Okay friends. I've been excited about this interview for months, and I have to tell you it did not disappoint. As, you know, as a fellow high-achieving Catholic woman, you often face the challenge of balancing your personal, your professional and your spiritual life. While also dealing with the inevitable hurdles that come just from being human. This episode provides invaluable insights into understanding and practicing self compassion. This is a vital tool for you.
To navigate life's complexities and without losing sight. Of your faith. So in this episode, we are going to explore a scriptural and theological foundations of compassion. As well as some simple practical tips that you can apply in the day to day. Whether you're juggling a demanding career, family responsibilities or those ever personal challenges. This episode is going to help you prioritize self care and a faith filled way. Join me right now with my special guest. Karen let's get started.
Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome to the Persistence in Prayer podcast hosted by Catholic Mindset coach, wife, mother, educator, and speaker, Kylie Hine. Kylie is passionate about helping you deepen your relationship with God through the power of prayer. This podcast is a space for high achievers who want to do it all, but also want to prioritize their spiritual life and grow in faith.
Join us as we explore the beauty of persistence in prayer and the transformative impact it can have on our lives. Get ready to discover practical tips, insights, and inspiration to help you develop a daily prayer practice and cultivate a deeper sense of trust in God's plan for your life. Let's journey together towards a more fulfilled and faithful life as we invite the Holy Spirit in. Let's begin. Hello, everyone, and welcome back. Today, I'm joined by Karen Herbert.
Karen is a Catholic coach, teacher, and public speaker. She lives in Minnesota with her husband, Curtis, and together they host the Catholic Midlife Podcast. Karen teaches communication and self compassion classes, coaches one on one, and speaks on a variety of scripture, theology, and positive psychology topics. Karen, I'm so grateful to have you with me today. To talk about something that I know I need to hear in this moment right now.
I've been sick for over a week and the first couple days of laying on the couch, I was like, okay, it's fine. Everything else can wait. But then by day three or day four or day five, the panic kind of started to set in and Oh, my gosh. There are so many things piling up. I started to tell myself I was just being lazy. I just needed to suck it up and push through and the overwhelm started to kick in. So, I cannot wait to hear your take on self compassion. Yes, Kylie.
I think we're all listening to you and thinking, Oh boy, I totally, I'm totally relating to that. Yes, so thank you so much for being here. It is a pleasure. I know you've been traveling a lot this summer, so what kind of fun things have you been up to? Well, I have three young adult children, and one of my young adult children was studying in France for the spring semester.
And so I had a, an enormous Travel once in a lifetime experience of joining her in France and going to Paris and Greece and Croatia where my family is from and so I was a European traveler which Surprised me and I loved it I loved it. So that was very exciting. Wow. Definitely once in a lifetime memories that you are not going to forget. Exactly. So that's your, that's been your current life.
How did you get to where you are now where this is the work that you're doing where you're talking about self compassion, you're incorporating your faith. How did you get here? Well, my background is in philosophy and theology and scripture. So I've really always had that as a high interest. And, I was at home with my kids for many years. I did some homeschooling and, just a little part time stuff and my kids have some special challenges. So I was very involved in that.
And as they were getting older, I was thinking, starting to think about, well, what's the next phase for me? What Could my next step be? And I was looking around and thinking about different things. And I had thought about, well, maybe I'll do some spiritual direction or maybe I'll get back into some church work. And I hired a coach to help me in the process. And I had not experienced coaching before. This was totally new to me. And I loved it. I just, I loved the whole person approach.
I loved the things that it brought up the whole process, the things that brought up to me. That I hadn't looked at before or I hadn't had someone reflect back to me before and I thought that's what I want to do. I want to, really be able to serve people and help them the way that I had been helped. So that, Open my eyes and set me on the path. And I just, I love the whole process. I've, I've gotten into many different directions over the last four or five years.
I also am like a teacher trainer at heart. So hence the classes and self compassion and neuro linguistic programming and, um, a couple other techniques that I teach. And so, so I sort of put that all together into, into, um, Some kind of a balance. Yeah. We're always striving for more balance, but yes, absolutely. Always striving. Always have to work at it because every season is so different.
And I love that you just brought up, you didn't use this word, but I think it just, in my mind went to how we are so blind to ourselves. Because we are so stuck in our routines and our autopilot reactions and our habits to how we handle situations that until someone else just like says, Hey, have you looked at it from this lens instead or shifted this perspective? We really just, we can't see it. We're not capable of seeing it without someone else helping us. So I love that.
That's been very much your experience with coaching too. It really has. Are you okay if I share a fun fact about that? Yeah. Absolutely. So this is something we teach in our communication classes, but your, your nervous system receives about two million bits of information every second. So you are just bombarded with information around you all the time. And you can only consciously process 126 bits of information.
And it's sometimes we hear that and it sounds a little overwhelming, like, my gosh, I need to be taking in more information, but you really can't, or your brain would explode because you can't process all that, but the fun thing is you get to choose which 126 bits. You're taking it. And so often, like what you were saying, we're in our own model of the world. And we're used to taking in these 126 bits, these 126 bits. And I think coaching just kind of explodes our boundaries.
And we start to be able to take in different ways of accessing all that information and perspectives and meanings and we can make really great shifts in, in, in our interior life and, um, across the board, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. Physically. And I find that to be good news. Absolutely. I love that. I'm all about fun facts and it just reminds me too, of, you know, fill your mind and fill your vision with good and holy things.
That's kind of been my statement to myself the past couple of days, because there are some environments we can't entirely avoid. And so. We intake information that maybe we don't want to hear or we don't want to see. And so every time I hear certain things, I'm retraining my brain to pray a Hail Mary or something different that's good. And that's holy. So that that is not what my mind is recycling over and over again, that it's recycling different information.
So in case you need that again, I believe we intake too much information. But can only process 126 bits, is that what you said? With your conscious mind. Yes. Yeah. But we take in more unconsciously, which also speaks to how things affect us. But yes, 126 with your conscious mind. That is insane. It's crazy, huh? Yeah, it is. Let's talk about language a little bit.
We know in coaching different words mean different things to different people because, again, that lends in our perception or maybe just our misunderstanding of a particular word. So in self compassion, if we're talking about self compassion, what does that mean to you? What does self compassion mean if you had to define it? I think the, the best short explanation is it's just simply. Being kind to yourself. It's just being kind to yourself the way you would to anyone else.
And so often we are much kinder to other people than we are to ourselves. Like I can listen to you about, your story about being sick and laying on the couch. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I totally get that. Like, of course things are going to pile up, but you got to take care of yourself. And there's all sorts of things I would say to my friend in that situation. But when it's me in that situation, I'm talking very differently to myself and very often with a critical voice and critical language.
And I'm kind of beating myself up because I'm not. getting it together. Yeah. So being kind to ourselves, how do we learn how to do that? Just like you said, it's so easy to help other people to be kind to them. Be like, Oh, it's okay. Everything else can wait. But in your own mind, you're like, yeah, but I have to.
Put food on the table, and there's kids to take care of, and nobody has any clean underwear, you know, just all of those things that come to our mind, how do we learn how to, or is this something that is learned? Well, happily, it's a learnable skill. I think so often, We say to ourselves, gosh, I should give myself a break or I need to get a little self compassion here. We might recognize that it's something that we need or that would serve us.
And, and yet we don't always know how we're supposed to get there, how we're supposed to get that. And luckily it is a skill. That is learnable and can be practiced in very small moments throughout the day, very small shifts, but if we're aware and we have kind of the way to practice, it can make a huge difference in how we're showing up for ourselves during the day. Yeah. So what are some of those small ways? Yes, yes.
Well, I might just, if it's okay, I think I'm just going to highlight the three essential things that we do in self compassion. And then maybe I'll give a couple examples about how we can use that in, day to day life. Absolutely. Okay. So the first part of the skill is simply appreciating and turning towards the experience that we're having in the moment.
Simply building awareness about what am I experiencing right now and learning how to do that without the judgment piece because so often we see the experience or we feel the emotion or we have the thought And we immediately follow it up with a self judgment about it. Oh, well, I sh I shouldn't feel that way. That's overreacting or, you know, I, I need to stop saying that. That was, that was rude and, and boy, I'm such a jerk or however, we have our patterns in responding.
We're just turning towards the experience and acknowledging it without judgment and kind of letting ourselves have the experience. Very often, we're on this sort of rocket path and we're just blazing by all the experiences that we're having in the day and not totally processing them and even becoming aware of what they are meaning to us and how we're responding. So the first part is turning towards our experience and just saying, gosh, that was pretty hard. That was difficult for me.
I was feeling some guilt or some shame and, and self compassion. It's beautiful across the board. And it's particularly helpful in the difficult moments when we're turning towards something that's kind of hard for us, and it's not very comfortable or pleasant to experience. So there's this practice of allowing ourselves to sit with something that's uncomfortable and just saying. This is really challenging for me right now.
And, that itself can take some practice depending on, you know, myself and the patterns that I've created around my experiences and what I'm telling myself about them. So sitting with our experience, turning towards it without judgment. The second part of the skill speaks to our tendency when we're having a hard time, or when we're having a challenge to isolate ourselves. From other people. Maybe we're comparing ourselves to other people.
Well, I'm sitting here on the couch and I'm sick, but Oh my gosh, my mom would be sick and she would be up and doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So what's wrong with me? Or, well, so and so would be able to do it anyway, and I'm not doing it. So, so that's one element of isolation is we have this difficult thing and we experience it as. Uh, taking us away from others. Another thing we can do is just sort of poo poo our own experience. Oh, well. You know, that's not really suffering.
I mean, look at so and so or what about these moms in Africa in, the camps or whatever, like that's suffering that, why am I even bothering? And, and that's really, minimizing and invalidating our own experience. Whereas when. When we seek to use this as connection versus isolation, then we might say to ourselves, well, this is really hard for me.
It is a moment of suffering and suffering is suffering regardless of maybe how much I feel like this, how much suffering is in the cup, but it is difficult for me and I can validate that and I can know, everybody suffers. Every single person in this world has these kinds of feelings and experiences. And this is actually a moment of connection with other people. Everyone has challenges and difficulties. And instead of isolating, I can use it as a moment of connecting with others.
That's the second part of the skill. And then the third part of the skill just says. You know, suffering, even my suffering deserves some kindness, all suffering deserves kindness. And so does this moment. So how can I be kind to myself right now? Can I say something kind to myself? Can I do something physically that's kind for myself? What would be kindness?
In this moment, and very often we don't, appreciate or see really the ways we can be kind to ourself in our own suffering the same way we'd be kind to others. To anyone else who's suffering and I just went on and on about that and I forgot your original question, Kylie. No, this is amazing. Um, I just want to highlight a couple things. So you said appreciate the experience without judgment.
Really just letting ourselves have the experience and accepting that it's uncomfortable and that's not a problem. Like we can just recognize this is uncomfortable. I don't like it. But that doesn't have to be a problem. Everybody goes through this and we can utilize this as a way of connection rather than a way of isolation.
So instead of comparing ourselves to how our mother handled it or how our spouse handles it or how the super mom down the street handles it, we can just say, Hey, you know what? Everybody has these emotions at some point in time. Everybody goes through some type of suffering at some point in time.
And just because their suffering looks different, Maybe you can see it more on the outside, that doesn't have to diminish the fact that I'm having a hard time right now, and I don't like it, and that's okay. Exactly. And then, I love that you said all suffering deserves kindness. All, all kinds of suffering, big suffering, small suffering, internal, external, physical, mental, emotional, all of it needs some kind of kindness to help us move through it. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.
And the studies show, and there's quite a bit of research actually over the last 20 years or so on self compassion, that when we can learn the skill and use it in those moments of difficulty, they build our resilience, our ability to learn from our experiences and move through and come out. On the other side, stronger and, with a deeper sense of who we are and more capacity to be, even to be compassionate to others as well.
And, and there's just, a lot of research that even though we, we have these patterns of self criticism that kind of get their way into our, our Our life pretty early on that we can shift that to patterns of self compassion and That's actually a much better and healthier way of motivating ourselves, of, relating to ourselves, of moving through difficult situations in, a very positive way. I'd love to hear your take on the theological connection to self compassion.
What does our faith say about this? Because I think you would hear two very separate arguments. One, we have to love ourselves well to love others well. But then there's the flip side of that. It's not about us. It's about serving other people and putting others before ourselves. So, what's your take on that? Where's, where's the happy medium? Or are we supposed to be putting aside our own, our own feelings? and our own discomfort for everyone else?
Or are we supposed to take care of ourselves and sometimes let our children fend for themselves for a while so that we can better take care of them later on? Well, I have several directions to go with that, so I might just get started and see where it takes me. So the first thing is Our scriptures clearly say that we have a compassionate God, that God is compassionate towards us specifically. He has compassion on those who love him and he has compassion on those who don't love him as well.
Our God is compassionate and we are meant to know our God. We are meant to know compassion. And why we would decide that we're meant to know compassion for everybody in the world, but not for me, that somehow I'm not in the circle of compassion. That doesn't make any sense. I have to, to know the Lord, I have to be able to receive who he is. And if he is compassion, then I am meant to know compassion. Not just for others, but also for myself, because I too am a child of God.
I too am a brother or sister of Christ and meant to be enfolded in God's compassion. And I actually believe that when we can't be self compassionate.
We're actually creating a block or an obstacle to knowing the Lord, because that means God's compassion can't get through like, well, I know you're compassionate right now, God, but I'm beating myself up though, even that way, even though I know in my head, I have a compassionate God, I'm not allowing myself to receive that because instead of hearing the voice of the Lord, I'm hearing my own voice. And my job really is to hear the voice of the Lord and not my own voice.
So I believe we have to know our God is compassionate. And in order to know him as compassionate, we have to be able to practice self compassion as well as compassion for others. And this, those two things are not, um, they don't cancel each other out. I can have compassion for others and be loving and serving them at the same time. That I'm having compassion for myself. And there's some beautiful ways of practicing self compassion when you're in caregiving roles.
When you say maybe it's your job to be in a caregiving role, or you particularly have someone in need, a family member, a parent. A child with special needs and, and it's this ongoing service. So yes, we're going to be compassionate to those we're serving. And that doesn't rule out also being compassionate to ourselves and, and some self compassion practices around that are like, here's some compassion for you. Here's some compassion for me because I too am suffering in this moment.
Compassion for your suffering, compassion for my suffering, because we're all in this together. Absolutely. Did that answer your question? Yes. Yes. I love, you said, we have a compassionate God to all. He's compassionate to all of us. And it always goes back to, for me. I remember I, I've talked about this on the podcast before, and I've written a blog about it, but a priest telling me, you're not special.
And what he meant by that is like, you're not so special that you're excluded from this thing that everyone else is called to. You're not so special that you weren't given a gift to bring glory to God, or you're not so special. And it just reminds me of the same thing. Like, who are you to think that you're so special that God gave compassion to everyone else except for you? Like that's a pride thing.
That's your own pride getting in the way of God loving you in this moment for who you are or thinking that you need to do something or be something that he's not asking you to be in this moment. He's not asking you to push through in this moment. Maybe there will be a time in your life when he is, but that's probably not right now. Right. Right. And those moments of the. Like you're saying, just, just push through, just get over it. Just, just put it aside.
Obviously we, we all have situations where we need to do that, um, for a period of time before we come back to whatever the experience is, but. The self compassion can happen just in a moment, just just by saying, Oh, you know, I am feeling kind of frustrated right now. And that makes sense that I would be frustrated right now. And I can, I can be kind of myself that I'm frustrated. And then you can move on, and it actually opens us up to moving out of.
The negative state, because we're having just a little self validation and, and talking a little kinder to ourselves. Yeah. And I think just for anyone listening, your brain is going to fight you on this. It really is going to fight you, even as I'm listening to you, I'm like, my own brain is going to go to that.
Okay. But the saints would do this, or they wouldn't, then that'd be complaining, but it's really, you can have a moment and say, this is hard and not let that be a time of, you know, like, complaining and bringing it up over and over again. You can say, you can tell your spouse, Hey, I'm not feeling well. This is really hard for me right now. I'm going to do my best and vocalizing what is going on to the people around us, I think is a way of having compassion for ourselves, but also for them.
So they understand if you're a little more short tempered or something like that, you're going through something. And I think when I was in my teacher role, this was so helpful for me. You know, I'm going to be a little more lenient with the kid if they come in and tell me, Hey, I only got three hours of sleep last night versus why are you falling asleep in my class? Just upfront communication of whatever it is that is going on because we can't see inside other people.
We don't know what their experience has been or what they're going through unless we vocalize that. Exactly. And like, kind of like what you're saying, it's, it's compassionate to the other person Who wants to understand and wants to know when, when we're having a hard time and, and we, most people want to support and be kind to each other in those moments. Um, I, I almost, I don't know if there's a research article on this or not, but I'm pretty sure that I could say that when we're not.
Self compassionate, but we probably don't receive compassion as well either from other people. It's harder for them to give it because we, we're not going to receive it as well. I think that is probably very true. Okay. What are some key indicators that you notice in your own life, or maybe the lives of your clients that you work with? that you recognize when you're not showing yourself self compassion? Are there certain phrases that come up? Are there certain physical actions?
What kind of things have you noticed? Well, one of the interesting things I think when people start to practice the skill of self compassion is they do become very aware of their own tells, as it were. Oh, I can tell I'm experiencing this. I might be trying to avoid something that's uncomfortable. I may, I might not be turning towards this. I might be trying to push it under the rug or shove it down.
We all know that doesn't work or whatever, push it away because it's suffering and understandably it's, we don't like it. So I think we all get to a point where we can understand maybe when we're, Avoiding, the, the suffering. Uh, recently I was having, there was some conflict in my family and I was having a lot of guilt, come up around conflict and, oh, I should have done this. I didn't do that. And I can't believe that. And, beating myself up cause I wasn't.
whatever enough, you know, there's many words I could use. And So once I hear myself telling myself that in my mind, I know it's time to pause. and practice the self compassion. Otherwise, I'm going to be ruminating on this for who knows how long. Rumination is one of my tells that I'm not practicing the self compassion. I think we all are somewhat familiar with our inner critic. The critical voice when that comes up very often.
That's a tell that it's a moment where self compassion would be helpful. Um, when we feel like we're isolating, perhaps we might want to check in and and say, Well, what am I telling myself about my experiences in my situations right now? I could need some self compassion to help me connect with others. Do you have any favorite questions, that you ask to help people identify what these tells are or to identify maybe if there are any situations that lead to this inner self critic more quickly?
Right, right. So everybody will kind of have their triggers and, suffering comes in a lot of different forms. Sometimes it's physical suffering. Sometimes it's, you know, emotional suffering. Sometimes I've, I've done something and I think I've failed. So I'm having a moment of failure or, or not being meeting my own expectations. Those can all be moments.
And, one thing I do in my self compassion class is we run through, a list of statements that are validating to ourself in moments of difficulty and statements that are invalidating to ourselves in moments of difficulty and pretty much across the board, everyone who takes the class looks at that list of invalidating statements and is like, Oh, my goodness. I say those all the time. And I hadn't recognized. What I was doing by invalidating myself and my own experience.
So that's a one example that I think kind of highlights that for people. We also have a session on the inner critic and how we're relating to the inner critic and getting pretty aware of how that voice is operating so that when we hear it, we can take the opportunity. To practice some self compassion and, and one of the very, very most favorite parts of the class for a lot of people is we try to also get in touch with our self compassionate voice.
And many of us, it's just, we're really more familiar with the critical voice. And we also have a compassionate voice. And so we get used to hearing that. What would that sound like? How do I feel when I'm using my compassionate voice versus my self critical voice? And so it kind of expands us into, well, what do I do instead? But I'm not.
Running these patterns that I've been running for so long, and it helps us know what to do instead and, and people sort of have aha moments as they go through about how, how it all shows up for them. Can you give us some examples of invalidating statements and then validating statements? Yes. Yeah. Um, just get over it. It's not that big of a deal. Why are you so upset about that? Or, you know, other people don't have this problem. Just, just do what they do.
Like you're overreacting, or you're underreacting, or invalidating statements can be labeling people. So instead of just, you know, Saying, wow, I could have asked that further question that would given me more understanding and maybe, I don't know, but, you know, maybe the conflict would have been quenched in the bud instead. Versus I'm so inconsiderate. Can't believe I didn't think about asking that question. And a really loving and kind person would have taken more time to figure that out.
And I'm just kind of an idiot. So labeling like that is extremely invalidating any kind of minimizing of our experience. There's reasons why. We, we have the difficulties and the challenges and, and maybe someone else would respond differently in a particular situation. And I would respond differently in a situation that would be challenging to them that we, there's reasons why things are, are difficult and, and are sufferings for us. And they, it all makes sense and is valid.
We understand the whole. Picture of our life or about somebody else's life. And, and all of that deserves to be validated and validating doesn't mean you're going to stay there. There's always room for choice to make changes. And when we invalidate, we, we sort of shove it away and we don't allow for the transformation. Kind of one of my favorite things, aha moments for people around invalidation is sometimes the things that we say. well meaning things can also be invalidated. Well, it's okay.
God has a plan in this or it'll all turn out. All right. In the end. And those things are true. And we also want to be at a certain point in the process to receive them where we've been able to validate our experience and get to a different perspective. And then those are things. To receive, but in certain moments, they're extremely invalidating. Yeah. It reminds me of empathy versus sympathy.
So empathizing, recognizing where they are and being with them where they are versus trying to just pull them out of it and move them forward before they're ready, before they've had time to, as you said, that first essential experience, what they are experiencing. We can't skip that step. We have to experience what we're experiencing. and recognize why we're experiencing it to move forward from it. Otherwise, we're just like you said, we're shoving it down. We're ignoring it.
And eventually we're going to have to process it. Yes. In Hawaii, they have this saying, I don't know how they say it, but it's like, if you, if you push it down, it's like you stick it in this black bag and you tie it up and you store it somewhere in your body. And You're still carrying it with you somehow. It's still going to affect you some way. So I just love what you've said. You can't skip that step. You can't just. Say, I'm not going to go through that.
I'm not going to experience the suffering or have the difficulty or feel the emotion because it's so important. Yeah. Even just listening to you say all those invalidating statements, I'm like, I can feel it in my body. Yes. Yes. Which is so crazy. And it just goes to show like, How much work I still have to do on my own self as I continue to help other people work through their own things as coaches, we still have all of this.
I mean, this is lifelong work that we, that we take to prayer, that we take to healing ministry, that we take to coaching and just continue to work on because we have shoved so much down in the past.
Yes, and I think that's the beauty of being a being a coach is like you're forced to take your own medicine Because because it's what you teach and it's how you help others and boy we better be doing this work ourselves and thank goodness we are because it's beautiful and essential work and it's part of being transformed in the image of God into the goodness and beauty of What God has for us Where do you think this inner self criticism comes from?
Is there any studies on how early of an age this begins? Like, are these thoughts stemming from something that we've heard other people say? Is it from our environment, or is this just part of our human brokenness from original sin? I I believe that it is part of the human, uh, brokenness, so the more that I've, so the communications that I teach is neuro linguistic programming, and it is very interested in how the conscious mind and unconscious mind Work together.
And I've been increasingly aware of the beauty of how we're made and how in, and kind of what, if everything was working well together, our, our conscious, our unconscious mind would just soak in all of the beauty and the goodness and the order and the truth that would be around us, especially at an early age. And particularly it's the negative emotions, the root of, of kind of a negative emotion we would hold on to would be super early, like probably zero to five, zero to four, even.
In terms of when we're really holding, start holding on to guilt or anger or, um, shame or fear. And, and those emotions get integrated and connected to other experiences of that emotion over time. And so we can have all of this unprocessed negative emotion.
That definitely comes from very early and one of the things I love to do because, um, I've been trained in this technique called mental emotional release is to be able to help your unconscious release those big balls of negative emotion that have been growing and developing over time. Just release them from the very beginning from where we started. To develop them when it comes to limiting beliefs. Some of those are going to be created early on.
And some of them are going to be potentially created later. If you have a really extreme event, right? If you have a significant emotional event or suffering event, at any point, you can create the limiting beliefs. However, many of them will be.
From our early growing up years, as we start to try to understand the world around us and what it means and what I must do or must not do, or how life needs to work where we're, we were constantly at a time creating those beliefs for ourselves and again, as you know, as a coach, if we've never examined them fully, they may not be serving us. And may not be something that we want to hold on to. But I think those can be, at any time developed.
Yeah, and this just reminds me why we can't put Therapy and coaching and spiritual direction all in these perfect different boxes because that's a common question that comes up. What's the difference? And a lot of times the therapist maybe is digging more into your past, whereas a coach is kind of in the present and spiritual director is on focus very much on how the Holy Spirit is working in your spiritual life. But there is such overlap.
And as coaches, we aren't intentionally digging into your past, but through the work that you are doing.
It may spur some memories or if you go through the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, you are going to be reflecting on your whole life history and things are going to come up, memories are going to come up, it's kind of just kind of unlock these things in your subconscious mind that have led you to where you are and all are so needed and you were just talking earlier about how, you know, when we're in those moments and we're not practicing self compassion, it reminded me of how important it
is to be consistent. I actually heard an Olympian, and I can't remember who it was, they were talking about the work they recognize between the last Olympics and this Olympics, that they couldn't just go to a therapist once and come out feeling like they were fine and then not go again. It was the consistency of going regularly that really helped them to excel in this Olympics.
And I think that's so true when we look at coaching or we look at spiritual direction, it's like, well, I don't need it right now. We're not going to be able to implement those habits when we're not in a good headspace if we aren't practicing those habits when we are in a good headspace. Like, we have to continuously practice this so that it is a habit of appreciating the experience of connecting versus isolating and then recognizing that everything deserves kindness.
And especially in the summer. Yes. Yes. I couldn't have said it better myself. To the woman who wears many hats, professional, mother, friend, yet feels like she is never enough, I see you. You've built a life of achievement, but at what cost? Your worth isn't defined by perfection, productivity, or praise. I want you to imagine a life where stress and overwhelm no longer control you. A life where your relationship with God and yourself can thrive.
When you work with me, you'll find that hope and clarity you've been longing for. And, together with the Holy Spirit, I'll guide you to a balanced life where family, work, and prayer coexist beautifully. Join me for a free Confidence and Clarity Call today by clicking the link in the show notes. It's time to redefine success. It's time to let go of the stress and embrace the life God is calling you to live.
I have one last question before we get to our prayer tip, because I want to make sure to spend time on that. Where do you go for hope and inspiration when you notice some of this self criticism really coming up? Hmm. Hope and inspiration. I, I have a number of different sort of favorite sources. I'm extremely introverted.
And very often when I'm getting into these patterns, I, part of the kindness that I show myself is to get out of myself because I know that that's one way that speaks to me is I go out and I really focus on that connection piece because I'm not a natural connector and I'm not an extrovert. But very often that's what I need and the self compassion question about how do we know to show ourselves kindness is we ask the question, what is it that I need right now?
And then we're very honest about the answer, not necessarily what do I think I would like right now or what sounds good right now, but really what is the need that's not being addressed right now. And so, for me, very often, it's connection. I, I have the, the theological, the prayer bent, the spiritual bent. So, it's not that I don't find hope and inspiration there. I find tremendous hope and inspiration there. When I'm struggling with self compassion, very often, That's not what I need.
I need to get out of myself and experience the human connection. And that helps me to reset and get back into my self compassion again, for other people, maybe your listeners are just extremely active. They're extremely expert. They can't slow down. And when they say, what do I need right now? They might have a very different answer.
And part of practicing the self compassion again is learning for yourself to understand where are my areas of need and what is it that I could do that actually is the kindness I need. Right now. Yes. Get out of myself. What do I need versus what I want to do? Because what we want to do often is more self destructive than what we know that we need to do.
I have on my bulletin board, I've talked about this before, but a post it that's like my get out of desolation card because I know I'm not going to want to do it, but it's like, okay, go for a walk, go back and reread my journal. read a saint book, not necessarily scripture, because sometimes I'm just not in the mental state for that. But I know, like, when I'm really struggling, sometimes St. Teresa of Avila, just reading through her own struggles helps me.
Or reading through the examples in Father Timothy Gallagher's book about spiritual desolation. I'm like, okay, this is what's happening. Now I need to get off my butt and go do something about it. Because sitting here, Is not helpful.
And it also makes me think of the temperaments, which is something that I'm well versed in, you know, maybe someone who's introverted, who's a melancholic, they need to go do something physically do something because right, they're going to keep ruminating, and they can read something different, but they're still going to keep ruminating. And so they need a different environment.
Versus someone who's sanguine, who's always social, and that's the way that they, they cope is by being social and just ignoring the feelings because they don't want to feel them. Maybe they need to go more inside and have some quiet time and reflect. I think you're right on, Kylie. I agree. I would love to hear, before we get to our prayer tip, where everyone can find you. I think you have two different websites. Is that correct? I do. Yes. So, my husband and I, are on a website.
It's thecatholicmidlife. com. And, you can access information there about our podcast or our coaching services there. I also have a website that tends more towards my public speaking and my training offerings, and that's Karen V. Herbert. Just my name, Karen, V is in Victor Herbert dot com. And so they're, they're just, they're slightly different information on each of them. And what state are you in for anyone who's maybe a little more local to you for public speaking? Sure. I'm in Minnesota.
I live in the Twin Cities and we're in a northern suburb of Minneapolis. Awesome. Okay. I can't wait to hear about your prayer tip, because this is one I have not heard before. You said you are currently discovering the power of lamenting in prayer. Can you explain that more? Yes. Yes. You know, I totally forgot I said that. I'm so glad I did though, because it has caught, well, it's come from two sources. So one actually is from the self compassion work. I've come to appreciate.
The power of opening into the experience of suffering and allowing myself to really have the experience. And when it comes to having that in prayer, there's this rich scriptural tradition of, particularly in the Psalms of lamenting to God. It's, it's like a way of holding up your suffering to the Lord. and allowing God to enter into it. So it's really come from practicing that, that particular part of the skill in having the experience and then offering it to God.
In a lament that that has trust and love and also deep acknowledgement of this difficulty or suffering that I really am going through and that really is hard and I love that the scriptures tell us that That God hears our laments, He hears our suffering, He knows what we are experiencing, He's entered into it and already transformed it, yet here we are in life being called also to, to go through this process. Life's experience and offer those to God. So it's come from the self compassion work.
And also there's a theologian called N. T. Wright or Tom Wright, and he has some very beautiful, really exhortations around the power of lamenting in the history of the Jewish people and the Christian people. Very powerful way of relating to God and of kind of burying our souls before God about where we want him to come and how we want him to enter into our experience of suffering with us, knowing that he too has experienced suffering and can walk with us in that. lament for ourselves.
For others, for the world and the suffering that's going on in the world. And that it's almost like it opens a door for. for God to come and be with us in that. I absolutely love that. As you were speaking, I was reflecting back on when I was pregnant with my son and I was teaching and I was sick my first pregnancy, second pregnancy was even worse. And I was always like, okay, Lord, like I'll carry this cross and I'll offer it up and I'll offer it up.
And then there was one day I was, I got out of my car and I was walking into the school building and I, It's gonna throw up in the grass before I ever even made it into the school building. Yeah. And I'm walking in with students and I just remember saying, Lord, that's it. I can't take anymore. I'm done. Like this is enough, please. No more. And just that vulnerability and that being open, that lamenting of God, this is what I'm going through.
And just being honest that, Lord, this is a lot right now. Right. The suffering is a lot. And we don't have to hide that from him. He already knows He does. He does. And he wants to be with us in that. Yes. Yes. And that we're not supposed to carry it all by ourselves. We're not just supposed to say, okay, how much more do you want to give me? Give me more. Give me more. Right. I must be supposed to bear this burden on my own. Yes. He wants to share that with us.
He wants to help us carry it and ask him for it. Like he, he takes joy in us asking for him to share that burden with us. What a beautiful prayer tip. Thank you. Yeah. I love, I haven't really shared that before. So it's an honor to be able to do that with you. This has been such incredible conversation. I've learned so much and I can't wait to go back through it and listen to it all again. But I just want to go back to your three essentials in case anyone missed it because repetition.
We just have to keep filling our minds with all of this good stuff. So think back to the 126 bits. If you didn't get it the first two times, I'm going to repeat it again. Appreciate the experience without judgment. So just let yourself experience what you are experiencing and accept that it's uncomfortable and don't judge it. Number two, self connection versus isolation. So, comparison to others or invalidating your experience is not helpful.
So, just think of how your experience is shared with others around the world. And number three is all suffering deserves kindness. Do they miss anything? You got it. Well done. Awesome. You are such a joy. Be sure to go check out Karen, her speaking and her courses. She is doing incredible, wonderful work. So thank you God for Karen and her yes. And thank you, Karen, for being here. Thank you, Kiley. Beautiful souls, thank you again for journeying with me.
If you have been blessed by this episode, it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review. Be sure to screenshot it, share it on your social media stories, and don't forget to tag me on Instagram or Facebook at Kylie M. Hine. Stay persistent in prayer, protect your peace, and as always, share the light of Christ with everyone around you.