Kristen Boice
I'm excited you're here for this week's close the chapter podcast, I have been asked that this guest is on the podcast, I first got introduced to her way back when I became Dr. Brene. Brown trained. And we were introduced to self compassion in Bernie's books. And it was Dr. Kristin Neff's work because she's a pioneer in self compassion that Dr. Brene Brown would talk about. And then I heard her speak at one of the trainings I was at for the daring way. And I love her in her work. And she's on the podcast. I know, I'm getting so excited. I just cannot tell you how amazing this interview was. And I feel like a kid in a candy shop like this is one of the guests that was on my kind of Bucket List of guests and she's on the podcast, you'll want to listen to this episode so many times because there's so much depth of information in this one podcast. So save it, bookmark it, send it to those people in your family, start integrating it in your life, it will change your family system, your parenting, your relationship with yourself, your trauma, the shame the stories that you tell yourself, it's going to transform you to become more free to speak up. Be your authentic self love yourself, because we can say all just love yourself but a lot of us don't know how to do that we talked about on the podcast. So let me introduce you to Dr. Kristin Neff, she spells her with an ion I spell my with an EN we talked about that when we first got on. And let me share the wealth of I hate the word credentials. But her background with you. She 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. More than 20 years ago, she has been recognized as one of the most influential researchers in psychological history worldwide. She is the author of best selling book self compassion. And her latest book is fierce self compassion, how women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power and thrive along with her colleague, Chris Gerber, who's amazing as well. If you ever want to learn more about mindfulness, and self compassion, he is a pioneer. Also, she developed the empirically supported Mindful self compassion program, as founded the Center for Mindful self compassion. They wrote the best selling Mindful self compassion workbook, you'll want to get her books. The first book I ever got was self compassion. And then she wrote the mindfulness kind of workbook. Then she wrote the latest one on fierce compassion, and she shares she has a new book in the works, as she reveals that in the working title, on this episode, we just had a deep dive into self compassion. And I talk to her a lot about all of our negative thoughts that we have about ourselves our shame and not feeling good enough in not loving ourselves. And then our children, maybe it's your grandchildren if you work with kids and how they're really struggling to love themselves because it comparison and social media. So without further ado, so excited. Here is my interview with Dr. Kristin Neff. Share tag post, let me know what you think. Here it is, enjoy. Welcome to the close the chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counseling, through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode so be sure to subscribe. Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast I am beyond thrilled this might be one of my most excited guests that I've ever had on the podcast. I've had many wonderful ones. I was introduced to her work back in when I became a daring way facilitator with Brene Brown years ago 2012 And then my guest today Dr. Kristin Neff, who really was a pioneer in self compassion work. I saw her speak at a conference I was at and fell in love with the material really went on a mission to integrate it into my own life. And then as a parent really embrace how to offer myself self compassion, nurture, with tenderness, my younger parts that really needed that in childhood and how to integrate it now. And so it is my honor and privilege to have you with us, Dr. Neff. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Neff

Thank you so much, Kristen for having me on. I'm happy to be here.

Kristen Boice

We were just chatting about E N, Kristen with an E n and n i n, you get the ayat er en I get the I in? That's right. There we are. So thank you so much. I thought well we'd start with is can you define self compassion? And the difference between self compassion and fierce self compassion to start with? Yeah,

Dr. Neff

well, so self compassion is really, if you think of the Latin compassion as suffering comes with. So how are you with our suffering, big suffering, little suffering, whether it comes from like we've made a mistake, or we feel inadequate or a compassionate, supportive, warm, caring, friendly way? Or are we with ourselves in a shaming, judging cold way. And so the self compassion is, again, being kind yourself, but it's actually as two other elements that I like to talk about. One is mindfulness. And other words, we need to be willing to turn toward an acknowledge and be with our pain in order to give ourselves compassion. Normally, either we try to repress it or not face it, or we get sucked up by it, we kind of get lost in it. So we need a little perspective, like to step outside of ourselves and say, Hmm, you're having a hard time could I help. So mindfulness is necessary, and also really important. What makes it compassion and pity is a sense of connectedness to other people, you know, so pity is helping these poor me, if I pity you, it's for you. Compassion is, hey, I've been there. We're self compassion. It's a hey, life isn't perfect for everyone. So not in a comparative way we don't say is my suffering more or less, but there's nothing wrong with me for making mistakes or having challenges, and I'm not alone. So those three elements together, make up self compassion. And then there's also a fierce and a tender expression of self compassion. So if you think though compassion is concerned with the alleviation of suffering, which is actually kind of the standard psychological definition, well, sometimes I need to alleviate my suffering by accepting myself, if I'm just totally judgmental, or if I'm a perfectionist, that accepting myself as I am. I'm also accepting my emotions, the fact that things are difficult that instead of fighting them or ignoring them, just okay, this is here, and right now, and then when we're tend to with ourselves, it's almost like a mother with her child crying child, we're there for ourselves, we care for ourselves, you soothe ourselves, and eventually we start to heal. Very important part of self compassion, is sometimes we need to take action to alleviate our suffering. So for being complacent, or like we're doing behaviors, you're unhealthy, or for in situations that are unhealthy, it's not self compassionate, to accept those that we need to take action. And so a really important part of self compassion, for instance, is drawing boundaries speaking up for yourself saying no, that's not okay at protecting ourselves. That's like, like mama bear, bit of energy a mama bear are also providing for our needs are motivating change. So it's really asking yourself, what do I need right now? And then the answer is going to differ depending on what your situation.

Kristen Boice

I love this concept. Because I think a lot of people don't know where to start. They're like, I don't even like myself. So I've had a lot of clients say, I don't even like myself, or even my inner child, I'd even like my little self, how do you begin to start offering yourself Self Compassion, and liking these parts, all these different parts of ourselves that we might have just disliked for so long?

Dr. Neff

Yeah. Well, interestingly, liking yourself isn't necessarily part of the equation as for self esteem, do I judge myself positively or negatively? Compassion is an unconditional sense of worth. In the moment that baby is born, they're worthy of compassion, you don't have to like pass a test to be worthy of compassion. It's intrinsic to our humanity. That's why the status of humanity is so important. There may be things that are good to work on, doesn't mean that you're not okay. Just because some of your behaviors may be considered a little work. Or maybe you make a mistake. Well, just because you made a mistake doesn't mean that you are a mistake. Brene Brown likes to say that, it's really not necessarily about locking yourself, it's about understanding that you're doing the best you can, you're here, your human being you feel you're trying your best, you're struggling. In other words, self is in there. But we actually don't take ourselves that personally. In other words, so many causes and conditions went into who we are, you know, our upbringing, our genes, what we eat that day, or culture or age, how we've been treated by others, very little of it actually is under our direct control. None of it, if you really want to be honest, is under our direct control. And so we have compassion for that the fact that yeah, you know, here I am with the hands I've been dealt, just day by day do my best. We kind of open our heart to that. And also remembering that everyone's insane code. Everyone makes mistakes and is imperfect. Yes, some person people suffer more than others. I'm not going to deny that Of course not. But every human being is worthy of this kind of approach, especially from ourselves, if not from ourselves and who Yes,

Kristen Boice

how do we begin to learn to offer ourselves compassion.

Dr. Neff

If you can't give yourself compassion, you can start by giving yourself compassion for the fact that it's hard to keep yourself going Passion kind of tune in to the discomfort of having that hardened heart or all those feelings of judgment. And you know, what would you say to a friend who said, I can't stay on myself or I'm such a horrible person, your heart would melt a little bit? No, yeah, that's not true, you're much more than that you aren't just these behaviors or these patterns, or, you know, you look in the mirror and you only see that one fly, you don't see all the rest of That's right. And so really, I think you just start there, it hurts my heart, so close. And can we acknowledge that validate it with mindfulness, remember that we aren't alone, and be a little kinder to ourselves a little encouraging a little gentle, or maybe a little mama bearish if we need it. But it's really about hearing for whatever experiences. And again, if you move away from myself as like a concrete individual, separate from everyone else with the set of traits, and just the fact that I am an awareness, I am awareness, whose feelings who's experiencing life, everything's constantly change. And it's almost like you open up your heart to the experience of being, as opposed to judging yourself and your traits and your qualities and your successes and your failures. Now, some people might call your higher self, if that works for you. If you're an artist, spiritual person, you could think of it as maybe your care system is inborn through evolution, you know, we're all we're all designed to actually be caring people, as well as problem solvers. So it's really just a mindset shift away from the question, Do I like myself or not? Is it even relevant? Whether you like yourself or not? You're doing your best? And how can I care for myself? You might say, is this healthy or not? Acid? valid question.

Kristen Boice

Yeah, I love what you just said, because I don't think I've heard anyone say it that way, that we're all designed to be caring. I mean, as humans, we don't think of the humanity is that way. I think in a lot of ways,

Dr. Neff

we're also designed to be self critical. So here's the thing. So if you're self critical, don't beat yourself up or beating yourself up. There's a reason. First of all, our culture does not tell us to be self compassionate. It tells us to be compassionate others is really suspicious of self compassion. He knows we make you lazy or unmotivated. So you weren't taught it, but through evolution. So evolution designed us as human beings to be very threat sensitive, especially when it comes to personal threats. So if I make a mistake, or something's challenging in my life, or I fail in some way, or something's evil, we go into fight flight or freeze mode. But of course, the problem is with us. So we fight ourselves, we attack ourselves as a way to stay safe, we think of, well, if I'm really hard on myself, maybe I'll change and I'll be safe. Or maybe I'll beat others to the punch or hurt myself. So it won't hurt so bad if others judge me. Or we flee into a sense of shame or isolation. Or we freeze we get stuck and like over and over like thinking like, we always like play dead, right. So these are natural behaviors that don't come online, if your best friend fails, or makes mistake, you're also personally threatened. So you're actually able to use a second safety system, which we have all human beings habit, which is the care system. So again, genes designed for this systems like oxytocin and other opiates, designed to care mainly for our infants and our group members. Because if we did that, if we are carrying our genes will survive and pass on to next generations. But it's more natural for others not so natural for ourselves. So we do have to do a little hat, you have to tap into the system is designed for others use with ourselves with the body use it all the difference. So someone else's say puts her hand on your shoulder, your cortisol is gonna go down. If you put your hand on your own heart, cortisol goes down. So you can relate to yourself, the weight feels more natural to relate to others, and you get the same benefits. If you want to think about what's it consequence of all this self criticism. You think what if you told your friend I hate you, you're stupid, you're ugly, whatever it is, what a loser you are, was said how could it have, they wouldn't be your friend if you did that, but the same impact you have on yourself. Whereas if you say to your friend, by the way, if you're a good friend, you can be honest with them. Because if you say oh yeah, you probably saw to be not a problem. If you do that, when in fact, they're really harming themselves. It's not a good friend. So good friend gives you honest, clear, but constructive feedback. This isn't working so well. It might be helpful to do this anyway, I can help you do that. That type of constructive supportive stance is much more effective in helping us be safe and make change. I

Kristen Boice

like how you said that because I do think because your nervous system will spot I find my nervous system will spot that inauthenticity. Yes, will almost like give me an answer in my body like me, I don't feel like that's genuine authenticity,

Dr. Neff

because when the baseline is okay, just because I'm a human being I'm intrinsically worthy of kindness and care didn't I don't have to like try to impress others so much and don't have to fake it to be acceptable. And so it gives you a lot more freedom to be your true self. Yes, including with yourself to be your true self with yourself. I know it sounds funny. But the more we know about part psychology we have different parts of ourselves. So we have part of us it's compassionate a part of us it's political, a young part, older, wise part. So it's really how these how are we laid into these parts that it should have called it selves compassionate if it has to be totally accurate but

Kristen Boice

the eye Free. I do think there's these different parts because it's not an all or nothing. It's not like all of us, even though sometimes it feels like that. Yeah, it's part of us. That's right.

Dr. Neff

We become fused your blender with a particular part. And it kind of takes over the system.

Kristen Boice

Yeah. So it's a little internal family systems s

Dr. Neff

right. Exactly.

Kristen Boice

Yeah. Yeah, let's jump into because I know a lot. Many listeners are parents or grandparents, or they're working with kids in some capacity. And what I'm gathering with working with teens and family systems, because that's my passion. I love family systems. I see so much self criticism. And this I'm not good enough. So a shame and comparison. And it is deep, is deep. They get on the social media, and immediately their body has a response.

Dr. Neff

It's horrible. We thought we had it bad, right? Oh, my gosh, so much worse. Yeah, no, it's like even my son. So my son has autism, which maybe changes a little bit, but he's actually very self critical. We know to be self compassionate, but it's a natural response. Because when he feels threatened, it's like, his first reaction is, I'm afraid someone's gonna beat me up or diseases cartoons, the weirdos getting beaten up. So he's afraid to beat himself up versus kind of just so he could have some sense of control. And so it's a natural response we shouldn't get into shouldn't judge ourselves for it. But it's not very helpful. And so the thing with teens and with kids, first of all, it kind of makes sense. These are common sense ideas. If you ask a teenager, would you say this to your friend, would that be very helpful, they probably say no actually won't be very helpful. So I think they can get it logically. So in terms of practicing it, really just the more it's modeled and embodied by parents and caregivers, the better it is, you can't like tell that your teenager you should really be more self compassionate. That's one more thing I got to do. But so first of all, if we embody self compassion, here's a really cool thing. We've got proper Interpersonal Neurobiology Dan Siegel's work, we just know a lot about empathy and the brain. And we actually read other's emotions at the pre verbal level that really matter. So which ones are saying our brains are designed to pick up what other people are feeling. So if you're a parent, and maybe you don't criticize your kid, I mean, we're pretty good about that. You criticize yourself either out loud, or you get internally, that first of all, let's just talk about them internally, your mind state your kid is picking up on. So if your mind state is like frustrated, and like angry, and like Shaney, than your body, that and your kids picking up on that. But if your mindset is, well, I'm doing the best I can. I'm an imperfect human being, this is how we learn to then be kind to myself, the best and your kids picking up on that with their rear neurons. And then you add into that outward modeling. I mean, a lot of parents, you break your grandma's precious vase and the opposite, you idiot. And you're really saying that because you're hoping that the other person doesn't call you in it moment. And you great grandma's precious vase of bottles of company, like I love that faces my favorite artist. So sad. Well, it happens may I'll try to be more careful next time, or if I should, uh, you know, maybe put it somewhere different. You might well first of all, feeling compassion for your mistakes, acknowledging them and taking responsibility and doing something and not beating yourself up for it. And then when you model that there's actually research that shows we pick up what parents say, if they model self criticism, we think, Oh, that's a really good way to be a three mile self compassion. Oh, that's a good way to be. You can't totally control it, because it's so much of this is biological, but you can help. And so my son well, he also has OCD, in addition to autism. He's challenged that way. So we have little scripts, like when his brain acts up is a tricky brain. I know you're trying to keep me safe, but it's actually not helping I worthy of kindness and care and support in this moment. Synergy need to say little things like that, because again, the brain is going to do its own thing. But it can't be something that's learned. He's pretty good. Now he will put his hand on his heart and your everything. So I love

Kristen Boice

that. I like scripts. I like the idea of scripts. I was an example of this. We just got a new truck. My husband had gotten a new truck for his company car, and it had one of those steps that comes out like automatically. Why did I know that? I'm like, I opened the door. Boom, the step comes out, hits me in the knee, like in the shin, and I've got bags of groceries that my daughter's with me at the time, she was younger, and I go Ouch. Oh, sweetie, you're gonna be okay. And I'm talking to myself. Like I literally was like, you're okay, sweetheart. I know that hurt. It was like an automatic response just came out of my mouth. And I just felt okay, that you said the grocery says she was Mom, mommy, you're talking to yourself so kindly. I said, that's how I heal when I get hurt. I feel better when I cut as she goes. She was never she was a teenager now. She has not forgotten that moment. She's like, remember when that it's like those little moments

Dr. Neff

in cut powerful. That was you? Yes. We're super adolescent. Doesn't make everything go away. But it's a tool. She has a resource she has to fall back on. As

Kristen Boice

of now she'll go Kate. It's okay. That's her name. She'll go Kate. It's okay. She'll talk to herself out loud, like she'll go. You don't need to get worked up over this. It's all right. And she's like, internalizing a voice. And like you said, she still has comparison and shame and things like that I've now seen the fruition of really doing my own work around it, and how that's translated into parenting. And

Dr. Neff

the thing is, when shame arises, you can give compassion to that, like you start wherever you are, whatever is arising of shame or self criticism is a fear of failure is arising, that you give compassion to that you can give compassion to anything that's arising in the moment,

Kristen Boice

whatever your biggest challenges with it as a person, as a human, just to humanize you, like what are your biggest challenges with self compassion? Yeah, so

Dr. Neff

I mean, it is pretty instinctual for me. But for instance, self compassion is pretty instinctual. But do I make mistakes as often as ever? Absolutely. So reactive anger is kind of one of my things, is just in my car wiring. You saw it, I love I, you know, I get really passionate, but sometimes I just, there's too much of an edge. Yeah. And then shame arises spiritual retreat. And I started like getting angry at my teacher and talking to people. Like, here, I am not a meditation retreat, and it's still happy. Like she rose and I just still arises. It's not like it stops. But I could give compassion to myself for sort of like buying into the story that I'm a horrible person. And there Mazal give up. Now. It's like, well, you're an imperfect person. things arise, we aren't in total control. And I could work with it. But sometimes I do have to remember because again, I think internal Family Systems is a wonderful model. When a part takes over, we don't always have access to that self compassionate part. Don't you have to remember it. But fortunately, for me, it's fairly big. It won't take too long before I remember compassion. But it doesn't make the pain go away does make you stronger, so they can hold it more efficiently. were helpful, a lot more helpful.

Kristen Boice

Thank you for sharing that. I think it just goes to show I mean, we're all humans in those stories. Like, well, we get hit with the shame. The Seattle worries, I'm like, Oh, they think I'm they think XYZ me or whatever the story is, yeah, that can be hard to take hold of like that story can become so big,

Dr. Neff

especially because often there's some grain of truth in it. Right? So that was one incident. Of course, we don't think about that. Nine times out of 10. No, we didn't, we're actually probably 19 out of 20, where we didn't react that way. That doesn't form the stroke, because we had this negativity bias, right. So it's just a one time out of 20. When we did act that way that that becomes who I like defines who I am. Your very distorted thinking thought really, the more I would have to say the thing I can be more and more clear on is thought, although it's useful is really problem. It distorts things and doesn't see things clearly, we think things are permanent and darker and more horrible than they are. And it's just you tell ourselves the stories to make sense of things. Even if they aren't true. We don't care. We just want some storyline that's going to make us feel I don't know, I think like, if you look at a lot of our politics today, it's people telling themselves stories constantly. Why don't we just drop out of it and just be what's really happening? Oh, I see. The sun is shining, I'm alive. There's energy flowing in my body. I'm pretty healthy in this moment. And that's actually anyway, I

Kristen Boice

think the stories can be a defense almost. Do you think that that

Dr. Neff

will Yeah, because if you try to protect deadly systems is like a manager part. Yes, our prefrontal cortex, right, it evolved to be a problem solver. So whenever we feel any sort of threat, we go into problem solving mode, and our stories, we kind of solve things in our minds, even if actually nine times out of 10. Or at least often it makes things worse, it actually doesn't help many, many times, it makes things worse, it doesn't help the here's the interesting thing, our underlying motive is usually always care. Because if we're trying to be safe, it's because we care about ourselves. So even people who are horribly self critical, the reason they're overly self critical, some part of them thinks it's helping to keep them safe, which is a form of care. I have

Kristen Boice

not framed it in that way. I like that it's a form of care that you're trying to care for yourself, which is the protective part trying to protect you from hurt, shame, blame, judgment, rejection, abandonment, it

Dr. Neff

is just not very effective. But you kind of tap into his motive. When people say I don't care about myself blocks you kind of do otherwise be didn't quote, self criticize, you probably wouldn't care at all. Yeah,

Kristen Boice

you probably be pretty detached to any like not connected at all. Because that's a defense to like, whatever psychopaths,

Dr. Neff

for instance, that's one of the issues. They just don't care about other people about themselves and neck and just they just kind of get up compassion for that they didn't choose to have those brains but people's brains like that. They just don't care. They don't self criticize. They just an urge tat true life. Yeah. Which is like a survival state that they're stuck in, in some ways. Would you say? I'm not a clinical psychologist? I don't know enough to say but I just noticed that there is a brain difference. Yeah,

Kristen Boice

it's interesting. When you wrote your first book, let's talk about the journey to your books, because you've got three. I mean, you've got if you're including the mindfulness workbook, would you include that in there. Okay. Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. Okay. So or but that or okay, we tell me the four and then the evolution of how they evolved.

Dr. Neff

Yeah. And then I'm also writing a fifth right now. Yeah, self compassion for burnout, self compassion toolkit for Brunel. So the first book is self compassion. And this is probably the best place to start. For anyone who's interested in learning. It's very personal. It really lays out the basic concepts, a lot of stories. And then I created the Mindful self compassion workbook, which came from my collaboration with Chris Girma, who's a clinical psychologist, and we created a training program to teach people self compassion. So it's basically the training program and Workbook format, very practice oriented. It's not so personal, it's more, it's a workbook. And then we created the teaching the Mindful self compassion program for professionals, which is like a textbook on the pedagogy of teaching self compassion. But if you're a therapist, for instance, can be very useful to think about, well, how do I teach this skill to others. And then last summer, a book called fear, self compassion came out, I actually wrote it for women. It's called fear, self compassion, how women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power and thrive. And I was kind of torn about whether I should write it for everyone or just a woman, but it kind of is on the heels of the me to movement, I had my own kind of me to experience and that realize, so gender role socialization stands in the way of being able to balance fierce and tender self compassion. And I'm not talking gender identity with your cisgendered, or transgender or non binary or whatever. It's just the book read, put it in a pink shoe box in your little room put in a blue box, right? So people could in the blue shoe box, they don't have to be tattered, they get bullied and often beaten up, so they aren't allowed to be sensitive, which really undermines his or emotional strength of being compassionate towards your emotions is this, me less successful, only 10 15% of the people that show up to my workshops, people identify as men because of that is harmful. But then people put on the pink shoe box, they aren't allowed to be fierce, they can get called names, different names. If there are two fears that considered too ambitious, or people don't like women are too uppity or too loud or too outgoing. Especially in anger. People do not like it when women are angry, and may angry man, people believe him, Oh, he's passionate, and angry woman Oh, they didn't believe her. She's crazy. And anger, it can be a problem. Of course, if it's misplaced, but it has a function, it can focus you or suppress the fear response that has a role as long as it's aimed at alleviating suffering. And I think one of the things I noticed in my own kind of story in terms of this man was kind of abusing people sexually one of those stories that people had weren't speaking up, and what kind of our time getting angry about it. And it's because it's been so socialized out of us, Oh, see, the best in people are, you know, I don't want to say anything, I don't want to rock the boat. And that's partly not the woman they have, you know, share any blame for it. But that's partly what allows it to continue as people aren't willing to speak up, then, you know, how are we ever going to stop the problem. And so that's really where that book came from. And so it's about the history of patriarchy. And you know, how it's not an accident that woman's anger has been suppressed, because we're a lot easier to control when we don't complain or weak, or you don't get angry about things. So, so I had to write the book. And then the book I'm writing now, like I say, it's going to be called, we aren't sure the exact title yet. But it's the self compassion toolkit for burnout. Like like the workbook is practice focus, but specifically how to deal with burnout is such a huge problem now in society is

Kristen Boice

huge. So I love the evolution because it seems like your evolution to like your journey,

Dr. Neff

you know, is whatever so all of that really comes from my own journey my own personal life. I love that

Kristen Boice

because it seems like you feel more empowered like as you have kind of continued on the self compassion journey. It has empowered you to find your voice app and and be okay with feeling all your emotions, including anger. So that work really this is the can be for some people like this is the word like it empowers you to be more of yourself, find your voice set you free. I find particularly women but men to have been abused in some way. They are so afraid. It's almost like our bodies go into freeze, as we know to protect ourselves. Yes. And I really believe in your work that self compassion can help you unfreeze. Absolutely

Dr. Neff

going to help you and freezing to help you get unstuck. You're often what also fear freezes us. Shame is a big one that gets a sticky when we feel shame. Such an uncomfortable emotion. We even realize you're feeling the shame. And if you look at like things like depression or anxiety, usually there's some vein of shame in there. And self compassion is actually the antidote shame. So instead of feeling judgmental, isolated, and like identified, I'm a bad person. We feel kindness, mindfulness and sense of connectedness to others. So really unraveled shame is that the thing that research shows, the

Kristen Boice

shame is so powerful. I mean, it just takes you down the rabbit hole, and yet you feel like you want to hide.

Dr. Neff

You need to be caught compassion for shame. We are Dillo own worldly human, does it all of us is just a part of us or just a behavior and some kindness. And the moment you do that shame starts to unravel. Yes.

Kristen Boice

How did you get partnered up with Chris? So I'm always curious in the journey of how people like find each other on this journey of life. You guys were meant to find each other? How did that all happen? So

Dr. Neff

in 2008, there was the Mind and Life Institute, which was founded by actually the Dalai Lama and Richie Davidson and some other people had the first silent meditation retreat for scientists. And so I signed up for it. And Chris Gerber, I didn't know at the time sign up for it. And he contacted me and said, Oh, Christina, love your work. It was near him in Boston, and you want to write and he's insured. And so we met. And yeah, it was meant to be, it's been, I have to say, it's my most functional adult male relationships. It's been a great seat

Kristen Boice

that I felt that with you, too, you have, you're modeling what it looks like to have healthy communication in

Dr. Neff

writing this book a week, but it had some times, but we could work through it. And it's okay, we can talk about it. Usually, whenever we butt heads about something, it always comes out better. Yeah, I started good idea. And I've got a good idea. That's why resolving it leads to something better. Yeah,

Kristen Boice

I love that. One of the things I think people struggle with is communication. They don't know what to say, they don't know how to say it, they're afraid to speak up because they're gonna hurt someone, someone's gonna get mad at them, someone's gonna get dysregulated. How does self compassion help with communication and finding your voice? One

Dr. Neff

of the things it does, that's funny, my book, fear, self compassion, in some ways with me, because I'm not afraid of what people think of me. And so that's why so that reactive anger is my thing, how to integrate the tenderness with it. But I will say is strengthen that if you look at what I've accomplished part of it's because I'm not afraid to put myself out there. And I'm not afraid to speak up. And part of that is because I have self compassion. So when you're aren't afraid of people's judgments of you, because your bottom line is I will pay because I'm a human being I'm perfect, and it doesn't mean free rein to cause harm I eat obviously, I'm a very caring person. So it's something that someone has an edge. I'm constantly working with that. Absolutely. If you know that. The bottom line is you're okay. And it's okay if other people don't like you, and that your worth is determined by whether or not people like you or think you're nice or whatever, gives you a lot of freedom. Yes,

Kristen Boice

I also see with couples, like with couples of one person, maybe one person goes into anxiety, like that's the default, and then one person is bent towards shame. And the shame might, we might get angry.

Dr. Neff

The thing is, self compassion is good for all of it. Because it's really just looking honestly, what's happening. That's the mindfulness. Remembering that you aren't alone. This is part of being human, something wrong with you for doing this isn't how humans work. It really helps. And then kindnesses, what do you need? What would help right now. And what you needs can be different, depending on your patterning, the way your brain works, your childhood history, your culture, and to be kind to myself is quite different. And giving yourself permission to say what's true for me, even asking the question is half the battle?

Kristen Boice

So where does someone begin with like, what would be one mindfulness exercise that you think is probably the most important one you've taught over the years for someone to Yeah,

Dr. Neff

so probably the easiest one is what we call the self compassion, right? actually be doing research. If you want to know how to bake a self compassion cookie, your the ingredients, one part mindfulness and others be heard toward the fact that you're hurting, this hurts validated, look at it, bringing your awareness, I'm not allowing one part common humanity. Remember, you're saying wrong with you, you are the only one if he's kind of think of all the millions of people in the world puppy club do something similar. So letting go that sense of that fake sense of isolation. When kindness to me just simply what would I say to good friend who cared about who's going through the exact same thing and going through, and usually riftwar experience of being kind to others. So usually, you know what to say. And then you make a U turn, you say it with yourself. So if you can remember those three things,

Kristen Boice

I highly recommend your quiz to the self compassion quiz. Yes,

Dr. Neff

I printed scale to measure it, you can go to my website, self compassion.org. And you can take it give you a score. And even just asking the questions can be really informative. Like I never thought of

Kristen Boice

that. What I often give it to my clients, I'm like, let's start with this. And then I love the exercise you just taught because you have lots of resources on your website, you are filled with so many resources, what it's given the audience that website for those that might want

Dr. Neff

to you'll find me I got it early on the Google algorithms. So self compassion.org But again, if you just type the word, it'll lead you straight to me. So yeah, I've got money free practices on there. We like a five day self compassion challenge. You can sign up for that on my books. We've got some I'm actually going to be starting in a couple months and self compassion community which I have like dialogue, discussion boards and meetings with me. So that's kind of an exciting new project to get a little more that Sangha has community helps a lot. When you try to practice it. The best way to practice is with others. So I'm launching that

Kristen Boice

that's exciting. I think community people are craving community of people. that are doing the work together. Yeah, exactly. So I'm excited for that. That'll be great. So if you're on your mailing list, then people can Yeah, we'll find out about it. It

Dr. Neff

just joined my mailing list. And I also sent out a blog, a little video every month, usually with the practice, fantastic. I try to give away stuff as possible. You're

Kristen Boice

very generous, you got really very generous and your books are filled with so many practical resources, you so it's one thing to have the theory. And it's another thing to say, Okay, now, how do I really implement this in my life?

Dr. Neff

Exactly? You can you have to understand it. Exactly. You

Kristen Boice

have both which I love. What are the top three? Would you say most important concepts of self compassion or fear, self compassion, that you could share, like just your top three.

Dr. Neff

So a one that I haven't discussed is called Backdraft, which is an important concept, because sometimes actually, when we open up our hearts to ourselves, we think, Oh, I'm gonna feel so good. Actually, sometimes we feel bad. There's like Backdraft, and houses on fire. If you open up the doors, the air goes in, and the flames washed out. So if we think we're doing it wrong, we're actually doing it right. Because what's happening is we're opening up our hearts and all the pain that's been stored in there starts to come out. So it's not a problem is to realize it's normal. But it may is a signal also that you may need to slow down a little bit. If it's too overwhelming or destabilizing, you might need to like just kind of titrate, how much do you let in how much you open to go more slowly, maybe get a therapist to help you through it. So that's an important concept. Another really important concept is called The Paradox. We give ourselves compassion not to feel better, because we feel bad. In other words, self compassion is not like we're sprinkling powdered sugar on everything to make ourselves feel better. If we do that we're kind of miracle accepting the fact that yet we heard we do it just because we are fully accepting that we heard, we don't do it as a self improvement project, fully accepting that we're flawed human beings. And we're kind to ourselves, because we're flawed human beings, that hurt, actually, often than we do, are able to more just change. But if that agenda is that we don't accept ourselves or our emotions, it's not really self compassion. So that's an important concept. And maybe just one last concept, I like to say, it's really helpful to drop out of your head into your body, because our head or the thoughts is, where the storyline is of how bad I am, how bad my life is, your body is just first of all, it's always here. It's always right here right now. And it's actually an important conduit for self compassion. Because just physiologically, you know, babies were born to respond to, for instance, soothing and supportive touch in a way that activates her sympathetic and nervous system, deactivate sympathetic response. So using your body, putting your hands on your heart or your face, or just try not to just think about it so much, but just reveal it as a physical sensation. Use any sort of physical touch to ground you and say, or Bastion,

Kristen Boice

those are really helpful. I wanted to just expand one moment on something you said, Do you think people can do bypassing like I'm going to cut that was somewhat what you were saying

Dr. Neff

couldn't misuse anything. You can misuse the truth. You can misuse philosophy, you can misuse, self compassion, or mindfulness, you can misuse spirituality, the human brain, we're tricking or funky monkeys, we can misuse anything. So it's always good to check in, am I being self compassionate, as again, to do with my difficult emotions, or to make to be a better person? Well, then maybe you want to rethink, or to be self indulgence, if you really care about yourself, you aren't going to choose the easy way out, you're gonna say, I need to work on this, because that's caring. And if you just say, oh, doesn't matter, I'm gonna be self compassionate, you aren't really being self compassionate, you're getting bypassing, you have to always be careful that and again, no matter if it's self compassion, or whatever it is you're looking at. That's

Kristen Boice

a very good point. How do you know if you're bypassing? What would be the tells? If you're bypassing using like,

Dr. Neff

ask yourself that question, Am I doing this to feel better? Or am I doing just because I feel bad? If there's a subtle agenda, that maybe you want to rethink it? Again? Not that we don't do things? Yeah, of course, we do want to take action. But can we take action while fully acknowledging the right now things are imperfect, we'll be okay with that. And if you can't, then that's a good sign that you're bypassing. So accepting in a moment as it is accepting the pain and expense accepting ourselves as eager as we are the MP behaviors. Yeah, of course, I want to help lobby areas I want to be happy, but defining who I am, and they don't define my worth. us. We need to hold both together.

Kristen Boice

I think that's an important concept with burnout too. Because if we spend a lot of energy trying to just feel better than we're, yeah, we're not really not as good ourselves. We're exhausting ourselves. We're hustling in a way that we're like, oh, I'll just do self compassion, and then I'll feel better.

Dr. Neff

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Instead of really, then it's just powdered sugar,

Kristen Boice

which can exacerbate you feeling exhausted, because like I still don't feel good. Well, that's because you're like trying so hard to put yourself in this Good place. That's right, or be this good person or whatever you're trying to shift intellectually versus embodying it. Exactly. Yes. Well, is there anything else that we missed that you feel like is important to share? Maybe

Dr. Neff

just one last point is the number one block to self compassion, as people think will undermine their motivation. They don't understand fear, self compassion, the research shows is absolutely not true, that it shifts the reason trying to achieve because you'll be a better person or you are unacceptable, you try to achieve because you want to make you happy, because you care about yourself. And that allows you be more okay with failure, which allows you to learn from your failure, because failure is your best teacher. And that actually helps improve your performance when you can learn more and try to figure out okay, well, what did work so well? How can I improve that, as opposed to I'm terrible and shaming yourself, which believes is very helpful. So that's just a big word for people to keep?

Kristen Boice

I think that's a really important point. How did you get to the point where you didn't care what people thought, I mean, you care, but you're not like, driven by what people think. I think this is a big one for people.

Dr. Neff

The years of self compassion, practice, it just rest really one way it paid off as I got older is like, that's my bottom line. Of course, I want people to like me, so I don't, but it's like, it's my word. I know, I know, my worth is dependent on it. And that's freedom. As self is one of the biggest things self compassion has given me. It's been 25 years now in practice, so, and some fruits,

Kristen Boice

I think that's the bottom line of what it offers you the freedom of knowing and connecting and embodying your worth and value, like needing it externally to someone does it like it? No, that doesn't feel good. And you know, you're still okay. That's right. You're still lovable. And regardless of how the person responds, or well, especially

Dr. Neff

because if I could love myself, and so it's like the sources internal as opposed to external, and

Kristen Boice

we just framed how to do that, because people like just love yourself. And people are like, well, that'd be nice for if some folks, right, they're like I would if I could ask

Dr. Neff

me unconditional is like a parent with a child. Not all parents do love the kids unconditionally. But I think a lot of us, a lot of us do. And we understand this probably the closest we get to unconditional love. And so we can learn how to do that with ourselves.

Kristen Boice

Thank you so much for sharing your heart, your loving energy, your wisdom and your authenticity. And think that is you're showing us this is the byproduct of you doing like you studying this and doing this work and teaching others like you're showing us this is the freedom you find in self compassion. So thank you so much. I encourage everybody to get the books and begin to integrate it into your life. And just notice the difference is so thank you, Dr. Kristin Neff, for being here today.

Dr. Neff

Have a good day.

Kristen Boice

Thanks you too. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoy this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristendboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.