just happen, right? In real life, there'd be some situation that arises where you think, you know, I really need to stand up for myself here.

Then you might do a self-compassion break to really help you embody that fear of energy that you're going to need to be, need to be brave and clear and empowered. I've done a bathroom break. You can do it silently. You know, you can check out internally when no one knows what you're doing. Self-compassion at the end of the day is a mindset.

It's a way of approaching difficulty with kindness, with warmth, with compassion, with bravery, the sense of connectedness, and with clarity and mindfulness. So it's just a way of reorienting yourself in the moment so that you deal with whatever is happening with compassion, and that's going to allow you to get through it more effectively. I do have on a level set for folks who might be listening to this and hadn't heard of

a self-compassion break because what we just talked about was a fierce self-compassion break. A self-compassion break is a three-part exercise that you developed, and you said about this, but I just want to put a fine point on it. The first step is mindfulness, just seeing clearly what's going on right now. Yeah. Ecknowledging your pain, validating it, acknowledging the threat, validating it, acknowledging the need, validating it, whatever it is, wherever your compassion is aimed. First step is kind of acknowledging and validating it.

Second step is noticing common humanities. I'm not the only human being dealing with this. Exactly. So kind of counteracting the sense of isolation and separation, which is so normal for us to fall into, which does disempower us when we feel like it's just me, there's something wrong with me, or you know, it's me getting so world, it's hard to feel brave if you feel all alone. And the third is kindness.

To yourself in that moment. Kindness to yourself. Yeah. And so sometimes that kindness maybe manifests as self acceptance, warmth. I might be love. I love you. It's okay to be imperfect. I care about you.

Or it may manifest as bravery like, you know, I'm going to protect you. I'm going to be here for you. I'm going to support you. And it does seem a little weird to speak to yourself this way. I got to say, self-compassion practice at first feels a bit weird. You get used to it. The three elements are almost like a recipe. How do you bake that loaf of bread? Well, you need yeast, you need flour, you need water, or something like that. It's kind of like three ingredients, and you need them all together to evoke this mind state that's so helpful of self-compassion.

I got it, got it, got it, got it. What I want to clarify just for listeners is, okay, now that they understand that the fierce self-compassion break that you've described is a variation on the self-compassion break, which they may not have heard of, can you just recapitulate again the three steps of the fierce

compassion? The fierce one went as aimed at protecting like brave and powered clarity. So first you get that clarity. You know, often we don't want to look at it clearly. We don't want to acknowledge.

But we do two things when we aren't mindful, either we avoid and suppress, oh, well, that's just the way men are, you know, it's no big deal. We aren't acknowledging maybe the threat. Or the other thing we can do is what I call overidentification. So let me get lost in it. Like we have no perspective. We're just freaked out by it. And we're freaked out or lost. And I'm like, oh my god, he's doing this to me. And you're kind of you're just running away with it. You don't actually

have the perspective to step outside of yourself and say, hey, how can I help? So you have clarity. You see clearly what's happening. You aren't ignoring it, but you aren't lost in it either. So this is not okay. This is what's happening. I'm being treated unfairly, and my boundaries are being violated, whatever it is that's

happening. And then the common humanity, remember that this is something that can empower you. You aren't alone. You may feel alone, but in fact, in reality, this is something, this is why the Me Too movement was so empowering because women as individuals felt like it's just me and it must be something wrong with me,

or again, the Black Lives Matter movement. When you bomb with other people, even if it's just mentally, it also, when you bomb with other people, even if it's just mentally, it also helps if you talk with other people. But even just mentally, when you realize that you aren't alone, that you're a human being, that other people have experienced this as well, you can draw strength and if it's sense of empowerment from that. So you also feel connected.

It's also that it's one of the tender feeling, no, I'm not alone, but this is like, I'm not alone, I'm strong, I'm standard for women or I'm standing up for justice or whatever it is. And then the kindness, the reason I call my book how women can harness kindness to speak up and claim their power is because, again, kindness isn't just about warmth and acceptance, it's also about mom and bear.

I thought you're back. You want to see a ferocious human being. You start threatening their kids, and whether you're in father or mother, I'm sure, you know, Dan is so enthroned to your kids. Watch out, right? That incredibly ferocious, protective brave energy that comes when we protect someone we love. we can also harness that to protect ourselves.

And so, now, it's that may mean getting angry, you know, or being really, really focused, or just really incredibly courageous. Think of a firefighter who pulls people out of a burning building, incredible act of compassion and kindness, but it manifests not as like, I really feel for you, it must be so hard to be that far. That's not how it manifests. Right, it manifests as action doing something. And so we can actually harness that energy to strengthen ourselves as well. So that's protecting now for providing, they take a different form. Mindfulness, in this case, what mindfulness helps us do when we want to meet our needs, is really being able to ask the question, what's authentically true for me? We need mindfulness

to do that. We need to pay really close attention to even understand what's authentic for me, what's my truth, what do I really need? If we're just doing what society says, we should do, for instance, or if we ignore our needs and we're just like, society says, we should do, for instance, or if we ignore our needs and we're just like, okay, I'm just going through the program, I'm doing the steps of my day. We don't pause. Really mindfully ask, what is it that I need? Am I hungry? Am I tired? Maybe I love music and I'm not getting my artistic fulfillment or I love nature. So mindfulness in this case allows this to be authentic. Common humanity in the case of fulfilling our needs, this again, it looks very different.

So what we know about self-compassion is, and my research shows us I've done work with self-compassion and helping people resolve conflicts. They don't support their needs for those of others, but they don't prioritize their needs either. It's really all about balance. It's about finding compromise, finding a way to get everyone's needs met.

So the common humanity in this case is really all about balance. How do I include myself? So I'm not a doormat. I'm not just ignoring my own needs, but I'm also not like my way or the highway. You know, we don't want it to be selfish. That's not compassionate either. So common humanity in this case is balanced. And the kindness is really about a fulfillment, really honoring your need for fulfillment, really saying, this is important,

you know, to care for myself. I need to fulfill my needs. You know, I need to do whatever it takes again, whether it's going on that meditation we create or spending time with my friends or whatever it is it really nurtures me. It's not just about warmth but the tender self compassion is actually doing things to fulfill yourself. So the break in this case might be the mindfulness just really asking yourself, well what is authentically true for me? This is really important validating that, again validating the need, but in a balanced way, common humanity. So the second we feel that selfish, then we kind of shut down, and we recognize, okay,

it's me and the other person, how can we compromise? How can we come to a solution that means everyone's needs as much as possible? And then the kindness is just really allowing ourselves to feel that fulfillment and really validating that fulfillment is an important part of caring for ourselves. So that's that one. And then the last one is the motivating self-compassion break. So the motivating self-compassion break. The mindfulness in this case is what gives us vision. So one of the things with mindfulness, what we really see clearly, is it gives us vision,

first of all, about what's not working for us and what it could look like. It's kind of like having our eye on the prize. With mindfulness, we remember, hey, this is what I want to achieve. Maybe you're an athlete and you want to improve your game. Or maybe you've made some mistake, maybe you've failed some mistake, maybe

failed miserably at something. Mindfulness gives you, first of all, the vision to see, okay, that didn't work. But also see how you would like it to work, how you'd like to make the change. So mindfulness provides the vision. Common humanity in this case, this is really interesting, tillies to me it's interesting. It's common humanity is really recognizing the ability to learn from your failures. I use the term common humanity because I thought it was something people could understand. But in Buddhist practice, and for me this comes

from my Buddhist practice, you're really pointing to interdependence, interbeing, the understanding that causes and conditions come together are all connected. That's really the root of it. So sometimes that means, you know, I'm not alone, but another way you can understand it is wisdom, right? The wisdom of seeing how causes and conditions come together to create whatever happens. And so the wisdom of common humanity allows us to learn from our failures. Oh, I see what happened. You know, I did that and that led to this or

and whatever it is to happen, but we need to learn from our failures to be able to grow from them. This is why people, they get it so wrong when they think self-criticism increases motivation. Self-criticism creates shame. It shuts down your ability to learn because you feel so horrible about yourself. You can't see clearly. Compassion allows you to say, okay, it's only human to fail.

What kind of learn from this? What can I do different next time? So that's the common humanity. And then the kindness is the encouragement. Again, just like a compassionate parent doesn't say to their kid, oh, that's fine. Don't go to school. Get F. I love you anyway. They do say I love you anyway, but a compassionate parent encourages their child to do the best

they can because they care. They want them to be happy. They want them to grow. So again, the harnessing the energy of kindness with motivation is really all about encouraging. So the self-compassion break in this case uses the three steps first, we get the clear vision, maybe you know, what went wrong, what could be better, what we want for ourselves, the common humanity is okay, what can I learn, how can I have wisdom to learn from what happened, and then the kindness, how can I encourage myself to do something

different next time? Much more of my conversation with Kristen Neff right after this. Hey, I'm Aresha and I'm Brooke and we're the hosts of Wunderys Podcast Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threaten to veer Ru off course. In our series RuPauloo Paul Bornnaked, we'll show you how Roo Paul overcame his demons

and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. Let me just go back to one of the flavors of fear--compassion. The first one you started with is protective, and you said that the kindness, the third step of kindness might actually manifest as anger because something's wrong, and you

need to do something about it. How do you not let that anger drive you to be unkind to somebody else, even if your motivation is protective? So I have a whole chapter in my book on anger. And by the way, I'm not an anger expert. In fact, I would say quite the opposite. I struggle a thanger, which is one of the reasons I wrote this book kind of the come to terms with anger because it is in many ways one of the most challenging emotions because we get carried away with it. We start doing something harmful, something that's against our values. And so basically I did look in the literature though, and there's pretty good support for the idea that there is both constructive and destructive anger. And to me, the best way to think about it, especially in terms of compassion, is constructive anger, alleviate suffering, reduce this harm, destructive anger causes harm, and that's kind of your dividing line. And also, is it aimed at a person? I said,

you know, with fierce self-compassion, it's more aimed at a person? I said, you know, with fear of self-compassionates, more aimed at behaviors or situations, the tenderness is more aimed at the person accepting yourself, anger is kind of the same way. Constructive anger is aimed at changing situations or behaviors. Destructive anger is personal. You're a bad person.

I hate you. You're an evil villain. Constructive anger is actually. You're a bad person. I hate you. You're an evil villain. Constructive anger is actually very, very useful. It focuses us. It energizes us. It reduces the fear response. It communicates to something's wrong. Something needs to be paid attention to. So constructive anger might be at a situation. Racial injustice, right? We should be angry at racial injustice. Sexual harassment and abuse. We should be angry at racial injustice, sexual harassment and abuse. We should be angry at sexual harassment and abuse, right?

We need to be angry to motivate us to say, it's not okay, it needs to stop now. But that's different than getting really personal and saying people are evil, you know, all men are evil, all white people are evil, hating know, all men are evil, all white people are evil, hating people who are doing bad behaviors. When you start to do that, unfortunately, it just adds to the problem. I mean, obviously, I'm not the first one to talk about this, you know, Martin Luther King Gandhi, they talked about this.

The Buddha. The Buddha talked about this, right? But it doesn't mean there's no place for anger. There's constructive anger, which isn't personal, which is focused on preventing harm, changing behaviors or situations that cause harm. That's constructive. Destructive anger is when it gets personal, and it actually hates or gets hostile or aggressive.

Having said that is hard to not to get carried away in that. I can say I struggle with it. I'm not so much aggressive. I don't call people names, but I can be really blunt, especially if I'm fired up about something and my bluntness isn't as tempered so it can be kind of rude or harmful. Again, it's not gonna call someone names,

but I'm gonna say something so bluntly that the impact may be not a good one. I actually, I call this my bulldog. So I've got mama bear who she's protective, but bulldog is not thinking much about what's the effect of what I say on the other person. And that's not healthy. So I've struggled with this. With my bulldog side, I used to, I'm getting a mirror.

I used to be have some shame about it. You know, this is something I did have self-compassion. I didn't meet myself up from my bulldog side. But I was kind of thought, this is something I needed to work with. I needed to be able to hold. It was kind of a negative part of my personality that I wanted to work on. And once I started doing the self-compassion work, what I realized is that energy that leads me to be blunt. It's actually what I call the energy of Kali, who's another Hindu goddess. Kali is a destroyer of illusion. She's pictured as having all these severed heads.

She's very scary, quite ferocious. What she's actually doing is cutting away the illusion of separation. So in Kali is aimed correctly, she's actually in the service of compassion because she's cutting away the illusion of separation. So my anger is like really intimately tied to my fear of compassion is partly what's allowed me to achieve what I've achieved in my life. You know, it's a power source for me. So I learned that instead of feeling ashamed of that part of me, I needed to honor it, really see the good part of it, the uses of it, the temperate with the tenderness so that it doesn't get personal and doesn't cause harm.

Again, it's still, I don't get it right, I get it wrong a lot, and I get knocked off balance, then I rebalance myself. But it was so important for me. I think especially as a woman, because women are so socialized not to be angry. A woman is also a meditation teacher, you know, that's not good. So to be able to see the constructive uses of it, the good parts of it, and the way we can harness it for good is really important. But we also have to do due diligence and try as much as we can to make sure it's not personal and it's not harmful. And it is possible.

It's challenging, but it's possible. I want to talk about women in a second, but let me just stay on anger for a second, just generally on anger, because, no, I am definitely not an expert here. So I may be misunderstanding this, but I feel like I've heard the argument, you know, in Buddhist circles that anger is actually never really constructive that it is always toxic. That doesn't mean you can't be forceful and intense, but that anger, which has a sort of hatred embedded in it, or this rage, I mean, the Buddha himself said, you know, anger has a honey tip, but a poison root, you know, it can feel good at the tip, but at the root of it, it is still poisonous.

Is it your contention that he was only talking about destructive anger, not constructive anger? Yeah, and I think part of the issue is the lack of clarity in the language. You know, what is the word anger point to? And I think that that is true if you're talking about destructive anger, which is personal, which is aimed at harming people or aimed at people. You know, as you say, if there's hatred there, there usually needs to be a person there. So if you're angry at a person, you're wrong. I'm blaming you. It's your fault.

I hate you. That's going to be a poison arrow. But if the anger is, you know, the anger than me too, movement. So I write about in my book, you know, I had an experience with someone who turned out to be a sex predator. I wasn't raged, but I was tried as much as possible to make sure that that rage was channeled to our protection. So protecting the woman involved, speaking up, making sure it was going to happen in the future. I think there's a reason that anger is there. Anger is a protector. It has a protective function.

So as long as you're harnessing the protective function of anger to alleviate suffering, to prevent harm, at the same time that you're trying to not have it not cause harm, it's useful. We don't want to cut off this really important power source because it can be channeled for good. So it takes some skill to work with it. Again, I'm not an expert, but I do know that we don't want to shame ourselves for it. We don't want to think it's just a bad thing because anger has a lot of constructive functions, including things like we do see in the fear response. That's a a bad thing because anger has a lot of constructive functions, including things

like we do seeing the fear response. That's a very useful thing. If you need to do something brave, like protest, maybe the National Guard is there. You need to be brave not to just slink off and not stand up for yourself. Anger can provide a source of that courage. It is a messy process. That's why at the end of my book, I talk about the compassionate mess. We shouldn't expect us ourselves to always get it right. We're going to get it wrong. We're going to, you know, we're going to get personal. Then we're going to have to apologize. We're going to continually fall off balance.

And it's really not a matter of a destination like we get there and we're perfect and we've got balanced anger all the time. And, you know integration of Ian and Young, and I'm enlightened. I mean, maybe some people are enlightened, but I'm not expecting that for myself. But I can expect to be this compassionate mess, which is, okay, and this is, if you want to see me personally with my anger issues, I'm a little better at it than I used to be. But what I'm a lot better at is almost immediately, if I get out of balance and it is too blunt and it's harmful almost immediately apologizing, almost immediately owning what I've done, almost immediately trying to repair the situation, which is better than nothing. I think it's way better than nothing.

I've stopped ch Jamie myself from my anger because I do realize that that force, that intense, passionate, wanting things to be right, there's a part of it which is really healthy, which is wanting to prevent injustice, you know, wanting to prevent harm. And I think we need to be able to tap into it. Otherwise, we're losing out on something that can be very, very helpful when used skillfully. I'm curious, why did you write this book specifically for women? I debated a little bit how I was going to write the book

because it is about balance. Everyone needs both fierce and tender self-compassion and we need to have them in balance. But gender role socialization really imbalances men and women in a very different way. So people who are socialized to be male, and I'm using this word particularly because it's not about biological sex,

whether you're cisgender or transgender, if you are socialized to be male, the messages you get are, it's okay to be fierce, in fact, it's good to be fierce, but don't be too tender. You know, if people are called names, it starts with an acid, I'm not gonna say it because I recently learned some people consider it a homophobic slur, so I don't wanna use the word,

but there's a word with an acid, boys are called if they're too tender, if they're too sensitive. Males are socialized to believe that tenderness is a weakness, emotional sensitivity is a weakness, they just got to be tough as nails, and this really harms males. It really harms them because what we know from the research is the ability to be warm and supportive and tender with yourself. It's incredibly important for well-being. We use this depression, we use this anxiety, you know, enhances physical health. It's a really powerful source of coping and resilience that men are cut off from because of gender role socialization.

Only about 15% of any audience I teach to are men. And I have to say it's because well, compassion is a female thing, and females are a corded less power in society. So that means compassion is a weakness I want to be strong, not for me. People who are socialized as females are given the message that it's good to be tender, well, to others, not to yourself. You better sacrifice yourself, but it's good to help others to be tender, well, the others, not to yourself. You better sacrifice yourself, but it's good to help others to be tender,

to be warm and supportive to others. It's really not okay to be fierce, to be angry, because that's kind of ugly. Women have a lot of socialization against anger. If you look at the research, a man who's angry or fierce, he's more well-respected, people believe him more, the Hinges passionate. A woman who's angry is considered unhinge, she's crazy, and she also must not be very nice. So people, they're less convinced by an angry woman, and they definitely like angry woman less.

So women get all these messages that it's not okay to be angry or to be fierce. Not only does anger, but also competence. This really harms women because a really powerful, competent, agentic woman. She's like less because people think she's not tender and we like tender, nurturing woman. We think it's either or and that also harms women. So women have all this on baggage against being fierce, which really is directly tied to their disempowerment. And in the book, I talk about patriarchy, power inequality, because you can't really separate it from that. I mean, the system is designed to disempower a woman, historically. Women can own their own property, they can own their own money, they couldn't vote.

Who did it help the fact that they were only valued for doing what their husbands want or raising their kids. That really fed an unequal power system. Women are coming up against different barriers than men are. So I first thought, well, I could write the book, for men it looks, people socializes, men it looks like this, and people socializes. Women it looks like this, but it was just way too complicated. So I wrote the book for a woman,

and I'm hoping someone like you, Dan, writes the book for men. It's a slightly different book, really helping men to embrace their tender side and seeing how that's going to make them stronger or not weaker. But it was just too complicated. A lot of my male friends have read the book. And what they say, first of all, all the practices are gender neutral, right?

Doesn't matter your gender identity, and I have practices also pretend yourself compassion. The practices that help you develop all these different tools of self compassion and especially integrate them, they're helpful for everyone. And also, you know, a lot of men who read the book have said, why didn't really understand. You know, they didn't really understand the intent, socialization, the woman feel, not to be fierce and how this might harm them. So you know, a lot of men have wives or friends or children who are females and they've said it really has helped them put a lens on that.

And Dan, I want to read your book even if you write it just for men because I would like to understand the male experience as well. So I think it's helpful for everyone, but it's aimed particularly at countering the female gender role socialization and also the history of patriarchy that has made it hard for us to be artful through true, balanced, authentic selves. How can men help the women in their lives to be more fierce? One of the things that I think is really helpful, and by the way, it's not just men. I think it's all people is to understand our biases against fierceness to women.

Right? So for instance, I'm actually more young than Yen. I'm actually pretty fierce by nature. A lot of it's just personality. And it's been a problem for me. People have disliked me because of this fierceness, because they think if I'm fierce, then I can't be kind or nurturing, and therefore I'm not gonna like her very much.

So one of the things men can do, and also women to other women, is just really ask yourself, hmm, this behavior that I am judging in this woman. Would I have the same negative reaction if it was a man doing it? To what extent are my unconscious biases filtering my perception of the situation in a way that's actually harmful. And so just being aware of your filters and the fact that they're all all these unconscious biases against women displaying their fierceness, I'm bringing more awareness to those will actually allow you to accept the woman in your life and their fierceness with more compassion. And they get not even just compassion, but awe.

I mean, mama bear. And it's funny, mama bear is actually, you know, if you think it's the mother bear, not the father bear who's got this intense protective energy toward her cubs. So making space for that and recognizing it. So if a woman's really fierce, instead of just being scared by it, you never say, who I don't like that? Really saying, wow, that's beautiful. Again, you need to draw your boundaries. If the fierceness is harming you in some way or crossing your boundaries, you also may need to be fierce and say, hey, it's okay, you can't treat me that way.

You can't call me names. But the power, the anger, yes, a little scary, but I see the power of it. And it's actually a beautiful thing, maybe helping the woman to focus on when it didn't to behavior or the issue as opposed to making it personal. What's interesting is that looking at your own biases actually, in my experience, requires self-compassion. Oh, it does. Absolutely. in my experience requires self-compassion? Oh, it does, absolutely. And so that's why I think self-compassion

is so important for social justice movements, especially the tender self-compassion. Because what happens when we recognize our biases, racial biases, gender biases, and we have them whether or not we want them. Because if you grew up as a kid watching films or watching TV, you have unconscious biases. They're almost impossible to avoid.

They just shaped our neuronal pathways. And the thing about white privilege or understanding systemic racism, part of the reason it's so uncomfortable for people is people immediately feel shame about it. I'm not racist, I'm not sexist. And you know it's understandable because maybe consciously you aren't. So you need a lot of acceptance and tenderness to say, Hey, I do have these biases. I wish I didn't, but I do. It's

okay. I don't need to shame myself. I can accept it. Okay. That's right. I'm imperfect. I'm grew up in this society. this is how my brain is wired. And therefore, can I maybe see them? That's kind of the tenderness. Can I see them clearly without judging myself so harshly? And then the fierce self-compassion is see them and then also commit as much as possible to not be so influenced by them, to question myself, to think about what I have the same reaction as someone was different, you know, what's really happening and being brave to say, for instance, if you come across co-workers, maybe they're saying something sexist or racist, right?

Actually, be willing to speak up and say, hey, that's not okay. Or maybe people are doing it unconsciously. Maybe they're saying something that, you know, I have a story in my book like, oh, that Laura, she's such a coward. Do you believe how mean she was? You can say something like, hmm, do you think of Laura or a man?

We have that same reaction. You know what I mean? And that's kind of scary to speak up. But if you really want to commit to more social justice, we need to be willing to speak up and say something. Otherwise things will never change.

Just as we wind down here, it might be worth just emphasizing, maybe it's re-emphasizing the intertwined nature of fierce and tender self-compassion that they enable one another. Yes, yes, exactly. That's so right. So in other words, some people are afraid that if they give them this tender self-compassion, that it will disempower them, that they won't take action. And it's actually quite the opposite. And this is what the research shows as well. So in other words, the research shows is linked to both, both forms of coping.

In other words, the more we accept ourselves, as we are, the more we care for ourselves, the warmer we are toward ourselves, the more able we are to take action, through encouragement, out of care, but they don't work against each other, they actually mutually enhance one another, which is important because it gets at some of these myths and blocks that stand in the way of people being self-compassionate.

Finally, can I just push you or prod you to plug your new book and anything else you want people to know about that you've worked on or places they can find you on the internet? Yeah, so my new book, Fear Self Compassion, How Woman Can Harnessed Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive, came out on June 15th. It's very recent. It's an unusual book because it combines research, combines kind of history, some theory, combines a lot of personal stories that get very personal in the book, but also practices, concrete practices you can do. So you can find this in the book, and I've also created a fear self-compassion page on my

website, which you can find if you just Google self-compassion, I'll algorithm lead to my website, and I have on there guided meditations and practices that you can do. So, you know, you can maybe start there and see if you resonate with the material. And then if you want to go deeper, you can get my book. Always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you very much for coming on and congratulations on the new book. Thanks Dan. And let me know when your book comes out. But I've said I've just annoyed at you to write. You're a really good person to do it. Well, I'm honored.

Thank you. Big thanks to Kristen. Again, just to nod to the fact that she's had a really big impact on me, and I recommend you check out her work, including her prior appearances on the show. Before I let you go, I do want to give a shout out to two of my colleagues. First up, my good friend and co-author on the book, Meditation for Figuity Skeptics, great meditation teacher, Jeff Warren.

Jeff is offering a series of in-person retreats. That's right, in person this summer and fall, which you might want to go check out. He's got two retreats. He's calling them both Meditation for Figuity Skeptics, which, as mentioned, was our book that we co-authored. One of the retreats is in New York. In August, the other is in North Carolina in October, as I'm reading this I'm thinking maybe I should go to one of these. Also coming up in August, he's leading a new retreat, a training retreat called

how to guide meditation. For more information on these retreats and all of Jeff's other offerings or to sign up, check out JeffWorren.org. We'll put a link in the show notes. The other shout out is to my ABC News colleague, LZ Granderson. He's got a new podcast. It's called Life Out Loud and it draws from his own lived experience as a gay, black father. On the show, he hosts thought-provoking,oking poignant and engaging conversations with some of the

most influential and inspiration in the LGBTQ plus community as well as some allies. You're going to hear from big names, including Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black, Grammy nominee Rufus Wainwright, Poe Star MJ, Rodriguez, and even Dr. Anthony Fauci. Check out Life Out Loud, wherever you get your podcasts. I am on a personal note, a big fan of LZ. So Fauci, check out Life Out Loud, wherever you get your podcasts. I am on a personal note, a big fan of LZs. So go check that show out. This show is made by Samuel Johns, DJ Cashmere, Kim Baikamom, Maria Wartel, and Jen Plant

with audio engineering by Ultraviolet audio, as always a big shout out to my ABC News comrades where I am Kester and Josh Cohan. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a conversation, a really provocative, fascinating conversation about masculinity with Daniel Ellenberg. 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 add 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 slash survey. you