Welcome to Insight Mind Body Talk, a body-based mental health podcast.  

Today we’re going to talk about self-compassion. 

Self-compassion comes up a lot as therapists and in our personal lives. It is one of the things I personally practice most often. It is something that we all need and all struggle with. It’s so essential. 

What does that even mean? Let’s start with the topic of compassion. Compassion comes from Latin, meaning to suffer with. It’s suffering with people. When have compassion for others, we’re able to be with them and understand their suffering. 

Compassion is different from empathy. Empathy is commonly discussed as putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes. It’s feeling what the other person is feeling. While that’s necessary for us to gain insight into the other’s experience, I suggest pursuing the path of compassion, because empathy can, at times, trigger our own pain and suffering. It removes us from being present with the other person.  

Often when people have empathy for someone it’s because they care about that person and want to be of support and assistance. Compassion allows us to do that because it is concern and care for that other person. It’s separate from our own internal state.  

When we talk about self-compassion, we take that care and concern and shine the light on ourselves. It’s extending kindness to ourselves that we’re so often ready to extend to others, especially for caregivers cultural conditioning. They often shine their light on others around them. What self-compassion asks us to do is to utilize that skill, that strength, towards our suffering and towards our experiences and be there for ourselves just as much as others.  

Often people think self-compassion, that’s selfish. In the last few years, studies show that self-compassion is really beneficial for our mental, physical, and emotional health. It’s not a selfish thing. It doesn’t mean that we’re narcissists. It means that we’re able to hold ourselves in loving awareness.  

I’ve studied a lot of Kristin Neff’s work. I did the core skills training with her and Chris Germer in 2008 in Madison. She has focused her career on researching self-compassion and there’s real science behind its benefits. It’s a good thing for us. Some of the research talks about how self-compassion is linked to a reduction in negative mind states like anxiety and depression. It’s also linked to an increase in positive mind states like happiness, connectedness and optimism. It helps us to be more effective at coping with adversity, more resilient, protects us against post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic health conditions. It helps us to be more self-motivated and get more done since we don’t beat ourselves up.  

I love that research exists because it really helps debunk this myth that self-compassion isn’t useful. We are in a culture where criticism runs the show. We’re hard on ourselves, we judge ourselves, we judge others. We’ve learned through time that that doesn’t work nearly as well as using befriending, care and compassion towards yourself. 

Compassion even helps us speed up recovery from disease. Research shows that it can lengthen our lifespan. When we pick our mate the trait that’s most highly valued in our potential romantic partner, studies suggest is kindness. It helps our internal relationship as well as our external, mental and physical. It’s everywhere. 

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with some colleagues and we were talking about Cobra, Kai, Johnny and Daniel. It’s one of our favorite topics here. The consensus was we liked Johnny. We liked the bad boy. But who do we choose in our lives? We choose somebody who is kind. 

It also got me thinking about Dylan and Brandon and 90210. Didn’t everybody want Dylan. The bad boy, right? My colleague pointed out to me; you married Brandon. It’s true. I married the nicest man in the world. Stay tuned for an episode on 90210.  

Let’s talk about how compassion impacts our mental health. 

When I talk about self-compassion, I begin by describing the second arrow. The Buddha discusses the second arrow and that as humans we experience pain, experience suffering. That is the first arrow. The second arrow is when we don’t offer ourselves compassion. When we’re critical or judgmental. The second arrow is one that we bring upon ourselves. It goes straight into the first one and it hits that same wound again. Often, we experience something that is traumatic or hard for us and then our thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs keep that wound alive. Self-compassion can stop that, or at least slow it down. When we turn towards ourselves with love and forgiveness, we eliminate the second arrow. 

That fits perfectly with the tenants of mindful self-compassion, which is the program that Kristin Neff and Chris Germer have created based on Eastern contemplative practices, mindfulness versus identifying with ourselves. Essentially, one of the core tenants has to do with being aware that we continue to twist that second arrow. As humans, we do that. Another one of the tenants is common humanity versus isolation. This is something that we all experience. All humans suffer. Suffering is inevitable.  

Another one of Buddha’s gems, the first noble truth is one of the ways I practice self-compassion. Trusting that I’m human and I’m going to make mistakes. That I’ve had experiences that have shaped how I react and the choices I make. And, along the way, I’ve hurt people as much as I’ve been hurt. Choosing to honor that I’m imperfect. Honoring that I’m human and allowing myself space and forgiveness. I can’t control if other people forgive me, but I can control if I forgive myself. That’s the third tenant of mindful self-compassion, self-kindness versus self-judgment.  

We’re all ready to judge ourselves, but if we can offer self-kindness and understanding when we’re suffering, we’re able to change our relationship with suffering.  

That’s what this is really all about. It’s not about erasing the pain. It’s about changing our relationship to the pain so that we can be in the same room with it, be able to tolerate it, allow it, maybe eventually befriend it. 

There’s a saying “feel it in order to heal it”. Absolutely. Yeah, let’s talk about neurology. 

We need some empathy because there is suffering in the world, and we need to honor that other people are suffering in order to serve and help. Often though, I meet people who feel burnt out because they care so much. We want to transition them to compassion because when we experience empathy, research shows that it lights up pain sensors because we truly are feeling what that other person is feeling. When we have compassion, we have mindful separation. Our internal state can remain regulated, and we can offer care and concern for someone else. That lights up pleasure centers in our brain. It’s almost as a misnomer to talk about compassion fatigue, because those of us in the helping professions, we’re really experiencing empathy fatigue. If we feel for someone so deeply, it can freeze us. It can shut us down.  

I heard Mare Chapman once give a story like this, which was really helpful for me in thinking about empathy versus compassion. 

If you’re on a hike with your BFF and they trip and fall and they break their leg and you’re like two miles from your car, the empathetic response would be, “I should feel what you’re feeling. I will break my leg too.” If you have compassion, you can see their suffering and ask, “What can I do to help?” I can carry you or make some sort of stick cast. I can’t do any of that if I’m literally in pain. If I break my own leg, how helpful am I right to that person? 

Compassion allows us to stay grounded in ourselves yet take action to support that person.  We don’t get lost in the pain.  

We can see how that’s analogous with self-compassion. We have to be really kind to ourselves when we’re suffering. It’s the human condition to really identify with that pain and attach to it, but if we can show ourselves kindness when we’re in pain, we will move through it or change our relationship to it.  

We will also have a lot more awareness of what’s happening. That’s where mindful self-compassion is really powerful. It gives us tools to work with really difficult emotions. What mindful self-compassion would tell us to do is to identify and label those emotions. We do that through being aware of our own experience. The key is to become aware of them in the body. Identify where we find these emotions in the body because only then can we start to soften in our physiology, sooth ourselves, and then just allow that pain to dissipate.  

There’s been research on where emotions are felt in our bodies. When you feel a swell of love for someone, where do you feel that? Where do you feel shame? Whenever I feel shame or embarrassment, my face flushes right away.  The research is showing that that is common. It was a 2014 study. We can put a link in the show notes.  

They did heat maps of their body to see where emotions were felt. As you can expect anger is a hot red head, throat, chest. With love, we can really see a warmth across the heart region. Then, shame just like you described is bright red cheeks. 

It’s so fascinating. If it’s in the body, we can work on healing. We can have an awareness of what’s happening in our bodies and then start to offer compassion, soothing and openness. When it’s in the body, we can work with that. It isn’t just something that we can talk our way out of. 

I go back to another research study, where they looked at a compassionate lifestyle. Someone who chooses to offer compassion towards themselves and others, has a lens of forgiveness and understanding. It proves to be a really wonderful buffer for stress. Using compassion predicts a longer life, and when we die, there’s less disease, less inflammation, less suffering than those who don’t live a compassionate lifestyle. Research shows that when people live a compassionate lifestyle and treat themselves kindly, rather than critically, they are more likely to believe that they can improve, that they can correct mistakes so that they can re-engage with their goals. It really helps us fight against self-judgment, the procrastination that follows, stress, rumination, all the things that stop us in our tracks and stop us from growing.  

We tend to think that we need to motivate ourselves with punishment. If being hard on ourselves was going to work, it would have by now. Most of us have a few decades of that experience under our belts. So why don’t we try something different? Why don’t we try being kind to ourselves? It doesn’t mean that we’re going to just let everything go. In fact, research shows that it actually motivates us more.  

I talk a lot with clients who are trying to make lifestyle changes or movement changes, or who have a defined goal they’ve tried to reach multiple different times in their life. With that follows perhaps shame or self-judgment or criticism. I acknowledge that we live in a culture that thinks criticism is how we achieve a goal.  

If we think about it, you’re going back to the neurological response to criticism. It’s a threat, right? When we experience a threat, we go into a threat response. We freeze or we flee, or we shut down. Compassion is the antidote to those responses. When we’re compassionate towards each other, we can bring ourselves into that ventral vagal place of safety, regulation, feeling calm, feeling kind. That does create more space that helps the growth mindset. 

Our ancestors had a really highly developed stress response system. That’s why we’re here today, because they understood fear, ran away from threats and lived to tell the tale. 

We’re still in that cycle of stress response. That sets off this cascade of negative things in our bodies where we’re flooded with stress hormones which lead to disease and it’s because we’ve got that critical, fearful voice.  

What’s the harm of starting to rewire it, even just with a little kindness toward ourselves? There’s a lot of good that can come from that. Our nature is to experience suffering. Yet, we can honor that and then be gentle with it.  

We’re built to do this. It’s a survival response because not only does it help our physical and mental health, but it also helps everybody. Compassion is contagious. When you see those people who pay for the coffee for the car behind them and it lasts an hour and a half. 

We need to practice random acts of kindness for ourselves too. This is not a selfish thing. It doesn’t mean that we treat ourselves to something that might be detrimental. It means that we greet ourselves as we would a friend. Maybe that’s a 10-minute meditation break, getting on the yoga mat, having a dance party in the kitchen. 

Compassion is about meeting ourselves where we’re at. Allowing ourselves to set down, as Brene Brown talks about, that shield of perfectionism. I’ll just put my hand on my heart or on my arm, soothing rubbing my arm. Compassionate touch. After hearing Mary Chapman explain this, I’ve started practicing saying out loud to myself, I’m sorry this is so hard for you. Just my ears hearing I’m sorry releases oxytocin and dopamine. Not excusing, not trying to make sense of it, just honoring.  

One that I often do with my clients is an affectionate breathing meditation. Allowing our breath to rock us, to soothe us, can be very powerful.  

I also really enjoy tapping. We haven’t talked too much about tapping, the emotional freedom technique. Stay tuned for more on that.  

When I was working with Annie Forest who was on our podcast a few weeks ago, she created for me a parasympathetic workout to calm my system and be present for myself. 

Things like red light therapy, that warmth and feeling the slowing down of my nervous system. 

I was also doing coat sleeves. Imagine you’re a kindergartner and you took your arms inside your winter coat. And then you flap your sleeves back into the coat. While you’re waiting in line, that can be really regulating. That creates space for being present with those emotions and offering compassion.  

I like to pair that to that body work with mindfulness work. That’s the key. We have a group here at Insight on self-compassion using yoga and mindfulness tools. It’s so powerful. 

These tools are so accessible to anyone. They can be practiced on the floor, in bed, anywhere really. They can help us shift our physiology and our nervous system toward more kindness toward ourselves. 

We all have that inner critic, that self-judgment, that voice that we get to really identify. And we have the ability then to flip the script to really change that to a more compassionate voice, a compassionate witness to our experience. That’s what we’re looking for. We can do that ourselves. It’s so empowering. When we can hold ourselves in kindness, we can really start to see shifts.  

I read a quote from Tara Brock, the meditation teacher and psychologist. She described that palliative care givers often say that the greatest regret expressed by the dying is that they didn’t live true to themselves. She believes to live true we need to awaken this self-compassion and love ourselves into healing.  

We have more resources on our website if listeners are interested in cultivating self-compassion and exploring what that means for them. Go to www.insightmadison.com/podcast.  

I’m feeling lots of kindness for all beings, including myself. 

Thank you again for joining us.  

Until next time.  

Take care.