The One You Feed - Why We Need to Practice Self Compassion with Kristin Neff

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

In This Episode, You'll Learn: How has science proves that practicing self-compassion is more beneficial than self-criticism How touch can be used as a way to activate the body's natural responses to self-compassion Exploring the myths of self-compassion and how it is a powerful antidote to shame How we can use our relationships with close friends as a template to be more compassionate with ourselves Why it's helpful to discover our "inner ally" as opposed to our "inner enemy" The importance of practicing mindfulness to cultivate self compassion To learn more, click here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In case you're just recently joining us or however long you've been a listener of the show, you may not realize that we have years and years of incredible episodes in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be new to you, but if not, it is definitely worth another listen. We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Kristen Neff. The more you're able to see yourself, not as just you, but as part of this larger humanity, the less self-focused you are. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance

of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Kristen Neff, who has been on the show before.

She is the associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Educational Psychology. With her partner, Chris Gerner, she's developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. She also co-authored the Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. She also co-authored the Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, as well as Teaching the Mindful

Self-Compassion Program, a guide for professionals. Hi, Kristen. Welcome to the show. Hi, Eric. How are you? I am good. I am very happy to have you on again. We talked, I don't know how long it's been, maybe three, four years, who knows? Time just flies by. But since we've talked, I think your ideas have become much more popular. And I will say in the coaching work that I've done, I've realized over and over, working with so many more people since when you and I last talked, how critical these ideas of self-compassion really are, both in living a better life, but also in actually being able to make changes in our life, how important self-compassion is. So we're going to get into all that here in a few moments, but let's start like we always do with the parable.

There is a grandmother who's talking with her grandson. She says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And he looks up at his grandmother. He says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says that the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Right. I mean, so that actually is one of the parallels that's kind of ubiquitous in the mindfulness and compassion world or really any contemplative practice. Because what it highlights is that what we practice grows stronger, you know,

and the whole revolution in terms of understanding neuroplasticity, that we know if we what we practice grows stronger, you know, and the whole revolution in terms of understanding neuroplasticity that we know if we, what we practice actually can lay down new neural pathways in the brain. So it's very much the case that if you practice mindfulness and compassion and self-compassion, you build those neural pathways. If you just, you know, kind of go down the habitual path of fear and hatred and reactivity, then you actually just strengthen those neural pathways. So, I mean, that's what's so remarkable about what we know, the science of contemplative practice, is you really can change your neural pathways with practice based on what you feed. Yeah, I agree. I think the ability to change our neural pathways and neuroplasticity is something,

you know, I feel like I can't pick up a book these days without reading about it, but it is so true. It's just doesn't happen as quick as we would usually like, you know, that's the good news. Good news is it can change. Bad news is it takes longer than we think, which I think it's just good to know that because I think what happens with a lot of people is we hear like, whoa, this can change. And so we try a time or two and it doesn't really do a lot. And so then we give up and contemplative practice as well as self-compassion practice. My experience is the more you do it, the better you get at it. Right. Exactly.

You know, but the nice thing about self-compassion is every time you fail to have self-compassion, you can give yourself compassion. You know, it's kind of recursive that way. Yeah. So let's jump into self-compassion and, you know, kind of talk about what it is to start. You know, for people who aren't familiar with the term, let's talk about what is self-compassion and then let's talk about why it's important. The easy way to think about what self-compassion is, is just treating yourself with the same kindness, support, care that you would show to a friend you cared about when they were struggling in some way. So it's just really doing a U-turn and giving the compassion

you would normally show to others to yourself. And so that's kind of the simple version. My model of self-compassion is a little more complex. And I do think it's important because you might say that the components of self-compassion are also a recipe for how to give yourself compassion. So it really starts with mindfulness. I mean, we've heard a lot about mindfulness these days, but we really can't have self compassion without mindfulness. We need to be able to notice when we're struggling, when we're suffering, instead of avoiding it or resisting it, or also instead of just being lost in it, swallowed up by it.

We need a little perspective to say, hey, you know, I'm having a hard time. So that's the mindfulness. And then we do respond with this kindness, you know, again, like we would treat a friend, as I said. But there's a third element that's actually really crucial. And that's framing our experience in light of the shared human experience. The third component is common humanity, right? And actually the word compassion in the Latin, come means with, passion means suffer, suffer with. There's an inherent connectedness in compassion, which makes it very different from pity, right?

So for instance, self-pity is not healthy. Self-compassion is healthy. What's the difference? Well, other people, right? So self-pity is woion is healthy. What's the difference? Well, other people, right? So self-pity is woe is me. It's kind of a very egocentric, self-focused attitude. Self-compassion means, okay, everyone's imperfect. Everyone leads an imperfect life.

And that's really important because when we do that, we have perspective. We actually feel connected to others and our struggles as opposed to separated from them. And it also gives us some perspective, which really helps. I've been working on a video for people and I've been talking about taking different perspectives. And one of them that's been so helpful is the idea that everyone suffers and has a hard time and, you know, really touching base with that common humanity. Like I'm not alone in this. The fact that I'm struggling, that I'm suffering, that I didn't do well, it's not all like a personal failing. That's the human condition. That's right. You know, and so it's not like we want to belittle our own suffering by saying, oh, well, everyone suffers, you know, gosh, there are children dying in El Salvador or something like that. That's not the point.

What the point is really to remember that it's not abnormal. Often what happens when we fail or something's really difficult, we feel as if something has gone wrong. You know, this isn't supposed to be happening. And when we fall into that trap, we kind of believe what's supposed to be happening is perfection. And that somehow fall into that trap, we kind of believe what's supposed to be happening is perfection. And that somehow everyone else there in the world is not having problems or is living a perfect life. And it's just me who's struggling or just me who feels inadequate. And that really adds insult to injury. It makes it seem much worse than it actually is. When we think not only are we struggling, we feel all alone and isolated in that struggle.

is when we think not only are we struggling, we feel all alone and isolated in that struggle. So it's really just basically correcting that illusion we fall into of being alone. But, you know, we also have to acknowledge it doesn't mean that all people struggle in the same way or that the amount of struggle is the same. It's not. You know, each person's experience is totally unique and different. And yet the fact that we do suffer is what unites us as human beings. Right. So you say that the quintessential self-compassion question is, what do I need? So sometimes what we actually need is to make a change, right? When we notice we're engaged in a behavior that's unhealthy, or maybe we're in a job or a relationship that's unhealthy, unhealthy, or maybe we're in a job or a relationship that's unhealthy. Sometimes acceptance actually isn't what we need. What we need is to take action in some way. Maybe we need to leave

the relationship, or maybe we need to do something differently or meet our needs in a different way than what we're currently doing. And so that's really where wisdom comes in. You know, what do I need is the question we need to ask ourselves. And typically wisdom can give us the answer or at least point us in the right direction. We can't always assume it's going to look one way. It's going to vary day by day. Yep, exactly. So let's talk about some myths of self-compassion that I think make a lot of people sort of turn away from it prematurely or not investigate it. So I thought like we could walk through a few of these before we go deeper in how to practice it. So the first is this thing that people often say, which is, you know, doesn't self-compassion just mean throwing a pity party for poor me?

How would you answer that? There's basically five main myths of self-compassion just mean throwing a pity party for poor me? How would you answer that? There's basically five main myths of self-compassion. That's one of them, that it's self-pity. And I think that's when people don't understand the common humanity aspect of self-compassion, right? So ironically, self-compassion reduces self-focus, even though it's got the S word in it. It doesn't highlight the sense of self. It actually reduces it.

So what is self-focused is when we're saying, oh, I'm so horrible. I'm judging myself and I'm blaming myself. It's a very self-focused state. When you say that, hey, this is part of the human condition, you know, everyone fails. When you kind of relate to your own experience from this larger perspective, you actually have less self-focus. So for instance, we know people with more self-compassion, they're less likely to ruminate. They're less likely to get like stuck in thoughts about themselves or more able to take a broader perspective. You know, it's an understandable

fallacy that people have, but it's actually just the opposite. When you have self-compassion, you take yourself less personally, ironically, which is why it leads to less self-pity, not more. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us tonight. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really.

Yeah, no really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Important to note that all this work you've done has a lot of research behind it. So these aren't just ideas. These things have been studied and we know these things to be true. And I think that

idea of self-compassion is throwing a pity party for me. I think that the easiest way to sort of know this is true for ourselves is just to think about when we are in a lot of pain, are we more focused on others? Are we more focused on ourselves? Well, we're more focused on ourselves. When our pain is relieved, we're naturally more inclined to look outwards towards other people. So self-compassion being a strategy that relieves some of my own suffering just by its very nature is going to make me more other-oriented because I'm in less pain. Exactly.

So for instance, self-compassion is a powerful antidote to shame. And shame is a very incredibly self-focused emotion, right? Shame kind of locks you in this dark hole where you can't even relate to other people. So, absolutely, the more you're able to see yourself, not as just you, but as part of this larger humanity, the less self-focused you are. One of the other myths is self-compassion is for wimps. I have to be tough and strong to get through my life. Yeah, so that's another common one. We really think that somehow that using this harsh internal voice, if we can stand up to that voice, that that makes us strong. Again, you know, the research actually shows that it's just the

opposite. I mean, at this point, I'm very comfortable saying that self-compassion has been shown to be one of the most powerful sources of strength, coping, and resilience we have available to us. So, you know, when the going gets tough, the tough gets self-compassionate because having compassion, having your own back, being supportive to yourself actually strengthens you when times are difficult. Cutting yourself down, shaming yourself, you know, calling yourself names actually weakens you. And so just, you know, to take an example, there's been a lot of research with combat veterans.

You know, people have maybe seen action in Afghanistan or Iraq. Afghanistan or Iraq. And they find that combat veterans who are more self-compassionate about what they've experienced, they're less likely to develop PTSD. They function better in daily life. They're less likely to turn to drugs or alcohol. And they're less likely to attempt suicide to deal with their pain. And so we know that with combat veterans, similar findings, people going through divorce, raising special needs kids, coping with cancer, chronic pain. I mean, basically, when things are tough, what are you? Are you an inner ally? Do you have your own back?

Or are you an inner enemy? Are you cutting yourself down? And clearly, you're going to be stronger going into battle, being an ally as opposed to an enemy. That's a great way to put it. And that's one of those things when I referenced in our brief introduction, all the work I've done, coaching, I do behavior coaching with people, which is basically how do you make changes in

your life? And it's stunning how much that harsh critical inner voice actually demotivates us and does not make us stronger, actually wears us out and weakens us. B.J. Fogg in his latest book has a line that I loved. He said, people change better by feeling good than feeling bad. My experience has shown that over and over. Not only is it just more pleasant to be inside a brain that is not so hard on ourselves, it's also so much more effective. And, you know, it actually helps us to be tougher and stronger. That's right. So shame is not exactly a get up and go mind state, is it? Right. So when we're flattened by insecurity or when we're, our heartbeat's going crazy because

we're beating ourselves up and we're stressed and our cortisol is going, we can't make the best decisions. Performance anxiety, for instance, undermines our ability to achieve our goals. So definitely. Now, some people confuse harsh self-criticism with constructive criticism. And they think that self-compassion means just saying, oh, that's fine, right? Sometimes compassion is like mama bear. It's like, no, you got to make a change, and here's what you need to do. But it's coming from a place of love and support, not from a place of, you know, you're not good enough, I will hate you, I won't love you unless you succeed, right? But some of that criticism may be quite focused, quite clear, but it's coming from a place of wanting the best for you,

as opposed to, again, shaming yourself because you aren't good enough. And we know just the same as motivating our children, it's actually more effective in the long run to motivate them with constructive criticism than with shame and destructive criticism. It's the exact same thing with ourselves. Right. I love the idea. I think I got it from reading something of yours, which is that we tend to think, well, self-compassion is just, you know, giving yourself whatever you want. And you make the point of like a compassionate parent doesn't let the child eat all of the ice cream that's in the freezer, right? It's not about like you just give yourself everything and anything you want.

It's about wisdom, but it's about kindness. And I, and I, and I love that idea because I think one of the hardest things that people wrestle with balancing and I know I have and figure out is like, where do you draw the line between sort of giving yourself a break and also holding yourself accountable? And what I found is that holding myself accountable is fine and is actually really important and I need to do it, but it's the tone in which I do it. I can do that very same activity of sort of, you know, holding myself accountable and sort of having a standard for my actions and how I'm doing and the behavior and choices I make. I can do that with either a really harsh,

critical, mean tone towards myself, or I love the example of I could do it like I would to a friend or to a coaching client or to my son. There's a way that I can do it. It's not so much content a lot of times, although content's important. A lot of it for me is tone. Yeah. So it's not only tone, but also the intention. Of course, tone often conveys the intention, but you can really feel it if stop it, it's like, because I'm worried about you and I care about you and I don't want you to kill yourself. I don't want you to harm yourself versus like, stop it because you're like, you disgust me or that's horrible, something like that. So very small variations in tone can convey that intention. And so,

like I said, I do like to use the mama bear example or, you know, that the tiger mom, for instance, sometimes we may have to be a tiger mom with ourselves if it's coming from a place of care, not from a place of, I won't love you unless you get it right. We kind of touched on this myth a little bit, but I'll just, I'll bring it out just so we can be explicit about it, which is self-compassion will make me lazy. I'll probably just skip work whenever I feel like it and stay in bed eating chocolate chip cookies all day. Right. Kind of the idea that it'll make you self-indulgent. And so again, you know, the research, so the research just proves all of it. It says we're more motivated. We're more likely to take personal responsibility for things. We're less self-focused.

And another thing is that we are less self-indulgent. So for instance, we go to the doctor more often. We eat healthier. We exercise more. We practice safe sex. And that's basically because when we care about ourselves, right, we're going to do what we need to to be healthy. What is self-indulgence or laziness? That's kind of, we're having short-term pleasure at the expense of long-term harm. What makes it lazy as opposed to taking a needed rest? Well, the difference is, if it's lazy, that means somehow that's interfering with what you need to get done, whereas taking a needed rest means, oh, this is appropriate, right? And so is it

healthy or is it not healthy? You know, when is having that bowl of ice cream a useful thing? It's just kind of a treat. And when does it start becoming self-indulgent and problematic? Because, I don't know, it's, you know, raising your blood sugar or whatever. And so the difference is, is it healthy or is it not? And when you care about yourself and you don't want to suffer, you are going to choose healthy behaviors. And that's what the research shows. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer.

And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us tonight. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. God bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just

stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition sign Jason bobblehead. It's called really no really and you can find it on the I heart radio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So now we sort of have talked about why people would

want self compassion and some of the myths around it. So let's talk about practicing self-compassion. So if we had to give people a very short couple minutes on here's where to get started with self-compassion, what would you say? There's a couple ways to approach self-compassion. Probably the easiest thing to do is to draw off what we already know, which is how to be compassionate to those we care about, right? And actually, usually the best context to think of in terms of how to be compassionate is our close friends. You know, because let's face it, sometimes our partners or our kids, they're almost like too close. And we aren't at our best with them. And people we don't know very well, sometimes

we also aren't our most compassionate with them as well people we don't know very well, sometimes we also aren't our most compassionate with them as well. But usually we have some good friends, people we really care about, but who's, you know, when they fail or they make a mistake, it doesn't personally threaten us, which means we're kind of able to access a more caring way of helping. And so if you think, well, if I had a good friend, had the exact same situation happen to them, like they said the same thing, or they failed in the same way, or they're going through the same health issue, you know, what would I say to that friend? You know, what tone would I use? What would my body language be like? And that's a very good template for how to treat

yourself, right? So again, you just kind of think of what how you would treat another and then you do a U-turn. And you do that with yourself. And it's funny, for many people at first, it feels uncomfortable. Like, what do you mean talking to myself? Like, I'm here for you, you know, what do you need? Or, you know, I believe in you, or I support you. And it seems so it seems so strange to talk to talk to yourself in this kind of second person way. And yet we do it all the time when we criticize ourselves. Oh, you're such a fool. You're such an idiot, right?

We don't even think about that one because we're so used to it, right? So we're actually used to speaking to ourselves all the time in this kind of second person way. So what we're just doing is changing the tone and the content of it. And it does feel awkward at first, but you start getting used to it. You know, after a while, it starts to feel more habitual and we start to really listen to ourselves. You know, you can also do it in the first person, like, you know, may I be happy or may I be safe or, you know, kind of phrases like that with the eye, if that feels more comfortable. But usually it feels, it's a little more powerful to do it in the second person, because when you do that, actually,

one of the things that gives you is it gives you perspective. So instead of being lost in the pain, lost in the shame, it's like, oh, wow, you're really hurting. How can I help you? And that little bit of perspective taking to yourself also gives you a little bit of distance so you aren't so identified with the pain. That's one way to do it. Another really kind of useful and easy way to tap into self-compassion is to do it physiologically. Right. So what we know is when we're criticizing ourselves, when we're, you know, really upset, we're in a fight or flight mode, our sympathetic nervous system

is activated, we're releasing cortisol, adrenaline, and we feel frightened, because there's, you know, some fear that I'm not lovable, or I'm gonna, you know, make some huge mistake, and my life's gonna be over, right? Your sympathetic nervous system is activated naturally that way. And when we give ourselves compassion, it actually activates the parasympathetic nervous system. That's kind of, you know, when we feel connected to others, when we feel cared for, we release oxytocin, other opiates, our cortisol goes down, our heart rate becomes more variable as we become more flexible. One of the ways we can actually activate this sense of safety and the parasympathetic system is through touch. As human beings, we're exquisitely designed to respond to touch because the first two years of life, right, the primary way the infant and parents convey safety, care, back and forth is

through touch before language sets in, right? And so the human body is designed to respond to caring touch by feelings, you know, safe, relaxing, calming down, again, releasing these oxytocin, opiates, etc. So what you can do is, you know, put your hands on your heart, or cradle your face in your hands, or hold your own hand, or give yourself a hug. I mean, people are different in terms of what works, and you got to kind of check it out. But you can actually start with your physiology. And what that does is, first of all, like, if you just put your hand on your heart, it reminds you of your own presence. And then it kind of your body says, OK, I'm being held literally by myself.

And then you calm down. And then that's often a really good place to start to be self-compassionate. So, you know, sometimes you don't even need words. But if you were to put your hands on your heart and say something like, this is really hard. I'm so sorry. It will be okay. Something like that. Something you would just quite naturally say to a friend or a child. Your body really responds.

Excellent. Would this be a good time for us to do a self-compassion break? Sure. Yeah. Okay. So the self-compassion break is one of the most popular practices from the Mindful Self-Compassion Program that I developed with my colleague, Chris Germer. self-compassion break is one of the most popular practices from the mindful self-compassion program that I developed with my colleague Chris Germer. And it actually uses both. It uses language, the type of thing you might say to a friend, and it also uses touch. So I'd be happy to lead you

through that. So you may want to close your eyes if that feels comfortable. You don't have to, but it often helps if we close our eyes to go inward a little bit more. Maybe before we do the practice, just taking a few deep breaths because we've just been talking a lot. Just kind of imagine releasing some of the tension of thinking. Okay, so what I'd invite you to do is to call to mind some real situation in your life right now that is a little bit distressing. Okay, so this could be a relationship issue. It could be something happening in your life that's troubling. It could be some health issue you're going through, right? It might be something you're feeling badly about or embarrassed about. So some issue that's causing distress,

and please don't choose something that's really difficult or stressful because if so, you'll be overwhelmed and you actually won't be able to learn the practice. So most of us have two or three things we can think of at any one moment. Choose something that's moderately difficult, but not very difficult. Okay, so calling the situation to mind, reminding yourself of what's happening, what the situation is. We're making it real. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to bring in the three components of self-compassion as we're relating to this very difficult experience.

So the first thing we need to remind ourselves is what's happening right now, this difficult situation, this is a moment of suffering, right? So we're just bringing mindfulness to this fact. We're validating, we're validating the fact that this is hard. Okay, and I invite you to use any language that makes sense for you to really acknowledge

the difficulty of what's happening. It might be, I'm so sorry this is happening, or ouch. Something that just really acknowledges and validates with mindfulness the pain that's here okay and then we want to remind ourselves um of the humanness of this of common humanity you know struggle pain difficulty this is part of life Struggle, pain, difficulty, this is part of life.

All right, so again, just using any language that makes sense to you. Maybe something like, I'm not alone. I'm not abnormal for having something like this happen. Me too. Excuse my French, shit happens, you know? And then we want to bring in the kindness, the kind response to this difficulty. And so one way to do that is through touch. So I'd invite you to, again again put your hands on your heart, maybe cradle your face with your hands where you might hold the face of a child, or you can hold your own hand, some sort of touch that feels good to you that lets you know physically you have your own support.

Right, so feeling your hands on your body and the warmth of your hands. And then saying any words of kindness and kind of warm, supportive tone that are just what you need to hear right now. Right? It might be something like, you know, it's okay to be imperfect. Or you're doing the best you can.

Or, you know, I'm here for you. And actually, if you aren't sure what to say, what you can do is you could imagine that you had a close friend, someone you cared about going through the exact same thing you're going through. Imagine what you would say to that friend. And then see if you can try saying something similar to yourself. and try saying something similar to yourself. Okay, and then when you're ready, open your eyes. And so when we do a practice like that,

usually there's one of three ways we feel. Sometimes we do feel kind of soothed and comforted. We feel some compassion arising and it helps us feel good. Sometimes we feel absolutely nothing. It just like does nothing, just kind of nothing happened. And the third thing that happens is we might actually feel bad. Sometimes we open our heart and we feel more agitated afterward. And all three reactions are actually completely normal and none of them are better than the other. You know, sometimes if we spent a lot of time kind of closing our heart down and just deal with life

and we let the fresh air of the compassion in, it's almost like a house on fire. You know, you open the doors of the house and the air rushes in and the flames rush out. It's actually a term for that called backdraft. Sometimes that happens. It's actually, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. It means you're doing it right. But just to say, you know, whatever your reaction is, it doesn't really matter. What we're doing here is we're setting our intention to be kinder to ourselves. The practice actually rests on our intention. We do it and we practice, and eventually it starts to bear fruit. So whatever you're feeling right now, good, bad, or nothing, it doesn't really matter. The important thing is we just practice this new way of being to ourselves.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for leading us through that. And I really like what you said there at the end about we keep practicing regardless of how this particular event went. I'd like to ask you about doing self-compassion in the midst of a lot of real self-critical thoughts. So an example would be, I work with a lot of people who, you know, they have a lot of self-critical thoughts. They tend to be the sort of people where they haven't been exercising for quite some time, but they start and they start by walking a mile a day. But the thought that's going through their brain the whole time, what they're saying themselves, it's like, do is a mile a day. As an example, how do people work with these really strong negative judgments? So one of the ways you can work with the inner critic is actually quite helpful,

is to realize that even though it doesn't necessarily work this way, your inner critic is actually trying to help you. It's often not helpful. I mean, it's actually usually really counterproductive. But what's happening when we criticize ourself is that part of us feels threatened, right? So that voice saying, you know, I can't believe you only walk a mile a day. It's not enough. And how did you get yourself into this?

That's a part of us that feels threatened. Either it's threatened because we might be afraid that we aren't going to be healthy. We might feel threatened because we think we don't look the way we should and other people will reject us. We might feel threatened because of something that happened in our past or early childhood, right? There's a lot of different reasons why we feel threatened, but almost always self-criticism rises from a feeling of threat. And what we're

doing is we're trying to use that fight, flight, or freeze response to deal with the threat. Either we attack ourselves, that's the fight response, or we flee, we isolate ourselves in shame, or we freeze, we get stuck in rumination. And so when we realize that the inner critic is trying to actually help us be safe, then what we can do is instead of judging ourselves for judging ourselves, it just makes things worse. We can actually say, oh, okay, I see. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. I hear you. Okay, you're worried. Got it. Okay, we'll see what we can do, right? And then once the inner critic kind of feels heard and listened to, then it's actually easier to bring in another voice,

which is kind of the more compassionate voice, which also wants us to feel safe. And it's kind of quite remarkable to realize that our inner critic and our inner compassionate self, they both want us to be safe, but the critical voice is just, you know, all it knows is fear. That's kind of the only voice it has, whereas we also have this wiser, kind of more mature voice that can use the safety of care, encouragement. And so once we do that, again, we don't want to shut down the inner critic. We just want to say, okay, thank you very much for trying to keep me safe. I really appreciate it. And then we can try to use, you know, encouragement. Okay. So maybe we can try to do a little more tomorrow. So we want to keep high goals, the long-term goal high. We want to take baby steps, right? Just because I just do 5% more or

5% more instead of like, you know, 300% more. And that kind of, you know, slow, incremental improvement with encouragement can, it's easier to get in, to listen to those voices once we realize that our inner critic is actually trying to help us. Shutting it down just makes it worse. Right. And so one of the things that I think happens a lot with this sort of thing, and I think you use the term backdraft for it a little bit, but as we use some of these phrases and some of these kindnesses, it's almost like we don't really believe them. So is it a matter of continuing to practice till we come to believe? Is it a matter of continuing to experiment till we find the phrases and ideas that work for us, both? It's really both. I mean, so you don't want to use language that you're having an argument in your head with,

like, oh, that's just a load of malarkey. That's not going to be helpful, right? So it is important to find at least a language that feels at least the most potentially credible to you, and that's going to differ by person, but it still may feel a little uncomfortable, not quite right. If you aren't saying like, oh, this is false, And you think, well, I don't know about this, but it doesn't completely ring false. Then you just keep doing the practice. And again, trying different ways

does it help if you use an image? For instance, maybe I can't believe it, but if I think about me as a child and I say these words to me as my child self, does that help? Right? So you might try taking different perspectives like that to see if you get a little more traction with it. There's actually a saying, it's from the Jewish tradition. And the saying is, a young man goes to his rabbi and he says, Rabbi, you know, why does Torah tell us to place the holy words on our hearts? Why doesn't it tell us to place the holy words in our hearts? And the rabbi responds, well, because as it is, our hearts are kind of closed.

So we can't put them in our hearts. So we place them on our hearts. And there they stay until one day the heart breaks and the words fall in. Right. And so that's kind of what we're doing. We're just kind of like continually doing the practice again, like the one you feed. And eventually it starts to make a change. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. I, again, I think your work is so important and so valuable. I have links in

the show notes to your website where you have lots of meditations and different things. And again, I just really appreciate you taking the time to come on. Okay, thanks. It was lots of fun. Okay, take care. Thanks. Bye. Bye.

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