Episode 181: In today's episode, Lu sits down with Dr. Kristin Neff to talk all things self-compassion. What is it? What are the benefits? Why is it so much easier to have compassion for friends than for ourselves? How can we get better at it?
Dr. Kristin Neff is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion over a decade ago.
In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of the book “Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself”; released by William Morrow, and the 6 CD audio set called “Self-Compassion Step by Step,” released by Sounds True. In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she has developed an empirically-supported eight-week training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and offers workshops on self-compassion worldwide.
Dr. Neff is also featured in the bestselling book and award-winning documentary The Horse Boy, which chronicles her family’s journey to Mongolia where they trekked on horseback to find healing for her autistic son.
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Lu Uhrich: Welcome to Episode 181 of Real Health Radio. You can find the links talked about as part of this episode at the show notes, which you can find at www.seven-health.com/181. That’s www.seven-health.com/181.
Real Health Radio is presented by Seven Health. Seven Health works with women who feel obsessed with and defined by their bodies. Using a non-diet, weight-neutral approach that combines science and compassion, we help transform your physical, mental, and emotional health. We specialize in helping clients overcome disordered eating, regain their periods, balance their hormones, and recover from years of dieting by learning how to listen to their bodies, and we’re currently taking on new clients. If you’re ready to get off the diet rollercoaster and heal your relationship with food and your body, please get in contact. Head over to www.seven-health.com/help. There you can read about how we work with clients and apply for a free initial chat. The address, again, is www.seven-health.com/help. The link’s also included in the show notes.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Real Health Radio. I’m one of your hosts, Lu Uhrich, and I’m thrilled to be hosting this podcast for my very first time. I’ve been a guest on the show twice, in Episodes 55 and 176, and Chris discussed the exciting changes happening over here at Seven Health in Episode 175.
One of those exciting changes is me, and fellow newbie to the Seven Health team Amanda Bullat, who you’ll be hearing from in future episodes too. If you’ve missed a few weeks and want more information on me, Amanda, and all that’s new at Seven Health, please go ahead and check out those episodes. Then come back and give this one a listen, too. Otherwise, stick around and know that I’ll become less of a stranger to you very soon.
I plan on bringing you new and intriguing episodes once a month. These shows will be similar to what you’ve come to expect from Real Health Radio and will include interviews with guests on topics like disordered eating, weight stigma, body image, nutrition, health, and culture. I’ll also host a solo episode now and then, and you may even hear from some of my past clients.
For those of you listeners who’ve already reached out to me with warm welcomes and kind hellos since hearing the Seven Health news, thank you. I’m truly grateful to be a part of this time, this community, and this podcast, and I’m hopeful that you’ll find my presence here beneficial too.
This week on the show, I want to talk with you a little bit about self-compassion and its role in healing when it comes to your food and body relationship. I’ll also be sharing with you an episode I recorded a few years ago with the pioneer of self-compassion herself, Dr. Kristin Neff.
Now, when it comes to eating disorder recovery, ditching diets, practicing intuitive eating, and beginning body image work, getting started can feel like a daunting task.
You may ask, is it the eating that I should be focusing on first? For many, it can feel that way because food is regularly scrutinized and heavily associated with body size and shape when you’re dieting. Is it the body image that should take the lead? I mean, maybe if you liked your body more, you’d stop beating yourself up so much about what you fed it or how you moved it. Maybe it’s cultural biases and environmental or relational factors that need to be of primary concern, because how is anyone supposed to heal individually without awareness of what’s ailing us collectively?
My answer to all of these questions is: maybe. There’s really no right place to start when it comes to healing and recovery. But I like to begin with you, because it’s pretty difficult to change beliefs and behaviors around food and body if we aren’t first working to trust, honor, and understand who we are, what we truly need, what we desire and feel, and how we communicate with ourselves.
That’s why in my own online course and coaching program, and also my one-to-one work with clients, I often begin by teaching the concept and exploring the benefits of self-compassion work. And that’s how I’d like to begin with you today.
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What is self-compassion? Maybe I should start by explaining what it’s not. Self-compassion is not about self-esteem, feeling better than others, or pursuing perfection. It is about being kind to yourself, no matter what. Self-compassion is about cultivating feelings of security and self-worth in the midst of your successes and your failings, and the more you practice it, the more you’ll live it.
The oversimplified definition of self-compassion is this: treat yourself the way you’d treat a friend or a loved one. And for those of you listening, this hopefully hits home. You and I both know you aren’t likely to shame and blame a loved one for their perceived failings or speak harshly and unkindly to them when they fall from grace or the illusion of perfection.
Nope, you’d probably embrace them, provide a safe and loving space for them to feel all of their feelings. You’d encourage them to keep going, to trust the process, to recognize that sometimes shit happens and things go wrong, but it doesn’t mean that they’re wrong or bad or broken; it just means that they’re human – right? Welcome to planet Earth. We’re all just winging it.
That perspective, the one you’d readily share with a friend – turn it towards yourself, and that’s self-compassion. It means treating yourself the way you would someone you love, befriending and supporting you in all of your mess, confusion, and painful humanness. The concept of self-compassion and the compelling research around it was pioneered by Dr. Kristen Neff. You’ll be hearing from her in just a minute, but for now, here’s how she explains self-compassion in her book, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself:
“Having compassion for oneself is really no different than having compassion for others. Think about what the experience of compassion feels like. First, to have compassion for others, you must notice that they’re suffering. If you ignore that homeless person on the street, you can’t feel compassion for how difficult his or her experience is.
“Second, compassion involves feeling moved by others’ suffering so that your heart responds to their pain (the word ‘compassion’ literally means ‘to suffer with’). When this occurs, you feel warmth, caring, and the desire to help the suffering person in some way. Having compassion also means that you offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or make mistakes, rather than judging them harshly.
“Finally, when you feel compassion for another (rather than mere pity), it means that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is a part of the shared human experience.
“Self-compassion involves acting the same way towards yourself when you’re having a difficult time, when you fail or notice something you don’t like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring your pain with a ‘stiff upper lip’ mentality, you stop to tell yourself, ‘This is really difficult right now,’ and you ask, ‘How can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?’
“Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with personal failings – after all, who ever said you’re supposed to be perfect?”
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To simplify that explanation a bit, here are 4 steps to practicing self-compassion:
1. Notice your pain and suffering.
2. Extend emotion, sympathy, and a desire to help.
3. Offer care and kindness.
4. Recognize that it’s human to suffer, fail, mess up, lose, and disappoint – and that’s okay.
These 4 steps create a perspective shift for those who practice them. It’s a shift from the unreachable goal of perfection to the honest and loving acceptance of our fallibility, our mortality, our humanity – and that perspective shift is precisely why self-compassion is a vital part of healing your relationship to food and body.
When you’re engaged in dieting or restrictive ideas about food and “fall off the wagon,” what comes next is usually shame, frustration, and self-hate. When you’re influenced by cultural beauty ideals or affected by weight stigma and you look at your body in the mirror or try on clothes that don’t fit, what typically follows is shame, frustration, and self-hate. When you or someone that you love is steeped in health sensationalism and think that every workout you miss or every processed food you eat will lead to disease or early death, what can also happen is shame, frustration, and self-hate.
These responses aren’t productive. They treat you as an enemy to be conquered or a problem to be fixed. You become something other than human, like a robot who needs a reboot, or a math equation that must be solved.
But you aren’t those things. You’re a living, breathing, evolving person who will inevitably make mistakes, fail, and disappoint, a person who also has the power to learn, grow, and change according to their lived experience, and the increased wisdom that that experience provides. The best way to learn, grow, and change is through self-compassion. Any other approach will leave you feeling badly, and that’s no way to live, eat, exercise, or exist.
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I’m going to share a little example with you now about what self-compassion can actually look like in an experience with food. This example is one that I often share with clients, and it’s one that may be quite familiar to you if you’ve ever dabbled in disordered eating, thoughts, and behaviors.
Imagine with me that you’re really craving a grilled cheese, but you think you should eat a salad, and so you do. But of course, the salad doesn’t satisfy you because, hello, you wanted the warm, gooey sandwich, not cool, crisp, crunchy vegetables. Your dissatisfaction with the salad leads to more cravings and the subconscious sense of being deprived. So you eat a bunch of chips, but you’re still not satisfied, so you move on to cookies, and then a few spoonfuls of peanut butter, and toast, and later a slice of cheese – which does not a grilled cheese make. The eating continues, feeling primal and out of control. You’ve binged, and afterward, you feel sick, uncomfortably full, gassy – ugh.
Now, you could start criticizing yourself for not having more willpower (side note: willpower actually isn’t a thing when it comes to food), or for not slowing down while eating. You might get mad for munching to the point of sickness, or you might start calling yourself names and despairing about how you’ll always be a binger, and what that binge eating will inevitably do to your body, and what those body changes will inevitably say about you as a person. It’s a spiral. If you’ve been there, you know.
But maybe you’ve made some strides in your healing from disordered eating, and you’ve learned how a deprived body works, so you already realize that it’s actually the restriction and the salad that started this whole thing. It’s not you. You’re not broken. It’s not about willpower. But still, you shame yourself for not eating the damn grilled cheese, and you beat yourself up for failing at intuitive eating. That’s still not self-compassion.
Self-compassion looks more like this: understanding that you’re in pain, physically and emotionally, about the binge, and extending soothing thoughts and words your own way. Being kind and compassionate to yourself might mean considering and then putting into practice the care you’d give a loved one who’s having side effects from eating beyond physical comfort and feeling distressed about it. Maybe you’d have them lay down or just move slowly. You’d have them rest or drink water or eat stomach-soothing foods when they’re hungry again. Maybe you’d have them put on loose, comfortable clothes.
Whatever caring, feel-good responses make sense for that friend, self-compassion means giving those same things to yourself. You don’t have to solve your own problem or make it all go away; just be there with it. Be there with the aftereffects of your binge, and then take the next right step. Notice the pain, extend the sympathy, and proceed with the thoughts and behaviors that most honor where you are and how you feel currently.
In this case, the most honoring thing isn’t a grueling workout to punish your body, and it’s definitely not making plans to withhold food in the future, but it could be a movie marathon, a bath, a slow walk to get your digestive tract moving. It could mean journaling or speaking to a trusted friend or coach about what started this restriction in the first place and how it led to a binge. Along with taking these steps for yourself, it’s important to acknowledge that you’re human, that this is life, and you can learn from your experiences without shaming yourself for having them.
Of course, this is just one example of how self-compassion is relevant to your food and body relationship, but there are so many more, and they’re as unique as you are. Here at Seven Health, we’re equipped to teach you and support you in responding to your food, body, and health frustrations with more compassion and less criticism, and in the context of one-to-one relationship, we can get really specific with what that means for you, navigating your particular needs, desires, and experiences with more kindness, acceptance, and peace.
If that’s something you’re wanting to learn more about or work on together, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, or check out our working together link in the show notes. And in the meantime, enjoy this interview with Dr. Kristen Neff.
Dr. Kristen Neff is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion over a decade ago.
In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she’s author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, released by William Morrow, and the 6-CD audio set called “Self-Compassion Step by Step,” released by Sounds True. In conjunction with her colleague, Dr. Chris Germer, she’s developed an empirically-supported, 8-week training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and offers workshops on self-compassion worldwide.
Dr. Neff is also featured in the bestselling book and award-winning documentary The Horse Boy, which chronicles her family’s journey to Mongolia, where they trekked on horseback to find healing for her autistic son.
Hi, Dr. Neff, and welcome to the Untamed Podcast.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Hello. Nice to be here.
Lu Uhrich: I’m so glad to have you here, and I did already introduce you and the work that you’re doing in the intro to this episode, but I’d love for you to introduce yourself and let the listeners know a little bit about you and the work that you’re doing in the world with self-compassion.
00:14:25
Dr. Kristin Neff: Okay. Yes, my name’s Kristin Neff and I am an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. My son likes to introduce me to people as “the self-compassion lady” because that’s what I do. I research self-compassion. I was the first one to look at it in an academic context, research it, create a scale to measure it, and I’ve also developed an intervention program to teach self-compassion. I’m pretty much a one-trick pony. [laughs] I teach and study and work and love self-compassion.
Lu Uhrich: I’m so glad you do. I was introduced to your work a few years ago, and it really changed my life. I know when I reached out to you about being on the show, that’s what I shared, as well as now that I have so recognized the power of self-compassion in my own life and with the things that I was going through, it’s something that I readily offer, and the book is often something that is required reading for my clients or I’m giving away as gifts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve given your book away to people because it’s so meaningful and so powerful.
So I’m happy that you’re a one-trick pony on this subject because you’re really great at teaching it, speaking about it. I’ve seen your TED Talk and obviously read your book a few times.
But I’m curious what got you into this line of study. Was it one sudden event, or a series of events that you said, “Yeah, this is what I want to focus on, this thing called self-compassion”?
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Dr. Kristin Neff: I really came at it from a place of personal practice. It was my last year of graduate school at UC Berkeley, and I guess to put it simply, my life was a mess. I had just gotten out of a divorce that was very messy. I was feeling a lot of shame. It was just a stressful time in my life because of trying to finish up my PhD and make a living and all those practical issues. So I thought I would learn how to meditate because I had learned that meditation was good for stress.
Much to my surprise, the woman leading the meditation group the very first night I went talked a lot about self-compassion, how important it is to include ourselves in the circle of self-compassion, to be a kind, supportive friend to ourselves. It was one of those lightbulb moments for me. I just thought, wow, I never really thought of that before. I can help myself through this stressful time by being a kind, supportive friend.
So I started practicing self-compassion in my personal life, and I began reading more about it. My pathway is primarily through Buddhist meditation, but I don’t think it’s a particularly Buddhist construct, just the idea of being good to yourself. So I started practicing, and it made a huge difference in my personal life.
Then when it came to the fact – I did get my PhD and I did get a real job, and I was conducting research on self-concept development and I thought, wow, no one’s really looked at self-compassion, at least scientifically. I thought it was an opportunity for me, so I tried to define what self-compassion means, created a scale to measure it, and started the research ball rolling. Now it’s just taken on a life of its own. Over 1,200 studies done on self-compassion, and I’ve created a training program, and other people have created training programs. It’s really a big movement now in psychology, which is so amazing to see.
Lu Uhrich: Yeah, I think it’s taken on a life of its own, obviously because it matters, it works. And by saying “works,” what does that really even mean, except for that it’s effective in helping you move through life in a more peaceful, manageable, kind way, for sure.
00:18:20
You said that in your process of developing your work on self-compassion, you defined it so that you could study it. How would you define self-compassion for those listeners who might not readily know or might not be familiar with the term?
Dr. Kristin Neff: I knew if I was going to research it, I wanted to come up with a really clear operational definition. I actually started by thinking, what are the elements that need to go into compassion for others? Because from my point of view, the feeling of compassion for yourself and others is the same; it’s just that we much more easily give it to others than we do to ourselves.
I realized a few things. First of all, in order to have compassion for other people, and also ourselves, we need some mindfulness. Mindfulness is basically noticing what’s happening as it happens. Even if it’s unpleasant, instead of immediately trying to push it away or fix it, it means being courageous enough to open to “this is happening right now.”
Of course, when what’s happening is our own pain, the last thing in the world we want to do is open to it. We want to fight it or avoid it. So really, the first step of compassion, both for self and also others, really – think about why we don’t have compassion for that person who tries to wash our windows for a buck, and sometimes we tune them out. It’s because we can’t take them in at that moment. It’s just too much. So the first step is being willing to open to the fact that suffering is occurring.
Compassion actually means “to suffer with,” so it’s really only relevant in instances of negative emotional struggle, and there’s a connected element to it. First, we have to open to pain, and then we need to respond with kindness and warmth. You might notice someone is struggling and judge them, “bum, get them off the street.” But with compassion, same with self-compassion, we respond with kindness, goodwill, the desire to help in some way, to be supportive.
Then thirdly – and I didn’t realize this has to be there at first when I was thinking about how to define self-compassion, but the question really struck me: what’s the difference between self-compassion and self-pity? We don’t like self-pity, or we don’t like to be pitied by others. What’s the difference between pity and compassion? If pity looks down on other people and it’s an exaggerated sense of “Oh, poor you,” with self-pity, it’s like, “Oh, poor me, woe is me, the world’s coming to an end.” It’s a very self-focused, melodramatic state of being.
Compassion is very different. Compassion sees things clearly and says, “Hey, this happened. There but for the grace of God go I. It could be me in other circumstances.” Part of compassion means seeing the bigger picture. “I see all these causes and conditions had to come into play for this to happen.” So it has a wisdom element to it as well.
So I argue that self-compassion, in addition to mindfulness and self-kindness, includes a sense of common humanity, recognizing that pain, difficulty, imperfection is really just part of the shared human experience. And if we didn’t have that element, it could morph into self-pity, which actually isn’t very useful for anyone.
00:21:40
Lu Uhrich: One of the things you brought up obviously as a component of self-compassion is this mindfulness piece. What does that mean? Because I think people have different terms, and it’s a pretty popular term right now, mindfulness. But it can mean something different to a lot of people. So how do you define it? How does it work with self-compassion?
Dr. Kristin Neff: Mindfulness, in general, is basically noticing, paying attention to what’s happening as it’s happening. It also means being aware in a nonjudgmental way. Again, instead of trying to run away from something or getting locked in the storyline of what’s happening, it’s just clear seeing and accepting what’s occurring.
Mindfulness in the context of self-compassion means you’re able to be mindful and aware in a nonjudgmental way of your own pain, your own suffering.
It’s funny; I was teaching with Brene Brown, and she hates the word mindfulness. [laughs] It’s one of those trigger words for her. She says, “Is it okay if we just rename it ‘courageous presence’?” I thought, yeah, that’s actually a lot better. I like that better. So really, it’s being present, but when things are difficult, you need some courage to stay open, to stay aware, not to tune out or immediately try to make the situation go away.
It’s really, you might say, the foundation of self-compassion because if you’re unwilling to be open to the fact that you’re having a hard time right now, you can’t respond with kindness. If you’re just in “fix it,” problem-solving mode the whole time, or you’re blaming other people for all your problems, you can’t really give yourself what you need. Mindfulness is really Step 1. Opening to the fact that you’re struggling.
Lu Uhrich: I find that so important personally, because I do practice self-compassion regularly, daily, by the minute. All the time, I try to practice it. I find being present is so important. Present with my feelings and my pain, and also with maybe what those inner voices are saying, the inner dialogue that I’m having towards myself or towards my experience.
I recommend that to all of my clients as well. I work with women around body image and disordered eating, and I find it so useful and powerful in that context too. I like the definition of mindfulness being that courageous presence or the willingness to really be there now, where the action is, where the pain or the struggle is, in order to show compassion to yourself.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Yeah, that’s right. That really is the first step. And then, of course, the next step is when you’re aware of the pain and you’re in contact with it, how do you react? That’s where the kindness comes in. When you notice that your internal voice is criticizing or judging or being cruel or harsh, whatever it is, you actually stop to say, “Wait a second. I don’t want to talk to myself this way. I want to talk to myself like I would treat a friend who’s going through what I’m going through.”
A big part of cultivating self-compassion is cultivating a warm, friendly, supportive attitude toward yourself. If you were lucky, maybe you had a parent or grandparent who had this attitude toward you, or maybe a teacher when you were growing up. We know when someone’s really unconditionally accepting and loving and really cares about us, wants the best for us, it feels so good. It’s so nurturing. But we actually can learn to give that to ourselves, which is really one of the key healing factors of self-compassion.
00:25:20
Lu Uhrich: You mentioned earlier, and you’re talking about it a little bit now, this whole idea of being able to give the kindness and compassion to ourselves that we much more readily give to other people. You made mention of it’s harder for us to treat ourselves that way, as opposed to others. Why is that? Why is it harder for us to show that kindness and compassion to self?
Dr. Kristin Neff: I think there’s a couple reasons. One is it’s not culturally normative. As a matter of fact, people have all sorts of judgments or fears of self-compassion – it’s going to make us lazy, it’s going to make us weak, it’s selfish – whereas most people value the idea of being kind and supportive and caring toward others. So part of it is the messages we grew up with.
But actually, I think it’s something that goes a bit deeper. I think there are some physiological reasons why we tend to criticize ourselves and be kind to others.
What we know about self-criticism is basically, it’s triggered whenever we feel threatened. When we notice something about ourselves we don’t like – maybe we don’t like what we see in the mirror, or some difficult emotional situation happens. We feel threatened, and we go into threat defense mode: fight, flight, or freeze. The sympathetic nervous system, it’s called.
This system was evolved to deal with physical threats to our wellbeing. If a lion’s chasing you, then your amygdala gets triggered, you use cortisol and adrenaline, and you get ready for this fight, flight, or freeze response. Unfortunately, what happens nowadays is the threats aren’t to our physical selves very often; they’re much more often to our self-concept.
For instance, if you look in the mirror and you don’t like what you see, you think, “There’s a problem. There’s a danger. I might be rejected.” We go into fight, flight, or freeze mode, and we want to attack the problem to feel safe. Of course, the problem is ourselves, so we end up attacking ourselves.
It’s funny; it’s not a rational process, but there’s a part of us when we harshly criticize ourselves that think maybe, first of all, “I’m in control. I know what’s right or wrong. Maybe I can fix myself so I won’t be in danger and I won’t be rejected by others.” So you might say our self-criticism is an honest, innocent reaction. It’s a way we try to keep ourselves safe. The only problem is it doesn’t keep ourselves safe; it tends to just make things a lot worse for ourselves.
Again, the reason we more quickly criticize ourselves than our friends is because we don’t feel so threatened when our friends fail or make a mistake, or maybe they aren’t having a good hair day. It’s funny, though; if you notice, we often tend to be a little more critical of the people we’re very close to, like maybe our romantic partners. I suspect part of the reason that is, is because when they do something wrong, so to speak, or there’s a problem, we also feel threatened. It’s almost like the more threatened we feel when there’s some mistake or failure or inadequacy, the more likely we are to respond with criticism, trying to fight the problem.
The threat defense system is our oldest and most easily triggered way of feeling safe, but we do have another safety system, which is very important. This is the safety system that self-compassion is rooted in. This is the mammalian caregiving system.
What happened when mammals evolved is mammalian young are born very immature. They have a long development period, which actually allowed them to successfully adapt to their environment. That’s why mammals are so successful. But a system needed to evolve that would prompt the infant to stay close to the parent, so it would be safe, and it would also prompt the parent to try to take care of the infant. So we have this attachment system/caregiving bond, which is another way we feel safe.
So actually, what we’re doing when we look in the mirror and, instead of attacking the problem ourselves to feel safe, we say, “Hey, I love you anyway. It’s okay. I accept you unconditionally” or you say something warm and supportive, that’s another way to feel safe through this sense of being connected to ourselves, being connected to others. In fact, what we know is when you give yourself compassion, you’re releasing oxytocin and opiates, those feel-good hormones.
In many ways, the compassion way of feeling safe is more effective because we aren’t so freaked out, we aren’t so reactive. We have more ability to respond. The only problem is it’s not so automatic. We have to use more effort to respond in this kind way than we do with self-criticism. It’s quicker. So it takes a little override to have a self-compassionate response, which is why we don’t do it quite as often. But it’s also a natural response, which is good to know.
Lu Uhrich: Yeah, and I’ve found for myself personally that sure, those more primal responses come up like “Oh my gosh, I’m not safe. I have to fix this. There’s a problem,” but even giving ourselves the compassion to go, “Oh, look, there it is. There’s that response that I’m so used to doing, that automatic response. But now can I feel safe and feel at peace in a different way?” – it’s almost giving ourselves the self-compassion in the way that we primarily respond to threats and triggers in the first place.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Absolutely. It’s quite funny; you don’t want to beat yourself up for beating yourself up. That’s not the pathway to self-compassion. The way in is by understanding why we beat ourselves up. “I’m just trying to stay safe. I don’t want to be rejected by others.” “Okay, I can have compassion for that.”
What happens when we do that, as we start to listen to what the inner critic is trying to tell us – “Oh, I see, you’re worried that such-and-such is going to happen. Okay, I hear you.” Once you listen to the inner critic and the message it’s trying to give you, then usually it calms down and doesn’t shout so loudly, and we can more easily tap into these other ways of feeling safe, the compassion system. So it’s quite interesting.
00:31:55
Lu Uhrich: It is interesting, and that is exactly my experience. Again, because I have borrowed from your work and suggest your work to my clients, so much of what you’re sharing is a lot of what we work through.
But I’m curious about it, because yes, I can teach my clients, and of course, I’m always practicing this myself, to have compassion even when we do go there, even when we do beat ourselves up, even when we are worried about what we look like to others or where our ranking is, where we stand on this hierarchy of value and worth that culture has defined for us.
But at the end of the day, there is this level of perfection that is marketed to us through media and industries – like beauty industry, diet industry. There are so many things marketed, like you’ve got to be perfect. We can have all the self-compassion in the world, and yet we’ll still probably run up against the fact of “Oh no, I’m not perfect. There goes that trigger again. There goes that response.”
Dr. Kristin Neff: That’s where common humanity comes in. If you look at what common humanity is, it’s the understanding, the deep, in-your-bones understanding that the human experience is not perfect. The imperfection, whether in terms of our personal imperfection, mistakes we make, or just the imperfection of life – stuff happens. This is actually normal and natural.
If I were to ask any of your listeners, is there anyone in this entire world who’s absolutely perfect? No, of course not. Is there anyone who leads a perfect life? Of course not. We know this logically, but what happens – and I think you’re right; it’s reinforced by these media stories we’re told – is when we make a mistake or we look in the mirror and we don’t like what we see or we get that call from the doctor, we feel like something has gone wrong. In that moment it feels as if everyone else in the world is living this perfect life, and it’s just me who’s failed, or just me who’s not good enough, or just me who’s struggling in this way.
That sense that “it’s just me” actually creates a very powerful feeling of isolation, which is really damaging. If you really want to cause a human being distress, you make them feel isolated from their tribe.
So what common humanity does, and why it’s such a key part of self-compassion, is we’re always remembering, oh yeah, the human experience means to fail. It means to make mistakes. It means being imperfect. It doesn’t mean being perfect. The more we’re able to remember that and make that part of our practice, the less easily we’re swayed by these airbrushed images of how we’re supposed to look.
That’s why I personally really think we need all three components. We need mindfulness, we need the kindness, and we also have to remember what the human experience means.
One of my favorite sayings by a meditation teacher is he says, “the goal of practice is just to be a compassionate mess.” We’re going to be a mess. No matter what we do, no matter how much we practice, no matter how many meditation retreats we go on or how many therapy sessions we have, we’re still going to be a mess because actually, the human experience is about being a mess. But are we a compassionate mess?
When I think of that, it’s like, I can do that. I can’t be perfect. That’s not possible. But I can be a compassionate mess. So I’ve shifted my goal toward being a compassionate mess, and it’s amazing because I can almost always achieve it. [laughs]
Lu Uhrich: I think, too, one of the added components that I often integrate into my work and my own life is this idea of being critical. A critical consumer of the media and the messages that we’re being sent all of the time, and then viewing it through that lens of shared humanity. Like, okay, this is what they’re selling me or this is what they’re showing is going on, but I know the truth is that humanity isn’t perfect. But it does sometimes take that extra step of going, “Okay, something’s not actually quite true here with this representation.”
Because if we believe the representations are true, then we believe perfection can be achieved. Then we’re buying all the things and doing all the striving and being self-critical because we think we’ve done something wrong to not have the perfect life or body or diet or whatever it may be.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Yeah. Really a big part of the path of self-compassion is letting go of the goal of perfection. It’s not even just because perfection is unattainable, but at some point, you start realizing perfection is boring. If everyone was perfect, if we were all Ken and Barbie dolls, what kind of life would it be? It’s our foibles and our weaknesses and our edges and all these things that make us all unique, and it’s our struggles that make us grow in life.
That is really what being human is about. It’s about being imperfect in a compassionate way. When you really open your heart to imperfection and you say to yourself, “Yeah, you just made a mistake or you just said something really mean or you don’t look as good as I wish you did, and I love you anyway” – that’s really where the power is. That’s where the freedom is, because then our happiness isn’t contingent on perfection, which is a losing wicket, as my British friends would say. [laughs]
00:37:35
Lu Uhrich: Yes, exactly. I love that. I love that message. Too, you’ve been bringing up a little bit about the fact that life isn’t perfect. There’s grief, there’s trauma, there are these experiences that we have that may not be what we wanted, or if we could paint the perfect picture of what it would look like – and yet, here we are, facing them.
But there’s also this current of belief in our day of manifestation, law of attraction, answered prayer, let’s say, where people still somehow put the onus on them when those things don’t work out. “Oh, I didn’t manifest it hard enough. I didn’t pray enough times. Something must be wrong with my law of attraction skills.” Still they’re turning to self and going, “I’ve done it wrong.” So even though there is this grief and trauma, how does one get past that when it comes to self-compassion? Because it almost seems like, how can you be compassionate with yourself if you feel like you have the whole world in control?
Dr. Kristin Neff: Part of the wisdom of self-compassion is realizing that you aren’t in control. The control is an illusion. In some ways, we like to be self-critical because we think, “at least I know what I should’ve done.” The back of the self-critic is strong and straight and knows what’s right and what’s wrong.
The reality is, we don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong. We can’t control things. We’re just doing the best we can as these compassionate messes from one moment to the next. Control is absolutely impossible. And if you start picking apart why, that’s because we aren’t these separate, isolated beings. All our lives are so amazingly interconnected that there’s no way that one node in the spider’s web could control every other node. It just doesn’t work that way. We’re part of a larger whole.
So really, part of the path of self-compassion is opening to that. Realizing that I don’t have control, but actually learning to be okay with it, and more than that, to love yourself and love the world. Also, I think there’s a certain trust that comes, that things that are unfolding that are larger than us, are bigger than the individual. Whether or not you think that things always work out for the best – I’m not going to go there, but certainly, we can see, if we look back at our own lives, often those experiences that we grew the most from, we wouldn’t trade anything for, are those that were incredibly painful.
The example – my son is autistic, and I talk about him all the time when I talk about self-compassion because it’s such a beautiful example of how you think it’s the worst thing in the world that was going to happen – I mean, who wants a diagnosis of autism for their child? But by learning to open to the pain of it and the uncertainty of it and the constant fear of what’s going to happen – he didn’t learn to be toilet trained till he was five. It was really hard.
But because I had my self-compassion practice, I was able, over and over again, to, first of all, accept my own feelings of grief and disappointment and fear, to support and be there for myself, and that’s what gave me the ability to support and be there for Rowan. And now, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. Not only is he an amazingly cool kid in terms of who he grew up to be, but also, that’s really what made me, that experience. I wouldn’t be nearly as good of a teacher if I hadn’t had that experience to draw on. It deepened my practice. I’ve got all my Rowan stories I tell my students. [laughs]
I think most people, when they look back on their lives, can see that as long as you survived something difficult, it most probably made you stronger.
Lu Uhrich: Yes. I’m glad you brought up Rowan. That was one of the things, reading your book for the first time years ago, really helped me to identify with you. Because here I was, struggling in these other areas of life that I thought were the main thing, and then I get to the parts in your book where you’re talking about Rowan and your experience being a caregiver of a child who had needs – I mean, all children have needs, but who had more profound needs and different needs than others.
That’s my experience as well. I have a daughter with a very rare chromosomal deletion, so she has several areas where she has developmental delays or health conditions, epilepsy, things like that, as a part of the condition. I realized without knowing it the ways in which I had been showing myself compassion there, and it was actually really useful to teach me compassion in other areas of my life to see where I had already been showing up for myself as a caregiver of a child who had additional needs, who wasn’t going to be parented by the books. Hearing too and reading your experience was so helpful.
00:42:30
I know you talk sometimes about caregivers and self-compassion. I’d love for the listeners to hear a little bit about that.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Yeah, actually that’s one of my areas of work right now. I’ve developed a longer 8-week training program in self-compassion, but the local Dell Children’s Hospital, the pediatric hospital, came to me and said, “Would you teach self-compassion to our healthcare workers? They’re all burning out. They don’t have much time and they aren’t really interested in meditating. Can you just teach the core practices to help them survive?” Because there’s a lot of stress, obviously in all healthcare, but especially when you’re dealing with sick kids.
So I’m doing a study now where I trained them for 4 weeks for four 90-minute sessions and taught them a lot of the core practices from our self-compassion training program, and really what we’re finding – and we haven’t gotten our data back yet, but from the preliminary results, what happens when you’re a caregiver is when you care for someone in distress – you probably find this with your child, too – you’re actually feeling their distress literally because the human brain is wired for empathy.
For instance, if you see someone slam their finger in a door, the pain sensors of your brain light up. The brain’s wired that way. We actually feel what other people are feeling, and of course, if it’s someone either we’re really close to or someone we’re working close it, we have what’s called empathetic distress.
So really, it’s crucial for caregivers to, first of all, take that very seriously, the fact that “I’m feeling pain too,” and to give themselves compassion for their own pain. I found with Rowan I had to do it before I could really focus on him – one, to find your seat so you don’t get blown over by your own empathetic distress, so you don’t get overwhelmed, but really so the compassion can flow easily. If it just flows one direction, if it just goes to the other person and there’s none of it that comes back to you, you’ll burn out, you’ll be depleted, and you will have nothing to give.
And this is what I think is really cool about self-compassion for caregivers: the people you’re caring for also have mirror neurons, and they’re also picking up on what you’re feeling. So if you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed with your daughter, let’s say, she’s picking up on stress and overwhelm, and her mirror neurons are registering stress and overwhelm. But if you’re able to be calm and compassionate and warm with yourself, those are the signals you’re also sending to your daughter, the person you’re caring for.
What I found with Rowan is when I lost it – and let’s face it, sometimes I did – he would ramp up. He would get frustrated. His tantrum would increase. When I gave myself compassion, when I calmed myself down, he would calm down as well. So I have a lot of excitement about the idea of teaching caregivers, whether it’s parents or therapists or professional caregivers, self-compassion as a way not only to help themselves but also help their clients.
Lu Uhrich: I’m excited for this work that you’re doing too, because I think so often, the idea of self – I don’t want to underplay the idea of self-care in the terms that a lot of people use. “Oh, give yourself a break. You need more rest. Maybe you need more nourishment. Maybe you need a massage, or do something nice for yourself.” Those are all really great things, but particularly maybe because of the circles I’m in, I see that thrown at parents and special needs parents quite often as like “Go get a massage. Have a self-care day or something.”
But it goes deeper than that, and that’s why I’m excited about your work because I think self-care is the surface level. Yeah, it’s nice. Go ahead, do it, by all means. But if we’re not doing that deeper work of compassion for how we’re really feeling on the inside and what we’re really processing through in our everyday lived experience, I think we’re missing the mark.
Dr. Kristin Neff: The major limitation in self-care – I agree with you; if you can afford it and you have the time, go for it. The more, the better. But it all happens off the job. If you’re with your daughter and she’s having a meltdown, you can’t say, “Whoa, I’m feeling stressed out. I’m going to go get a massage, see you later.” You can’t say that to a therapist or a nurse. So you need something you can do in the spot, in the moment when you’re with the suffering of the other. Because remember, that’s when your mirror neurons are firing and you’re experiencing this empathetic distress.
For instance, we teach a practice in our self-compassion program where you imagine you’re breathing in compassion for yourself with every in breath, and you’re breathing out for the other. But in for yourself, out for the other. In for yourself, out for the other.
As you breathe in for yourself, what you’re also doing is validating, “this is hard for me too, and it’s hard for the other person, and it’s hard for me too.” You know what I mean? It’s not like you’re judging who’s suffering more or anything like that; you’re just including yourself in this idea that “I need to give myself compassion as I give the other compassion.” It really helps on the spot, in the moment, not to be overwhelmed.
Then if you can, also get a massage. [laughs] But we need something in the moment to help us, and that’s where self-compassion is useful.
Lu Uhrich: That makes a lot of sense because it comes down to privilege. Do you have the discretionary income to be able to do a lot of these self-care things? And do you have the time as well? Because like you said, a lot of this is happening on the spot, on the job.
00:48:15
It sounds like from our talks – I know you shared what self-compassion is and the three main components of it, but it sounded like there was almost this foundation, this prerequisite of we have to believe that human beings are worthy of compassion and love, and also that we have to understand that we can’t control the world and we can’t control all the events of our life. It sounds like this underlaying foundation to self-compassion.
Dr. Kristin Neff: People who really believe they aren’t worthy of compassion, it’s a really hard block to get around, because you can’t make a logical argument, convince someone why they’re worthy of compassion.
I think what happens is eventually – because all those beliefs that somehow I’m not worthy or I want to control, they all stem from fear, really. That’s where they come from. Often the belief that we aren’t worthy stems from our early childhood, and we’re given that message, and it was safer to believe them than to question them.
So when we’re in a state of fear and we want to control and we think, “If I hate myself, then it’s the devil I know” – again, there’s a way in which that helps us feel safe, but it’s just not very productive. It ends up causing a lot of harm. So it’s almost as if people need to give self-compassion a try. “What happens if I try to be friendly and supportive as opposed to cutting myself down? Is it going to make me lose control? Am I going to be less motivated? Is my world going to fall apart? Will something terrible happen?”
People generally find, no, it’s quite the opposite. It helps them be more motivated, it helps them make better decisions, it helps them show up for others more in the world. But at a certain level I think it just has to be experienced.
I think you’re right in that it’s part of a larger – in a real way, compassion is an experience. It’s not really an idea. So that experience of connectedness, that experience of love, that experience of safety is what we need in order to really start making the shift at a deeper level. That’s why therapists are so good, especially for people with trauma histories.
I should probably mention this since we have some people listening to your show who do have a trauma history – and it’s not just people with a trauma history; trauma is just being a woman in our society, really. But there’s a phenomenon that happens with self-compassion that we like to call backdraft.
Backdraft is a firefighting term, and it refers to what happens when a fire crew gets to a house and it’s on fire. They don’t just fling open the doors of the house, because if they do that, the air rushes in and the flames rush out. Instead, what they do is go around the house and poke little holes in it to let the air in, let things reach equilibrium more slowly so you don’t get that big explosion.
Actually, sometimes with self-compassion practice, we can have backdraft as well. It’s like we’ve closed the doors of our heart our entire life to protect ourselves, and we start opening the doors of our heart, and the love rushes in, and the old pain rushes out. And sometimes it can feel kind of explosive, as an experience of anger or fear. There’s a lot of different ways it manifests.
What people need to know is first of all, this is a good sign, not a bad sign. People often think when they get backdraft, “I’m doing this practice wrong” or “It’s another thing I can’t do.” It actually means you’re doing it right. It means the old pain is starting to come out. This isn’t new pain. This pain isn’t caused by the compassion. This is just old pain that you’ve given space for it to come out.
Basically, you can’t heal what you can’t feel, so it’s a good sign that this pain is coming out, but what it means is we need to be compassionate in how we approach self-compassion. We need to poke little holes in ourselves as opposed to flinging open the doors of our heart. Which means we need to go at a pace that feels right. If you have a trauma history, then you give yourself compassion and you feel really frightened, maybe just do it quickly and then give yourself some space, or spend more time taking a walk or breathing.
In other words, don’t overwhelm yourself with compassion; allow yourself to go slowly. We have a saying, “walk slowly, go farther.” So be compassionate in the way you approach self-compassion. But don’t be at all surprised if you try to be kind to yourself and what arises is the opposite. It’s part of the healing process.
Lu Uhrich: I’m so glad you brought that up. It was on my list of things to ask you to talk about because that is one of the difficult things, one of the humps you need to get over when it comes to beginning to practice self-compassion.
00:53:25
Are there any others that you find that your students or people that have gone through your program or read your book get stuck on? Is there something they’ve got to get over before they can really dive into the self-compassion work?
Dr. Kristin Neff: Yeah. Backdraft is a huge one, but any time I talk to any crowd or talk to anyone, really, there’s usually about five main blocks to self-compassion that come up. These are really fears of self-compassion.
One is that it’s weak. People think that that harsh inner critic keeps them strong, and that if they’re kind to themselves, they’ll be weak and vulnerable, and who wants to be weak and vulnerable, right? People need to understand – luckily now we’ve got so much research that supports all of these things. If you don’t believe me, you can go look at the research on my website. But self-compassion doesn’t make you weaker. It makes you stronger. In fact, we’re finding now that it’s one of the strongest sources of coping and resilience we have.
For example, we did a study looking at vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lot of vets have post-traumatic stress syndrome from the combat they saw. We found that vets’ self-compassion levels was more predictive of whether or not they developed PTSD 1 year later than level of combat exposure. So again, it’s like, are you being an inner enemy or an inner ally? If you’re an inner ally, obviously you’re going to be stronger than if you’re an inner enemy. You’re going to weaken yourself. But people are confused about that and they’re actually afraid of this weakness.
Again, in some ways, the only way you’ll really believe it is by trying it out. Just try being a supportive inner ally and see if that helps you or hurts you. Most people see that it helps them.
Things like they’re afraid it’s going to take away their edge, it’s going to undermine their motivation. All the research shows it’s exactly the opposite. What happens if we’re a habitual self-critic is we become afraid of failure, we give up because it’s too painful to try, we don’t want to disappoint ourselves and others. Self-compassion gives you the sense of safety needed to take risks, to risk failure, and then if you do fail, to pick yourself up and try again. It’s linked to more motivation.
People have a lot of fears of self-compassion. They’re afraid it’s going to make them self-indulgent, like “I’m just going to skip work and eat ice cream all day.” Again, the research shows it leads to people taking better care of themselves because they care.
There’s a whole host of misgivings people have about self-compassion – and I have to say, our culture, you’re not raised in this culture thinking self-compassion is a great thing. We’re deeply suspicious of it. So those are blocks that have to be gotten through. I think the research does help because people put some faith in research and it helps with the credibility of it. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to try it out for yourself and see, how does this work for me? Now some people are finally willing to say, “Okay, this works. I’ll give it a try. It’s worth the effort.”
Lu Uhrich: Right, absolutely. For the most part, people aren’t discovering self-compassion or turning to it or even curious about it unless what they’re doing currently isn’t working in their life. So at that point, you might as well just give it a try.
I often share this with my clients, like, let’s just experiment with it. Just be an observer. Be a scientist yourself, an anthropologist. You’re studying you. Give it a try and see what happens. Take notes. Observe. Just really inspect it for yourself. But the only way is through that experience.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Yeah, I think that’s right. But the science does help. I’m so glad there’s so much research out there, because otherwise people wouldn’t be taking it nearly so seriously. But science isn’t enough, as we know. [laughs] Science on global warming isn’t enough so far, is it?
Lu Uhrich: Oh gosh, no.
00:57:25
We’re talking about science right now, and I’m a total science geek. I am not a scientist, but I love all things science and physiology, so I would love to hear from you: what are the biological responses to self-compassion in our body? What happens in our body when we’re self-compassionate?
Dr. Kristin Neff: I would say the research here is more – we do have some research. Not as much as we do in terms of wellbeing, depression, anxiety, etc. But basically it comes back to how we respond in terms of sympathetic versus parasympathetic reactions. We know sympathetic response is we get anxiety, we get triggered, fight or flight. Parasympathetic is increased heart rate variability, more flexible responding, releasing oxytocin, opiates, etc.
What self-compassion does is it directly decreases the stress response, the sympathetic response, the fight or flight response. For instance, we know it reduces salivary cortisol, or it reduces activity in the amygdala, and it increases things like heart rate variability. That’s probably, in the moment, the biggest thing it gives you, is the ability to feel calm and safe by activating your parasympathetic nervous system.
There’s a couple other research studies out there. One study – now, this is just one study, so don’t make too much of it, but it found that especially the common humanity component of self-compassion that’s measured on my scale actually was linked to lengthened telomeres.
We know increasingly that telomeres, which are the end caps of the genes and predict longevity, they’re actually really impacted by your state of mind. When you’re in a constant state of threat and “it’s so terrible and I’m so terrible,” that actually does things like shrink our telomeres and reduces our lifespan. So there’s some hint that maybe self-compassion reverses that process.
Another study actually – it’s a cool study – someone taught our Mindful Self-Compassion program to a group of people with diabetes, and not only did it help them cope with their diabetes psychologically, it actually stabilized their glucose levels. So we know that when you are in a state of – another term I use for the three components of self-compassion which is more evocative is loving connected presence. Loving is kindness, connected is common humanity, presence is mindfulness.
If you think about it, the more you’re in a state of loving connected presence mentally, that translates your whole body – you feel calmer, you feel safer, things work better. There’s also a little bit of evidence that this enhances immune function. Again, it’s all in its infancy, but it’s totally consistent with what we know about mindfulness practice and also what happens with compassion for others. So it’s very good for you physiologically as well as mentally, and of course, the two are so intertwined.
Lu Uhrich: It’s all so interesting to me, especially the part you brought up about the recent study with diabetes patients, because I think so often, there, the sympathetic nervous system is triggered by things like diet culture and the fear and the stress of the medical condition and what you’re eating or not, or what your body size is or not, that sometimes can be – I will say correlated, not necessarily the causative connection, but the correlation to diabetes.
Those things are stressing you out, and you shared already some of the stuff that happens – the fight/flight response that happens with the sympathetic nervous system. But if we can trigger instead parasympathetic nervous system and bring more peace to those aspects of our body and those internal functions physiologically, it makes perfect sense to me that it would actually positively affect their health.
Dr. Kristin Neff: That’s right. Because of this link between the mental and physiological, one of the main ways we teach people to help evoke a state of loving connected presence or self-compassion is by physical touch. It feels really weird at first, it really does, but we teach people to put your hands on your heart or hold your own hand or cup your cheeks like you might hold the face of a small child.
What we know about the body is that the body doesn’t really distinguish whether it’s you touching yourself or someone else touching you. The body is programmed through evolution to respond to warmth, gentle touch, and soft vocal sounds, soothing vocal sounds, with the parasympathetic response. It feels safe, it feels cared for. Just think of a mommy cat with the little kittens all snuggled up and purring. This is what we’re programmed for as mammals.
Sometimes your head can’t go into the direction of self-compassion because it’s too full of the story of how awful you are, how awful the situation is, so just putting your hands on your heart or your stomach can really help you feel cared for and calm down. Yeah, it feels funny at first. It does, but it works. [laughs] Give it a try.
Lu Uhrich: Or if you have a partner – my husband can attest to the fact that after I read your book and started practicing self-compassion, it was like, this actually is life-changing. I would literally find myself in a state of frenzy or self-criticism and just walk up to him and be like, “Okay, I need a hug. This is totally selfish. I’m not hugging you right now. I need you to hug me. I want to feel” – not that we can’t do that for ourselves also, but if you have a partner who’s willing to give you a hug…
Dr. Kristin Neff: It’s nicer. But yeah, what’s amazing is you aren’t totally dependent on someone to be there.
Lu Uhrich: Exactly.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Self-touch is pretty powerful. Also self-talk. There’s research coming out now that if you talk to yourself in the third person, like call yourself by your first name – or I like these terms of endearment with myself. I feel comfortable with that. But actually, it has a really big effect on the brain, because the brain registers it – it kind of goes into social connection mode, even though it’s you talking to yourself. So things like talking to yourself in a friendly, supportive way and saying, “Hey buddy, I’m here for you,” things like that – again, they feel funny at first. You’ve got to get used to it. But they’re actually surprisingly effective.
I like to sometimes say self-compassion isn’t rocket science. It’s not like you have to learn this incredibly complicated skill, because most of us have a lot of experience in how to be a good friend. One of the primary tasks of growing up is learning how to be a friend, how to be there for someone, how to console someone when they’re upset, what tone of voice to use, what to say. People are different, but most people have a pretty good grasp on what that feels like to be a good supportive friend to someone else.
So all you have to do with self-compassion is actually give yourself permission to do it with yourself. All the tools are already in place. It’s a very learnable skill, which is what’s so encouraging about it.
Lu Uhrich: I know we’re running towards our time limit here for our interview today, so before we go, I know that besides your research, besides your teaching and writing the book that you wrote, you also have interventions for people who want to learn how to be more compassionate towards themselves. I’d love for you to share with the listeners where they can get their hands on these courses if they would like to participate.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Probably the easiest way to do it is just to go to my website, www.selfcompassion.org. Google “self compassion” and you’ll find me.
First of all, we have a training program – you might have a local teacher in your area who teaches the Mindful Self-Compassion course, but I’m also coming out with an online course with Chris Germer, who developed the program with me. An eight-session course that came out really, really good, if I say so myself. [laughs] So that will also be available. If you just go to my website, selfcompassion.org, you’ll find all the links you need to do more.
You’ll also find free guided meditations and practices. I’ve tried to make it a really good resource for people to get started on the path.
Lu Uhrich: Awesome. Dr. Neff, I’m so grateful that you were here today and willing to speak with us about self-compassion, and I’m very appreciative of the work that you’re doing in the world.
Dr. Kristin Neff: Oh, thank you so much. That’s sweet. It was my pleasure.
Lu Uhrich: So that’s it for this week’s show. As I mentioned at the top, Seven Health is again taking on new clients. If you’re interested in working together or finding out more, head over to www.seven-health.com/help.
Thanks so much for joining this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!
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