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Dr. Kristin Neff on Self Compassion, Meditation, Affirmations and Resilience

Lace Gilger
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Kristin Neff, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at UT Austin, an author, speaker, and a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research. Her books include The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook and Self-Compassion and Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program.

She is also the author of an audio program, Self-Compassion: Step by Step, and has published numerous academic articles. She lectures and offers workshops worldwide. She has been credited with conducting the first academic studies into self-compassion. Later next year she will release her newest work Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive.

  • What is self-compassion?

  • Treating ourselves when we suffer a struggle the same way we would treat others

  • We think it is useful and productive to be hard on ourselves. And the truth is that it kind of works, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as supportive encouragement.

  • If you criticize yourself you develop performance anxiety, fear of failure, procrastination, etc.

  • Self-compassion, counterintuitively, increases your motivation - but it’s a pull, not a push.

  • When you support yourself, you have more emotional energy to keep going.

  • Self-compassion makes it SAFE to fail, which is much more productive.

  • When we fail our self-esteem abandons us just when we need it most.

  • Self-compassion is a much more stable source of self-worth.

  • Ask yourself: what would I Say to a good friend if they were going through this same situation?

  • Suffering is often the thing that drives us into self-compassion.

  • More than 3000 studies support the conclusion that self-compassion is the best way to motivate yourself

  • Self-compassion is also much more beneficial for your external relationships

  • Lessons on how to apply self-compassion to the art of parenting

  • Self-compassion is an emotional oxygen mask.

  • How to use your breath in the moment to handle stressful and tough situations.

  • People who are more self-compassionate engage in more self care behaviors.

  • Self care is an important component of rest, recovery, and living a happy life.

  • People who have higher levels of self-compassion also have higher levels of wisdom.

  • Approach each situation with the question - what’s most healthy for me at this moment?

  • Sometimes it’s working super hard, sometimes it's taking a beat and relaxing.

  • The quintessential question of self-compassion is: WHAT DO I NEED RIGHT NOW?

    • What would be best and most healthy for me right now?

  • The alarm bell for self-compassion is SUFFERING.

  • The three components of self-compassion:

    • Mindfulness - be aware of your thoughts and emotions

    • Kindness - treat yourself like a good friend

    • Shared Humanity - frame your experience in the context of the human experience

  • What’s the difference between compassion and pity?

  • Life is difficult for everyone. Everyone is suffering. That’s part of the human condition.

  • When things go wrong, we feel like something has gone wrong, but it’s quite the opposite.

  • “The goal of meditation practice is to be a compassionate mess”

  • Where can you go wrong with implementing self-compassion into your life?

  • Self-compassion has an element of self-acceptance but also an element of ACTION.

  • Sometimes self-compassion is like a fierce mama bear. Protecting yourself, drawing boundaries, saying no to others, being brave, or motivating change.

    • It comes back to asking yourself WHAT DO I NEED RIGHT NOW?

    • Not what SOCIETY says you need, what DO YOU NEED?

  • Self-compassion is a MUSCLE, the more you practice it, the more you build it, the stronger you get at living with self-compassion.

  • Meditation is a very powerful way to build self-compassion.

  • Equally powerful to meditation are small daily habits including:

    • Supportive touch.

    • Touch activates the parasympathetic nervous system.

    • Self-compassion break. Remind yourself that you’re dealing with something hard. Remind yourself of common humanity. Say a few words of kindness to yourself.

    • Write a self-compassionate letter to yourself once per day for three days.

  • Homework: Google self-compassion. Meditation, physical embodiment, writing or journaling, little mantras.

Thank you so much for listening!

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Episode Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet, bringing the world's top experts right to you. Introducing your hosts; Matt Bodnar and Austin Fabel.

[00:00:19] MB: Welcome to The Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet with more than 5 million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries. In this episode, we discuss the powerful science behind why being hard on yourself often backfires and how you can harness self-compassion to be happier, healthier and more productive with our guest, Kristin Neff.

Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our email list. We have some amazing content on there along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How to Create Time For What Matters Most in Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com, you can sign up right on the homepage. That’s successpodcast.com. Or if you’re on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word SMARTER to the number 44222.

Dr. Kristin Neff is an associate professor at UT Austin, an author, speaker and a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research. Her books include The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook and Self-Compassion: Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program. Her work has been published in numerous academic articles and she has lectured and taught around the world. She's credited with conducting the first academic studies into self-compassion and pioneering the field. She's also the author of the upcoming work Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.

[00:02:02] MB: Kristin, welcome to The Science of Success.

[00:02:04] KN: Thanks, Matt. I’m really glad to be here.

[00:02:05] MB: Well, we're super excited to have you on the show today. Self-compassion is one of my favorite topics and your work is so impactful and so important. So I really can't wait to dig in and explore some of the key themes and ideas.

[00:02:18] KN: Great. Sounds good.

[00:02:20] MB: So I'd love to start out with really just a simple question. It's a simple question, but not a simple answer. What is self-compassion? Because so many people either don't understand it or don't understand its importance.

[00:02:33] KN: Right. Well, actually the answer is pretty simple. Self-compassion is just compassion turned inward. In other words it means treating ourselves when we suffer or struggle with the same kindness, warmth, care, concern, support that we would normally show to anyone else we cared about. Unfortunately, however, most of us are much more compassionate to our friends and family than we are to ourselves. So self-compassion just turns that around and so that we include ourselves in the circle of compassion.

[00:03:05] MB: I know my experience has definitely been that I’m extremely harsh on myself and I know many people are. Why do we have that that harsh inner critic? And I understand in a lot of ways the intellectual importance of self-compassion. And I've spent a lot of time doing the work thinking about it. But even then, still sometimes I find myself being hard on myself. How do we start to battle that?

[00:03:31] KN: Right. Well, so unfortunately we think that it works. We think it's useful and productive to be hard on ourselves. We think it's going to help us change and help us achieve our goals. And if truth be told, it does kind of work. I mean many people have gotten through law school or med school through their harsh inner criticism. The problem is though is it doesn't work nearly as well as supportive encouragement. So in other words, if you criticize yourself to motivate yourself or reach your goals, you're going to develop things like performance anxiety, fear of failure. You're going to undermine your self-confidence. You may start procrastinating because you're not sure if you have it in you to get things done.

So even though it kind of works, it has all sorts of secondary effects, which actually in the long run undermine your ability to reach your goals. And so self-compassion actually increases motivation, but the motivation of self-compassion doesn't come from, “I better succeed or else I’ll hate myself.” It comes from the fact of, “Well, I care about myself. I want to be happy. I want to reach my goals. I don't want to suffer. And that's why I’m going to try hard to make a change.” And the research unequivocally shows that this type of motivation is more successful and it lasts more over time and it's not linked to things like performance anxiety, which really doesn't help anyone.

[00:04:51] MB: I know many people and myself included have that fear that I’m going to lose my edge if I’m too easy on myself. I’m going to lose my edge if I start being self-compassionate. Tell me a little bit about the research or the science that really supports the fact that that's essentially not the right conclusion.

[00:05:09] KN: Right. Right. So I’ll just give you one sample study. It was a study that came out of University of California at Berkeley, and they had all the students in this study. They were undergraduate students who took part in the study. They took a really difficult vocabulary test from the GRE. And the items were chosen to be particularly hard so that everyone failed. And then so they took the students after the failure and put them into one of three groups. One group was told to be self-compassionate about the failure, right? They were reminded that, “Hey, everyone fails. It's normal. It's okay. Don't beat yourself up about it. Try to give yourself some support here.”

The second group was given a self-esteem boost. They were told, “Hey, don't worry about it. You must be smart. You got into Berkeley for goodness sake.” And the third group was told nothing, which means they were probably just beating themselves up because they were Berkeley students. They were probably just criticizing themselves for failing.

And then what they did is they gave all the students a chance to take a second test, a vocabulary test, and they said, “Okay, study for as long as you like for the second test and just let us know when you're ready to take it.” And what they found was that students who were told to be self-compassionate about their failure studied longer and harder and actually performed better, right?

And so basically what's happening is that when you support yourself after failure or when you don't reach your goals, you actually have more emotional energy to keep trying. First of all, it's safe to fail, and that's really, really important because we know – I mean it's a truism, but it's true. Failure is our best teacher. So if we can approach failure and setbacks with the attitude of, “Hey, that's okay. Everyone fails. What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this situation? What can I do to perform better next time?” That's actually much more productive than shaming yourself or telling yourself you're an idiot because you failed, right? It's kind of obvious. But for whatever reason people don't think that way.

[00:07:11] MB: It's so interesting. And you said something a moment ago that is to me one of the most important lessons about self-compassion, and that's this idea that it makes it safe to fail. Tell me more about that.

[00:07:24] KN: Exactly, right? It makes it safe to fail, because our self-worth isn't contingent on success. And this is one of the ways that self-compassion is different than self-esteem. So self-esteem is a positive judgment of worth. It's the thought that I’m a good person because I’m successful or because people like me or because I’m attractive or I’m a good athlete, whatever your criteria is. I mean self-esteem is there for us on our good days, but when we fail and we don't succeed, self-esteem deserts us precisely when we need it most.

Self-compassion isn't a judgment of self-worth. It's just approaching ourselves as worthy because we're a flawed human being worthy of compassion like any other human being. It's not based on being special and above average. It’s based simply on the fact that we're human beings doing the best we can. And so what we know about self-compassion is it's much more stable source of self-worth. It's unconditional. It's there for us when we succeed and when we fail.

And so when we can still feel worthy after failure and really importantly we still care about ourselves because we're self-compassionate. We want to do our best so that we don't suffer and that we reach our goals. This actually provides the source of motivation to pick ourselves up and try again and to keep going even when things get very difficult. There's a ton of research at this point to support this.

[00:08:51] MB: If your self-worth and your internal narrative about self-worth has been for your entire life essentially that your worth is contingent on being successful, how do you start to move away from that and what do you anchor it in if not success?

[00:09:09] KN: Right, and it is difficult for many people. It can be a slow process, right? And for some people it can even actually be scary to give themselves self-compassion because they've learned to rely on self-criticism. Almost like the inner critic is kind of the voice they know and it feels secure and comfortable with it. So it can be scary to learn a new voice. But one of the ways you can test this out with yourself is to say, “Okay, let's say I had a really good friend or maybe a child I cared about who was going through the same situation I am. Maybe they failed in the same way. What would probably be the impact on them if I talk to them the way I speak to myself, “You stupid idiot. You'll never amount to anything. You're worthless.” You can think about it like, “Hmm, that's probably – Maybe they'll try harder, but it's probably going to undermine their self-confidence.” And so if you think about, “Well, what would a really good parent or a good coach or really good friend say to motivate their friend?”

Now, first of all, you wouldn't say, “Oh, don't worry about it. It's not important that you succeed,” because of course it's important. We want to succeed. We want to reach our goals in life. But if it's more from the stance of, “Hey, I believe in you. Not only that, but I've got your back. I’m here. I’ll support you. What do you need for me to help you get through this? How can I help you learn and grow?” That's going to be a much more successful message in the long run.” And so really just doing a little perspective taking, right? Instead of being lost in our own thoughts of, “I’m the failure,” or “I’m so horrible.” If you just step outside of yourself and say, “Hmm, what would I say to a good friend I cared about to try to motivate them or to try to help them in this situation?” The answers actually come pretty naturally.

[00:10:52] MB: Yeah. That's such a great strategy. And it's amazing how much your context switches as soon as you think about if a close friend was going through the same thing, what would my advice be versus how you treat yourself.

[00:11:06] KN: Yes, exactly. So we kind of know that constructive criticism is most helpful with our friends as opposed to like name calling. For some reason we forget that with ourselves. And by the way, there is still constructive criticism. Again, it's not self-compassionate just to light yourself off the hook. That's not caring. But what is caring is how can we learn and grow from the situation so that we do better next time? And that's really what self-compassionate people do.

[00:11:33] MB: So I understand that method from almost a tactical standpoint of use this framework to be more self-compassionate or to flip your perspective on it from a deeper standpoint of looking at it almost from your identity, right? If your identity is so bundled up in success and your self-worth is so bundled up in that, how do you start to really change what you've based a big chunk of your identity on?

[00:12:02] KN: Yeah. So in many ways this is a personal journey. No one from the outside can say, “Hey, you're basing your sense of self-worth on the wrong thing.” But what happens is that eventually people start to realize that maybe it's not working so well. I mean maybe you're successful, but maybe you're really stressed, right? Maybe you've got heart problems because your cortisol levels are so high from beating yourself up all the time. Maybe you aren't happy in your life or your relationships are strained because you've been putting so much pressure on yourself.

And so eventually the reason most people come to self-compassion is through suffering, right? Compassion is concerned with the alleviation of suffering. And after we find that maybe the other way of doing things isn't working for us so well or has lots of unintended consequences, then we start to think, “Okay. Well what's another way I can be happy and alleviate my suffering?” And that's really where self-compassion comes in. We become motivated to lessen our pain and to help ourselves. And part of doing that is finding more effective strategies for helping ourselves.

And, again, there are over 3000 studies now on self-compassion showing that it's a highly effective way to help ourselves grow and be happy and to avoid things like depression, stress, anxiety and so on. You have to want something better for yourself. It really comes down to something that simple.

[00:13:35] MB: I’m so excited to tell you that this episode is brought to you by my very good friend and three-time Science of Success guest, Peter Shallard. He's the founder of Commit Action and he's known as The Shrink for Entrepreneurs. Why is he sponsoring The Science of success? Well, January is a time when we're all thinking about setting goals and making strategic plans for the year. But if you don't get it right, your best intentions just end up gathering dust in a drawer. We've all experienced that before, right? Big ambitions in January, totally sidetracked by March.

So if you truly want to make 2021 your best year ever, then make sure you listen to the special episode we did together on New Year's Eve. We went deep into the science and practice of annual planning covering the overlooked power of reflection on the past and how it can unlock huge growth in the future. The science of psychological ecology and how self-sabotage and motivation problems can be avoided entirely by setting your goals the right way and how to connect the dots between your big picture plans and your actual week-to-week life so that your intentions for the year end up becoming concrete reality.

Peter is a huge authority in evidence-based psychology particularly for business owners, and you have to check out the incredible episode we did on his ultimate annual planning ritual. It's one of the most useful and practical interviews we've done. So make sure you check out that episode with Peter. The episode is called The Ultimate Annual Planning Ritual to Crush 2021 and it was released on December 31st, 2020. It's available anywhere you listen to The Science of Success. Make sure you carve out some time and really focus on mapping out your success this year and use that special episode as your guide.

[00:15:38] MB: You just touched on it, but the key here is really looking at the science and understanding that there's thousands of studies that support this notion that self-compassion is almost like the clean energy of motivation as opposed to beating yourself up and making yourself feel bad. You have more resilience. You have more emotional energy and it's a much better way to fuel yourself.

[00:16:01] KN: Yes, it’s much more efficient. So self-criticism, I like to use the analogy, it'll get you up the hill, but in the way that like an old coal-powered steam engine would. It would spit out a lot of black smoke. You might say that self-compassion is the Tesla or something like that. It's like a really highly efficient electric steam engine that gets you up the hill in a very clean way. And it's not only better for you, but it's better for others around you. So we know that if people are more self-compassionate, they actually have more emotional energy to give to others. They're less likely to burn out. They make better relationship partners because they can meet a lot of their own emotional needs as opposed to demanding that their partners do everything correctly for them, right? And so it helps yourself as well as others around you.

[00:16:49] MB: Yeah. That's another great insight. Tell me a little bit more about how self-compassion helps flow through ourselves and into our relationships with others.

[00:17:00] KN: Right. So just as an example, one study we did. We looked at 100 couples who were in long-term relationships and we asked people to fill out the self-compassion scale, which I developed. And then also to rate their partner in terms of how caring is your partner? How giving are they? How intimate are they? Do they get angry a lot? Do they try to control you? And how happy are you with your partner? And we gave these measures to both partners. And what we found is that people who are more self-compassionate were rated by their partners as being more caring, more giving, less controlling, less angry and people were more satisfied with self-compassionate partners.

So part of the way it works is, first of all, when you can have a self-compassion, which means you value yourself, you're more likely to use more effective communication strategies, right? So instead of just yelling and getting angry and demanding that your partner do something you want. When you kind of can realize, “Okay, my needs are important, but so are my partners,” people are more likely to talk things through and they're more able to assert themselves in a way that's assertive but not controlling. They're more able to make compromised solutions. They're less dependent and needy again on their partner to meet their needs. So in other words, if I can meet some of my own needs for love or for support, then I'm not going to get pissed off if my partner isn't available the way I want them to be at the exact moment, right? So you have you have more resources, basically. And so the more resources you have for yourself, the more resources you therefore have to support your partner as well and the less needy independent you are on your partner to meet your needs. And so I think that's really probably primarily the way it works, is in terms of having the resources to meet your own needs.

[00:18:46] MB: That makes a lot of sense and it's such an important benefit of pursuing the path of self-compassion. It fills up your cup so that you're able to take care of yourself if and when you may not be able to or shouldn't be relying on others.

[00:19:03] KN: Right. Yeah, if they aren't available. And then they also show for people like a parents or healthcare workers or therapists, people who care for others that what it means is you have more resources to care for others without burning out, right? So parenting is exhausting. Being a therapist is exhausting. It’s exhausting being a teacher or a healthcare worker. Anytime we care for others, especially when others are struggling in some way, and if we're sensitive caregivers, that means we're sensitive to the pain of others. That's partly why we're a good parent or a good caregiver. But it can be really draining to constantly have to give and give and give. And also we're affected by the troubled mind state of those we care for. And so if we can give ourselves compassion, first of all, validating the difficulty of caring for others. Kind of, again, resourcing ourselves, filling our own cup, then we're much less likely to burn out, which is another really important way. It helps others.

[00:20:02] MB: There's a couple different avenues I want to explore from that, but let's start with briefly the concept of parenting and how do we apply this to being a good parent.

[00:20:13] KN: Right. Again, one way to apply this is by giving yourself compassion for the stress and difficulty of being a parent, right? I know parents think they're supposed to devote all their attention and energy on their child. But in fact, if you do that and you become drained and you become depleted and you become irritable by not focusing on your own needs at all, you actually aren't going to be able to be as good of a parent.

And so this is something I know from personal experience. So my child's autistic. And what I would find is if I wasn't focused enough on myself, and I'm not just talking self-care, like doing yoga or getting massages. I mean in those moments of difficulty, let's say he was throwing a huge tantrum. And of course I would try to help him as much as I could. But the more I was able to support myself, validate the fact that, “This is so difficult. I'm feeling overwhelmed.” I tell myself things like, “I'm here for you. It's going to be okay.” The more I could calm myself down – It helped my son in two ways. A, I had the resources to keep on being a good parent, but also he would actually respond to my calmer and more loving energy.

So in other words, if you have a child, you're sensitive to your child's emotions and your child is sensitive to your emotions. And so the more you interact with your child from a place of frustration and stress and overwhelm, your child's going to pick up on that. But the more you can interact with your child from a place of strength and feeling resource, feeling loving, feeling calm, your child is also going to pick up on that as well. So it really puts you in a better frame of mind, which helps your child actually directly in addition to you having more time to be there for them. So it's really a win-win situation.

[00:22:04] MB: It's almost like the idea of put on your emotional oxygen mask first before putting it on your child.

[00:22:12] KN: Yes, exactly. And thank you for clarifying your emotional oxygen mask, because people always show that cartoon when they talk about self-care. Like get the rest you need, eat well, exercise, get a massage. But for many stressed-out parents, “Hey, good luck. When are you going to have time to do that?” And, also, self-care, although I love self-care, self-care is great, but it actually doesn't help you when your child's having a tantrum in the grocery store. You can't say, “Hey, sorry. This is stressing me out. I’m going to go do some yoga. I’ll come back. See you later, kid.”

So self-compassion is an emotional oxygen mask. In other words we actually do a practice for parents and caregivers where you use the breath as a vehicle for self-compassion. So maybe you're in the presence of your child and they're just having a meltdown or some other really difficult situation is happening. You actually imagine that with each in-breath you're giving yourself compassion , that you're validating this is really hard, it's very stressful. I feel overwhelmed. You kind of breathe in care for yourself. But then of course you also have to breathe out. So you breathe out compassion for your child. I hope they're well. What can I do to help them? So it's really about this in and out flow. You don't want to just breathe in, give compassion to yourself. If you don't breathe out, you'll die. But if you just breathe out and don't breathe in, you'll die as well. We have to breathe in and out, and the same with compassion. We need to give compassion to ourselves and others and as much as possible try to balance the needs and concerns of ourselves and those we love.

[00:23:44] MB: I want to explore a couple other pieces of this, but before we do, you touched on self-care really briefly. I'd love to get your insights in into the importance of integrating self-care into your life and how it ties into self-compassion.

[00:23:57] KN: Yeah. So self-compassion you might say is a little broader than self-care. So people who are more self-compassionate, they engage in more self-care behaviors. Like, for instance, they're more likely to get enough sleep, to eat well, to exercise, practice safe sex, go to the doctor. All those things we need to do in our lives to take care of ourselves. And so, again, self-care is really critical for us to be healthy and well. But depending on your situation, you may not have enough time to engage in the self-care you would like to engage in, or maybe finances are getting in the way. Maybe you have to work two jobs to put food on the table for your kids, right?

So self-compassion, although it includes self-care, it's broader in that it's really more just the desire to help ourselves however we can even if that's just through emotional support. And emotional support is really huge. So maybe you're doing yoga and you're getting massages, but you're beating yourself up all the time for not doing enough. Maybe you beat yourself up for not doing enough self-care. I've seen people do that. It's no joke, right? And that's actually not going to help you very much. So the idea is we need to be warm, supportive, encouraging and really there for ourselves when times are difficult in order for us to be at our best.

[00:25:19] MB: It's probably another manifestation of the same self-criticism, but I often feel guilty when I'm doing some kind of self-care routine that I could be being more productive or working harder instead of getting a massage or something like that.

[00:25:31] KN: Right. Right. And so self-compassion, there's a lot of wisdom in self-compassion, right? So actually there's research that shows that people who have higher levels of self-compassion also have higher levels of wisdom. What wisdom means is you have got to use your discrimination to decide, “Well, what's best in the moment?” So if you were to get massages all the time and you couldn't afford it and it was cutting into your work productivity, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea, right? But on the other hand, if you were really stressed out and you didn't get a massage and your shoulders are tense and the quality of your work is suffering as a result, that it'd be more wise to get a massage, right? So it's really approaching every situation with the goal of what's most healthy in the moment, right?

Sometimes being productive is most healthy. There may be times when if I'm like working on a deadline, I might just buckle down for three days and my body is exhausted. But it was actually the right thing to do in the moment. And other times the right thing to do is to take breaks and take some time off and rest. So there's really no set answers in terms of what to do with self-compassion. It's just the goal of what's going to help me the most is always at the forefront of self-compassion.

[00:26:51] MB: Yeah, that's such a good insight. And as with almost everything in life, it's very context-dependent.

[00:26:57] KN: Very context-dependent, right. Sometimes you need to go left. Sometimes you need to go right. It just depends.

[00:27:04] MB: That's a really good way of framing it. I've never heard that analogy, but I love. It makes that very clean.

[00:27:09] KN: We like to say in the Mindful Self-Compassion Program, which is the training program we developed for self-compassion, that the quintessential self-compassion question is, “What do I need right now?” And oftentimes people from the outside don't know what you need. But think about how rarely we stop. Even just ask ourselves, “What do I need right now?” It's like most of the time we're on autopilot. We're just jumping through the hoops, going through our meetings, doing all the things we're expected to do, and we don't even say, “Hey, what do I really need? What would be best and most healthy for me right now?” And so asking that question in and of itself is a self-compassionate act.

[00:27:51] MB: I love that question, and that's definitely going to be a journal question for myself in the near future. and one that I'll probably revisit many times.

[00:28:00] KN: Yes, and the answer will change too as it should.

[00:28:03] MB: Oh, of course. Sometimes I need to go left. Sometimes I need to go right.

[00:28:06] KN: Exactly. Sometimes you need to go straight. Sometimes you need to go backward.

[00:28:12] MB: That’s true. Such a good insight though. I think that's a tremendous question. I want to come back to something we touched on briefly a minute ago, but you talked about the importance of self-compassion for caregivers. And know we're obviously living in a time right now where there's so much stress, so much anxiety, the pandemic, everything that's been going on. How do you think about applying some of the lessons of self-compassion to today's world?

[00:28:46] KN: Well, there's a lot of suffering in today's world to not only the pandemic, but systemic racism, and trench poverty, global warming, political polarization. I mean there're a lot of difficulty and stress and suffering out there in the world. And so really I think we need self-compassion more than ever. We also need more compassion for others as well. And again, the two work hand-in-hand. They support each other. But really if you think about what the reminder bell for self-compassion is, it actually is suffering. In other words whenever we notice that we're stressed or that we're sad or that we're anxious or frustrated or carrying our hair out because of the crazy world we live in, that's actually a reminder to practice self-compassion, “Oh, okay. I see. I'm really having a hard time right now.”

And in fact there are three components to self-compassion and it's almost like a little recipe for what you need in the moment. The first component of self-compassion is actually mindfulness. That's being aware that we're struggling. That's that mindfulness spell I just spoke about. So whenever we notice we catch ourselves stressed or tensed or really feeling down about ourselves, and that's mindfulness of suffering, and that's actually the first step towards being self-compassionate. And then of course we need to respond with kindness, which is kind of what we've been talking about, treating yourself like a good friend. But really important, there's a third component of self-compassion that’s relevant to your question. And that's framing our own experience in light of the shared human experience. In other words self-compassion is actually not a self-focused emotion. It's an other-focused emotion. So what's the difference between compassion and pity? If I pity you, I'm looking down on you, I feel separate from you. You aren't going to like it if I pity you. But if I have compassion for you, it's like, “Hey, I've been there. I understand.”

So compassion from the Latin means passion is to suffer, com means with. It's a connected way of being with our own suffering and those of others. So when we suffer and when we treat ourselves with compassion as opposed to self-pity, what we're saying is, “Hey, life is difficult for everyone. Everyone's imperfect. Everyone's struggling, different amounts and different forms of struggling.” But the fact that we suffer is part of the human condition.

And so when we look at global warming, or racism, or poverty, or political polarization, or the pandemic, you name it. With self-compassion, because we're framing whatever our own situation is in light of the shared human experience, we automatically feel more connected to others. So instead of, “Poor me.” It's like, “Okay, I see. We're all in this together.” And that also means that the solutions need to not only take ourselves into account, but to take the experience of others into account because they impact me just as I impact them.

So having a connected kind and kind of mindful stance towards suffering is what makes self-compassion such a strong and stable way to be with all that world's problems today.

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[00:34:01] MB: I think one of the most important ideas and concepts from your work that really resonated with me is this notion that suffering is this thing that unites all of us. Life is hard. It's very difficult. We all suffer. And it's a core component of the human condition and understanding that really helps create a tremendous amount of perspective.

[00:34:25] KN: Right, it does. And it's funny because often – It's not funny. It's actually sad. Often when we fail or we make a mistake or we get a bad news from the doctor, we feel like something has gone wrong. Like this isn't supposed to be happening. It's illogical, but somehow we irrationally assume that what's supposed to be happening is perfection. What's normal is everything's going perfectly. And if it doesn't go perfectly or if I do something that's imperfect, I make a mistake or I fail, something has gone wrong. And it's like we feel abnormal in that experience. We feel cut off from our fellow human beings, when in fact that is the way life is supposed to be. That's what it means to be human. Being human does not mean being perfect. Being human almost by definition means struggling, suffering, making mistakes, having challenges.

And so if we can remember that simple fact, then we don't have to feel so alone. And that's so important for our well-being, because as human beings it's so terrifying to feel like we're all alone. In evolutionary biology they say a lone monkey is a dead monkey, right? We're programmed through evolution to want to feel connected to others for our very sense of safety. And some of this is just our own perspective. Do we fall into the illusion that there's something wrong with us for failing? Or there's something abnormal about having a real difficult situation in our life? Or can we remember, “Oh yeah, this is the plan I signed up for as a human being. This actually connects me to other people as opposed to separating me from other people.” And that little shift in mindset, you don't really have to do anything. You don't have to do some practice. You just have to remember the truth of our connection. And it makes a radical difference.

[00:36:17] MB: It's so critical to understand and internalize that idea. And I see so many people, young people, people in this Instagram generation, all the social media out there that people don't understand that failure, falling down, suffering, it's part of the experience. And in many ways they're afraid to take the first step or to put themselves out there because they're afraid of failure. And if you never get past that point, then you're missing out on so much richness in life.

[00:36:50] KN: Exactly. One of my favorite quotes from a meditation teacher I once heard was the goal of practice is simply to be a compassionate mess. Think about that. If your goal was just to be a compassionate mess. In other words you can still be a mess. You can still get things wrong. You can still struggle. You still have difficulty. But if you're compassionate toward the experience, you've achieved your goal right, and you can actually function quite well as the compassionate mess. You feel connected. You can feel happy from your own love and support. It actually allows you to be a more functional mess than you would be otherwise. And it really shifts your goals and your values in life when compassion actually becomes one of your guideposts toward living a good life, makes a huge difference.

[00:37:41] MB: Where do people go wrong with trying to bring self-compassion into their lives?

[00:37:49] KN: So there's a few ways people can go wrong. Sometimes people think they're being self-compassionate, but maybe they are just being self-indulgent, right? So maybe you don't succeed at something. Let’s take an example. Let's say you're trying to eat healthier and adopt a better exercise routine and you just blow it off for two weeks. So self-compassion, if you really care about your health, you do two things. One, it's okay to fail. Everyone fails. But if you just stop there, you actually aren't being self-compassionate, because it's not good for you to be eating poorly and not exercising, because you're actually causing yourself more suffering.

So with self-compassion, I call it the yin and the yang of self-compassion. There's the self-accepting side of self-compassion, but there's also the action side of self-compassion. So to be fully self-compassionate, we not only need to be accepting of our flaws and accepting when we fall down. We also need to take action for our health and well-being, otherwise we aren't being self-compassionate, right? And so I think sometimes people get confused. They think self-compassion is just all the yin, the self-acceptance. They don't realize the kind of more fierce action side of self-compassion, which is equally important toward well-being. So that's one place people go wrong.

Other ways people go wrong is they actually try to use self-compassion to make the pain go away, right? And so what you'll find is maybe you're having a really hard time. Maybe you had a bad day at work. And if you're supportive, maybe put your hand on your shoulder and kind of say some supportive words to yourself. You'll find that the pain tends to lessen. So what we know is that self-compassion does lessen pain because, again, when we're warmer, more supportive, it doesn't hurt as badly.

But if we start to use self-compassion as a manipulation strategy to make the pain go away, actually it stops working, right? And you might say this is too much yang without enough yin. If we're just trying to change things, “Okay, I’m not going to suffer. I’m not going to feel pain. Everything's going right.” And then we don't accept the fact that, “Well, you know, human life is about sometimes we do feel pain. Sometimes we do have challenges. Sometimes we do get it wrong.” Then you’re too much on the other side of things and you aren't accepting enough about our human limitations. I might say it all boils down to is yin and young balanced the way in Chinese philosophy it says it needs to be or is it just one side or the other? And I think that's where a lot of people go wrong.

[00:40:30] MB: Tell me more about the concept of making your self-compassionate, more fierce and action-oriented.

[00:40:39] KN: Ah! Okay. Yeah. So actually my new book coming out in June is called Fierce Self-Compassion. So this is something I’m very passionate about precisely because I think some people, they don't realize that there's this very powerful action-oriented side of self-compassion. For instance, self-compassion is sometimes like maybe a mother who's rocking and holding or crying child. We can kind of be that with ourselves. If we're upset, we can hold ourselves, accept ourselves, give ourselves warmth and love and support and we start to calm down.

But self-compassion is also like mama bear, fierce mama bear. In other words, sometimes we need to protect ourselves. We need to draw boundaries. We need to say no. Sometimes we need to say no to others but yes to ourselves, right? So, “Yes, I’m going to do this thing that's so important to me because it really matters to my happiness.” And also sometimes we need to motivate change. Or think of a firefighter who risks their life to save people from a burning building. That's an ultimate act of compassion.

And so sometimes to have self-compassion, we need to be brave, we need to do things, that are risky that are scary in order to help ourselves in the long run. And so really it's just a matter of realizing there are these two sides of self-compassion. And again, when we ask ourselves what do I need in the moment. Sometimes I need to be more accepting. Sometimes I need to cut myself some slack. Give myself a break. Sometimes I need to be brave. Sometimes I need to get off my ass and do something in order to help myself or try to call-up some energy to tackle some big challenge. Again sometimes I just need to maybe change my relationship or change my job. So really realizing the different choices we have for self-compassion. We don't want to get locked into thinking it just looks one way. We really just need to ask ourselves sincerely, “What do I need in the moment?” And it's going to look very different depending on the context.

[00:42:39] MB: Comes back to it's all about the context. Ask yourself what do you need right now.

[00:42:43] KN: That's right. And ask it sincerely. And that's the thing, authentically. What do I authentically need right now? Because sometimes we're just basing our actions based on what society tells us we need. Oh! I see. I need to have a lot of likes on Facebook. I need to earn this amount of money. I need to have this level of success. Maybe that's actually not what you need to be happy. Actually pausing and asking, “What do I personally?” which is different than any other human being. My needs are unique. What do I really need authentically to be happy and well? And just even asking the questions sincerely will set you on a path to finding the answer.

[00:43:26] MB: What does the work look like? And I’m sure it varies a lot. But when you're starting to really ask yourself that question, do you think about journaling? Do you meditate on it? How do you approach really doing some of the internal work to figure out what's important and also to build the muscle of self-compassion?

[00:43:46] KN: Yeah. Right. And it is a muscle. So the research shows the more you practice it, the strong stronger you get. The better you are at it, the more consistent it is. And so really the past 10 years of my career have been devoted to answering just that question. What practices can people do to build their self-compassion muscles?

And so I've done this in conjunction with my close colleague, Chris Grimmer. We've developed something called the Mindful Self-Compassion Program that has about I think 37 different types of practices in it that are empirically proven to increase self-compassion. And so, again, there's a lot of choice. And no one approach is better than the other. So meditation of course is a really powerful way to build our self-compassion skills. There's a lot of research on meditation that shows if you take some time out of your day, typically they recommend at least 20 minutes, you kind of put everything else aside and you close your eyes and you go inward and you consciously cultivate a sense of peace and calm. You kind of don't let your thoughts completely control your experience and you also intentionally bring in warmth and kindness to your meditation. That's a very powerful way to learn the skill, because it actually changes your neural pathways and you're building new brain habits.

But what we found in our research that’s equally powerful to meditation was just doing things throughout your daily life. So for instance giving yourself some supportive touch when you need it. If you're feeling upset or frightened, you can put your hand on your heart or your stomach or your shoulder or any sort of touch that feels I’m supportive and caring towards you. Touch is a really powerful way to let your body know that you're there and that you support yourself and you care. It actually changes your physiology. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system and deactivates the sympathetic nervous system. So that's one really easy way to do it.

Also another way to do is just bring in the three components of self-compassion. We have a practice called the self-compassion break where you bring in mindfulness. You remember, “Hey, this is hard right now. I’m just remembering, this is really hard right now.” You remind yourself of common humanity, “Well, struggle's part of life. I’m not alone. This is normal.” And then three, you just say some words of kindness to yourself like you would say to a good friend. And doing that periodically throughout the day is a very easy and highly effective way to do it.

You can also write yourself compassionate letters. There's one study that found the people who wrote a self-compassionate letter once a day for seven days, the depression decreased for three months and their happiness increased for six months. So there's a lot of different ways you can practice self-compassion. And we've got a workbook out and you can also do online training. So it's really, really accessible these days much more than it was five years ago.

[00:46:41] MB: Tell me about this idea or a little bit more about the notion of using self-touch to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

[00:46:49] KN: Right. Okay. So what we know is that when you criticize yourself, when you're not being self-compassionate, what you're doing is you're actually activating the body's threat defense system, which is linked to the sympathetic nervous system. In other words, you feel frightened or you feel there's a threat, either a threat to your self-concept, right? You failed or something went wrong or you feel threatened because you think you aren't going to reach a goal or maybe just there is some threat in your life. So you activate cortisol, release adrenaline and you get ready for fight, flight or freeze.

But with self-criticism, you actually turn that in on yourself and you beat yourself up thinking that somehow that's going to make you safe because you'll change your behavior, for instance, right? Or you beat yourself up to beat others to the punch so that you don't have to worry about them attacking you. The elevated cortisol and sympathetic activation linked to self-criticism is a major contributor to heart disease, for instance, and also to depression because the body shuts down after being activated so much.

So what we know is self-compassion is you're activating our other safety system, which is instead of the threat defense system, it's the ten and befriend system, the caregiving system. So as mammals, we can also feel safe by feeling connected to others, warm bodies, people who care about us, family units, attachment to people who care. That also helps us feel safe. And when we activate the care system, we're tapping into the parasympathetic nervous system, which decreases cortisol and things like inflammation and it increases things like heart rate variability, which actually means that, literally, when we're more relaxed and more flexible we can respond more flexibly to any sort of perceived threat.

And so what we know from the research is that self-compassion deactivates the sympathetic nervous system. Reduces cortisol, for instance, and activates the parasympathetic system and increases heart rate variability. Also releases things like oxytocin and opiates, those kind of feel good hormones. And that's one of the reasons that we know that self-compassion is not only good for your mental health, but your physical health, because your physiology is working more efficiently. And so it's linked to less physical symptoms, better immune function, etc. So it's really pretty powerful stuff we're talking about here.

[00:49:13] MB: So for somebody who's listening to this conversation and wants to start with one action item or one way to begin implementing self-compassion into their lives, what would be one action step that you would give them?

[00:49:26] KN: So I would actually say that a really good place to start, if you just Google self-compassion, you'll find my website. And I kind of designed it as a free starting – Free hub starting place for people to figure out if they want to take this approach. You can take the self-compassion scale to find out if you're low in self-compassion. There are meditations. There are videos. There are lots of exercises on there. Again, totally for free that you can start there is a really good way to do it.

I could say one practice or another, but because people are so different, I would suggest just going to that website checking out the offerings and just trying a few out and seeing what works for you. Some people, meditation is their way. Some people, physical embodiment is their way. And other people, writing is their way. And other people things like just saying little mantras throughout the day is their way. So that's a really easy place to start. Just Google self-compassion, you'll find me. My website's been around for so long. I have I think all the Google algorithms point to me.

[00:50:33] MB: And tell me just really briefly, you touched on this concept of physical embodiment.

[00:50:37] KN: Yes.

[00:50:38] MB: Is that distinct from the idea of using touch to activate the parasympathetic and what is it?

[00:50:45] KN: They're related, but it is a little bit distinct. So touch is just touch, right? So that's just actually using your physical hand to support yourself. But there's also a way you can embody self-compassion. And what we talk about with embodiment is one of the things we're doing when we say we're embodies is instead of just operating from our brains, our thought systems, we actually feel our own physical presence. So you become aware of your body. You become aware of your body posture. You become aware of your stance. You become aware how are you holding your body. Is it stress? Is it relaxed? Is it open? And actually you're perceiving not just through the lens of thought, but you're using all your five senses. And this is also related to mindfulness, right? When we talk about being embodied with mindfulness, which means we're aware through all our sense stores as opposed to just through thought. And then when you do that and then plus that your awareness is a loving awareness, a caring awareness, and you can actually feel in your body. It seems really far out. But just think about when you're with your child, right? When you're with your child, typically we not only think we love our child. We also embody that for our child. It's communicated in the way we hold our body and the way we touch our child. The way we're present with our child. And believe it or not, we can actually do the same thing with ourselves. But some of it's just a matter of not thinking so much or at least not only thinking, but also feeling. And of course all our emotions are also experienced as bodily sensations. And then so if you want to be more emotionally in touch, feeling our emotions in our body as opposed to just thinking about them also makes a big difference.

[00:52:37] MB: Where can people go to find you, find your work and everything that you've created online?

[00:52:43] KN: Yeah. Again, if you Google self-compassion, you'll find me. My website is selfcompassion.org. I also have several books out. So if you go on Amazon and you type in my name or if you just type in self-compassion, you'll also find me. Again, the mindful self-compassion workbook will you through the entire eight-week self-compassion program in workbook format, and it's selling really well. It's very accessible. You can also go to the Center For MSC website, centerformsc.org. And that's a place you can get online training, for instance. Maybe you want to take one of these self-compassion programs online with a live teacher. You can do that at Center For MSC. There're a lot of options for people.

[00:53:30] MB: Well, Kristin, thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing all of this wisdom. So many great insights and practices that we can begin to implement in our lives and be more self-compassionate.

[00:53:41] KN: Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun. I love people who love the science, because I love the science too.

[00:53:47] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My email is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener email.

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