How to Quiet Your Inner Critic with Dr. Kristin Neff
September 24, 2024
Glennon Doyle:
Hello. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We have Dr. Kristin Neff here, who we have been hoping to speak to for so long. Recently, Amanda was talking about how it would be nice if she could silence the critic in her mind, and we just thought now’s the time, Dr. Neff.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Beautiful. I’m so glad you have me on. Yeah, there’s so much resonance, I think, in your book. Actually, your book, Untamed, came out the same year my book Fierce Self-Compassion came out.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, wow.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
I feel like there’s a little sisterly resonance there. Maybe I’m presuming, but I love that book.
Glennon Doyle:
I love that, sister books. Amanda, why don’t you let us know why you were so excited to have Dr. Neff on?
Amanda Doyle:
Okay. Well, first I want to talk to the pod squad because I know that many pod squadders are like me, and I want to speak to them and tell them to hang tight with this and keep listening to us, because this episode is for all of us who have a mean voice in our head, and to think that actually we need that constant self-critic in our head in order to keep us motivated, that if we didn’t have the self-critic, we would just be lazy and complacent and our life would be crap.
And it turns out that’s not the case at all, which I thought that this self-compassion idea was very woo woo. But it turns out that it’s all counterintuitive. The more self-compassion you have, the greater motivation you have, the greater self-responsibility that you have, less depression, less anxiety, less perfectionism. So what I’m saying is I’ve been trying it out for a tiny beat, and just hang with us because I think that this is good for the woo woo people and also the people who are like, “Yikes, that sounds kind of soft to the touch.”
Glennon Doyle:
So Dr. Neff, she’s saying if you’re like Glennon, you’ll like this. And if you’re like, Amanda, you’ll like this.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Great. We’ve got everybody.
Amanda Doyle:
Okay, it covers everyone.
I’m going to introduce Dr. Neff. Dr. Kristin Neff is an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and co-founder of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. 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 runs a self-compassion community, an online learning platform, where people can learn the skill of self-compassion with the help of others. She’s the author of the best-selling books, Self-Compassion and Fierce Self-Compassion. She also co-wrote the Mindful Self-Compassion workbook and has a new book, called Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout, coming out fall 2024.
Thank you, Dr. Neff, for being here.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really just thrilled to be talking with you both.
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you. I want to tell you how this little journey started with me, and tell me if this makes sense or if this is the way a lot of people come to it. But I was in a loop, a mental loop with my relationships and my marriage and whatever, where I would just see the things that were wrong. I was very critical in saying, “That should be better. This is a problem over here.”
Basically, I had blinders on of only being able to see that, and it was causing me a lot of suffering and not to mention all the people around me. I was talking to a friend, and I was like, “I don’t understand how I can’t get off this cycle. I still just feel so negative. I can only see where things need to be improved. I can’t see where they actually exist.”
She was surprised that that was surprising to me. And she said, “Why do you think that you’d be able to have a non-critical voice to the people close to you, if you always have a critical voice to yourself? If you can’t cut yourself a break ever, how are you ever going to cut anyone else a break?”
Is that the case for people who have the critical voice in their head?
Dr. Kristin Neff:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, damn it. All right, well, it got me here, so that’s good.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
I’ve done a lot of research on this. People say you can’t be compassionate to others until you’re compassionate to yourself. That’s actually not the case. A lot of people are very compassionate to others, maybe don’t criticize others, are understanding or patient, are loving but beat themselves up. That’s actually the normal way of being.
When you learn to be more supportive and kind to yourself, it actually helps you be even more compassionate to others and sustain giving compassion to others without burning out or becoming drained. But first of all, I just have to say, Amanda, it’s your brain. Please don’t judge yourself for judging yourself. This is the way our brains are designed to work.
Our brains, through evolution, are designed for survival. What’s most effective for survival is we have something called the default mode of our brain, kind of the normal way our brain operates. What it does is it creates a sense of self. It projects that self into the past or to the future, and it looks for problems.
You can see why this was good for survival, but just the way our brains naturally tend to operate. When you’ve made a mistake, or something difficult happens in your life, you feel threatened, naturally. Part of you feel threatened. So you go into fight, flight or freeze mode. You focus on the problem, which is in you or maybe the environment. You fight the problem, and if the problem is you, that means you fight yourself. You criticize yourself thinking maybe you’ll make a change so you be safe, or you’ll control the situation so you’ll be safe. You flee into a sense of shame and isolation, just to protect yourself from the perceived judgment of others. And you freeze and you get stuck. You get in this loop because we think, “Maybe if I just don’t do anything, the problem will go away.”
This is natural, it’s normal. We shouldn’t judge ourselves for it. In fact, you might just take a moment just to really appreciate that part of yourself that’s been trying so hard to keep you safe, working very hard, maybe overtime for many, many years. However, it’s not actually that effective at keeping us safe. It kind of works. Some people, they criticize their way through law school or med school.
It’s not like it doesn’t work at all, but it doesn’t work as effectively as another system we have, which actually evolved primarily to care for others. It’s called, there’s a lot of names for it, the attachment system, the mammalian care system, the tend and befriend system. It’s basically the system that evolved for parents who want to care for their infants, their family members, their in-group members. This is a system which I’m sure, I’d be willing to bet five bucks, and maybe I can ask Glennon if it’s true, that when you’re coming to Amanda with a problem or you’re upset, she can probably be pretty compassionate and listen or with your friends. So you have that system also in you, but it just typically comes online for others.
That’s the way it evolved. But the nice thing is we aren’t stuck with that. We can use this system. We can access our compassion itself, which is really learned. We know how to listen. We know how to be there for someone. We know how to be silent, when to give advice, how to help, how to care, but it’s usually for others like pets or children or close friends.
So what we’re doing with self-compassion is very simple. It’s actually a very humble agenda. We’re just including ourselves in the circle of compassion. And the cool thing is, just like we know that motivating your child with encouragement, saying, “I believe in you. How can I help you get your grades up?” or whatever it is you want to do is more effective than saying, “You’re stupid and lazy. I hate you”, which will kind of get the kid to pay attention, and they might work a little harder, but they’re going to be so overwhelmed with negative self-talk and self-doubt, it’s going to actually work against them in the long run.
Same with ourselves. So saying, “Okay.” First of all, a good friend tells it to you straight. A good friend doesn’t say there’s not a problem, if there is. That’s not being a good friend. A good friend says, “Hey, yeah, there’s a problem. It’s okay. It happens to everyone. How can I help?”
It’s the exact same thing with ourself. When we take that friendly, supportive, clear-sighted attitude with ourself, it’s actually more effective.
Amanda Doyle:
No, it makes sense because that’s the other thing that’s one of the myths about it, you’ll stop being motivated. But also that is just a tool to cover up your problems.
If you’re being sweet to yourself, you’re kind of trying to obfuscate your problem as opposed to what your research has shown is that if you’re beating yourself up over your problem, you’re actually not even seeing the problem clearly, that if you’re being compassionate, you can see it. So can you talk about that?
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Yeah. There’s also two faces of self-compassion. There’s a similar energy. People think that self-compassion is just tender. And it can be tender. That’s an important side.
Tender self-compassion is the accepting, nurturing side of compassion. If you were to put your hands over your heart and feel that being there with yourself, acceptance. “Yes, we’re flawed human beings, we aren’t perfect. That’s just the human condition.” Just like a parent, hopefully, unconditionally loves their child, we can unconditionally love ourselves. This is a real healing power of self-compassion.
But if you’re doing something that’s harmful to yourself or others, it’s not compassionate to say, uh, it’s not a problem, if it is. And that’s where fierce self-compassion comes in. Fierce self-compassion is the ability to say no, draw boundaries. This is harmful to yourself or others. Or if you’re in a relationship, for instance, that’s toxic. It’s not compassionate just to say, “Oh, well, you know. Oh, it’s so hard.”
The compassionate thing to say is “No”, or “I have to leave”, or “I need to make a change.” I call it this mama compassion, tender mama compassion. And there’s mama bear self-compassion. And both are equally necessary to alleviate suffering.
It’s really this mama bear self-compassion, the fierce self-compassion, that says, “Hey, I love you unconditionally”, just hopefully like a mama bear would, “but this behavior has got to change. How can I help?” Or, “This relationship’s not good for you”. Or, “The fact that you’re being discriminated against, it’s not okay.” Drawing boundaries, saying no. It’s a really overlooked part of self-compassion, which is really crucial because if we want to alleviate suffering, which is really what self-compassion is, the desire to alleviate suffering, we need more of the accepting side, and we need the action side. It’s like yin and yang. We need both. They need to be in balance constantly.
Glennon Doyle:
So when you’re talking about having the conversation, “Okay, I love you, but this thing isn’t good for you”-
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
You’re talking to yourself. You have a behavior, or you have a habit, or you have a choice you’re making or a way of being, and you are talking to yourself and saying, “Love, this is not for you.”
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Absolutely. At the same time… Normally, when people do that, the inner critic sometimes says that, but says, “You better change, or else you won’t be a worthy person.” If you want to be lovable, you better get shit your together, basically.
So the tender self-compassion is like, “I love you unconditionally. Even though you’re a mess, I still love you.” Your worth isn’t contingent upon making change. “But because I love you, I really care about you, and I see that this behavior is not helping. It’s harming you. I love you. I see your suffering. How can I help?”
You want to make the change, and sometimes you need to be firm, like, “Hey, draw boundaries. This is not okay.” But it’s coming from love, not coming from fear of being inadequate. And it makes a huge difference.
We know this instinctually for our children. We know both work, but it works much more effectively when the bottom line is unconditional love, and the fierceness. When a child knows that mom is doing this because she loves me, not because she hates me, it’s going to land a lot better. Exact same thing with ourself.
But yeah, sometimes we need to stand up for ourself. But also remember… I know you’re really focused on standing up for whether it’s LGBTQ rights or… I actually wrote the Fierce Self-Compassion book when the whole Me Too movement was happening. This whole thing of saying no discrimination, anti-racism, no sexism, saying no to others is also a really huge part of taking care of ourselves.
We need both. If we’re too accepting, we might be complacent. On the other hand, if it’s too much about change, change, change, we have to accept the frailty and messiness of the human condition. People are messy. Situations are messy. Relationships are messy. We’re messy. We can accept our worth unconditionally as flawed human beings at the same time that we can be pretty strong and powerful in saying, “Hey, something’s got to change here because I love you, not in order for me to love you.”
Amanda Doyle:
Huge difference.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, I love you so much that I can’t leave you in this place, whether that’s yourself or the world or your kid.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
It feels very different. When someone’s being tough with you, maybe a coach. I’m sure Abby could talk to this. A really good coach doesn’t say to their players, “Oh, don’t worry about it.” No, because…
By the way, we did a study, if you don’t believe me, with NCAA athletes, and they have to be the best. You can’t be second best if your scholarship’s riding on it, or you want to go into the pros. So we taught them to be self-compassionate about their mistakes, their training routines, or their games, but to think of an ideally compassionate coach. For an athlete, the ideally compassionate coach is the one who points out very clearly how you can improve, because the kindest thing you can do for an athlete is to say, “Hey, here’s how you can improve.” But not from a place like you are only worthy unless you’re perfect. But yeah, “I love you. I care about you. This is what’s not working.” Giving you really good constructive feedback.
And we found that athletes who learn self-compassion, their performance improved. Their mental health improved, but their performance also improved. And this is not only their own opinion. Their coaches also rated them as improving their performance because it’s more effective.
We can let in the feedback in when it’s safe to do so. When I know that, okay, yeah, it hurts, but I can admit it. I made this mistake, or this isn’t working so well. It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I’m only a human being. We could let it in more, and we can grow from it. We learn from our failures. We know that. And yet, somehow we think we aren’t supposed to fail. But it’s true. We learn from our failures.
Amanda Doyle:
If we’re so threatened, if our goodness and lovability and worthiness on the planet is contingent upon not receiving that negative feedback, because that means I’m bad, and I’m not worthy, and I’m not lovable, then of course we’re not going to let the information in. And then we’ll never be able to solve the problem, whereas I am already loved, I’m already good, I’m already worthy, therefore, I can receive this feedback you’re giving me and take it in.
I loved about the athletes, when you were working with the basketball players at UT, and you gave them this course. But you called it inner resilience instead of self-compassion so that they could accept it and tolerate it and integrate it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, So it sounded more bad-ass.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
I actually called it inner strength training because I knew they’d like that.
Amanda Doyle:
Inner strength training, yes.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Inner strength training, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
But it is.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
It is.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s another way of bolstering yourself up for what life inevitably is. It’s actually more realistic.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
It is, it is. And by the way, in your point that you were making about self-worth. When I first introduced the construct of self-compassion to the field of psychology… By the way, I didn’t come up with the idea. It’s not my idea. It’s actually a Tich Nhat Hanh, who’s a Zen master, talked a lot about it. But I did play a role in bringing it into academia.
My first paper was an alternative way to feel good about yourself in terms of comparison to self-esteem. Self-esteem is… Esteem, the word esteem is an estimation, a judgment of worth, and it’s contingent. In other words, we have high self-esteem when we look the way we want to look, but our body looks the way we want it to look when we succeed the way we want to succeed, when people like us.
But it’s a fair-weather friend, because what happens when we don’t look the way we want to look or people reject us or we don’t succeed the way we want to succeed? It leaves us flat, and then we feel badly about ourselves.
Self-compassion also provides a sense of worth, but it’s intrinsic to our humanity. You don’t have to go to graduate school to be worthy of self-compassion. You’re a human being, a living, breathing, flawed human being, trying the best you can, that’s where our self-worth comes from.
You might say it’s a true and stable friend. When we don’t look the way we want to look, or we don’t succeed the way we want it to, or people don’t like us, then we can just be with ourselves with this unconditional type of support. The research shows… For instance, we did a study, people with body image concerns, women with body image concerns, and we had them listen to the meditations on my website for three weeks. We found that just doing that for three weeks, their sense of self-worth was less contingent on how they looked. They were more able to find a sense of self-worth that was more stable, this true friend that was just from the fact that they were a living, breathing human being. That’s a huge difference between the two, and that’s one of the reasons it provides such benefits.
Glennon Doyle:
It makes so much sense because we don’t say to our kids… Hopefully we’ve learned this. We don’t tell the messages over and over again. “I love you because you’re beautiful.” “I love you because you’re smart.” “I love you because you work hard.” I love you because whatever, because those things, while they seem like compliments, they’re actually terrifying because, “Okay, so if you love me because I am smart or because I show up or because I achieve, then I am not those things.” “Or when I’m not those things, you won’t love me.”
It’s the same to ourselves. It’s what drives me nuts about the beauty messages and body messages of, “You’re beautiful. We’re all beautiful, we’re all beautiful. You’re beautiful. That body’s beautiful.” That’s not the point. The point is that we shouldn’t have to be beautiful at all. That’s not where our worth is. I don’t want anybody to tell you, “Your body’s perfect. You’re beautiful.” I just want you to remind me that that doesn’t matter at all.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Exactly, exactly. It’s unconditional. Parenting is a really good example. It used to be, as you know, spare the rod, spoil the child. We actually used to think that you needed to be harsh and cruel with kids. Otherwise they’d become spoiled and lazy. And now, hopefully, most of us have learned that that’s not good parenting.
It’s the exact same thing with ourselves. The love and the acceptance, this is the tender self-compassion, it’s unconditional. But the behaviors and the situations, we’re always working to try to get them to be as healthy as possible because we care, not in order to be lovable.
It’s huge. Once you make that shift, it just changes everything. And it’s so much easier to get things done when you aren’t dealing with the shame on your shoulder, saying, “You aren’t good enough.” It just depletes you, makes it harder than it needs to be.
Glennon Doyle:
Sister, do you have an example of this? What does your voice sound like? What is the voice in your head that has made you realize you even want to address this? What’s driving you nuts up there?
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I have two parallel tracks of it. One is how I am unable to see anything other than the way things need to be improved or the way things could be better. If things are 98% amazing, or if I’ve done something 99 point, my focus, my brain is on the 1 or 2%, and it’s like the rest of it’s invisible. And that’s in every aspect of my life, the way I perform or any output.
More recently, and this is something that I would love to talk about now, is the aspect of this that is about just surviving the inevitable pain of every day and year and month and whatever, and especially with parenting and life. When things happen that are beyond my control, when I see my kids going through something, and trying to allow it to be as painful and hard as it is, not immediately going to, “They’re going through that because I fucked up in these three ways. If I would’ve done X, they wouldn’t be going through that. If that person over there didn’t do it…”
Trying to make the world controllable by my criticisms as if if those things were better, that pain wouldn’t be happening, as opposed to just letting the pain be, which is what I’ve been working on in therapy, which I had an epiphany when I was reading your work, Dr. Neff, because my therapist is always doing this such an annoying thing, where she’s always like, “Wait, stop. Where do you feel that in your body? Wait, when you’re talking about that, is that your throat or your belly?” And I’m like, “What does this have to do with anything? We need a solution. What’s happening?” And I always thought it was…
But can you take us to why that perception and attunement to your body is absolutely vital to self-compassion?
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Before we go further, I want to make sure, Amanda, because it’s so common when people go down this path that you’re really appreciating that voice in your head that wants to get things right, the part that wants to control things. It’s not because you’re a controlling person. It’s because you’re a caring person. You want to alleviate suffering, your kids, your own. But it’s coming from a place… These are old parts of us, just like the reptilian brain that just wants to control things. Fight, flight, or freeze. It just needs a little update. It comes from a good place, it comes from a good heart, but in fact, it’s actually not that effective. That’s the problem with it. One saying we have is the goal of practice is simply to become a compassionate mess.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I love that.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
It doesn’t mean that goal is to be a mess. Our goal isn’t to be a mess. Our goal is when the mess of life arises, which it will, there are goal shifts. Our goal is to being compassion to it.
You talked about the brain, which again, which is the way brains are designed, always looking for the problem. What you can actually learn to do is when the problem arises, you let yourself feel compassion for the pain of that mess. And then what happens is instead of just the problem being foregrounded, what actually becomes foregrounded is the compassion that’s holding the mess.
Does that make sense? Instead of just the pain, there’s all this love and connectedness and presence with the pain. And your goal actually starts to be to cultivate that, to cultivate… When a mess arises, to be compassionate for the mess. And you start to actually get your primary satisfaction and sense of safety, believe it or not, not from getting things right, but from having an open heart. That starts to become your refuge, the place it really starts to be your goal. That’s what you’re looking for, is to have your heart open, to feel kindness, to feel compassion for yourself and others.
Okay, so that’s part one of your question. The body part of your question is also really important, and I could see how it’d be annoying. But the reason we do it is because if you look at the Latin root of the word compassion, passion means to suffer, com- is with. So how are we with our pain? When we’re with our pain just in our thoughts and our emotions, typically what happens is we just end up exacerbating our pain because we think we shouldn’t have the pain, and we resist the pain, and we try to control the pain, and we judge ourselves for having the pain.
If we move our awareness, we call it dropping of your head into your body, and you’re just feeling the pain, so that’s why your therapist says, “Where do you feel it? In your heart, in your stomach, in your chest? Is there a tension?” Then we’re not in the storyline of the pain anymore. It’s more just a physical sensation. So it allows us to still be with the pain. We don’t want to reject it or resist it because that will make it worse. So we accept that we’re hurting. But at the physical level, we aren’t running away with the storyline of it. A thing you can add is you could just, “Okay, I feel tension in my chest.” You can actually put your hands over that part of your body, where you’re physically feeling the pain.
Again, kids, the primary way parents communicate compassion, before language comes in, is through touch. So our bodies are also designed to interpret touch as a signal of care.
So maybe your default mode, your brain can’t go there. It’s just doing fight, flight, or freeze.
“Okay, drop out of your brain into your body. Where do you feel the pain?”
“Oh, I feel it as a tension in my throat.”
“Okay, can you put some hands there or just hold yourself and be with that pain in a caring way?”
And what we know from the research… I know people are thinking it’s woo woo. There’s over 7,000 studies. This is empirically supported stuff. Study came out that just doing that 20 seconds a day really increases self-compassion. And another study found it’s actually changing your physiology. You’re reducing cortisol levels, you’re increasing heart rate variability, you’re switching from sympathetic to parasympathetic nervous system reaction.
We can start with our body. Then once your body’s calmer, then it’s actually easier for your head to follow. Does that make sense? There’s method to your therapist’s madness.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, because isn’t it part of it is just the baseline embodiment of I think I don’t even know when I am suffering part of the time. I think the foundation of self-compassion is the recognition of your suffering. And I don’t even think. I think I’m operating on that baseline understanding as opposed to… Because when it’s all in my head, and everything is just a problem that can be solved, then I’m not recognizing that it isn’t just problems that need to be solved. The reason I’m jumping to the problem that needs to be solved is because it’s so unbearable for me to sit with the suffering.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Your insight is why my model of self-compassion actually has three parts. The first part, according to my model of self-compassion, is mindfulness. And that’s exactly what you’re pointing to, the awareness. Instead of just being lost in solving the problem, just recognizing, “Wow, I’m really hurting. I need a little help here. I need some attention because this is hard right now.” So instead of running away with the pain… We either ignore it or we run away trying to solve it. But just take a step back and just be with it, this is really hard.
And then there’s the kindness and warmth that you’ve been talking about, the care, the nurturing. Sometimes the mama bear-like fierceness, but there’s the trying to alleviate the suffering through kindness.
And there’s a third element we haven’t talked about, but that’s really important and that really differentiates not only self-esteem from self-compassion, but self-pity from self-compassion.
So what’s the difference between self-pity and self-compassion? Or for that matter, between pity and compassion? Other people. So the third element is the sense of connectedness or what I call common humanity, when we frame our experience in light of the human experience.
Self-pity is “poor is me, woe is me, everyone else is living a normal, perfect life. And it’s just me who’s made a mistake.” Or when I pity you, it’s like, “Oh, I’m looking down on you. This woman’s kind of screwed up, but I feel sorry for her.”
That’s not compassion. Compassion is, “Hey, all human beings struggle.” Yeah, absolutely not the same amount. And some people are privileged, some people are not. There’s differences. It’s not like we’re all one. We are different, unique, and our stories are different. And yet, again, intrinsic to our humanity is this worthiness, and everyone struggles in one way or another. There’s nothing wrong with you.
That’s why I was trying to emphasize, Amanda, please don’t judge yourself for judging yourself because the brain wants to do that because then it thinks, “Oh, maybe I can fix this one too.” No, this is what it means to be human. We do this, we criticize ourselves, we’re scared, we make mistakes.
Even though the word self is in self-compassion, the sense of self actually lessens with self-compassion.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Because we expand our boundaries, and “Okay, I’m a human being just going through the ups and downs of life, trying the best I can, moment to moment.” And the moment we do that, it feels more relaxed, when we aren’t so self-focused, and “I need to fix it. I need to solve it. I need to be perfect.”
So from my point of view, really, all three need to be there in order for this to be a really healthy mindset.
Amanda Doyle:
Is there a piece of this that is also about making intimacy possible? Because when you talk about we’re either believe that we’re below everyone else, and we feel like crap about ourselves and look at all these people that have it figured out, and I don’t. Or we’re trying so hard to preserve this idea that we’re above people. But when we’re above people or below people, our existence depends on not being with people and among people. It seems like the ability to do this, and if you actually did the self-compassion, would actually allow you to have intimacy with other people.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Absolutely. Again, first of all, one insight you had. This is a funny thing about self-esteem, and we all suffer from it. In American culture especially, to have just baseline, minimal self-esteem, we have to be special and above average.
Let’s face it. Glennon, if I said, “Yeah, your book Untamed, it was average”, you’re going to go, “Uh.” If you say, “Oh, I read your book, Fierce Self-Compassion. It was average”, I’m going to go, “Ugh.”
In our culture, we are conditioned. We didn’t choose this. We’re conditioned to have to be above average, just to have baseline, to be good enough. And that sets up isolation. As you said, Amanda, we’re always jockeying for position. We either feel like, “Oh, they’re so much better than me. I’m worthless.” Or “I’m better than them.” We can’t just be one in our common humanity, which means strengths and weaknesses, partly because our culture has conditioned us to be that way.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, let’s just stay there for a second because it’s so huge.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
It’s huge.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s the with-ness. You said compassion means passion with. It’s like the epitome of self-love. And I don’t know how many times I’ve exploded about this, getting just to the edge of it, and then losing it. But it is a dissolution of self, or a complete understanding of… The path of self-love leads you to understand that you are everyone, and everyone is you.
I feel like people think self-love is if I take enough bubble baths. But it’s a complete loss of the illusion that you are any different than me, that I am any different than you, that any of us are bad or good. And then, you just relax into being so deeply connected.
Amanda Doyle:
When you put it like that, it’s like the most self-indulgent, self-centered thing you can do to not practice this.
Glennon Doyle:
Of course, it is.
Amanda Doyle:
Because then you’re just trying to prove where you shake out as opposed to just if you do this, it’s the opposite of self-indulgent because you’re just trying to prove that you’re just like everyone else.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Yeah. We all have unique gifts and strengths, so it’s not like we’re all the same. I think we have to be careful because when we go down this path, especially people who’ve been historically oppressed, we aren’t all one, and we haven’t been treated all the same way. But we’re all human, and we all have unique gifts and strengths.
But Glennon, I just taught a workshop this last weekend called Who is the Self in Self-Compassion?, teaching with a spiritual teacher friend of mine, where we actually did that. You might say that the self that receives the compassion is our sense of personal self. We feel limited, we feel separate, we feel isolated. We need compassion. But the self that brings the compassion, the source of compassion, like when we shift from the self that needs the compassion to the self that gives the compassion, that self is unified. It dissolves. It dissolves into something you might call inter-being. It really is.
For many people, you could think of it as a spiritual concept. You don’t have to be spiritual with it. But my friend, Dan Siegel, says, “Spirituality is basically just going beyond or everyday sense of small self.” In that sense, it’s very spiritual. We’re going beyond our everyday sense of small self, which needs to be special and above average, which needs to be perfect, to this larger whole and recognizing our interconnection, our oneness with the universe, with all of life, at the very least, other human beings. And when that sense of self softens, that sense of boundary-ness, then the compassion starts to flow.
Very important though, because I’m hearing all people’s parts. You hear that it’s boundary-less with boundaries. In other words, this sense of self, if it sees you’re being mistreated, it may very well draw a boundary. But it’s not coming from a place of separation. It’s coming from a place of love. That’s like the million dollar take-home, that the boundaries, that the action, that the self-improvement, it’s all coming from a place of love, not a place of deficiency.
Glennon Doyle:
And there’s a recognition I feel, that the more I go into this place where we’re all, there is a part of us that is exactly the same. There is an internal part of us that is untouchable and unchangeable and of utmost worth inside of every single person. And that is the same. That is the same.
I don’t think that the more I go into that place, the more I am physically and spiritually unable to accept the degradation or marginalization of anyone else. It is not a place where I go to say, “Oh, we’re all the same, so we’re all having the same experiences on the planet.”
I go to the place of we are all sacred. How dare anybody create a hierarchy or oppression? It is a place of deep love and connectedness that blossoms into advocacy for all of us. It is because the culture doesn’t want us to see that. That is not something that we see unless we are in a deep compassion practice or because that is not what’s presented to us.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
These two sides of compassion, fierce and tender. Gender role socialization really impacts our ability to manifest both. People raised as men, and by the way, I’m not talking about biological sex or even gender identity. You might be trans or non-binary. I’m talking about what shoebox were you put in when you grew up? Were you put in the pink shoebox or the blue shoe box?
People put in the blue shoebox aren’t allowed to be tender. This is a huge harm. People are bullied. They’re called names if they’re too tender or too sensitive. This is partly why people raised as men, they can’t access the healing power of tender self-compassion.
15% of the people that show up at my workshops are people who identify as men. That’s a problem because research shows it’s actually one of the most powerful sources of strength, coping, and resilience we have available. And that’s cut off from people raised as men because of gender role socialization.
People raised as women operates a little different. We’re allowed to be tender, we’re encouraged to be tender. But for others, we’re actually also encouraged to be self-sacrificing.
This is a weird statistic. Women have actually quite a bit more compassion for others than men do. There’s lots of exceptions. I don’t want to generalize. But because of gender role socialization, they’re compassion experts. They were taught how to be compassionate so it comes very easily.
But they’re a little less self-compassionate than men. It’s not because men are all about self-compassion. It’s because they feel entitled to get their needs met. People raised as women don’t feel so entitled to get their needs met. So the discrepancy for women is larger.
But women also aren’t allowed to be fierce. There’s a little more leeway for tomboy behavior. “That Kamala Harris, she’s so ambitious.” If you look at the glass ceiling, a lot of it is because, yeah, women can be powerful, but we don’t really like them. And if we don’t like them, we may offer them less money. And if they ask for more money, we think, “Oh, she’s not being very feminine, so I like her less.” So this is a real problem. There’s a lot of backlash for women.
The beautiful thing about compassion, especially the balance of tender and fierce compassion is an act of radical authenticity. It’s saying, “I don’t care what my society tells me about how I’m supposed to be. If I love myself, that means I’m going to be both fierce and tender in the way that’s uniquely right for me.”
So it’s also kind of a political act because our society tells us, to buy our goods. You better want to be special and above average. Good woman, look this way. Good man, look that way. It’s like they’ve sold us.
And, by the way, it’s not a mistake. Don’t get me too much started on patriarchy. But it’s not a mistake that women are told to be self-sacrificing because who does that benefit? The people whose needs are being met by women. So it all plays a role, which is again why we need to be self-compassionate about all this because we didn’t invent this system. It’s a system we grew up in, but it is our responsibility to be aware of it.
That’s where the mindfulness comes in, to be aware of how the systems of oppression, how the unconscious biases, how history, and also just how every day things… You got to be aware of how our society pushes us to be special and above average, partly out of a concern with buying goods and consumerism. It’s pretty pernicious, American society. “You’re never good enough, unless you buy our products or you do this or you look this certain way. Then maybe you’ll be good enough.” And the whole system is predicated on that insecurity.
If you’re really going to take self-compassion all the way, it is about radical authenticity. What’s true for me? What does my heart really want? What allows my heart to rest, regardless of what society says? And that’s a big act, and it takes a lot of courage.
Amanda Doyle:
Because I can survive this. If you believe that in any moment, you can come alongside yourself and be with yourself in that and take care of yourself in that, that changes everything, because all of our desires to gather all of these things around us and put up all of these defenses and buy these things that we think are going to protect us are because we believe that we need those things in order to survive.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Yes, exactly. And then you start realizing, “Well, what is it that really makes me strong and safe? Well, that’s my inner self.” You can call it your higher self, your true self. You can use whatever name resonates for you. But when we know that we have our own back, that we accept ourselves unconditionally, that we’ll support ourselves unconditionally, that we’ll speak up for ourselves when we need to speak up, that we’ll draw boundaries, that we won’t abandon ourselves, that’s when we really start to feel safe. And that’s really what the practice of self-compassion is cultivating, really cultivating intentionally this being there for ourselves when times are tough, being a good friend to ourselves.
Glennon Doyle:
Do people’s critical voice, does it correspond with what you were taught your worth was inside of? If my critical voice is mad at me every time I don’t get enough done, or if my critical voice is mad at me when I don’t look good, or if my critical voice is when I’m tired, or does that correspond to… If you’re saying I’m mad at myself because, then that thing that you identify means that that’s where you believe your worth is. Right?
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Yeah. I would say this. It’s actually two parts. Part of this is just our brains and evolution, and part of it is socialization. So I don’t want to downplay either of them.
For instance, my son, he’s autistic, and he’s pretty self-critical. He clearly didn’t learn that from me, and that’s just his brain. He thinks it feels safer to beat himself up because he is afraid of the judgments of others. And that’s partly with challenges, perspective-taking. I can see it in his brain. He’s like deer in the headlights. He’s afraid he’s done something wrong. So he starts criticizing himself because it helps him feel like maybe he will be in control. I didn’t teach him that. I can guarantee that.
So part of it is it’s just important to realize that part of it is just the brain, evolve, fight, flight or freeze. But it’s only part of the story. Everything is almost nature and nurture.
Another big way is the messages we got from our early caregivers and from the culture. The messages and the parents are part of it, but just middle school. Think about middle school. Think of all the messages you absorbed in middle school, all that mean girl stuff and stuff we’re raised with. We internalize this, and we get the message that this is why we’re worthy.
Sometimes if we had critical parents, either who are directly critical of us, or maybe we were very self-critical, we got the message. “Oh, I see. This is the right way to be with yourself.” That some of it-
Glennon Doyle:
Let me interrupt real quick and say, every time I hear mean girl, my body reacts, and I feel defensive of every girl everywhere, every time that’s said. So what I want to suggest too, isn’t even the mean girl talk a result of the culture that we have? The girls are soaking in the message that there can only be one of us, that our worth is in our beauty, that our whatever. That didn’t come from nowhere. Even the mean girl stuff is a result of misogyny that has been breathed in.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
150%. I guess I assumed that that was clear, but thank you for… Because I know not everyone interprets it that way. Absolutely. That’s all a product of what we’re talking about.
It’s not like culture is a personality that’s evil, thinking, “How are you going to mess people up?” It just kind of evolves over time, but partly so that people who had power could stay in power.
Teaching women that, for instance, that their worth came from their beauty, that really supported a culture in which the men had the power. They had the money. Back in the day, we couldn’t even own property. A woman’s worth came from bearing children, being a good wife. They’re all interconnected, all those messages, which leads to things like some people buying those messages that looks is all that matters and then taking unhealthy ways to reinforce that message. It’s all intertwined, absolutely.
But having said that, I remember being in middle school, getting some of these messages that my worth came from looking a certain way, and, “Nothing comes between me and my Calvins” and Jordache jeans and all that stuff. But those messages are buried pretty deep, and it’s just really good to bring them out into the light of day and say, “I internalized those messages because I was just trying to stay safe. But I don’t need them anymore. That’s not where my safety comes from. My safety comes from…” It doesn’t take much. Just from being.
Amanda Doyle:
Being.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Being. It doesn’t need anything more than that. The miracle of being, it’s not what you are, it’s just that you are. And when you really start to learn to rest in being, just in your awareness and the open heart, this is really where, for me these days, where my real satisfaction comes from.
Going back to the idea, the goal of practice is to be a compassionate mess. Yeah, of course, you’re going to do whatever you can not to be a mess. But that’s not really the goal. The goal is to rest in your own compassionate heart, and that’s where the true satisfaction and fulfillment and happiness is.
Amanda Doyle:
I wonder if you could… I was really touched by a lot that you’ve shared about the moments that you were able to give yourself compassion in raising your son, especially in those very challenging and public moments. I wonder if you could, as a way to, folks to put this in practice or to imagine what it looks like for them in a moment of stress or suffering, to actually give themselves the compassion, what it feels like, what you go through, could you give us an example from your life?
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Yeah, yeah. I like to talk about my son also just because a lot of us are caregivers. We’re parents, or we’re caring for elderly parents, or maybe we have a special needs child. Also, to make the point that self-compassion is not selfish because what we cultivate inside, we communicate to those around us.
This is partly through the way… Going back to the brain, we’re designed to empathically resonate with others. So if you’re in the presence of someone who’s upset, you feel upset. It’s just the way the brain works. It’s designed to do that.
My son… By the way, he’s doing great. He just graduated community college. He’s doing wonderful. But when he was younger, he really struggled, and he would have these horrible tantrums. And of course, we were very empathically attuned, so when he was tantrum-ing, not only was it really difficult because he was screaming, but I would also just feel it as a mother, and because we resonated.
I remember one time, we were on a transatlantic flight, we were flying to London to see his grandparents, and he had a lot of sensory issues. We just had dinner, and it was that part of the flight when they turned down the lights, and everyone thought, “Oh, great, I can get sleep.” And my son, for whatever reason, was not expecting it. Suddenly turning off the lights for him was like a… He went into this full-on flailing, screaming tantrum on the plane. He was five at the time. He was like, “Eh.” I was thinking, “People are used to crying babies and maybe crying two-year-olds.” But I was thinking, “Oh, these people don’t understand. ‘He’s five. He should be older than this. And what’s wrong with that mother? And why can’t she control her kid?'”
They probably weren’t thinking that, but I was imagining they were. And I felt really bad because it was really disturbing. People were trying to get some sleep. So I got the brilliant idea, “Oh, I know. Maybe I’ll take him to the toilets and let him have his tantrum in there, and maybe it’ll muffle the cries.” It was the only plan I could come up with. So I took him, kicking and screaming, flailing, down that little aisle, “Excuse me, excuse me, coming through,” to the toilet, which was of course occupied.
Glennon Doyle:
Of course.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Because the lesson life had for me in that moment was not how to avoid a difficult situation, do the clever plan of muffling his cries in the toilet. The lesson was, what do you do when you have no other plan?
What we did is, even though it was probably unsanitary, we got down on the floor because I couldn’t hold him. He was five, and he was too big. So we got down on the floor, and I made sure he was safe. But I just flooded myself with compassion. Normally, in public, I don’t do it obviously, but I didn’t care. I was disturbing anyway.
So I just sat there, and I put my hands on my heart, and I just started rocking myself. I couldn’t reach him, but I started rocking myself. “I’m so sorry, Kristin. This is so hard. I’m here for you. It’s going to be okay. I love you.” Just flooded myself with warmth and care and support. I was just really there for myself in that moment.
And a couple things happened. This may be hard to believe, but I had this experience a lot. Instead of my awareness being totally consumed with his tantrum and this horrible situation, my awareness was flooded with the love and the kindness. It foregrounded the love. The problem was still there, but it wasn’t overwhelming me. That gave me a big well of resources. Just be in the love and the kindness and the caring for myself in this difficult situation.
The other thing is empathic resonance goes two ways. For caregivers, what you cultivate inside is being directly communicated to the person you care for through their mirror neurons.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
He was very attuned to me, and he calmed down. I couldn’t reach him directly. But when I could calm down, and I got filled with this loving, connected presence, which is another way to describe self-compassion, he calmed down. Once he started calming down, then I could start working with him more directly.
What we cultivate inside is not only a gift to ourself. It’s the gift to everyone we come into contact with because they’re coming into contact instead of with a frustrated, self-critical stressed person, they’re coming into contact with a caring, open-hearted, calmer person.
And by the way, now my son has learned self-compassion. He’ll say to me sometimes, “Mom, give yourself a break. It’s only human.” It’s so sweet if I’m upset about something.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, thank you for sharing that. That was so beautiful, so helpful. I love that. I will take that visual with me of the floor of the plane, unsanitary or not-
Amanda Doyle:
Life is very unsanitary.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. With your hands over your heart, rocking and saying, speaking to yourself about the hard time, not speaking to your son about his hard time, yourself about your hard time. Oh.
Amanda Doyle:
Dr. Neff, you’re wonderful.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
But that didn’t help regulate… He couldn’t regulate his own emotions, but I can work with mine. Sometimes you’re with someone who’s so upset, you can’t reach them. You can reach yourself, and you can help them through their mirror neurons, their capacity to resonate with you. The presence you cultivate can actually help other people, which is really important for parents or anyone who loves someone who’s upset. If you just focus on other people and not yourself, you aren’t going to have the resources to be there for them.
Amanda Doyle:
Anyone who thinks it’s selfish, that is a real thing. And the studies that they’ve done of the people who are working on self-compassion, their partners report that they’re more satisfied with the relationship because the people who are working on self-compassion are less controlling and less angry and less stressed.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
You did your homework, Amanda.
Glennon Doyle:
She always does.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Very good. That’s exactly right.
Please tell me the value, the probability value we found in that study. No, that’s exactly right. Thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
Damn it. Giving myself compassion for not having that statistic on hand.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Well, good. I’ve never had someone who’s interviewing me quote my own studies to me. Well, I’m impressed.
Amanda Doyle:
Thank you for all of the work you’re doing. I am so excited to continue on this road. I really feel like this is a key to unlocking something in me that I’ve been trying to work on for a while, and this feels like a clicking-into-place situation to work on. I’m really grateful for all of your work.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
I’m so happy. And also, it’s really not that difficult. It’s not rocket science because we’ve already developed the template of how to be compassionate for others. It’s not like we’re developing something new. We just have to give ourselves permission to use those skills we’ve developed for others with ourselves.
And there’s a whole, the last 15 years I’ve been spending on really finding out ways to teach this to other people through developing certain exercises and programs. It’s not that difficult. This is the really good news. It’s easier than you think. But it will change your life.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you, Dr. Neff. Your work is world-changing and family-changing and life-changing. I’m really grateful that you exist.
Dr. Kristin Neff:
Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate both of you so much as well.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, pod squad, be good to yourself. We’ll see you back here next time. Bye.