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Bite Size your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend.
Today's clip is from episode 163 of the podcast with one of the world's leading experts on self-compassion, Dr Kristin Neff.
In this clip she explains why self-compassion is so important for our health and shares some tips that can help all of us silence our own inner critic.
Something I've observed over the years is when you look at the patients who really transform and change their lives, not just in the short term, but also in the medium term and long term.
I'm seeing that it actually is because of self-compassion.
It's those ones who start to quieten down and then ultimately eliminate that inner voice, that nasty inner voice in their heads that actually starts to change things.
So I feel that self compassion is really important for health outcomes as well as our day to day well being.
Well, self-compassion is really the antidote to our more habitual way of being, which is harshly self-critical or really cold to ourselves.
And talk about health, right?
There's just a new meta-analysis that came out showing that self-compassion is linked to physical as well as emotional health, because of course, I'm sure, as you know, our state of mind impacts our body right and how healthy and how well it's functioning.
We don't want to beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up, because really what's happening when we're really hard on ourselves is we're just trying to stay safe.
Right.
We feel threatened in some way when we feel we're inadequate or we've made a mistake.
We feel like, oh gosh, I better need to change this, because it's going to cause problems in my life.
And so we go into the threat defense mode.
We attack ourselves, thinking that somehow, if we attack ourselves, we're gonna whip ourselves into shape and we'll be better and therefore we'll be safe.
So it kind of comes underlying motives of self-criticism is a good one.
The problem is, is it's really counterproductive, right?
So, first of all, when we're really hard on ourselves or harsh with ourselves, it activates the sympathetic nervous system response, which is associated with things like high cortisol levels inflammation, high heart rate, eventually high blood pressure and heart attacks, things like that.
So when we're constantly in you might call it the freak out mode, the threat defense mode we feel really threatened.
Our body's on very high alert to deal with the danger.
But if the danger is really like, does this stress make me look fat?
You know, I'm sorry, but you know, things like that.
The things we criticize ourself for constantly means we feel like a lion is chasing us.
And that constant activation actually is bad for our physical health.
And so I think part of the reason we're so hard on ourselves is I do think it's part of our human physiology.
As you know, the threat defense response is the quickly most easily triggered nervous system reaction to danger right.
It comes online first, before the parasympathetic nervous response kicks in to say okay, it's so safe, or you can feel safe by being connected.
They call it a reptilian brain on purpose because even reptiles have this brain, right?
This is a natural response, natural safety response.
It's universal.
We don't want to beat ourselves up for it.
We want to have compassion for it.
And if we care about ourselves and want the best for ourselves, we're going to make change and healthy behaviors.
We're going to try to reach our goals.
We're going to do whatever we need to do to be healthy.
And so it happens, when we're self-compassionate at the physiological level, is it actually taps into the parasympathetic nervous system?
So this is the system that gets activated when we feel loved, when we feel cared for, when we feel connected, when we feel secure, like in our tribe right.
And this helps us feel calm and relaxed.
It lowers cortisol levels and increases heart rate variability and improves things like sleep.
And that's why self-compassion is also linked to better physical health.
So what self-compassion does is, by the way, it doesn't say, oh, that's fine.
You don't need to change.
But it says, OK, maybe you do need to change.
But it does it with encouragement and support. as opposed to harsh self-criticism.
Self-compassion.
If you imagine this coach maybe like a football coach in the British term soccer coach who's like really good, really knows their stuff, really believes in their players.
And that coach is not gonna like just let their players slide if they're doing something.
That's not good.
They can say, hey, I know you can do better.
Here's how to do better.
What can we learn from our mistakes?
Right.
How can we practice and, you know, make up for any weaknesses so we can do better in the next game?
That's the type of mindset that a compassionate mindset is.
And it's just much more effective and it's more sustainable over time.
What do I really need to be healthy, to be happy, to be whole, whether that's physically healthy, whether that's mentally healthy.
And in order to be healthy, we need both fierce and tender self-compassion.
And they need to be in balance.
Again, like with motivation.
If it's too much acceptance and not enough of that fierce, hey, you got to do something about this.
It's not healthy.
That's not good.
On the other hand, if it's just about striving and get it right and be the best and there's no bottom line of self-acceptance, that's not good either.
We need both. you know, constantly, and they're always in balance.
And part of it, part of the issue is we get knocked off balance and we say, okay, what do I need?
Well, sometimes I need a little more acceptance.
Sometimes I need a little more change.
You know, we don't know.
It changes moment to moment.
But how many people actually pause to ask themselves what do I really need in this moment to be healthy?
Think about that.
Think about it before, and by the way, I'm guilty too with all the craziness in the United States.
I've been watching way too much TV, but sometimes I catch myself and I say What do I need right now?
Do I really need to watch more TV and get upset?
Or maybe what I need is to go to bed.
Or maybe what I need is a cup of tea.
Asking yourself the question will eventually provide its own answer.
Yeah. how would you describe self-compassion?
The agreed upon scientific definition is concerned with the alleviation of suffering and the motivation to do something about it.
And so, at the simplest level, you might think that self-compassion is just compassion turned inward.
We're concerned with our own suffering.
We care about ourselves and we try to help ourselves so that we are healthier and don't suffer so much.
In my model, there are actually three main ingredients of self-compassion.
The first one is something that people have heard a lot about these days, and that is mindfulness.
Mindfulness and self-compassion, they're actually very closely related.
So mindfulness is the ability to turn toward what is to be aware of what is, to not run from it or dive into it too much, especially when things are painful.
And if you think about it, most of us, when things are painful, or especially if that pain is caused by feelings of inadequacy or making a mistake, either we avoid it, we don't wanna think about it.
We just go into problem solving mode or we blame other people.
Or we do the opposite and we kind of get consumed by it.
We get so lost in our pain and our suffering that there's no perspective.
And so in order to give compassion to ourselves, it takes a little bit of perspective taking.
We kind of have to step outside of ourselves and say, hey, you're really having a hard time.
Is there anything I can do to help?
And that perspective is actually mindfulness.
We're aware of what's happening, and we also have some perspective about what's happening.
So you might say that's the first step.
And then of course, when we're aware of what's happening, we also have to respond with kindness.
I mean, we may be aware of our pain and just say, you know, suck it up or it's all your fault.
That's actually not compassionate.
Compassionate means there's some sort of sense of warmth, some sense of care, some sense of understanding.
It's a kind response as opposed to a harsh response.
And then finally, what's really important what differentiates self-compassion from self-pity?
And a lot of people get these two confused and they're very, very different.
Self-pity is woe is me.
Compassion and pity are different.
If I had compassion for you, you'd probably like it.
I'd say maybe you're telling me about a problem you had.
And I said, oh, yeah, I've been there.
You know, I'm so sorry.
Is there anything I can do to help?
Whereas if I pitied you, you wouldn't like it, because I'd be looking down on you like well, you really got a bad, poor thing, you know.
So the difference between pity and compassion is the sense of interconnectedness, right?
Yeah.
If you look at the word compassion in the Latin, come means with, passion means to suffer.
There's a sense of suffering with, suffering together.
And so, with self-compassion instead of poor me, it's just recognizing that hey, Life is difficult for everyone.
Everyone's imperfect.
There's nothing to do with me personally, right?
You know, we all make mistakes.
We're all imperfect.
We're all flawed.
We all go through difficult times.
And the reason that's so important is because more often our irrational reaction is something has gone wrong.
This isn't supposed to be happening.
And again, it's not a logical reaction, but emotionally we feel like what's supposed to be happening is perfection.
And maybe everyone else in the world is living a problem-free life.
And it's just me who's made this big mistake.
Or it's just me who's struggling with this personal issue.
And it's kind of just a fallacy of the mind.
And so with self-compassion, we remember, oh, wait a second, this is the human condition.
Being human isn't about being perfect.
Being human is about being flawed and struggling and doing the best we can, falling down and getting ourselves up again.
And so these elements together, the sense of mindfulness of our difficulty and pain, a kind reaction to it and then feeling connected in that experience.
All these three things have to be there, according to my model, in order to be self-compassionate.
As I become more compassionate to myself, I feel happier.
I feel calmer.
I feel I'm less likely to engage in behaviors I'm trying not to engage in because I just don't feel the need to plug that gap anymore.
No, absolutely.
The research shows, not only are you happier and you're more satisfied with your life, you're also able to give more to others in relationships.
Some people think that self-compassion is selfish, but in fact people who have self-compassionate romantic partners, they say their partners are kinder, they're more intimate, they're more loving, they're less controlling, they get less angry.
People are more satisfied with partners who are self-compassionate.
And that's because when you aren't beating yourself up and you're kind of filling your own reserves with these feelings of kindness and support and connectedness, you actually have more available to give others.
Can you fake it?
And what I mean by that is, can you start saying nice things to yourself that...
Maybe part of you doesn't really believe and you feel a bit uncomfortable.
But yeah, can you fake it until you actually make it?
Yeah.
So first, it does feel weird at first.
I'm going to be straight up.
It feels weird at first, especially if your habitual way of relating to yourself is, you know, just really harsh.
Often, you know, I tell people to think about what you would say to a good friend in a similar situation.
But what we also encourage people to do is to try to use language that feels comfortable, because if you're super syrupy sweet and you don't believe it, you're going to be creating conflict in your mind.
So you might just say, may start to be kinder to myself.
What I wish for myself is that I can begin to be a little more supportive toward myself.
And that's kind of a lower bar to jump over.
You can also maybe start trying, maybe it feels a little more comfortable.
You don't want to just shut down your self-critic.
You can say something like, thank you, self-critic.
I know you're trying to help.
Maybe you've got some useful information, but would you mind saying it in slightly more constructive terms?
So there's a lot of ways you can work with yourself that feel comfortable for you.
It's really all about changing your intention.
In a way, it doesn't even so much.
This is the amazing thing.
It doesn't even matter so much what you say to yourself or what you actually do, as that you're intending to help yourself.
When we kind of embrace ourselves like a friend, with kindness, with support, with care, even though we're suffering.
Compassion itself is a positive emotion and activates the reward centers of the brain.
We all want kindness.
We want to feel connected.
We want to feel that peace of mindfulness.
These are positive states of mind.
So what we're doing is we're holding a negative experience with this positive state of mind.
But it's not like sugarcoating.
You don't have to pretend things are other than they are.
In fact, if you do that, it's going to backfire.
It's not going to work.
You embrace the fact that this sucks, this hurts.
I feel horrible.
You know, I'm stressed, whatever it is.
You don't deny it, but you feel concerned about it.
This is hard.
How can I help myself deal with this?
Life's a battle.
Not always, but often life's a battle.
Who do you want inside your head as you go into battle?
Do you want an enemy who's cutting you down, who's shaming you, who's saying, I hate you?
Or do you want an ally who says, I got your back.
We can do this.
I believe in you.
I'm here for you.
Clearly, we're going to be stronger, more competent, more able to deal with the difficulties of life when we're our own ally, when we support ourselves as opposed to pulling the rug out underneath ourselves, which we do with self-criticism.
Yeah.
What I always like to do is leave... my listeners with some practical tips.
With all your wisdom, with all your experience.
Do you have some practical tips to leave my listeners with, please?
Yes, well, even more than a practical tip, I'll lead you through a little practice.
It's called the self-compassion break, which actually people can do.
It can be their first self-compassion practice.
So the self-compassion break, and the reason we call it a break is because that's the idea.
You take that pause.
You might be in the middle of stress or the middle of something difficult.
It only takes about five minutes, a little break you can take.
Or what we do is we intentionally bring in the three components of self-compassion.
So you want me to lead you through it and your listeners can just follow in?
That'd be amazing.
Let's do it.
So I like to do this with my eyes closed.
It's not necessary, but when we close our eyes, it helps us to go inward.
So you may want to close your eyes.
Okay, and to practice this we actually need to call up a little difficulty so we can give it compassion.
So I'd invite you to think of something that you're struggling with right now, right?
Maybe uncertainty, maybe something different, maybe a relationship issue. or a health issue.
So just think of one thing right now and make sure that when you think about it you don't feel overwhelmed.
It's not like a really big problem, because if you feel overwhelmed, you're going to be distracted and you actually won't be able to learn the practice.
So something that's like a four on a scale of one to 10.
Okay, so just choose wisely.
And then just play out the situation in your mind, make it present for you, what's happening, right?
How are you feeling or what's going on?
What are you afraid of that's relevant?
What's going on?
Who are the people involved that's relevant?
Okay.
So what we're going to do now is we're going to bring in the three components of self-compassion by saying some phrases.
That we want to evoke them.
And I'm going to say a phrase that I'm going to invite you to come up with your own language that actually feels comfortable and right for you.
So again, thinking about this difficulty, this challenge.
So first we want to bring in mindfulness.
So telling yourself, you know, this is what's happening right now.
This is the moment of struggle or suffering.
We're turning toward it.
We're recognizing it.
And again, using language that may fit, it may be something like, this is really hard.
So using some language that really calls attention and awareness to the fact this is a moment of difficulty.
And then we also want to remember our shared humanity in this, right?
So suffering, challenges, stress, difficulty, this is part of life.
You know, there's nothing abnormal about having challenges like this.
So whatever way you want to talk to yourself about this, maybe it's just simply, I'm not alone.
Other people feel this way too.
And then finally, we want to give ourselves some kindness in the face of this difficulty.
So one way to do that is with physical touch.
You may want to try putting your hands on your heart, maybe your face, putting your hands somewhere on your body that feels supportive.
Feeling that supportive touch.
And saying some words of kindness and support to yourself.
You may think you know what would I say to a really beloved friend who is going through this exact same situation that I'm going through.
What would I say to express my support, my care, my willingness to help?
And then just try saying it to yourself.
It may feel awkward, that's okay.
We're just setting our intention to be more supportive to ourselves.
Okay, and then you can open your eyes So that's it, really.
It's pretty simple.
Just bringing in mindfulness, remembering common humanity and giving yourself kindness.
How did that go for you, Rangan?
Yeah, really good, actually.
Even just the act of. stopping and going inward is powerful in and of itself, right?
It just feels, I feel calmer.
I feel like a bit of the noise has just shut down or switched off or the volume's gone down in my mind um, and i yeah, i feel happier, i feel calmer.
Actually that's, that's definitely true yeah, so again, this is a practice.
It's not just a good idea, it's something you can do um.
But the nice thing is, self-compassion takes no time, doesn't take any more time than self-criticism.
Self-compassion is a mind state.
It's just how you relate to what's happening in your mind at the moment.
Again, just the way self-criticism is.
And so the warmth and the kindness and the feeling of connection everyone struggles.
That actually gives us the strength and sense of support as we're coping with the negative emotions simultaneously.
So it's like generating good feelings alongside of recognizing the bad feelings.
And this is really the power of it, because it allows us to more productively deal with the problems we have, because it's basically the idea of being really supportive towards yourself when you're struggling.
And, of course, being supportive to yourself is going to make you stronger, rather than shaming or slamming yourself.
It's kind of an idea that once you break it down, it's like oh yeah, I never thought of it that way.
But our culture has a lot of myths about things like compassion.
I think it's like just soft and sweet and sugarcoating.
And that is why the hard science helps, because it shows people that, hey, this stuff really works.
Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip.
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