0:15

Pushkin. Hello,

0:22

Happiness Lab listeners, and welcome to twenty

0:24

twenty one. If you're like me,

0:26

you're probably hoping that the next twelve months

0:28

will be a lot better than the year we just had.

0:32

You may even be considering changes you can make

0:34

in your own life, and of course you're

0:36

not alone. Lots of people will be adopting

0:38

New Year's resolutions this January to

0:40

alter the way they look, think, and behave

0:44

now. Don't get me wrong, I think making changes

0:46

in our lives, especially at fresh start moments

0:48

like the New Year, is a great idea.

0:50

The problem is, if we're not careful, our

0:53

lying minds may wind up leading us off in the

0:55

wrong direction, telling us to do things

0:57

that will make us less happy than we think. We're

0:59

picking strategies that will make us lose morale

1:02

and give up before we even get started. The

1:07

big temptation at this time of year is to

1:09

be really hard on yourself, to

1:11

ruthlessly identify all the faults of your

1:14

past, to set the bar super high

1:16

for what you want to achieve, and to set

1:18

out on some surprisingly punishing regimes

1:20

in order to reach your goals. I

1:22

know this temptation well. I fall for all

1:24

the time, but the science just doesn't

1:26

back it up. Strict diets,

1:29

brutal exercise plans, and going cold

1:31

turkey on the personal habits you want to shed. These

1:33

strategies just don't work. But

1:36

there is good news because the

1:38

psychological research points to a more

1:40

effective path. Over the next four

1:42

episodes of this special season, I'll

1:45

explain why the secret to fulfilling all your

1:47

New Year's goals is simply to be nicer

1:50

to ourselves. If

1:52

you're ready to learn more and kick those bad habits

1:54

through kindness, then join me. Doctor

1:57

Laurie Santos as the Happiness Lab presents

1:59

our mini season on smartest strategies

2:02

for achieving your New Year's goals.

2:09

If I constantly told you that you are lazy,

2:11

stupid, and unfit, that you weren't

2:13

really good at your job, and that your house was a terrible

2:15

mess, you'd probably switch off this

2:18

podcast. But when the new year comes

2:20

around, many of us create even worse mentalists

2:23

cataloging how much we suck. It's

2:25

as though our inner monologus get taken over

2:27

by some cruel drill sergeant who

2:31

yells at us about our faults and past mistakes.

2:34

We call ourselves names and start hurling

2:36

these awful insults. You're dumb,

2:38

you're greedy, you're weak.

2:43

We all know this bootcamp brutality doesn't

2:45

feel good, but we think that it's what

2:47

we need to do in order to break our bad

2:49

habits and get motivated. But

2:51

we're wrong. All this self flagellation

2:54

is just self defeating. That's the big

2:56

message that comes from the lovely work of today's

2:58

guest author and psychologist

3:00

Kristin Neff Okay, is that good? Yep,

3:03

I can hear you fine, and then the sound quality sounds

3:05

great. So wait, that's not working. Let's see.

3:08

Kristen, who is also an associate professor

3:10

at the University of Texas at Austin, has

3:12

identified a more effective way for people

3:14

to meet their goals and one that makes us

3:17

happier in the process. But

3:19

like a lot of us, she still had to overcome

3:21

the hostril sergeant inside her head. My

3:24

life was a mess. I had just gotten through

3:26

a divorce, and it was a very messy divorce,

3:28

and I was feeling a lot of shame because

3:31

of the way that the marriage ended. I was really

3:33

beating myself up, hoping that it would make

3:35

me a better person, that I would never make

3:37

the same types of mistakes again. Talk

3:39

about what that was doing to you. You mentioned

3:42

this sort of the shame that you were going through. Kind

3:44

of what it can do from a personal sense, right,

3:46

So self criticism and

3:49

shame and know they're slightly different,

3:51

but they're very related. So self criticism

3:53

is when we actively haranging ourselves

3:55

or a cruel things were unkind

3:58

to ourselves, and shame is kind of the

4:00

end result of self criticism. Shame

4:02

is a very hollowed out feeling where

4:05

we identify as being a bad person,

4:07

and so criticism can be aimed

4:09

at our behavior or ourselves. Criticism

4:13

of our behavior isn't actually necessarily

4:15

a bad thing. So guilt, they

4:17

find in psychological research, isn't necessarily

4:20

a bad thing. If you feel guilty about something you've

4:22

done, if you harm someone, being critical

4:24

of what you did, it's actually healthy. Right.

4:26

We don't want to pretend that everything we do is okay,

4:28

because often it's not and it needs to change.

4:31

But criticism aimed at ourselves.

4:34

So believe that just because I made a mistake,

4:36

you know, I am a mistake, I am

4:38

bad. That's really not healthy at

4:40

all because, first of all, it shuts down our

4:42

awareness. When we feel shame,

4:44

we kind of feel hollow. Sometimes we

4:46

even dissociate from our bodies. We cut

4:49

ourselves off from other people. It makes

4:51

it a lot harder to apologize to

4:53

others because we feel so full of shame. It

4:55

makes it much more difficult to see the truth

4:57

about what we've done because you know, we're

4:59

just blinded by our shame. We can't even take

5:01

it in. And it also takes away

5:04

our energy and motivation to try

5:06

to do better next time. It's

5:08

like pulling the rug from underneath you when

5:10

you feel shame. It's not a motivating mindset.

5:12

It's actually debilitating mindset. What's

5:14

so shocking about that, though, is that that kind

5:17

of self criticism isn't uncommon,

5:19

right, especially at this time of the year, in the New Year.

5:21

I feel like there's so many people who think

5:23

that motivating themselves to gain positive

5:26

habits in the new year requires

5:28

being this awful self critical drill sergeant.

5:30

It almost like institute's shame rather than

5:32

avoids it, right, right, And I think

5:34

there are some reasons for this. I actually

5:36

think some of it is physiological. So

5:39

when we feel threatened and every

5:42

time we make a mistake or we fail at something,

5:44

we actually feel threatened, and

5:46

so when we feel threatened, we going to fight

5:48

flight or freeze response. When

5:51

the problem is ourselves and then we've done some

5:53

mistake we've made, we fight ourselves. We attack

5:55

ourselves. You know, we don't think logically

5:57

about what went wrong, what happened. We just

5:59

think danger, I'm the danger, I'm a problem,

6:02

and we attack ourselves and somehow we think that's

6:04

going to keep ourselves safe. We're going to

6:06

beat ourselves up so that we won't

6:08

make mistakes anymore. We'll be able to control

6:11

ourselves in our behavior through

6:13

this harshness. And actually the flea

6:15

response that goes along with shame, that feeling

6:17

and wanting to isolate yourself from all

6:19

of the people, that's actually what happens

6:21

with shame. It's a safety behavior. When

6:24

we hang our heads in shame, we're actually feeling

6:26

safe because we're protecting ourselves from the

6:28

perceived judgments of the group. And

6:30

the freeze response is also related

6:32

to this. When we get stuck and we

6:34

just ruminate and all we can think about is I'm so

6:37

bad, I'm so bad, and we kind of feel stuck and we

6:39

can't do anything about it. That's

6:41

the freeze response. It's part of us thinking

6:43

that, well, maybe if I just play dead

6:45

to danger will go away. And so

6:48

it's actually a natural response

6:50

to threat. And by the way, I don't

6:52

feel as threatened when my best friend

6:54

makes a mistake, which so I'm

6:56

actually more able to be kind and carrying

6:58

and supportive to my best friend than

7:01

I am to myself. And so it's a natural

7:03

behavior. It makes sense. The problem

7:05

is is actually totally counterproductive.

7:08

It doesn't make keys safe at all.

7:10

It actually makes you less safe because

7:12

it inhibits your ability to make productive

7:14

change. So on the Happiness Live, we talk a

7:16

lot about the fact that, you know, our mind

7:18

lies to us. You know, we have these strong intuitions

7:20

about how we can build better habits, and those intuitions

7:23

tend to be wrong, and self criticisms

7:25

needs to be a really strong one. You know,

7:27

people don't want to hate themselves or beat

7:29

themselves up. They just think that that's the only

7:31

way to motivate themselves. And so talk

7:34

about the research showing why this is so wrong. Right,

7:36

just before I get into the research, just

7:39

a really useful thought experiment

7:41

you can do is think about if your child

7:43

came to you who've made a mistake. Maybe

7:45

they got a really poor grade on the test.

7:48

And imagine the effect on your child if

7:50

you shame them, if you said I

7:52

hate you, I don't love you anymore.

7:55

You're horrible. You do better

7:57

next time or else. You know, what we say

7:59

to our children is, hey, I love you regardless.

8:02

It's okay everyone fails, But how

8:04

can I help you? How can

8:06

I help you to get better grades? Excidem or how can

8:08

I help you to learn from this? And we do

8:10

that because we love our children, and so

8:13

we naturally use war constructive

8:15

approaches, but it also has to be acknowledged

8:17

not always right. So some parents

8:20

are actually not only self critical, but they're

8:22

also very critical of their children. They

8:24

tell them, you know, just buck up, stop complaining.

8:27

Maybe our parents weren't all us supportive,

8:29

maybe they didn't always meet our needs right,

8:32

and maybe we've got some wounds because of that.

8:35

But as adults, we have the ability

8:37

to be good parents to ourselves. We

8:40

can meet our own needs, we can support

8:42

ourselves, we can be warm and accepting

8:44

and encouraging to ourselves,

8:46

even if our parents didn't happen

8:48

to model that for us. And the research

8:50

absolutely supports us right,

8:53

and the research has in a few different ways. One

8:55

is by just seeing people who naturally have higher

8:57

levels of self compassion you know is measured

8:59

through a self compassion scale, or

9:01

if you help people after a failure, just

9:04

them relate to themselves more compassionately

9:07

about that failure. What we know

9:09

is, first of all, people are much more

9:11

motivated to try again. They try

9:13

harder, they persist longer. They're

9:16

more likely to pick themselves up after a failure

9:19

again and try again. They have more grit,

9:21

they have more determination. So, just

9:23

to give you an example, there was a great study and

9:26

they came out of UC Berkeley. The

9:28

study was they gave all the Berkeley students an

9:30

incredibly hard vocabulary

9:32

test from the SAT that everyone failed,

9:34

right, and so they had three groups

9:36

after the failure. One group they

9:38

told the students to be self compassionate about

9:41

it, you know, try not to beat yourself up. It happens

9:43

to everyone, you know, it's okay. Another

9:45

group they try boosting their self esteem. Don't

9:48

worry about it. You got into Berkeley, you must be smart.

9:51

And the third group they told nothing, which

9:53

meant that the students were probably beating themselves up

9:55

because that's what most of us do. And what

9:57

they found is the group that we're told to be

9:59

self compassionate about the failure when

10:02

given the chance kind of unobserved to

10:04

see how long would they study for the next

10:06

exam so they can actually improve the great on the

10:08

tab, the people who are told to be self

10:11

compassionate studied longer

10:13

and tried harder to succeed on the next

10:15

exam than the people who are told nothing

10:18

or who their self esteem was boosted, just

10:20

as the type of research we do to show

10:22

that actually this carrying supportive

10:25

stance toward ourselves actually

10:27

gives us the emotional resources we need

10:29

as an alternative to self esteem.

10:32

And this is really critical because I think sometimes

10:34

it's really easy if you don't know the literature,

10:36

to confuse self compassion and self esteem.

10:38

So talk about how these two concepts are different

10:40

and why self esteem might not measure

10:42

up to this approach of self compassion. Yeah, so

10:45

self esteem is basically a positive

10:47

judgment of self worth. I am a good person,

10:49

you know, I'm a success, I'm beautiful,

10:51

whatever, you know, whatever, your positive judgment is

10:54

that you think positively of yourself. And

10:56

we know for mental health is important of high

10:59

self esteem is supposed to hating yourself, because

11:01

if you hate yourself, you're going to be depressed and anxious.

11:03

You might even think about suicide if it's really

11:05

bad. Because of that, a lot of people

11:07

have tried to boost the self esteem

11:10

of children, for instance, in school,

11:12

thinking it's going to give them better mental health,

11:14

you know. And it's not a problem to have high self esteem.

11:16

The problem is how do you get it. So

11:19

there's a lot of unhealthy ways to get

11:21

high self esteem, right, So, for instance,

11:23

you have to feel special and above average. You've

11:25

got to feel better than other people, which

11:27

leads to constant social comparison that

11:30

leads to things like bullying others. We know

11:32

that's why little kids start to bully others because

11:34

they're trying to boost their self esteem. They're trying to feel

11:36

good about themselves in comparison to others.

11:39

But the biggest problem with self esteem is

11:41

that it's contingent is contingent on

11:44

success. So we have self

11:46

esteem when other people like us,

11:49

or when we feel that we're attractive, or

11:51

when we succeed, whether it's at school or business,

11:54

you know, athletics, whatever is important to you. Then

11:56

we have high self esteem. But what happens

11:58

when we fail. When we fail,

12:01

that self esteem deserts us. It's contingent

12:03

on success as opposed to failure. And

12:06

that's a problem because as human beings

12:08

were constant really going to fail, right,

12:10

And so self compassion is the perfect

12:13

alternative because self compassion

12:16

isn't dependent on success or failure.

12:19

Self compassion is simply a process

12:21

of being kind, supportive and

12:23

warm to yourself and also remembering

12:26

that failure is part of the shared human condition.

12:28

It's actually not self focused at all. It's not

12:30

it's not like self pity, like woe is me?

12:32

Self compassion is to saying, hey, part of

12:34

being human is being imperfect. We're

12:37

all in the same boat. Can I be kind

12:39

and warm and supportive to myself in the midst

12:41

of my feelings of failure,

12:43

in the midst of mine happiness or my struggle.

12:46

So self compassion kicks in precisely

12:49

when self esteem deserves us, and that is

12:51

when we fail or make a mistake. And you know, it's

12:54

it's not like positive thinking. You aren't

12:56

telling yourself lies, you aren't saying you know,

12:58

I'm great. It's actually just

13:00

the opposite. What it is is opening

13:03

to the truth of your imperfection at saying

13:05

yes I am imperfect. Yes

13:07

I'm a human being who is lot I

13:10

can accept that. We talked about the sort

13:12

of the bad divorce part of the story and things

13:14

talk about how you snapped out of that form of self

13:16

criticism, what you learned right, Well, so I learned

13:18

about it when practicing mindfulness meditation

13:21

to help me deal with my

13:23

stress. But much to my

13:25

surprise of woman leading the class, talked

13:28

a lot about self compassion, about the

13:30

difference it can make when you're kind

13:32

and warm and supportive to yourself, especially

13:34

when you're going through a hard time, which

13:37

I was. And what I found was when

13:39

I gave myself warmth and

13:41

support for what had

13:43

happened, I was more able to kind

13:45

of take responsibility for how things

13:47

went wrong. I was more able

13:50

to apologize to my ex husband,

13:53

but I was really more able to commit

13:56

to doing things a better way. And

13:59

what I found over and over again, whenever

14:01

I make mistakes, the more I'm able to

14:03

respond to my mistakes with compassion,

14:06

actually, the more able I am to

14:08

make changes. It's kind of the interplay

14:11

of acceptance and change. Carl Rogers

14:13

actually said the curious paradox is

14:16

that when I accept myself, then I can change,

14:18

and that's what self compassion does.

14:21

It gives us the warmth to accept

14:23

the fact that we're imperfect, but it also

14:25

gives us a feeling of care to

14:27

want to do better next time. I

14:30

hope this conversation has helped you notice how

14:32

harsh and self critical your mental drill

14:34

Sergeant can be. But the good

14:36

news is that we don't need a nasty inner voice

14:39

to make positive changes in our lives. This

14:41

is a message that can be hard to accept at first,

14:44

but after the break, Kristen will share

14:46

all the research that backs us up. She'll

14:48

explain what self compassion actually consists

14:51

of and how you can bring it to bear in your everyday

14:53

life to more effectively reach your goals.

14:56

The Happiness Lab will return in a moment. Most

15:07

of us dream of a world which our friends, colleagues,

15:10

and even total strangers consistently

15:12

treat us with kindness, understanding, and compassion.

15:15

It is kind of puzzling, then, that so many

15:18

of us have such a hard time treating ourselves

15:20

with the same kind of respect. True

15:23

self compassion seems amazingly rare.

15:25

Before Kristin f began her research back

15:28

in two thousand and six. It was a really poorly

15:30

understood virtue. So what even is

15:32

self compassion? Well,

15:34

scientists define compassion is

15:36

the desire to alleviate suffering, and

15:39

so self compassion is the desire

15:41

to alleviate our own suffering. And

15:43

there are three parts to it. So part is being

15:45

kind, warm, and supportive, and that's

15:47

more the emotional tenor of self compassion,

15:50

treating ourselves like we had treat a good friend.

15:53

There's alf with two other elements, so that are really

15:55

important. What is actually mindfulness

15:58

and not Everyone defines self compassion

16:01

or compassion for others as necessarily

16:03

having to include mindfulness, but I think it has

16:05

to because without being mindful of

16:07

suffering, without being a to turn

16:09

toward and be with pain, to actually

16:12

face our mistakes or actually recognize

16:15

how hard it is for us a moment,

16:17

we actually can't be self compassionate,

16:19

right, And so if we just try to avoid our pain

16:21

and you know, like stiff aprill lifts shove it down,

16:24

I'm not going to acknowledge it, we can't be self compassionate.

16:26

Alternatively, if we're lost in

16:29

our drama, like, oh this is so

16:31

terrible it's the worst thing that ever happened. I'm such a

16:33

terrible person. Like, if we're fused

16:35

with our pain, we have no space

16:38

that mindfulness gives us. We have no perspective.

16:40

If we have no perspective, then

16:42

we can't step outside of ourselves to say,

16:45

Wow, I'm having a really hard time. I need some warms

16:47

in support right now. And you mean mindfulness

16:49

in a particular way. Right, You mean accepting

16:51

you're suffering without trying to change it, non

16:53

judgmentally. Right. Mindfulness,

16:56

especially in the context of self compassion,

16:58

really just means that we are present

17:00

and aware of whatever painful feelings

17:03

we're having or difficult thoughts or emotions,

17:05

and it also means that we accept that they're

17:08

there. Mindfulness is really kind of the

17:10

foundation of self compassion, and

17:12

then there's a warm, supportive response,

17:15

but really important because we

17:17

don't want self compassion to be self pity.

17:19

Self focused. Self pity is not helpful to anyone

17:22

and needs recognition of common humanity,

17:25

a recognition of interconnection.

17:27

What differentiates compassion from pity.

17:30

If someone pities you, it doesn't

17:32

feel good because looking down on you, there's

17:34

a sense of separateness. But we like it

17:36

when people give us compassion, when they say like, hey,

17:38

I've been there, you know. So

17:40

compassion in the Latin actually

17:43

means to suffer with there's an inherent

17:45

connectedness and compassion there

17:47

but for fortune go I. And

17:49

so with self compassion, it's

17:52

not really self focused at all, even though

17:54

the word self is there. It's just saying,

17:56

hey, life's difficult for everyone. All human

17:58

beings make mistakes. I'm not alone, and

18:01

that ability not to feel alone is one

18:03

of the most powerful aspects of self compassion.

18:05

I mean, loneliness is a huge problem

18:08

in our society, and when you

18:10

remember that, actually we're never alone.

18:12

Not like everyone suffers the same amount. That's certainly

18:15

not true. I mean people with privilege

18:17

suffered less than people who are pressed. So there

18:19

are differences that need to be honored.

18:22

But it's also true that no one escaped

18:24

suffering. You know, we all

18:27

struggle. And I know you've talked about

18:29

your personal experience with self compassion and this

18:31

part of it in particular, this idea of a recognition

18:33

of common humanity being really important. I know

18:35

you talked about that with your son and

18:37

going through a really stressful diagnosis with him

18:40

too, right, Yeah, yeah, So my son's

18:42

autistic and the ability

18:44

to have self compassion absolutely

18:48

saved me. I had already had about seven years of

18:50

solid self compassion practice at

18:52

that point, and when he got

18:54

the diagnosis, it's easy to

18:56

feel self pity, why me, Why can't

18:59

I have like a normal child like everyone else?

19:01

But what self compassion helped me to do? First,

19:04

the mindfulness helped me just to accept

19:06

all my feelings, because you know, when

19:08

you're uns diagnosed, especially as

19:10

you have feelings you think you aren't supposed to have, like

19:13

a disappointment. How can

19:15

I be disappointed? I love

19:17

him more than anything else in the world, and

19:20

I feel feeling disappointed. What do

19:22

I do with that? But with mindfulness, I

19:24

just allowed myself to have all the feelings I fear,

19:26

anxiety, disappointment. I

19:29

just really opened to it all and

19:31

then I was again kind and supportive to myself.

19:34

But what really helped me was instead of

19:36

feeling isolated, I remember, you

19:39

know, okay, most kids aren't autistic,

19:41

well a lot of them are, so I'm not alone in that.

19:44

But also, even though it's not autism,

19:46

all parents struggle with their children.

19:49

Instead of thinking like this isn't supposed to be

19:51

happening. I remember, well, wait

19:53

a second, who said so? You know, who said parenting

19:55

was supposed to be perfect. Every single

19:58

parent has struggles and challenges with

20:00

their children. Maybe it's not autism,

20:02

but it could be other mental health issues or

20:04

physical challenges, or at

20:06

the very least, all parents I have conflix

20:09

and difficulties while raising their children,

20:11

because that's actually what it means to be a parent.

20:14

And so making that refrain really

20:16

allowed me to avoid feeling self

20:19

pity with autism diagnosis. It

20:21

helped me feel more connected to other

20:23

people, other parents. It really gave

20:25

me the emotional resources to be there

20:28

for myself. Like, for instance, he's

20:30

doing great now, but when he was younger, his autism

20:32

was pretty severe. He would have these horrible

20:35

tantrums, these horrific tantrums, and he wasn't

20:37

toilet trained until he was five. It was it

20:39

was a rough time. But what I found

20:42

is the more I could give myself compassion

20:44

for the difficulties of parenting him,

20:46

you know, this is so horrid. I can't believe I have to

20:49

change his pants again, and you

20:51

know, I can't believe it's tantrumine and I would just

20:53

it's okay, Kristen. You know I'm here for you.

20:55

It's okay, It'll be okay. You know, I'm

20:57

so sorry. This is so hard. I

21:00

found that the more I could give myself

21:02

warmth and support and acceptance for

21:04

my situation, the more I could give

21:06

my son warmth and support and accepted

21:09

for who he was. And so some

21:11

people think that self compassion is selfish.

21:13

They get self focused, and it's kind

21:15

of a shame that the word self is in

21:18

there. You know, if I had to redo it, maybe

21:20

I'd call it just inner compassion, because

21:22

compassion is compassion. All we're doing

21:24

is we're including ourselves in the circle

21:26

of compassion. And actually, the more compassion

21:29

can flow inward, the more can flow

21:31

outward. It's not like if we've got five units

21:34

and if I get three to myself, I only have two left

21:36

over for someone else. It's additive. And

21:38

so the more we give ourselves compassion,

21:41

the more resources we have actually

21:43

to give to others. And I absolutely found

21:45

that with my son to be true. And it's funny that

21:47

we often think about mindfulness and kind of

21:49

just kindness in general is so tough, because

21:51

evolutionarily speaking, we're really built

21:53

to be kind of kind and to

21:55

help others when they're going through suffering. Right,

21:58

yeah, So, well, the reason mindfulness

22:00

is so difficult evolutionarily is because

22:02

our brains actually aren't designed to be mindful

22:04

of you know, we've the default mode of our brain

22:07

is to be mind wandering, you probably know at

22:09

and so to create a sense of solve

22:11

and think about the past and the future and look

22:13

for problems and so, in

22:15

some ways, believe it or not, compassion

22:18

is easier than mindfulness because mindfulness

22:20

is we need to kind of get quiet, We need to

22:22

fight against the fact that our brain wants us to

22:25

worry. But kindness

22:27

is something that we develop evolutionarily,

22:29

you know, Charles Darwin much more

22:31

than talking about the survival of the fittest, he

22:33

talked about survival of the kindest, because

22:36

this capacity to bond with others,

22:39

to feel warmth, to feel care actually

22:41

helped our species to survive. And

22:44

so, whereas self criticism taps

22:46

into the threat defense system like

22:48

I talked about self, compassion

22:51

taps into the mammalion care system,

22:53

this system that's built him. We know when

22:55

we feel close to others, when we feel

22:58

connected, where our parasympathetic

23:00

nervous system gets activated, our sympathetic

23:03

response goes down. Release oxytocin

23:06

and opiates, you know, increase

23:08

heart rate, very ability, We feel

23:10

safe. And so what we're doing with self

23:12

compassion is we're actually tapping into

23:15

that care system. The only thing

23:18

is again, because when we feel threatened,

23:20

were we more automatically going

23:22

to fight flight or flee response. What

23:24

we're doing is we're actually switching our source

23:27

of safety from the defense

23:29

system to the care system. So

23:32

you might say that it's not totally natural,

23:35

all right, So we've got to do a little jiggling

23:38

and treat ourselves like we would treat a good

23:40

friend. But once we do

23:42

that, once we do that, it's actually not

23:44

difficult to be self compassionate because

23:47

it goes along with all these

23:49

skills that we have. You know, we know how to

23:51

be warm to a friend who's having our

23:53

time. We know what to say, we know how to

23:55

hold our bodies, we know how to use our voice.

23:58

So these are skills that we already have inside

24:01

of us. All we really need is

24:03

to be able to speak to ourselves like we speak

24:05

to a good friend, and we already know how to do it.

24:07

It's more about giving ourselves permission

24:10

to do it and also remembering to

24:12

do it because again, our habitual immediate

24:14

reaction is to go and to fight flatter

24:16

fully response. And my

24:18

good friend Mark Leary said, you know, the research

24:21

is becoming really boring because it all finds

24:23

the same outcome, which is it self

24:25

compassion. It's really good for you. It's

24:27

good for your mental health, right, it's a

24:29

less depression, anxiety and stress,

24:31

greater happiness. It's good

24:34

for your physical health. It's more and more research

24:36

showing it enhances immune function.

24:39

People sleep better, they

24:41

have fewer cold takes and pains. It reduces

24:43

physical pain things like that, and increases

24:46

learning. It promotes growth goals

24:48

and learning goals as opposed to just like trying

24:50

to look good. It's linked to

24:52

greater motivation. People try harder,

24:54

they're more persistent, they're more likely to re engage

24:57

in their goals and they get knocked off balance.

24:59

It's good for relationships. It increases

25:02

your ability to be a good partner in a relationship

25:05

and at least to more satisfying interpersonal

25:07

relationships. There's one study

25:10

show this linked better sex. You

25:12

know, there we go, and links

25:14

to more exercise, you know, going to the

25:16

doctor more often, taking better care of yourself.

25:19

Really, if you look at the range of behaviors

25:22

that lead to being a happy, healthy human

25:24

being, self compassion

25:27

really really helps. It makes a huge difference.

25:29

It's like we have the superpower in our back

25:31

pocket. We don't even know we have it.

25:34

We've got this ability to support ourselves,

25:36

to help us effectively create change.

25:39

We just we instead are still into the

25:41

illusion that we think beating ourselves up is

25:43

going to be a better way to achieve

25:45

our goals when it's really not. And

25:48

I think that comes from some of them as conceptions

25:50

we have. I mean one of them as conceptions that I

25:52

often get when I talk about self compassion to my students.

25:55

You know, my kind of type a you know Ivy League

25:57

students is you know, they think self compassion

25:59

is kind of weak. You know, it's like the weak thing

26:01

to do. But but your work is shown it's just the opposer,

26:03

just the opposite. So, for instance, there's a lot

26:06

of research on combat veterans, veterans

26:08

who action in Iraq or Afghanistan,

26:11

and a lot of people when they go through a trauma like

26:13

that, a lot of soldiers they develop post traumatic

26:15

stress syndrome. And what the research

26:18

shows is that those soldiers who

26:20

are able to be compassionate to themselves

26:23

about what happened when they were overseas,

26:25

they're less likely to develop PTSD.

26:28

They function better in daily life when they come

26:30

home, and they're less likely to turn

26:32

to drugs or alcohol because they kind

26:34

of support themselves with compassion as opposed

26:36

to having to turn to alcohol, and they're

26:39

less likely to commit suicide. You know,

26:41

if you think about what makes you weak or

26:43

what makes you strong when you go into battle

26:45

and you know life's a battle. These soldiers actually

26:47

had actual battle, but for all of us at

26:49

some level, life's a battle. What's going to

26:51

make you strong? Or would you go into battle if

26:54

the inner voice inside your head is an enemy

26:56

who's cutting you down, who's shaming you, I

26:58

hate you, you aren't good enough? Is that going

27:00

to make you stronger? Or is it going to be stronger?

27:02

If you're in allies, I got your back, I'm

27:05

here for you. You can do it. How can

27:07

I help? Clearly, having

27:09

an ally inside your head is going to be make

27:11

you stronger than having an enemy inside your

27:13

head, and so you know it makes sense. But

27:16

yet people for whatever reason, they

27:18

don't, they don't think that they think that self compassion

27:20

is just about like slacking off,

27:23

easing up. So actually there

27:25

are two sides of self compassion. I like to

27:27

call it fierce and tender self compassion.

27:29

So tender self compassion is just about

27:31

self acceptance. Sometimes what

27:34

we do need to do is just accept ourselves

27:36

as we are. Okay, we aren't perfect, that's

27:38

okay. You know this is painful, and

27:41

that actually allows us to heal the

27:43

Sometimes compassion needs to be fierce. If

27:46

you're suffering, is because you're in a second

27:48

story building and the story beflow

27:51

you is caught on fire. You don't want

27:53

to just be with yourself in a tender way.

27:55

You want to like jump out the window if you need to. Sometimes

27:58

we need to be brave and take action to

28:01

alleviate our suffering. Right, Sometimes we

28:03

need to protect ourselves. We need to say no to

28:05

others. We need to draw boundaries. Sometimes

28:08

we need to make changes. You know, we're

28:11

stuck in a toxic relationship or an

28:13

unhealthy job, or we're engaging in behaviors

28:15

that are really bad for us. It's not compassionate

28:18

to just let those slide. It's compassionate

28:20

to actually make a change. And also it's

28:23

really important that we provide for our needs.

28:25

Right. We don't want to sometimes if we just aren't being

28:27

fulfilled, if we aren't happy, we don't

28:29

want to just let that slide. We want to do

28:32

something about it to give ourselves what we need.

28:34

So that's more of the fierce side of compassion.

28:37

We always need both at some level, and it's a

28:39

balance between the yin and young that's

28:41

actually most effective. Let's talk a little

28:44

bit more about how we can actually get self compassion.

28:46

I hope our listeners are convinced that it's a good

28:48

thing that we should embrace it, right, But

28:50

how do we do this right? Like, how do we really stop

28:53

beating ourselves up? And you've kind of given your students

28:55

a specific set of steps that they can use

28:57

to kind of experience this themselves. It's

28:59

not rocket science, right, because

29:02

the reason it's not rocket science is because

29:04

people already know how to be

29:06

compassionate. That's the cool thing. It's

29:09

not like learning a radically foreign Skill's

29:12

actually three doorways in One

29:15

is just being compassionate to yourself directly

29:17

after time. You can do that all those a little awkward

29:19

at first. Another one is imagine

29:22

what would I say to it, dear friend,

29:24

in the exact same situation, what

29:26

would I say? How would I say it? And then you can say

29:29

that to yourself. And the other way is using

29:31

your experience of when people have been compassionate

29:33

to you, like what would a really compassionate

29:36

friend or maybe grandparents,

29:37

so many of experience has been very, very

29:40

compassionate. What would they probably say to

29:42

me? Right now? We can access that as

29:44

a template, So that's easy.

29:47

The other thing you can do is bring in the three components

29:49

of self compassion and it's almost like a recipe,

29:52

you know. The first is mindfulness. First

29:54

of all, just being aware that this is really hard

29:56

right now. If we're suppressing our pain

29:59

or if we're just two lost and problem

30:02

solving, you know, we don't have the perspective

30:04

needed to say, hey, hey, this is really hard,

30:06

so kind of validating our pain's

30:08

first. The second step

30:11

is remembering that we aren't alone. You

30:13

know, sometimes we think like something has gone

30:15

wrong when we make a mistake.

30:17

Actually, whoever said that? You know, it's not. Everyone

30:20

else is being perfect and it's just you.

30:22

It may feel that way, but the reality

30:24

is everyone is making mistakes. This

30:26

is what we all do This is actually part

30:29

of being human, and then you actively give

30:31

yourself kindness and that can be again

30:33

through words like you'd say to a friend. Also,

30:36

touch is a really easy way to give yourself

30:38

kindness because we are tapping

30:40

into the mammalion care system, and

30:43

as mammals the first two years of life,

30:45

at least for humans, we don't have language.

30:48

So the primary way parents

30:50

canvey care and compassion

30:52

to infants who are crying and need to be soothed

30:54

and calm down is to touch. So

30:57

you can give yourself some touch to help you feel

30:59

so supported and cared for. And

31:01

that's also very powerful. And my

31:03

guess is that doing this the first couple times,

31:06

because I've now tried this myself a little bit, to

31:08

be totally, it can feel a little bit

31:10

weird and phony because you're really advocating

31:12

to literally talk to yourself, literally hug

31:14

yourself in some ways for the touch part, right,

31:17

yeah, yeah, or put your hands on your heart or something.

31:19

Yeah, it does. It does feel awkward at first, right,

31:21

It doesn't feel awkward at all to beat ourselves

31:24

up, you know, because we're just so used to that.

31:26

It's funny that it feels phony to treat ourselves

31:29

like a friend, but it feels perfectly

31:31

natural to treat ourselves like an enemy. But

31:33

over time it gets easier, and

31:36

then what will happen is at some point

31:38

you'll let a little bit of it in, and

31:40

you'll actually let your warmth in. You'll

31:43

actually allow yourself to be moved

31:46

by your own struggle, the way you might be moved

31:48

by a friend you cared about who was telling you

31:50

something that was very difficult. And once

31:52

you actually see the impact of oh,

31:56

I see, actually I can be

31:58

moved by my own struggle. I can

32:00

be warm, I can be supportive, And

32:02

once you see the immediate difference that makes

32:05

and your ability to cope, then it's

32:07

like, Okay, I want to do this again. Someone

32:09

said the goal of practice is simply to

32:11

become a compassionate mess. You

32:14

know, you're still a mess, but when

32:16

you're a compassionate mess, everything

32:18

changes. So when you're a self critical, shaming

32:21

mess, you're just hopeless, right does

32:23

and you can do you can't get out of bed. But when

32:25

you're a compassionate mess, you're still

32:28

a mess. You aren't pretending you aren't,

32:30

but because you're carrying that

32:33

care, you know, motivation

32:35

Okay, well, because I care, is there anything

32:37

I can do to help? That compassionate

32:39

approach also allows us to

32:41

get over something else that can be hard when we're starting

32:43

new habits, which is sort of procrastination or

32:46

just this terrible fear that we're going to just fail.

32:48

Right. Absolutely, there's actually a lot of research

32:51

on self compassion and procrastination

32:53

and how it reduces it, because what

32:55

procrastination is fear of failure.

32:58

And one thing that self compassion gives

33:00

you is it makes it safe to fail when

33:03

you know that if you fail, you won't

33:05

desert yourself. You'll still be there for

33:07

yourself, You'll still be kind and supportive

33:09

to yourself. What it does is it makes

33:11

it safe to fail, and really, really importantly,

33:15

it allows you to learn from the failure.

33:17

I mean, it's a truism. Failure is our best

33:20

teacher. We all know it's true, We've all experienced

33:23

that is true, and yet we're so afraid

33:25

of failing. But if we want to learn, how

33:27

are you going to learn without failing? A failure is our

33:29

best teacher. You know, it really doesn't

33:31

make any sense, Oh it does if

33:34

you think about the fact that people feel ashamed

33:37

by failing, and because of

33:39

that, they don't want to fail. The motivation

33:41

of self criticism is a motivation of fear.

33:44

You better do it right or else I'm

33:46

going to shame you. I'm gonna hate you unless you get it

33:48

right. And it kind of works. A lot

33:50

of people have gotten through grad school based on

33:53

this fear, but it creates

33:55

so many unintended consequences.

33:57

Like it creates fear of failure, it creates

34:00

anxiety, undermines your self confidence,

34:02

all things which work directly against your

34:04

ability to achieve your best. So

34:07

self compassion makes it safe to fail.

34:10

And the motivation comes from love. You

34:12

know, I want you to do better because I care

34:14

about you. I don't want you to suffer. I care about you.

34:16

I want you to reach your goals. How

34:18

can I help? And that supportive

34:21

attitude is actually so much more effective

34:24

in helping this actually reach your goals. And

34:26

so for all of those folks who are starting this new

34:28

year thinking that the drill sergeant approach is going

34:30

to be their best way to you know, get the perfect

34:32

beach body or clutter less or whatever their

34:34

new year's resolution is, what's your

34:36

final advice for them? Yeah? So

34:39

I would say, imagine that

34:41

you had the ultimate compassionate

34:43

coach first of all, who's very wise,

34:45

and you can't bullshit this coach. You

34:47

know, this coach knows what needs

34:49

to change, not gonna You know, it's not a good coach

34:51

if he or she's going to pretend that you're fine

34:53

just the way you are, because maybe maybe you aren't

34:55

feeling healthy, or maybe you really should declutter

34:58

a little less because it's kind of causing

35:00

problems in your life. So that wise coach

35:02

can help you decide what does need to change,

35:05

and the good coach is going to help

35:07

you get there as opposed to you know, you

35:10

may have had a coach in the past it just called you names

35:12

and yelled at you all the time, but you were just so

35:14

afraid of that coach you probably just gave up whatever

35:17

they were trying to get you to do it all together, because

35:19

who wants to be yelled at all the time? I

35:23

help Kristen's work on self compassion has convinced

35:25

you that a kinder approach is in order this new

35:27

year. In the episodes that follow in

35:29

this mini season, we'll turn to how we can apply

35:31

the strategy to some of our most common New

35:34

Year's goals. We'll tackle topics like food

35:36

and dieting, exercise and body image,

35:38

and how to deal with our emotions. But

35:40

for any of that to make sense, we all first

35:43

need to accept that a bit more self compassion

35:45

is in order. It sounds so easy,

35:47

just be a good friend to yourself, but

35:49

I know from personal experience that our

35:52

reflex is to be meaner to ourselves than

35:54

any real life enemy. So I want you

35:56

to take some self compassion baby steps right

35:58

away. Find the right words and

36:01

use a nicer tone when you talk to yourself. It

36:03

takes practice, but the research shows

36:05

you can become a kind coach. And

36:08

if you need more points, I highly recommend

36:10

Kristen's awesome books and her step by step

36:12

self compassion meditations. You

36:14

should also be sure to check out her new book, Fierce

36:17

Self Compassion, which is hitting stores

36:19

this June. The

36:25

Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan

36:27

Dilley. The show was mastered by Evan

36:29

Viola and our original music was composed

36:31

by Zachary Silver. Special

36:33

thanks to the entire Pushkin crew, including

36:36

Mia LaBelle, Charlie Migliori, Heather

36:38

Faine, Sophie Crane, mckibbon, Eric

36:41

Sandler, Jacob Weisberg, and my

36:43

agent, Ben Davis. The Happiness

36:45

Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries

36:47

and NIF Doctor Laurie Santos