I'm Dustin Grinnell and this is curiously today we have a fascinating conversation ahead with an expert in the field of self compassion. But before we dive in, I want to share a personal story that led me to explore the power and potential of self compassion. About seven years ago, I found myself in a frustrating and painful situation. I was dealing with low back pain that just wouldn't go away.
Despite trying everything from physical therapy, the chiropractic work, and various other treatments, It was the one physical problem I couldn't seem to solve and it was taking a toll in my life. Then I learned about an 8 week clinical study at Mass General Hospital that investigated the role of self compassion in alleviating lower back pain. Curious and somewhat skeptical, I enrolled in the study and attended A1 Day Workshop on Self compassion, not knowing what to
expect. The workshop was led by two incredible individuals, doctors Chris Germer and Kristen Neff, pioneers in the field of self compassion. To my surprise, the path to healing began with simple acts of being kinder and gentler to myself. Every day I listen to Chris's recordings, which encouraged me to say soothing and nourishing phrases to myself, like may I know that I am safe and may I know that I'm doing the best under these circumstances, and may I know that I'm a good man.
As the weeks went by, the pain began to dissolve and I felt a deep transformation taking place within me. It was incredible how acknowledging and embracing my own humanity, flaws and vulnerabilities played a pivotal role in my recovery. Gradually I returned my old self motivated, optimistic and physically active. Now, years later, I have the privilege of talking with Doctor Chris Germer, who's a world leading authority on self
compassion. Chris is also a licensed psychotherapist who practices mindfulness and compassion based therapy in Arlington, MA. He's also a part time lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a founding faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion.
His books include The Mindful Path to Self, Compassion, Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy and Mindfulness in Psychotherapy, Doctor Germer lectures and leads workshops internationally, and you can find more of his work on this
website at www.chrisgermer.com. In this conversation, Chris and I delve into the science behind self compassion, address some common misconceptions, understand its applications beyond physical pain, and explore how it can positively impact our mental and emotional wellbeing. So without further ado, let's welcome our esteemed guest and explore the world of self compassion. Chris Germer, welcome to curiously. Thanks. It's great to be here.
So yeah, I really appreciate you coming on to talk about the field of self compassion. You're an expert in that field. And I figured before we start unpacking this subject a bit more, if we could just kind of start off with some key terms and defining some words that will be helpful in our journey and exploring self compassion. So how do you? Define self compassion first. Sure. So we could say there's an informal definition and there's
a formal definition. The informal definition, which I might share with somebody over a cup of coffee, is when we suffer, treating ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we would treat a good friend. And this isn't something we ordinarily do. Usually people are much more compassionate toward others than toward themselves. And when we suffer or fail or feel inadequate, we usually beat up on ourselves. We isolate ourselves in shame, and we also kind of ruminate.
So treating ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we treat a good friend, that's the. Informal definition. And it's also helpful, by the way, if you want to be more self compassionate, to just ask yourself when things go wrong, how would I treat a good friend right now? And inevitably it's a little different than what we might be doing in that moment. And then seeing if we could actually talk to ourselves in
the same tone. If we could take ourselves for a walk, if we could prepare some healthy food, if we could listen to some good music rather than beating up on ourselves. So it's not only a definition, but it's even a guide or a prescription. So that's the informal definition. The formal definition was created by Kristin Neff, my dear friend and colleague, back in 2003 and she is a research psychologist and. She defines self compassion for the research as having three
components. One is mindfulness, or knowing what we're feeling while we're feeling it, particularly knowing that we're suffering when we're suffering. Part 2 is common humanity, which is a kind of awareness that when things go wrong in our lives, that this is part of the human condition, then we're not being singled out necessarily. That's really important. To stay connected with others in order to be self compassionate. And then the third part is self
kindness. And that's really the part that most people think about when they think about self compassion. They think about being kind to ourselves. But actually self compassion is all three. We need to be aware of what's going on, we need to feel connected and we need to be kind to ourselves. And then when all those three things come together, makes a big difference in our lives. Why don't you think we act this way toward ourselves anyway?
Like, why is it that we seem to have a bias toward self judgment or harshness toward ourselves versus the way we seem to automatically act with a friend, which is the opposite? Is there an understanding of why that is? Yeah, so there isn't a scientific understanding every that question often comes up and. The answer is probably more opinion or conjecture. So I can give you my opinion and it's really twofold.
One is culturally we are really discouraged to be kind to ourselves when we suffer and you know, we hear things like, you know, don't be so full of yourself, think about others and so forth. So we're really strongly encouraged. Culturally, and this is in every single culture that I've visited around the world, and I've been teaching self compassion on every continent. You know, most cultures really have a bias toward compassion toward others and attempt to block or exclude ourselves from
the circle of compassion. And that certainly occurs at our own peril, as we can talk about later. But the other thing, Dustin, is that the answer might be purely physiological. So when we feel threatened, the body goes in fight, flight or freeze, and that's when we're threatened from the outside, in particular physically. But when we're threatened from the inside, the same kind of Physiology occurs when we feel bad about ourselves or we criticize ourselves. The same Physiology occurs.
If we have shame, the same Physiology occurs. We feel threatened and then instead of fight, we turn it on ourselves into self criticism. Instead of flight, we flee from ourselves. We abandon ourselves. We lose a sense of common humanity and instead of freeze, physically freezing like a deer in the headlights. We get stuck in our heads and we just ruminate, you know, we kind of get frozen and thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking.
So we could say that the opposite of self compassion, which is self criticism, isolation and rumination, is pretty closely allied with the physiological threat state turned against ourselves. And that suggests the reason for the benefits then, right? Yeah, that's a great. Observation. We sort of this harshness toward ourselves is is a threat. It's a psychological activation of the fight or flight. And now is the opposite at play when we're being kinder or gentler with ourselves.
Yeah, So there appears to be a Physiology of compassion, A Physiology of care and connection and self compassion is all about care and connection. Connection with our selves and. Caring for ourselves. And so the Physiology of care and connection seems to be kind of anchored in the hormones of oxytocin, which is the love hormone and the endorphins, which is kind of a feel good hormone, whereas the Physiology of threat seems to be more linked to adrenaline and cortisol.
So if we can actually shift. Our Physiology in that way, from cortisol and adrenaline to oxytocin and the endorphins, we have a much better chance of actually treating ourselves psychologically and emotionally in a kinder way. And there are some people actually doing work like this. I have a colleague named Ina Kazan who does biofeedback for what's called heart rate variability, which is. A measure of safety and connection.
And she's doing a study now where she's teaching people how to shift their Physiology using biofeedback and seeing whether that actually increases A person's ability to learn self compassion. So shifting the foundation, the physiological foundation. Can you share maybe an example of what someone who's suffering or struggling may actually say or do? To themselves when they're in a period of of struggle in order to activate these these benefits, to practice self compassion.
Sure, yeah. So there are many different, you know, pathways to self compassion. One of the simplest ones, which actually the research shows decreases cortisol, is to put a hand over one's heart, like physically to feel the touch and the warmth of your hand. In the chest region, and even if you wish, making gentle, you know, gently massaging one's chest or making little circles
or back and forth movements. So the physical experience of touching or gently massaging our chest decreases the stress hormone cortisol, and it's easy to imagine this. You don't have to imagine, you can just do it. But also this is the kind of thing we might do. With a young child who is, you know, suffering, you know, a parent by just sort of gently rub the child's chest and has enormous impact. So we can actually do this for
ourselves. So that's a pathway to experiencing self compassion, particularly a physiological change through touch. But there are other things you can do. For example, right now as you're listening, if you were thinking of a problem in your life, you know, maybe. Physical problem or relationship problem. And then you know, inevitably you would be ruminating about it, having cranky thoughts.
But if you imagine that a person who really loves you and knows you were to walk into your room right now and where to say something to you that you really need to hear, and that would make your heart rest, it might make you say thanks, I needed that. What would those words be? In other words, what words would land really well for you when
you're struggling? So you can actually ask yourself that you know if something bad happens, you can ask yourself, what do I really need to hear right now? So you might just think the words like I love you or I believe in you or I trust you or you've got it you you've got this or or or. You're trying your best and. You're you're trying your best. You know and and it's enough. You are enough. Words like this are such a comfort when we feel like we've failed or we feel overwhelmed.
So those are two pathways, touch and voice. But there are probably umpteen other pathways. And there are also daily practices. The thing I wanted to say before too is that this is really like a gives credence to the my body connection. It it really is a practice that. Activates physiological mechanisms through the power of one's thoughts and perspective. Yes. And that's really amazing.
To think hand over the heart or saying you're good enough in your imagination changes the levels of actual chemicals in your body and causing a behavioral change. That's wonderful. Yeah, yeah. Well, the mind and the body are very linked right now. If you were to think about something horrible, you know, like think about war in Ukraine and think about it in detail, your system is going to amp right up, you know, and during the pandemic, I mean everybody was their systems were amped up.
So what we think about has a huge impact on the body. And this is sort of providing it an intervention. Of sorts, it's taking control, taking reins. And so if you're in the moment, if you're struggling, you can provide yourself comforting touch or say soothing or comforting words. But there are also practices that you've written about in your books, and I'm sure you've done in workshops that you give. What are some of those daily practices that people can do and to help practice self
compassion? Yeah. So just to give you a sense of the whole spectrum. So there are formal practices which you're talking about, which is like sitting down for 20 minutes of self compassion meditation. And then there are informal practices, which is when we experience stress in daily life, we do something right then and there, sort of on the spot in a minute. Type things and these are mind training practices. And then there is also behavioral practices like how would you treat a friend?
Maybe you'd go and listen to music together. Well, can you put on some music? So that's behavioral so. But what you're asking about right now, Dustin, is mind training practices that are formal mind training practices. So like meditation. So one meditation which is really quite simple, which is? Similar to breath meditation, which probably many of your listeners are familiar with, is called affectionate breathing. So in affectionate breathing,
we're meditation. We're not just paying attention or noticing the breath going in and out of the body, We're actually feeling the gentle rhythm of the breath. In particular, the way the breath is internally caressing us, internally comforting and soothing us by its gentle rhythm. And this is a very interesting shift. For example, many people don't like meditation because they say I can't concentrate because they think there's just supposed to be focusing on the breath.
But if you think about the practice differently, it's still about the breath. But. Imagine you're not doing the meditating. Imagine your body is continually and rhythmically rocking you from the inside, and all you need to do for meditation is to feel the rhythm and allow yourself to be internally rocked and caressed by your breathing. And when your mind wanders, it doesn't mean you've failed in concentration, It means you've just missed the chance to be rocked and caressed by your own
breathing. And this really changes the whole context of meditation from work where you kind of want to build concentration and focus, to a self compassion practice where you are actually being nourished from the inside. So that's one formal meditation practice.
There are quite a number of other ones, but they all have a similar intention, which is to shift our attitude, shift the internal tone, you know, from coldness to warmth, and to give us a sense of being connected with ourselves in an affectionate and friendly way. Rather than in opposition to ourselves. Yeah, I I think this is a good spot to maybe address some common objections people may
have. Because I think what you're saying is obviously we'll talk a little bit about the research that has been done in this field, the explosion of research in that a lot of what you're saying is evidence based. And yet still whatever those forces are, whether they're cultural or personal, I can hear. People in my life saying nourishment, like soothing words, affectionate breathing, like come on like what is this stuff? It's it's too soft.
You know, it's And then that's sort of harsh way of putting it. But others may just think I'm not really allowed to be kind to myself. You know, others may think like. Being harsh and self critical is the path to achievement, you know? Sure. So how do you deal with that? What I imagine are very common objections that these people have? Yeah. Yeah, so there are four or five
he objections. Misunderstandings really because the research really shows that these misgivings are misunderstandings are misconceptions, you know? But first of all, Dustin, when people hear the term self compassion, they're like. To cringe because self makes them think, oh boy, that's selfishness. Why would I want to practice self compassion? Because then I'll be more selfish. That's one worry. The research shows the opposite. And then the other is the word compassion, you know?
I mean, compassion is it's associated with weakness, you know? Martin Luther King said many times that love and compassion are actually a strength of force, you know, particularly when put into action as he did. But compassion is often associated with tenderness. And when people hear about compassion and growing and compassion, they just think, oh boy, I've got enough of that already. It's just going to make me more vulnerable or more sensitive, you know.
So those are two just the term self compassion freaks people out. So first of all, I, I you think it's better often to call it inner compassion, You know, because compassion is internal and external and we just don't want to exclude ourselves. So there's that. But the main misgivings, what number one is selfishness. But the research shows that those who grow in self compassion are actually become more compassionate toward others
and. In relationships highly self compassionate people tend to be more accommodating, less aggressive and so forth. So self compassion practice will make you less selfish not more. Another concern is weakness. Like I said before, some people think compassion is weak.
But what we've learned about self compassion, In fact, the 5000 articles on self compassion show much of the same thing, which is that self compassion is an internal resource or strength or skill that supports emotional resilience. So for example in the research people who are highly self compassionate and they experience divorce or severe illness or war trauma, they're way more likely to bounce back and to cope and to not get post traumatic stress disorder.
So it's actually a strength rather than a weakness. Another concern, big concern people have is that, and you alluded to it as well Dustin, is that it will decrease our motivation. You know, we think that being critical of ourselves actually motivates us. And the research interestingly shows that people who are high in self compassion are more motivated to reach their goals,
not less. And the reason is pretty obvious because when you are self compassionate, you motivate yourself with encouragement and kindness rather than with criticism. So anybody who's had an athletic coach, for example, if your coach said, you know, wow, you know, you're not doing very well today, you know what's the matter with you? I mean, you're you're weak. It's not going to motivate us to do much. You know, We'll just want to say, you know, I'm out of here.
So I have a a trainer, a young gym trainer who I was doing pushups and I collapsed and his response was excellent. Chris working to the point of failure and I completely reframed it. I was thinking, damn, I'm too weak. I I couldn't produce enough pushups and he was saying no, no, no, this is great, you know you're really you're you're working up to the edge of your capacity. I really appreciate that. That's called motivating and what's the difference?
Difference is attitude. So when our internal attitude is encouraging and is warm, we're actually more motivated to achieve our goals and the research shows that. And then there are some other concerns. One is that it's going to make us self indulgent that we're going to, you know, just lie around and eat bonbons and watch TV. And quite the contrary, people who are high in self compassion, they're they have healthier lifestyles, they exercise more, they eat less, they drink less,
things like that. And perhaps the last of the main misgivings is self pity. People think oh if I become self compassionate and then something goes wrong, I'm just going to be kind of curl up into a little ball and be you know, just feels feel bad for myself. You know, I won't be able to step out. I'm going to just be you know, full of self pity. And the research shows that actually people who are self compassionate ruminate less. They have less self pity, not more.
They're more likely to have perspective on their problems because they have this common humanity aspect. So in a nutshell, Dustin, all the misgivings that people have, the research shows not just that it's not. So the research shows the opposite. Yeah. And talk about the research a little bit. You know, what have the last couple decades or or more shown? And I understand there's been somewhat of a explosion and research in this area. And who's doing that work? Where is it being done?
How did it get going? And and maybe most importantly, why isn't it more mainstream like given given the amount of work going on? Yeah, those are all great questions. So back in 2003, there was one research article in the academic literature and that was Kristin Neff's conceptual article. And after soon after came her her scale to measure self compassion. So she defined it and measured it 20 years ago. And that's when the field basically began.
That doesn't mean that self compassion wasn't understood prior to that. You know it Many people, particularly in the Buddhist world, understood that compassion goes in all directions and you don't want to exclude yourself. In fact, by including yourself, you will increase your compassion for others.
So it wasn't a new idea, but in the research, it started with Kristen's work in 2003. And yeah, as I mentioned there, well over 5000 articles now and almost every day new articles come out in the research literature. But I have to say that recently I it hasn't been super interesting because, you know, just about every article shows that self compassion is good for you.
In fact, there's a professor at Duke University, Mark Leary, who who said even 10 years ago that the research is getting a bit boring for this reason. You know, because self compassion is associated with just about every measure of mental well-being and inversely related to distress. So self compassion is associated with, you know, really diverse
things like wisdom, optimism. I mentioned, you know, psychological resilience, so many different measures, anything you can think of. Grit is a big one nowadays, and it decreases in stress and anxiety and depression, and it decreases in suicidality. The research basically is uniformly positive for self compassion. So what's happening now? In the research, initially, it was mostly just seeing okay. What can we say about people who score high on Kristen's self compassion scale?
But now we're discovering and learning? Actually, what happens when we teach self compassion to people? Can we increase the amount of self compassion that they have? So it was actually for this reason that Kristen and I created the eight week Mindful Self Compassion Training Program in 2010 to move out of simply correlational research into what happens when we teach. And indeed most of these measures of positive mental health increase when people
learn self compassion. So the research is doing a number of things. It's just it's going into new areas. So for example, with specialized populations such as diabetes or right now there's some research going on in quality of life for people with cancer, many different projects. I could could, I could spend all
day answering that question. But what I think is most helpful going forward, and I I hope that this work is actually happening, is can we bring self compassion to underrepresented populations or populations which don't usually have access to training like this? And particularly populations that are marginalized or oppressed who have been taught culturally and societally to feel shame. Self compassion is a really powerful antidote to shame.
So I would love to see self compassion going to marginalized communities. And I also like to see self compassion going into the workplace where there's a lot of suffering. You know, you can't talk about it in the workplace, but there is, and there have been efforts to do that. And generally speaking, women tend to prefer self compassion more than men. Men are really caught up a lot in these misconceptions that we
were talking about a moment ago. And so for self compassion to go really mainstream, like you were saying, why hasn't it gone mainstream yet? 5000 articles has been 20 years, Why isn't it mainstream? I think the main reason is the misconceptions actually, and in particular I think misconceptions that men have. A lot of the research is now being actually conducted by women. So in order to have a broader reach, I think we need to reach
men as well. Men need to see that self compassion will make them, as the research shows, better leaders, that self compassion will make their relationships, their intimate relationships, easier and better. Men need to see the benefit of self compassion, and so that might take a little longer, but you know it's starting to
happen. Is there a just to continue with that for a second is is there a an example of maybe a man from your workshops or in the book or in your practice who was really skeptical or was really attached to these misconceptions and yet? Through their work were able to increase wellbeing, deal with pain, become more resilient. Was there like a guy who was really hard and came in and and and and and figured out how to be a little kinder, a little gentler?
And it actually worked because I I do think maybe men in particular kind of have to be a little more practical. Like, you have to really get us to do it and feel it, and then we'll we'll buy it. Well, yeah. I mean, so once somebody comes through the door, they're already open minded, right? So the reason why men I, I think, haven't quite adopted as much as women is because they don't know about it. They don't know what it is, you know? But what gets men through the
door? Often desperation. There's a thing called the gift of desperation or creative hopelessness. And both you and I, Dustin, I think, and we are men. We have personal stories. You know, For me, I suffered for 20 years from public speaking anxiety and in desperation I learned self compassion meditation. And it within four months this public speaking anxiety disappeared And that's actually what turned my career. It was in 2006.
From being more focused on mindfulness and psychotherapy, I became interested in self compassion, which I've been doing ever since because it's so profoundly transformative. But this arose out of duress. I don't know, Dustin, if you'd be willing to share a little of your own experience. Yeah, of course. And thanks for sharing your story too. I mean, the reason why we had met is because I think it was seven years ago, I was experiencing some low back pain, not some.
It it was, it had turned chronic. It had been lasting for six to eight months or so. And talk about self judgment, right? I was really beating myself up. You know, this was a problem of physical pain syndrome that I could not solve and I threw everything at it from physical therapy to psychotherapy to pills. Topical solutions, Every type of like ergonomic solution you can imagine, right?
And I read books and what is going on and I started to just get into the spiral of beating myself up for not being able to solve this chronic low back pain issue. And then I saw a study at MGH that you and Kristen were. Part of was a study on how self compassion I believe can influence chronic back pain and I signed up and your intervention was a I think a sort of a day long workshop where we learned what self compassion was.
We practiced some of your practices and then we made-up our own sayings to ourself things we could say to ourselves to increase self compassion. And over the period of think 8 weeks, I. Every day listen to recordings of you saying self compassionate remarks. You had a three, five and 15 minute recording and like I said, I'd thrown everything at this problem and I'm quite certain that you're on Kristen's workshop and practices had a really strong effect on lowering my low back pain.
And then within a year it was gone and it has never come back and I. Even still, to this day can find myself skeptical about self compassion for all those five main misconceptions you laid out so nicely. And it's sort of remembering to remember that it works and picking it back up. And I even think some of the things you shared earlier, like putting a hand over your heart or imagining a friend coming in the room and saying something to you that is supportive or nourishing.
I'm going to bring that back in to my life. And I was wondering, maybe since we're on the personal, you know, you talked about what you did to get better at public speaking. What actually did you do? What were the actual concrete practices? Yeah. So for 20 years prior to that, I had been practicing my fullness meditation, mostly breath meditation in the traditional way of just bringing your attention back and, you know, developing concentration and also opening and noticing what
else is in your mind. So I've been doing that for a long time, but I had also, I have a PhD in clinical psychology with a specialization in anxiety disorder. So I was pretty aware of everything that the field knows about managing a problem like my own. But nothing worked. So then four months before, I learned self compassion meditation. In particular, I learned loving kindness meditation for myself.
So this was interesting. I've never done that before because I it uses words which have meaning, like saying phrases to yourself, like may I feel safe, may I be healthy, may I live with ease, things like that. So saying nice things to yourself basically. And I never liked that idea too much. I preferred just working with awareness and consciousness and
meditation. But I was on a meditation retreat four months before a big conference at Harvard Medical School that I had Co organized and I knew I'd have to speak. And so at this retreat, meditation teacher said why don't you just sit on your cushion and love yourself. In other words, just say these kind words to yourself. And what was different about it, Dustin, is that I did that and I wasn't saying these things in order to have less anxiety.
I started saying these things because I was kind of a broken individual who really had no clue how to manage public speaking anxiety. And this horrifying event was coming up in four months where I would have to stand up in front of 600 people and something had to come out of my mouth and I didn't want to be shaking like a leaf. So this was really the gift of desperation.
And here's the key part, Dustin. I just started to love myself because not in order to reduce anxiety, but simply because I was a broken person and couldn't do anything about it. And when I did that, just open to kindness in this way, to kind words, to saying really kind things to myself over and over and over again, like every morning for four months before this conference. May I be safe. May I be peaceful. May I be healthy. May I live with these, just saying this over and over again.
And then whenever I thought about the conference, rather than kind of seizing up, I would just say, oh, may I be safe, may I be peaceful, may I be healthy, May I live with these. It just kind of loved myself like I was instructed. And then when the conference actually happened and I was introduced and I got up to speak, I panicked like usual. But there was a new voice in the back of my mind which said, oh, may it be safe, may it be peaceful, may it be healthy, may
you live with these. And it was also in that tone. You know, it wasn't like, may it be safe. May it be, you know, like it wasn't combative. It was just sympathetic. It was compassionate. And it was, it had a tinge of what else are you going to do just anyhow? So this new voice was there and I got up and then the amazing thing happened is that my fear disappeared and I felt this upsurge of excitement and love and I looked out over the audience.
And usually the audience is the enemy when you have public speaking anxiety because they can judge you, you know. But I I just had the same thoughts. Like, you know, in my head was, oh, may you be safe, may you be peaceful. I was just looking out the audience and just wishing that everybody would be safe, peaceful, happy. There was just, it wasn't
conscious. It wasn't with words, but it was just this goodwill that I'd been practicing for four months just started to overflow and be directed outward because it was inside, you know, it was inside. It was directed toward me. And it was just, you know, basically the the state of mind of loving kindness and compassion. When we're in that state of mind, it just flows in many different directions. Real compassion is
omnidirectional. And so I had that experience right then and there, and from that day onward, I've had no more public speaking anxiety. If I have a little twinge, I'll just once again repeat the phrases, not to make anxiety go away, but just to love myself, because this is my Achilles heel. This is my weakness. And so when it's done in that spirit, it's profoundly
transformative. We actually have a the saying in the Mindful Self Compassion Training program, what we call the central paradox which really makes a difference whether or not people benefit from self compassion. And that is when we suffer, we practice not to feel better, but simply because we feel bad. So it's not a slick new strategy for combating what we might be feeling difficult emotions. It's a way of loving ourselves in the midst of difficult
emotions. It's a way of loving ourselves because we have difficult emotions. It's like a Mama taking care of her child just because the child is suffering, not taking care in order to drive it away, you know, just spontaneous expression of kindness. And when we do that, it changes our Physiology, it changes our thinking, and it changes our behavior. So in many respects, the practice of self compassion is, there are certain lots and lots of techniques.
But as important as the techniques is the reason we do it. The motivation, the attitude. And that is love. For Love's sake. Because we're broken. Because we're suffering. Not to make ourselves into a better person, not to manipulate how we feel. Just to love ourselves for its own sake. And that makes all the
difference. Yeah, I think the central paradox does seem to be maybe one of the biggest barriers here, because the benefit of you being more confident as a public speaker was an indirect byproduct of learning to love yourself when you're in a very low place. But I think we're trained to mostly wanna go at problems directly. Yeah, like, how do I solve my anxiety? Or how do I get out of this depression? But this is really an indirect thing. It's the central paradox.
Yeah, and we all come by it over time. So people who are listening right now to your podcast and think, oh, self compassion might work for me. And then you read a workbook or, you know, listen to some tapes or something and start to practice, you know, it's quite likely you'll feel a lot better pretty soon. But. What happens over time is that it doesn't work and there are three, what we call stages of
progress. The 1st is striving, which is I want to feel better and I want to be a better person or I want to, you know, improve as a person. The second stage is disillusionment, which is when we discover actually I'm the same person and I still feel bad on occasion. But we have this little bird in our head that says, yeah, but you felt really, really good when you first learned this. So the second stage is
disillusionment. And disillusionment is actually really a good thing because it begins to change our motivation. So when we discover this isn't working, then the magic can occur because then we can love ourselves because it's not working. We can love ourselves because we're suffering. We can love ourselves because we
are imperfect beings. As Jack Cornfield says, the purpose is not to perfect who we are, but to perfect our love to get better at being kind to ourselves no matter what's going on with us. And that brings us to the third stage, which is called radical acceptance, which is precisely what I described. You know what? What we like to say is that radical acceptance is being a compassionate mess. In other words, we're still human. We're still. Flawed. We're still uncertain.
We still suffer all these things. We still experience the human, the range of human emotion, but we do it really compassionately. This is the third stage. This is radical acceptance. So when we have the gift of desperation, that's actually disillusionment. It's like nothing worked. You know I'm a expert in anxiety disorders and nothing worked. I was. I was actually disillusioned. I wasn't disillusioned with self compassion, but I was really open to just loving myself for
its own sake. And then it worked. It really worked. And so over time we go through these stages and sometimes we cycle through these stages again and again and again. But if you notice that you're disillusioned and then you just love yourself for that reason, bang, you're in radical acceptance. When you're in radical acceptance and you say, oh cool man, I got this down, you know, I am the most self compassionate
person in the world. Then immediately we're back in striving, thinking, well I just got to do more of this and then I'm going to be perfect. And then you're like no longer. No. Anyhow, the point is that we bounce in and out of these stages. But to know overall, to love ourselves just because we're human, in other words, to give ourselves permission to be a compassionate mess, is what. Makes all the difference.
You know, it's I'm thinking if if I were to turn it on the TV and see an ad for a drug or something, and it said they're pretty much no downsides, there's no side effects in all of these upsides that we're talking about. And to wellbeing and psychiatric problems, pain problems, the benefits that you've laid out, If there was a drug for this, I mean it would be a billion dollar pharmaceutical. I mean doctors wouldn't be able to you know that.
You'd be booked out for years. I mean, and you, you literally cured public speaking, your public speaking anxiety through self compassion. So. Once I was once. I was desperate. The creative hopelessness, That's a very interesting phrase. Or the gift of desperation, That's interesting. You know, I remember in your workshop when you were saying aloud some of the phrases that we could practice or that you said to yourself, you did say things like do you send nourishing phrases?
May I be kind to myself? May I accept myself and may I know that I'm trying my best things like this. This was my first experience with it. And I thought, yeah, you know, that's nice that. I guess that's nice. Yeah, it is. It is. It's nice. You know, I was skeptical and there was a guy next to me who thought it was just complete, like, hogwash. She you should have heard what he said when we got on the elevator. He's like, this is a joke, you know? And and I got it.
I got his perspective. But I was more open. I was a little bit more like I said to him, I said, well, haven't we tried everything else. Yeah, exactly. So talk about being at the lowest point, right. You know, and it's kind of unfortunate that people entered your field through that level of desperation. But what I wanted to say is another phrase that you said aloud was may I know that I'm a good man, and I remember that one because it's stuck with me.
But I also remember that one because I felt like you had a lot of emotion behind that one. Does that does that phrase mean a lot to you? What does it mean to be a good? Man, you know that you were very sensitive. You picked up on that. Yeah. So, you know, when I think about my deepest aspirations, I would like to be a good man. You know, I don't need to be, you know, rich or famous. I'd like to be good.
And I'm a man. And, you know, men, particularly now, are a bit beleaguered and battled. You know boys are in trouble. So the for me, being a good man is really important. And you know, how many times does somebody say to us, you know, you are a good man and they might think it, but they don't necessarily put language for it. But you know, I suspect there would be a lot less political turmoil in this world if a lot of people felt. Like they were good.
And you know what? Most people are actually better than they think, You know, when things go wrong, they think they're bad, you know? So it is important to me to be a good man. Yeah. This just occurred to me. There was a movie, a really great movie called Shame with Michael Fassbender. I don't know if you've ever seen it. I haven't seen it. It's really good. It it's it's sort of a profile of a of a sex addict, I think.
And you know, it's a man who's very isolated and he's a loner and he's really like white knuckling life. You know, he's isolated from his family and he watches pornography all the time and and lives the very, you know, isolated existence. And what's interesting is that I remember hearing an interview with the screenwriter and she was a playwright and she said in order to write the movie, she
met with a group of sex addicts. And she said the reason why she titled the movie Shame is because that's what she felt when she met with all these men. She felt the weight of shame. Yeah. And it's because of the trauma that they had earlier in life and the isolation they were experiencing in the weight of shame. And it seems like self compassion is an antidote to shame. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think if self compassion is nothing else, it's an
antidote to shame. And in the field of clinical psychology, we've really never had as. Targeted an intervention for shame as self compassion. And so toward that end, some colleagues and I have created an 8 week training called self compassion for shame. So even though self compassion alleviates shame, the research shows as people increase in self compassion, they automatically
decrease in shame. But if we intentionally target shame with self compassion, and we practice self compassion for shame. In my view, self compassion goes deeper. It goes to the very origins of of our personalities. You know, where shame first took hold in our beings, you know? And so when we practice self compassion, that kind of thing starts getting unpacked. And it's easy to imagine because shame is an attack on the self. It's a self attack, you know. Guilt is.
I did something wrong. Shame is. I am wrong. It's a sense of self that's under attack. And so when we practice the opposite, in other words, when we say may I accept myself just as I am May I love myself just as I am may I. You know, when we're kind to ourselves in some way, we're actually giving ourselves the opposite message. And that's just verbally. But behaviorally too, if we're suffering and rather than being engulfed in shame, we start to
treat ourselves. As we would like to be treated or as we would treat a good friend. Usually we're not shaming toward our friends when things go wrong. How would it be like if we treat ourselves kindly when things go wrong? Like, oh, this is really tough, have a cup of tea, let's take a little walk. You know, so everything about self compassion is actually reverses the shame process. But there's another point to this, Dustin, which is really
key. You were you were saying earlier, you know, if this were a drug? You could make a ton of money selling it in a drugstore, so it's not as easy as taking a drug. And the reason it's not as easy as taking a drug is because of what we call Backdraft. And that is, if I say to myself something like may I accept myself as I am. Immediately we start to actually think about parts of ourselves that are unacceptable or ways that we have been treated.
Unacceptably in the past. And I suspect that that guy in the elevator who you were with was already having backdraft when he thought, oh, this is a crock of shit when, if you know, may I accept myself as I am? He was probably starting to feel bad about himself just thinking about that, and in particular the backdraft was very likely shame. In other words, what is shameful about me? What is unacceptable about me? So this comes up absolutely reliably when we practice self compassion.
When we practice self compassion, we actually contact shame. And when we experience shame, we can either go after ourselves with a vengeance or we can go after others. In other words, this program is a bunch of bunk, you know, very likely coming from shame, very likely coming from backdrop, very likely coming from actually considering. The possibility of accepting
ourselves just as we are. But here's the good news that when we start to practice self compassion and we have backdraft, we start to remember times when we were not treated well or parts of ourselves that we find unacceptable. We can actually be with ourselves and those parts of ourselves, and even with those memories that are arising, we
can be with old wounds. Now, in the present, in a loving and kind way, as we would have wished we were treated in the past, we can be compassionate with ourselves because we are adults and we know ourselves in a far more effective way than our caregivers or people in our culture were with us, You know, we were not treated compassionately and mindfully. Back then, therefore, we were wounded.
But when these old memories come up, because we begin being kind to ourselves, we can be kind to ourselves in the midst of those old wounds and transform those wounds. So this is actually how self compassion heals. It is not as easy as taking a pill. It's a process and there is some pain involved. There are side effects, but these side effects when we work with them are actually the mechanism or the vehicle through
which self compassion heals. So one of our participants, self compassion Practitioners, said it feels like kaboom, but it's really kaboom and the the really fascinating thing. Dustin is you know we say self compassion is not therapy per se, but it's very therapeutic because if we practice self compassion consistently and we experience old wounds over and over again and we are the muscle of self compassion is really strong and we can see those old wounds and we can be.
Kind toward ourselves, reflective in a kind way about these old wounds, they actually heal. They get transformed. So we can actually reparent ourselves as adults, no matter what happened to us in childhood. We can reparent ourselves through the power of self compassion. And that doesn't mean we have to do this all ourselves.
We can do this with a therapist. But when we cultivate the skill of being kind to ourselves, no matter what arises, especially shame, we can at some point actually feel like I am a good man, I am a good person. We can dismantle shame and we can begin to treat ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we wished we were treated or as we might treat a friend, Right. Yeah, that makes sense. We talk about another powerful barrier.
It's Backdraft. It's the stuff that comes up when we start, which is that maybe it worked for someone but not me or I'm really a piece of crap. So this isn't gonna work. Or, you know, this happened to me in the past. And it's interesting too, because you said one of the byproducts of self compassion practice is perspective. And it seems like perspective is quite helpful in like, what you said too. It's like we're adults. We can take a new mindset on
what happened. One of the things I was wondering if you'd be up for is maybe just to do a quick series of phrases maybe like one minute 2 minute practice to let people hear how it works. Is yeah, there like a common one. Maybe it's just a series of phrases and and I even remember, like, you know, listening you, you talked about the words like, you know, using hmm or ah, whatever that I noticed that, yeah, this is quite helpful, yeah. Yeah, well, we could do a a very
brief self compassion break. It might be more like 5 minutes. Do we have 5? Yes or yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we can, you know, just get comfortable and and bring to mind a difficulty in our lives right now. It might be a health problem or a relationship problem or work problem. I also choose one that's not too big, kind of small, so that we can stick with it, not get overwhelmed.
For example, maybe you have a health issue that you're going to get checked out by the doctor, but you're not super concerned about it. And then the first part of the self compassion break is mindfulness. And that is just to recognize, you know, this is difficult for me just to validate that actually this is stressful. It's a concern. So just validating it for yourself as you would for a friend.
This is hard. Then the second part is common humanity, and that is to recognize that others actually in the same situation probably feel similarly, that this particular difficulty some other people also have, even if we don't know them. And that stress has many forms, but stress is a part of the human experience. So just getting a sense of the size of the cloth, as it were, that were all humans and all human beings struggle from time
to time. And now, if it feels right to you, you can take a hand and you can put it over your heart, or you can put it on your cheek, where you can massage the back of your neck but offer yourself some soothing or supportive touch. Can even gently massage that part of your body. And again, we're doing this not to change how we feel, but just as a expression of sympathy. Because life is tough. And then, as we did earlier, you can continue holding your hand on your body somewhere.
But also imagine that a very loving and understanding person may even be somebody you know. Were to walk into your room right now and were to say to you, maybe even whispering into your ear, say something to you, that would be a great comfort right now. And this person wouldn't be denying what's happening or, you know, just trying to cheer you up, but saying something truthful like acknowledging, yeah, this is hard, but you know. You'll get through this. Or I'm here for you.
I love you. I believe in you. You've got what it takes. What words might allow your heart to rest just a little bit more. Just a few words. And now I'll see if. You, at the same time, can offer yourself some soothing touch as we did before, feeling your hand on your body, and then also just allowing these words and maybe even an image of a good friend to just roll through your mind a bit right now. Again, we're not trying to manipulate how we feel.
We're just taking a moment of self compassion, a moment we're just receiving for a moment a bit of kindness through touch and words. Just allowing the words to be there and noticing what that's like for you. OK, And so now you can release that practice if you like, knowing you can always return to it. Three parts, one is validating. Second part is calm humanity. Third part is some kindness. And you can do that anytime, whenever there's any difficulty in your life.
It's called the. Self compassion, break and then if your eyes are closed, open your eyes And as we rejoin Dustin in our interview. That was nice. That was comforting. Reminds me. What occurred to me is how seldom I am doing something that's comforting toward myself. You know, often pushing quite hard and striving, but just to sit and be still, it's quite
nice. And to hear about all the potential benefits of self compassion, it's actually exciting, you know, to be great to to get some of those benefits
in the one's life. Yeah, I think that if they're for me anyway, if there's like one inner resource, one skill that we could practice, that would have an impact on many, many, many different areas of our lives, the research shows that this is it. I mean, there may be other skills that we can practice that influence all areas of our lives, for example getting strong physically. But when it comes to psychological training, this is a very central resource or mechanism.
And so if you don't have a lot of time and you can only learn one thing, this is a good one. I guess as we kind of think about coming to the end of the conversation, I always like to broaden it as much as we can. And in in this subject area, it seems that there is another barrier, there's another headwind and you've talked about it a little bit throughout, which is the cultural barrier. It's it's that Western culture doesn't necessarily promote self compassion as a virtue.
And I think people, many people, Americans, harbor a deep suspicion about being kind to ourselves and what what's going on? Maybe we think about the US or just the West in general. What don't we get about this? Why we? Why we? Yeah. Well, it's not just the US. There are differences between cultures. Kristin Neff did a study in Taiwan, Thailand and the US and.
Found that people in Thailand were a little more compassionate than people in the US, who are a little more compassionate than people in Taiwan. But the big difference, Dustin, is not between cultures. The big difference is between how we treat ourselves and how we treat others when things go wrong. That's huge everywhere. And culturally, people often look for explanations like why Thailand may be a little more than Taiwan, right?
But I think this is, it's just speculation because personally, I've been in China and they say we're not compassionate with ourselves because we are Confucian and I've been in South America. And they say we're not compassionate with ourselves because we're Catholic. And I've been in Minnesota and they say we're not compassionate with ourselves because we're Lutheran. And so every culture has its own reason.
But my guess is that the bigger issue is how to turn it around and include ourselves in the circle of compassions. What I like to say is that self compassion is is really a humble enterprise where it's not about selfishness, it's about just including ourselves. Maybe even in the bottom right corner of the picture, you know of of self compassion. Just adding ourselves, not systematically excluding
ourselves. Because if we, if the research means anything, if we deny ourselves self compassion, we are making ourselves suffer unnecessarily. When I was reading your workbook, I think it's called the Mindful Self Compassion Workbook. Is that it? Yeah, There's this quote that really I found kind of staggering. It was from Carl Rogers. Carl Rogers is a psychologist or psychiatrist. He's a psychologist, right, Right. So he said.
The curious paradox is that the more I accept myself just as I am, the more I can change. Yeah. How do you interpret that? That's really staggering. It it feels very true as well. And yet it is a paradox. Is it? Yeah, so actually that quote was printed slightly wrong. What Carl Rogers actually said was the more I accept myself just as I am. Change occurs on its own, change occurs on its own and and many people notice that when they practice self compassion.
What happens is when we fight with ourselves, it's very hard to change anything. But when we accept ourselves as we are, then we more naturally change things. So to give you an example, every year in around January 1, Kristen and I get a flurry of requests for interviews to talk about New Year's resolutions. But one of the funny things about New Year's resolutions is that within three weeks 60% of people abandon their resolutions.
Why are they abandoning them? It's because they are doing these things, often driven by shame and not accepting ourselves. And then when they start to fail, they beat up on themselves even more. The same motivation just becomes more intense. i.e. Shame. But if we put all self improvement on the foundation of self compassion and self acceptance, then when things go wrong we don't necessarily give up because we're not blaming ourselves.
We're not shaming ourselves. We get curious like, oh jeez, I wanted to exercise more and now I I noticed I'm not exercising. When we're really friendly with ourselves, we can say something like. I wonder how I can do this, that I enjoy it a little more. That's very different than beating up on ourselves. And then lo and behold, we do something and we enjoy it and we're, you know, after three weeks we're still exercising more because we are encouraging
ourselves in a positive way. So this is self compassion. So why does change happen on its own? Why is it more easy to change when we accept ourselves? Because we have a new attitude. My last question is, what do you think our world, our society, civilization would look like? If we're all just kinder to ourselves, less critical and judgmental of ourselves, what would that world look like?
Well, I think there's no doubt that generally we would have better mental health because as people increase in self compassion. Mental health gets better and better and as people decrease in self compassion they feel more and more shame. And shame is associated with just about every form of mental distress.
So there's no doubt that if people had the fire of self compassion inside, if they could recognize in an open hearted way when they're suffering, if they could not feel so alone, and if they could be kind to themselves, they would suffer less. That's the first thing that would happen, but the second thing that would happen. Is they would be kinder to others.
And so from my experience, and this happened really in a nutshell for the first time at that conference that I mentioned when I had public speaking anxiety very easily self compassion translates into compassion for others. And so we are now living in a world where we have global problems that cannot be. Solved in an insular way by 1 nation. We need to do this together. We need to solve, you know, global warming. We need to solve the problem of wars. We need to solve social injustice.
How do we solve these really global problems, problems that require everybody to participate? The answer in my view is we need to have more fellow feeling. We need to have more compassion. And then the question is how do we grow in compassion, especially when people are frightened and afraid and they shut down, How do we grow in compassion? Well, the easiest way to do it, I think is to grow in self compassion when we feel the pain of these global problems. We first step is we be kind to
ourselves. We recognize our own suffering, we attend to our own suffering. We change our Physiology and then our heart will open toward others. We will feel more like a global community and it be more motivated to make a change. So in a nutshell, the easiest way to grow in compassion for others, I think, is to fall in compassion for ourselves. And when we do that, we have created a foundation for working together to solve problems that are bigger than any of us. That's great.
Before I let you go Chris, where can people go to learn more about self compassion and to maybe do some practices themselves? How can they start small? Where does someone go right now to learn a little bit more about your work, about the field, about how they can incorporate self compassion into their life? Well, I would say some written material and some links. So the book you had mentioned, the Mindful Self Compassion Workbook is available on Amazon.
It's coauthored by Kristin Neff and myself and it's extremely popular book. It's been selling like crazy for the last five years. So that's a place to start. And if you want to listen to guided meditations and other practices and self compassion, you can. And learn all about, you know, different opportunities for learning about self compassion in a classroom setting, online or in person. You could go to the to the website centerformsc.org, which means Center for mindful self
compassion Center for msc.org. Or you can go to my website chrisgermer.com or Kristen Neff's website which is self hyphen compassionself-compassion.org. And there's a ton of stuff on Self compassion online. Well, I should say thank you for the workshop you gave seven years ago where you completely took away my lower back pain. I never got a chance to thank you for that. So I so appreciate it. Yeah, I'm.
So glad to hear that Dustin. And you know, thanks for giving me some time and sharing your wisdom and your expertise. I can't think of a better topic to make more mainstream and I'm and I'm glad that we we were able to to talk together and and hopefully people can take something away from this. Well, I I really appreciate that you're doing this work and thank you for joining the chorus. And I personally, I really enjoyed the interview and personally thank you, grateful
to you, Thank you. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of Curiously. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Chris Kerman. Stay tuned for more conversations with people and meet along the way.