Interview - Self-Compassion with Kristin Neff

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in Less Time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today, I am so excited to be with Kristen Neff. Kristin wrote Self Compassion, subtitled the Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. She she's one of the world's leading researchers on the science of self compassion. It's fascinating the studies that she shares in her great book. She got her PhD at UC Berkeley. I dropped out of law school up at Berkeley, so I appreciated that you got your PhD right when I was starting law school at Bolt, but she studied moral development at Berkeley and now she's an associate professor in human development at the University of Texas at Austin. Brene Brown raves about you and your work, which is how I discovered and again, I'm such a huge fan of it, particularly as a guy evolving and really learning how to have compassion for myself and those around me. I appreciate you taking the time today and I appreciate the fact that you've dedicated your life to such important work. So thank you.

Well, thank you. Thanks for that wonderful send up.

Well, let's jump straight in. Tell us, what is self compassion?

What is self compassion? Well, there's a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is it's really treating yourself with the same kindness, care and concern that you show to a good friend when your friend was struggling in some way or feeling inadequate or experienced some failure. Now, typically we treat our friends much more kindly than we treat ourselves. We're often harsher, crueler even to ourselves than anyone else in our lives. And so self compassion, we turn that around and treat ourselves with kindness and tenderness as well. So that's kind of the shorthand version. And in fact, when most people start looking into, well, how did they speak to the people they care about in their lives when they're struggling and how they speak to themselves, they're kind of shocked at how huge the difference is. So that's the short answer. The longer answer is nuf's three component model of self compassion, which I published back in 2003. But I think the model is important because it really outlines the essential components of self compassion. So the first is similar to what I just talked about, being kind to yourself versus harshly judgmental. And there's also an action element, the self compassion. In that compassion is well, concerned with the alleviation of suffering, but also the motivation to do something about it. Compassion has a motivational element. So a self compassion, that means when we're upset or we're Suffering in some way, we'll actively soothe, comfort ourselves, or help and support ourselves to make a change if we need it. So that's kind of the most salient aspect of self compassion. But there are two other pieces that are really, really important. One is common humanity, which is basically just remembering that all people are imperfect and everyone leads imperfect lives. And this sounds like it's so obvious, even a child knows this. And yet what happens is when something, you know, difficult happens, we struggle or we fail at something, there's this feeling that something has gone wrong, right? That this shouldn't be happening as the baseline should be. Everything is going perfectly when I failed or I get that diagnosis, something has gone wrong. And that sense that something has gone wrong creates a really powerful sense of abnormality and isolation from the rest of the world who are kind of presumably leaving normal, happy lives. Right? And it's just me who's failed or just me who's had this horrible thing happen. So with self compassion, what you do is you just remember, well, suffering and failure and imperfection is part of life. It's what connects me to other people as opposed to what separates me. So that's really key. And then the last component is mindfulness. There's been a lot of talk and research into mindfulness lately. So mindfulness really is a way of relating toward our experience in an accepting manner basically without resisting it or just being locked into wishing it would go away or wishing it would be different. So when we're looking at our own pain, and especially our pain caused by some mistake we made or some failure, we need to be able to turn toward it and acknowledge it and hold it in our awareness in order for us to respond with compassion. If we spend all our time just blaming other people or trying to problem solve or hiding from ourselves, we aren't going to be able to treat ourselves with the kindness we treat a good friend. So really the three components are essential from my point of view. Kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for both the short intro and the long extended. It's so good. And each I want to talk a little bit more about each of those three aspects of what self compassion means. And I just want to start by saying that common humanity, that one in particular, really helped me personally see how I've evolved. Gave me language to see how I've evolved. Because before when I was in my really deep perfectionistic, self critical mode, that was what was missing most fundamentally for me was that I thought that I was the only one and something was Inherently wrong with me. That's right, because I experienced this. And that phrase, common humanity is such a beautiful entry point to the broader sense of compassion, both in general and then specifically with ourselves. So I'd love for you just to describe that some more, if you could.

Well, I'll tell a little story, if you'd like, about a time when common humanity became very powerful to me. I recognized it very powerfully and it made a huge difference. So my son is autistic and he was about 3 years old. And at that point I'd been practicing self compassion for, gosh, quite a while, maybe seven or eight years. And we were at the park together playing on the swings. And there was lots of other mothers and their children there at the park. And you know, all the other kids were happy and laughing and chasing and interacting with each other. And my son, you know, back in his early days, he was much more severe. He was just sitting there banging on the slide, you know, repetitively, which is a typical autistic behavior. And I started walking down the path of self pity, you know, why me, poor me, why can't I have a normal kid like all these other mothers? And I started feeling sorry for myself, to be quite honest. But then I remembered common humanity because of my self compassion practice. And I thought, don't take this the wrong way, okay? But I thought, I looked around at the other kids on the playground, the other mothers, and I said, kristen, you're assuming all these mothers are going to have perfectly good relationships with their kids and these kids will grow up to live happy, wonderful lives. Well, honestly, some of these kids might grow up to be drug addicts or, you know, get in abusive relationships or end up in prison. I mean, I had no idea. But here I am assuming, you know, perfection in the lives of all these other families. And in fact, when I thought about it, that was a totally wrong assumption. And in that moment, it was amazing. I could feel myself switch from feeling isolated from the other mothers to feeling deeply connected to them in the experience of motherhood. I mean, every single mother and father on the planet has challenges with their children. Sometimes big, sometimes small, but nonetheless, it's an inherent part of being a parent. So when I remember that, everything changed for me. And so that's also a big reason why self compassion is not the same as self pity. Self pity is, for me, self compassion is. Well, life is difficult for everyone, including me. So we don't shut ourselves out of the circle of compassion, but we don't just focus on ourselves either.

That's Amazing. And by opening to that shared common human experience, you're able to alleviate that self pity and then also simultaneously and even more powerfully connect to others in ways we just simply can't if we think we're isolated.

Right, Absolutely. Some people think the term self is in self compassion, that it's self centered. Well, there's really no more self focused, self absorbed state than beating yourself up with self criticism. Right. You aren't thinking about anyone else. But once we kind of relate to ourselves with a greater sense of kindness and connectedness, then we aren't so self focused. Right. We're just saying, hey, I'm suffering. We're all suffering. This is part of the experience. And it's really, to some extent it's okay, it's painful, but this is normal. And so it really takes us focus off the self.

Amazing. Let's go back to kindness then. And if you could share maybe a story or some, whatever comes to mind is a meaningful way to kind of go deeper into kindness, that'd be wonderful.

Yeah, well, kindness is absolutely key. Right. So kindness is really, you might say that the healing balm of self compassion. Kindness is what wraps around suffering, our pain, the suffering of failure, the suffering of again getting a diagnosis or something happening. When we embrace our suffering with kindness, we actually rest in the kindness holding the pain. And so what it does is it doesn't make the pain go away. It's very important. Kindness is not like thrown at pain to make it go away because pain is there. We have to accept that. With mindfulness, it's just there. But kindness, we soothe and comfort ourselves while we're experiencing pain. We have, we have a saying in our mindful self compassion program of program I've developed to teach self compassion. The saying is we give ourselves compassion not to feel better, but because we feel bad. Right. So kindness is just think of a mother with her sick child with the flu kind of, you know, caressing her head and maybe putting a cool cloth on her forehead. She's, she knows the flu is going to be there, it's not going to go away more quickly. She's not pushing out the flu, but she's holding her daughter in kindness, which makes it bearable. That's what self compassion does. And that's why self compassion is linked to all sorts of positive emotions like happiness and optimism and savoring and joy. Because kindness is a very positive emotion that we generate in the face of suffering. So it's really quite remarkable. I think the power have to transform our own experience I love it.

And I love the metaphor of the mother with her child or father with her child or his child, rather. And just that you said this in the intro or the initial part as well. Just the kindness we extend to others, and how do we give that to ourselves? Right?

That's right. And most of us are actually pretty good at being kind to others. At least those in our. In group, we have. We struggle a little more. People in other groups, racial, political, ethnic groups, okay. But at least the people we care about in our lives, you know, we know what to say. A lot of people think, oh, I don't know how to be compassionate to myself. I don't even know what I would begin to say to myself. But you do know, because you know what to say when your friend is suffering. You know what to do. Give your friend a hug or tell them you love them or that it's okay and that you're there for them and you support them. So we have all these skills in place, and really the only trick is remembering and also giving yourself permission. Very important to use those skills really with yourself.

So good. Well, how about mindfulness? Let's go to mindfulness. And then I want to explore some other particular ideas, but give us a little more insight into the mindfulness side of things.

Right? So, all right. So as I mentioned briefly, mindfulness entails being able to be with our experience as it is without resisting it, right? When we don't have mindfulness, which is actually most of the time, we bang our head against the wall of reality. So not only have I failed, I shouldn't have failed, And God damn it, we get really upset. We work ourselves in a tizzy over something that already happened, right? It's like we don't want to believe it. We don't want to accept the fact that something did happen like that, so we make it worse for ourselves. There's a saying, suffering equals pain times resistance, right? So when we aren't mindful, when we resist our pain, we make it that much worse. So with mindfulness, like, like I said, we turn toward our suffering, whether it's because we've done something that we regret or we felt in some way or something just very difficult happens. And by accepting it, first of all, we're decreasing our suffering right there by not resisting it. But also, it's like, you know, if you aren't aware that you're suffering, you can't give yourself compassion. And some people, like, they, like, what do you mean, am I not aware I'm suffering? Like, it's pretty obvious when I'm suffering, isn't it? But actually it's not. It's interesting often. First of all, if our suffering comes from our own self criticism, that voice has often been a quiet whisper in the ear for so long we don't even notice it's happening anymore. Or we go straight into problem solving mode. When things are difficult, we're trying to fix it, make the problem go away. So just the simple phrase, and I use this a lot with myself, this is really hard. That's mindfulness, bringing awareness to the fact that this is really hard. And when you say that and you validate your pain mindfully, not in a melodramatic way, just acknowledging it, that's what opens the door for the compassion to arise.

So good. And that was one of the ideas I wanted to explore as well, was the suffering equals pain times resistance.

Yes.

What a great model. The pain is present, this is there, but it's our resistance to it.

That's right.

Multiplies the pain we're going to experience. What a beautiful insight.

Exactly. Yeah. When you're stuck in traffic and you're late for an important meeting, yeah, it's painful, it's not good. But when we resist the fact and get really upset and frustrated by that fact, it just makes it worse. We've all experienced this. Right. And so the same applies for our own personal suffering as well. Absolutely.

Yeah. So good. Amazing. Well, this is great. So we went through self kindness, common humanity, mindfulness. And tell us about the noting practice.

Ah, well, Nodi practice is the classic mindfulness practice. Okay. So basically it's a tool that helps us maintain mindfulness when we're lost in the dramatic storyline of a situation of our emotions. Right. So I'll tell you another story. This is, this is really not a self flattering story. People think, oh my God, she practices self compassion. But I need it because I'm human. Right? So I was at the zoo with my son Rowan, and we were watching a bird show. Okay. It's a kid's bird show. And so we're sitting there and Rollins, he's being pretty disruptive. He's kind of talking. He wasn't being well behaved, you know, but he's autistic and it was hard for him. And so he was squirming in his seat and the woman in front of us turned around and I swear gave my son the evil eye, like a really nasty look, like, shut up, shut up. Look. And if anyone treats my son poorly, I become mama bear. Right? So I was just. Mama Bear was triggered, really, really upset. And Rowan said, mommy, who's that? You know, the woman you turned around. And I said, this is the bit that's not that self flattering. I said, she's. And I used a name that started with B and it wasn't Bear. Okay, not exactly mindful parenting moment, but a human moment. And so after the show ended, she, you know, started really getting angry at me and. How dare you say that. And I found myself starting to get angry back. And we were escalating and then, you know, my noting practice, the habit came up and I said, I am so angry right now. And of course she was like, yeah, you know, tell me something I don't know. But for me, instead of being lost in the anger, that simple ability to step outside myself and say, I am angry. And that gave me that little bit of space I needed to de escalate and get myself out of the situation. So that's kind of the power of noting. It allows ourselves to be that little bit more objective, have a little more space so we can choose to respond to a situation rather than just reacting.

That's so good. And thank you for sharing. I think I figured out what the word was.

Yeah.

The noting reminds me of. Dan Siegel is the one who introduced me to the idea of naming it to tame it. So name it to tame it. So it's the same basic idea.

And there's research, actually, that shows that when you name difficult emotions, the amygdala gets less active. So it really does work.

It's amazing.

So what are we doing there? We're basically moving from the amygdala and kind of all that up into the prefrontal cortex and.

Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Right. So we aren't so it's really. We aren't so triggered because when you're triggered, you are lost. You know, all that's happening is threat, threat, threat, fight, fight, fight, flee, flee, flee. Right. And then when we know, we bring a little objectivity to it. A little. It's also a former perspective taking. Right. You're looking in at yourself, the kind of outside point of view, and that engages the prefrontal core. Yeah, yeah.

So kind of the witness perspective, the observer perspective we're cultivating in our meditation practice to be able to do that in real time when we find ourselves being, you know, flown down that river.

Flown down that well worn groove.

Yeah. So good. Okay. Another idea that I loved in your book is the idea of resetting expectations. So this idea that you have A really funny story about when we were born, we weren't given this contract that says, okay, everything's going to go perfectly.

You know, it's absurd.

So talk to us about resetting expectations.

Yeah, well that's kind of again tying into the common humanity, right? That we act as if, you know, God has broken a contract when something goes wrong, right? This wasn't supposed to happen. And that's where we get really messed up because we get angry at the fact that we fail. We feel, you know, I should not have failed. And if you kind of look at that when we're self criticizing ourselves, it actually feels less vulnerable to say, you know, I should have gotten it right. Which means that theoretically it was possible to get it right than to admit that, you know, we're vulnerable human beings and we will get it wrong. And that's part of what it means to, you know, live the life that we actually did sign up for, which is the human life, not the superhuman life. So really resetting our expectations is just, and it's very important to say it's not like given giving up. It's not like you stop striving to make healthy change at all, right? It just means that you acknowledge that you will fail and you acknowledge that you are imperfect. And what that does is the research is pretty overwhelming now. It shows it actually increases motivation because when we reset our expectations, when we fail, it's not devastating, it's not the end of the world. Which means we can a learn from our failure. And we all know failure is the best teacher we can admit we failed, right? And we can pick ourselves up and try again. And the research shows we are more likely to do that and more likely to keep trying after failure than people who are self critical. If you just slam yourself with criticism when you fail, undermine your self confidence and basically you become afraid of failure. Of course you're afraid of failure. Who wants to face the consequences if you fail of your own self criticism and you stop trying and you give up much more easily, right? So you know, it's a very important point because a lot of people think that somehow we're lowering our standards or we aren't. You know, we think perfectionistic striving actually kind of works well. And by the way, it works to some extent people wouldn't do it if it didn't work at all, but it has really bad consequences. What happens when you do fail, right? And you can become so stressed and burned out with that striving that again, you actually undermine your ability to do.

Your best so powerful. You just tied in two of the other ideas. I wanted to explore failure. And you used a phrase there that I loved. It's really life's apprenticeship. And then you also talk about self efficacy as it relates to. As self compassion relates to self efficacy, and then kind of vice versa. Let's go to the self efficacy. So self efficacy. Tell us what self efficacy is, and then please tell us how self compassion supports us in cultivating it.

Absolutely. Okay, so self efficacy, it's, you know, the more common word would be self confidence, the belief that you can do it. The feeling that I'm effective and I can accomplish the task I set before me. Right. And again, research and motivation shows that self efficacy or self confidence is one of the most important predictors of achieving your goals. Right. So it's a famous series of studies where they pitted two wrestlers in a wrestling match who are exactly the same, equal skill. And the one who won was also one who had a greater sense of self efficacy, who believed in himself the most. So with self compassion, I think a really good metaphor to use what you're doing with self compassion is you're being a supportive coach. Okay? So think about two different ways. You're a coach, let's say coaching your, you know, teenage boy's baseball team, okay? So the coach has two ways to motivate his players. The first is with very harsh criticism, the type we use with ourselves that say his team loses the game and he says, I'm ashamed of you. You're losers. You know, you'll never amount to anything, which is. Makes you cringe. But think about it. We often say the exact same thing to ourselves in the exact same harsh tone. You know, I'm ashamed. I'm a loser. We're really hard on ourselves. So think of how effective that coach will be at motivating his players versus the coach that says, oh, man, well, you know, it happens to everyone. You know, you're still a great team. I'm still here for you. But the coach, the coach wouldn't stop there. If he's a good coach, the coach would say, hey, you know, this bit didn't go so well. Let's do some extra practices and we'll bring in some specialists to teach you something. But I'm here to support you. I believe in you and I'm here to support you. So when we can be that in that kind, supportive coach with ourselves, you might call it an inner ally as opposed to an inner enemy that's going to help us believe in ourselves. Because we have our own back. That's what self compassion does. It means we have our own back. And that's going to make us much more confident that we can achieve our goals. And in fact the research shows it helps us achieve our goals.

So that's amazing. Is there any other cool research that you'd like to share?

Gosh, there's so much cool research. Well actually maybe I'll talk a little bit about the research on motivation. But one area we haven't touched on which is really important is the role of self compassion in relationships. Again, a lot of people think that self compassion is selfish. I should just, you know, slavishly serve others, think only about others, have compassion for others, help others and not give any of that to myself. Right, because that's selfish. Well, in fact what the research shows actually with a colleague did a study of people in romantic partnerships where they've been together for at least a year. And what we did is we had one partner fill out myself. Group Compassion Scale. A scale I developed to measure self compassion and the other person rate their partner's relationship behavior. So more self compassionate people were rated by their partners as being much more giving, much more caring, much more intimate, much less controlling, much less likely to use anger to try to get their way in a relationship. And people are much more satisfied in their relationship with self compassionate partners. And it makes complete sense. Again, if we, if we unpackage it, if you expect your partner to meet all your needs, right, as, as we do, all our needs, exactly how we want them met, exactly when we want them met, you know, we're going to get angry and irritable when things aren't going well. We're going to tend to want to blame our partners. We can instead of facing our own self blame. And again, self criticism is a really self focused state. But if I can nurture myself, if I can meet a lot of my own needs, a lot of my own emotional needs, if I can give myself the support I need, I have much more resources available to give to others. So again, self compassion is not selfish. It actually gives you, it increases your ability to be there and give to others.

That's so good. I appreciate you sharing that. And it's one of those paradoxes, right that we have this idea that it's self indulgent, it's selfish, etc. And as you said, we have more resources, more energy to be able to give that we just don't have if we're not taking care of ourselves.

And that's another One, you said the word self indulgent. A lot of people think I'm having a hard day to be self compassionate. I'm going to go ahead and eat that, indulge entire box of Oreos. Right? And so people think that they need to be hard on themselves so that they, you know, can do things like exercise or eat well or do whatever, get to work on time. And again, the research shows the exact opposite. So if you care about yourself and you don't want to suffer, just like, you know, compassionate parent who cares about her child and doesn't want her child, that parent's going to say, eat your vegetables, go to bed on time, do your homework, and the same with ourselves. So people who are self compassionate engage in healthier behaviors, they go to the doctor more often, they're more likely to practice safe sex, they eat better, they have less disordered eating, they're more likely to eat until they're full, just have healthier eating behaviors. So a lot of research showing that it counters selfish indulgence. And again, if you care, you're going to take care of yourself.

Amazing. Well, this is amazing. I'm really excited to share this wisdom and I like to wrap up our chats with two questions. One, a big part of my work in optimal living is to help people discover and practice what I call their fundamentals. So kind of those self compassion fundamentals that help us stay plugged in, whether it's exercise, nutrition, meditation, etc. Can you share with us some of the practices that you've integrated into your life that help you from a general perspective? Stay plugged in.

Yeah. And also if your listeners are interested, I have a bunch of practices on my website that people can can try out for themselves. You don't have to take my word for it, but. So there's various meditations I do which help engender self compassion. There's one, actually. I've been told that this is one of the favorites of people who listen to the meditations on my website called Soften, Soothe and Allow. And it's a meditation, but it's a little different. You might say it's something you do when you're really upset. It's a great thing to do at three in the morning when you're in bed and you can't sleep because you're so upset about a situation. And what you do is you basically start by labeling the emotions, figuring out what is it I'm feeling. Oh, I see, I'm feeling sadness. You find it in your body. Where do I Feel that sadness. And then you soften physically around the felt sensation in your body and then you soothe yourself because it hurts, right? So that might mean like putting a gentle hand on that part of your body, saying kind words. For me, this does not work for everyone, but for me I like to use the diminishes with myself. So I might say, oh sweetheart, this is so hard. You know, some like the type of language I would use with my son, I tend to use that with myself. And then you just allow it to be there. So you go through this kind of circle of softening around the emotion, soothing yourself because it hurts, and allowing it to be there. So practices like that, that really combine mindfulness, you know, not resisting difficult emotions and soothing yourself because they are difficult, are really, really powerful. So I use that one all the time. The other one I use all the time is something called the self compassion break, which is also my website. I've got a little MP3 of it where basically what you do is you start with some sort of a soothing, supportive touch. The reason we emphasize touch so much is because there are three universal triggers of compass, right? They've done this around the world. Dacher Keltner's research at UC Berkeley shows this. The three triggers are warmth, gentle touch and soothing vocalizations. Okay, Think of a, think of a kitten purring, cuddle up next to mommy. Right? This is part of being enamel these triggers. So if you use some sort of supportive touch, could be your hands on your heart or up in your cheeks or wherever feels support soothing for you. So you adopt that soothing touch and then you just say phrases that remind you of the three components to self compassion. So the first phrase is actually mindfulness. You have to be aware of your suffering. So the first phrase is this is a moment of suffering. You just wow. And it's amazing. Often that changes everything. Just saying, oh yeah. Instead of being lost in the storyline, you think, ah, this is a moment of suffering. This hurts. Right? And then the second phrase is suffering is part of life. You know, this is reminding ourselves of common humanity. This isn't abnormal. Everyone suffers. You know, there's nothing to be upset about. The fact that it's happening, failure and perfection. This is what it means to be human. And then the last phrase is just, may I be kind to myself. So really using any language or giving yourself what you need to be kind to yourself in that moment, and this is a practice you can do, you know, takes just a few minutes. Whenever you're really struggling, you save a self compassion break. And a lot of people report from our workshops that it's really, really effective in their daily life.

Yeah, that sounds amazing. And we'll definitely make sure we link to your site and reference those particular practices. Wonderful. And then the last question I like to frame is if you could only share one piece of wisdom for people aspiring to optimize their lives and actualize their potential, what would that one piece of wisdom be?

Well, I'm afraid this is going to sound trite, but yeah, just hold everything in love, right? So when love holds suffering, it manifests as compassion. When love holds positive events, positive emotions and manifests as joy. There's nothing we can experience as human beings on this earth that can't be held in love. Or you can use another word if you don't like the word. Love, tenderness, care. And really, if you start practicing that no matter what happens, you know, positive, negative or neutral, you start resting your awareness in the care and kindness and love that holds the experience and then that becomes a mindset you carry around in the world which affects novel in yourself. But every single person you come into contact with and it's always there, it never deserts you, there's always available. In the worst of times it is available, available. And it will get you through tough times. I know that personally. It'll get you through when you need it. Yeah.

Beautiful. Wow. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate your vulnerability, your authenticity and your self compassion. Just the embodiment of these ideas. And again thank you. If people want to learn more about you, where's the best place?

Yeah, just Google self compassion. My website comes up@selfcompassion.org and got info about me And I do teach workshops all over the world really. And I've got book and CD set but a lot of free stuff on my website. You don't have to buy anything, right? There's a free. You can download the PDFs of the research and there's exercises, guided meditations. So if you start there to be a really good first step to find out more.

Fantastic. We'll put a link to it but for those listening not in front of the computer itself and we'll have links right next to this video or audio rather. And Kristen, once again thank you. Appreciate you.

You're welcome. It was great fun talking to you.

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