Kristin Neff || Fierce Self-Compassion

studies and self compassion almost twenty years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she's author of the book Self Compassion, The Proven Power of being kind to Yourself in conjunction with our colleagues doctor Chris Durmer. In conjunction with our colleague doctor christ Churmer, she has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide.

They co authored the Mindful Self Compassion Work Box. They co author they ca au through the Mindful Self Compassion Wow, Like why did I even say the word that way? You know what I mean. I'm gonna show myself self compassion, self compression, self compassion. They co authored the Mindful Self Compassion Workbook and Teaching the Mindful Self Compassion Program, a guide for professionals. Her newest work focuses on how to balance self acceptance with the courage to make needed change.

Her latest book, which I'm so excited to chat with her today about, is called Fear Self Compassion. How women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power and thrive. Doctor Christin Neff, it is so exciting to have you on the podcast a second time. Thanks Scott, Thanks for having me back. For sure, with these long bios, you know what I mean, I feel like I should practice them,

you know, ahead of time or something. But really excited to have you back and to continue our discussion about, you know, your journey to understand the scientific underpinnings of self compassion. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah. And I'm really excited about the new direction my work is taken. It's very passionate about it, which is a lot of fun. Awesome. Well, let's let's just dive right into this notion of fierce

self compassion. Uh, And what does that mean? How does that differ from maybe more like nurturing self compassion or I don't know what you what you call the other or the other? Yeah? Well, tender tender, tender, very close. Yeah. Well, and so just as I didn't invent the idea of self compassion, I actually learned about it from my Buddhist practice. I also didn't invent the idea of fierce compassion. So

Sharon Salzburg talks about fierce compassion. For instance, the idea from this perspective is that sometimes to alleviate suffering, which is what compassion is concerned with, the alleviation of suffering, sometimes we need to be tender, nurturing and accepting. Sometimes we may need to be quite fierce, right, we need to need to take act. And this is not only compassion for others, but also self compassion. I like to call it fierce mama bear self compassion, you know what

I mean. So there's like gentle mother. Sometimes what we need is that unconditional acceptance and just soothing, comforting, being with ourselves in a supportive way. But then sometimes we need to protect ourselves, stand up for ourselves. So, for instance, I see the Black Lives Matter movements and the Me Too movements as self compassion movements. Any sort of social justice movement where people are saying, no, you cannot treat me this way, it's not okay. This is actually self

compassion in its feerce form. Also, you know, providing for your needs, actually being willing to say no to others and say I'm sorry, I'd really love to help, but I need to take care of myself. That's actually fierce self compassion and of course motivating change. Right. So, although we can accept ourselves unconditionally, we don't want to accept

necessarily all our behaviors unconditionally. Sometimes they aren't very healthy, or all the situations we find ourselves in, sometimes we don't want to accept them, we want to change them. The states are all an aspect of trying to be good to ourselves and alleviate our suffering. And I wrote the book for two reasons. One because over the years I found that people only really think of the tender cybe when they think of self compassion. They always think

it give yourself a break. And you know, sometimes what you need to do is give yourself a break. But sometimes you need to kick yourself on the butt, you need to care for yourself. It really just depends on what you need at the moment. But the biggest reason I wrote it, and the reason I wrote it primarily for a woman, is unfortunately gender roles socialization really stands in the way of us being able to integrate fierce

and tender self compassion. Right. In many ways, it's like yin and young, right, So yin is more the gentle feminine. Young is more that you know, consider harsh, hard powerful masculine. But the fact that we math make it masculine feminine is a problem because everyone needs both. So men are socialized against being too tender. Right, they're called sissy's that

are called names if they're sensitive. That really harms men because it cuts off men from their full potential, their ability to harness the power of kindness, of tenderness, of nurturing, of care to care for themselves and others. Right, And women it's the opposite. Women aren't allowed to be too fierce. Like we like our women to be soft and sweet and nice. We don't like women when they speak up too loudly or get angry, right, And so this disempowers woman.

And so it's not that women need compassion more than men. It's just that because I'm a woman, and the book would have been too complicated to say, well, from the male point of view, it works this way, and for the woman point of view works this way. So I just wrote the book for women. And also because of the Me Too movement and everything, it just felt like the time was right to speak up on this aspect

of what's been hindered in the female gender role. But I really do firmly believe it harms all human beings. Talk about human potential. Human potential means realizing all faces of love and fierceness without tenderness is hostility and aggression. Look at the world we're in. But tenderness without fierceness is like complacency is not enough just to sit on your couch and be happy. You know, we got it.

We got to do something and change things. So it's really about the attempt to harness both powers and to integrate both. Oh wow, I love that. So, I mean, so you think men could get something out of this book too? I do? You know, it's funny. I've had a lot of my male friends read it, and it is written for women, and I could see it might be a little, you know, a little off putting that back.

But there's a lot of practices in there, and all the practices are designed to harness and cultivate both energy and so the practices will certainly serve men. I think a lot of especially men who are kind of allies to the movement, you know, they want their they want to see women fully in powered. They aren't. They don't

think that patriarchy helps anyone. So if you're a man who cares about those issues or has a lot of women in your life or daughters or you know, significant others, I've had men say it really helps kind of understand what the situation is for women. You know, men don't. They don't. They don't face what we face. They aren't when they get angry. People think that men are powerful

and persuasive. A woman people think she's crazy. They don't believe her when she's angry, they belittle her, and so that women get cut off from their anger, and that means it kind of goes pear shaped and it's just not really healthy. So I do think men could get a lot out of this, but I mainly I mainly wout it for a woman because the time is now.

It's kind of like, you know, there's there's so many there's really I think a movement around the world men standing up and saying, you know, the old way of doing things isn't working for us. We aren't just going to be helpmates. We aren't just going to be assistants the way men are. We can't just say men will be men and you know, well that's just the way men are. It's like it's actually not okay, things like sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and so I really felt that

this could help in that journey. It offers really concrete tools that we can practice to help cultivate these two energies. So that's probably why I'm so excited about it. You know, the people I've talked to you just said it's really useful. It's helpful, and that's what I wanted, something that's helpful. Well, you came to the the right place. We have more women than men listeners of the Psychology podcast, believe it or not,

it's like sixty forty, you know, sort of breakdown. So we have plenty of women listening to this today that will really resonate with this, I'm sure, and really a really valuable message. And yeah, I think you're doing a great thing with this book. What would you think? Did you? Did you have time to look at it? I did? No. I mean I like, well, I mean I resonated with it, and then I'm like, well, does that make me less of a man that I resonate with the fact that

you even have to ask yourself that question. Screwed up general socialization? Is you know, well absolutely, I mean I mean that that's an interesting conversation itself, which is that like, is there even like, what's the utility of even saying there's masculine energy versus feminine energy? You know, That's why I like you and young can get away from it just makes you don't even have to use those drums. Yes,

And that's partly why I do like them. I mean, I've been obsessed with the ying yang even like my uh my doctor yes, my doctoral uh my, my doctor dissertation was an attempt to balance out the intelligence field with the ying yang and and I had I proposed the dual process theory of human intelligence. That's right, Oh yeah, this is right up your alley. You probably should you probably I'm not an expert in the Union young philosophy, so I probably made some mistakes. I don't try to

be an expert. I just kind of use the metaphor. I didn't see any mistakes, so beautifully doesn't it really fit? And also agentic and communal gender roles, which is in the gender field maps on everything, like maps on this basic duality which needs to be transcended. I mean, I can agree more. I So I didn't expect to go down this this alley, you know, because I have all these prepared questions everything. But let's let's stay on this run it. Yeah, yeah, let's stay on this for a second.

I you know, I don't think of like, I like just to be really personal a second. I always viewed myself as quite balanced between those two energies. That's just my uh, that's my being. I don't say that any anyone should be a certain being like that's but I like, I've always noticed that I you know, I think I'm pretty like probably fifty to fifty you know then, but

I'm still a man. Yeah. So I'm trying to understand that in the sense that, like, you know, I mean, I'm still a man at the end of the day, and I'm just a man that has a pretty good sort of balance and appreciation of the benefits of both kind of things. So I suppose if I was writing a book, you know, fear of self compassion, you know, maybe my subtitle would be like, how both men and women can harness the best aspects of each other's genders.

You know. Anyway, that's probably how I would have framed it. But yeah, well yeah, well so how and like I say, I mean, I think you're a little unusual, and that I know, only fifteen percent of the people can my walk workshops are men, and that's because compassion is considered a female thing. It's part of the female gender. That's

a shame. It's really a shame because the research is overwhelming of how useful it is in terms of you know, if you're a combat soldier, you're more self compassionate, you're less likely to develop PTSD or contemplate suicide. Right, I mean, it's a strength. And so this is why I think gender socialization stands in the way. And my personal belief is every single person has their own unique balance of young and young. It's going to come out differently in

different contexts. Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone's allowed to reach their full potential and express it in the way that's just right, and every single person is going to look different instead of trying to stuff people into boxes based on gender. Because I say, I really do think in terms of anyone doesn't mean that I mean like we should all be the same. You know, everyone's going to be unique regardless, but everyone should be allowed to

be unique and themselves completely. It's all about self actualization, you know, completely, yeah, for sure, as well as self transcendence. Yes. Now, look we're on the same same wavelets, there's no doubt about it. Uh. I am curious, like just a nerdy question. And I remember last time you were on my podcast, like three years ago or something, I would ask you a whole bunch of nerdy questions as well. In your empirical research and the tests uvalidated, what do you what's

the actual science say about the gender differences? So women have slightly less self compassion than men, it's not huge.

We've done some metainal analytic work and it's very consistent, right, And the gender difference tends to be a little larger when people are younger, less than a little bit with age and also gender again, gender role identity comes into it, and that women who are androgynous who kind of identify more of the you know, on thee been sexual inventory of the masculine and the feminine, there's not a gender difference.

And so you might think, well, that's strange because compassion is actually part of the female gender role, but it's

because for women, they're supposed to be self sacrificing. So so what we know is that women come out a lot higher in compassion for others than men do in research, and they come out slightly less self compassionate than men do, which means the discrepancy between how women treat themselves and others is larger than men because women don't feel entitled to meet their own needs because their value comes from being self sacrificing, from being nice, from being giving right.

Whereas men, even though you might say compassion is more of a you know, not part of their gender role, they feel more entitled to get their needs met, right, And so that that's and that's it's interesting that you have that dichotomy. And so that's why women need need to really intentionally practice self compassion to overcome firstu the socialization that tells us we should always be giving to others. And it's also partly our sense of self worth is

predicated on people likeness and thinking more nice. And you know, this is the I'm in a a side of me coming out the system's kind of rigged against us because the system doesn't reward us for achieving and you know, doing our own thing, at least not traditionally the traditional system. The system rewards us for helping others. Well, who are those others? The men in our lives, you know, or there aren't the men's you know, our children? But who

are the children? Are the men in our lives? So the system is kind of set up that is patriarchy, right. Women are assigned role of help me. Our job is to help the men, and men are the ones who get their needs men. You know, again, I'm black saying this in a black and white way, but traditionally that's kind of where the whole system came from. And so in a way, by women saying, well, wait a second, my needs count two, not more than anyone else's, but

at least as much as anyone else's. And actually, no, I'm going to be able to if I'm angry and I need to say no, I'm going to get angry or I'm going to say no. I don't want to harm anyone by doing that, but I'm not going to harm myself by saying yes what I really need to know? And so it's almost like a political act as well as an act of personal you know, a self actualization. It's really both the personal is political. I didn't come

up with that one, but it's true. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a socialization difference where if you're assertive, you assert your needs as a man that tends to be rewarded, and he's like, oh, well, we got to pay attention to it, you know, but but maybe not as much with the young women and then those that develops over time.

Do you think if there was a matriarchy, Like, do you think if we had a matriarchy and do that thought experiment, it would be more there'd be more of an equitable appreciation of asserting needs for both men and women, or would the power just be reversed and suddenly women would be like, we don't care about men's needs. I mean, I mean, I don't know a lot about matriarchy, but studied and I know a little bit. But from what

I understand, it is different. Right, So it's not like it's just in reverse that in matriarchies there's more value on the communal on cooperation, right, it's the values of like unbridled capitalism and exploitation. So I have spent some time with bushman sun hunter gatherers in the Kalahari. They aren't a matriarchy, but they're pretty egalitarian, you know, and they've got pretty there's gender role specialization, but they aren't rigid.

So women will also kind of hunt, and the men will also kind of gather, and they make decisions together. And it's not like the men have all the power. It's just much more galitarian. And so I do think what's happened is you might say there's been too much fierceness without enough tenderness. The fierceness has expressed itself. It's like again capitalism, aggression, dominance. You know, I'd want to desire for superiority all those things and matters, feelings, more

tender feelings of the heart of care, of kindness. They've been belittled in this system, and that's partly why if you look at the world around us, one of the reasons we're in the mess we're in. Oh my gosh, Kristin Neff, I agree so much with that, and and there's an interesting sort of not to like complain as a man for a second, but like i I'm absolutely not. My intention is to take at all the attension away

from your very wonderful point. But just to illustrate an example is that I'm I'm you know, I love writing on Twitter stuff like we really lack tenderness. Like I wrote that tweet like a couple of weeks ago, I was like, this world needs more tenderness, more care, you know.

And you know, some people are like, you know, like rolling their eyes right, and and I wonder if that's because I'm a man and I'm saying it, you know, And and so I think it sucks that we have any of these kinds of gendered things where like if you're a man, like when you talk about tenderness, you get eye rolls. If your women, you talk about assertiveness, even you might get eye rolls. And I think that sucks all around. It does well harms, It harms everyone.

So Scott, I've annointed you to write the follow up book to mine, which is tender self Compassion, How men can harness kindness to discover their emotional intelligence and do the non dual theory. Whatever it was for you, I just got chills, he self actualized. It really does need to be written. It does. Everyone needs both. And just you might say, the blocks are a little different. Sometimes you need to go lest, sometimes you need to go right,

but we're all aiming towards that center of wellness. Absolutely. Yeah, it's cool. So let's talk somewhere about the points in your book. I don't want to be that guy who then like directs the attention is like, you don't men have problems too, But I hope you understand my point.

Totally acknowledge that. Yeah, no, but you get My point is that, you know, like anyone who goes kind of counter to their gender stereotype, and unfortunately you know, well, I mean, but look at like, you know, Hillary Clinton, people don't like it because she was too young. You know. The reason I go into the research is, you know, in the book Competent Woman, people don't like competent women because they assume they aren't nurturing. I like, but it's

the research. But you know what I mean, the research it's I'm actually a little more young than y In and that gets me into trouble. You know, so a little bit more young than what did he say, I'm more young than y In? I'm more I've got more of that powerful energy. I'm very imp and that that and for some so I talk about it in my

department that got me into trouble. You know, things that I did that when people won't even think about if a man did it, think oh she's too blunt, she's such a b word, you know, those things, if a woman is too strong and powerful. So there's a lot a lot of this is, as you know from the book, A lot of it's my personal journey. I mean personal, it's always has to be there and kind of how I've grappled with these two sides of myself. You know, I've always had to say, grapple with anger, you know.

And I'm wired. I'm a little reactive by nature. I've got a lot of what I call my Collie energy, you know that that kind of fierce warrior goddess. But you can use collar, you can use another term. And so part of my journey was realizing that this is a strength. I don't need to apologize for the siding. Yes, I want to harness this. I don't want to harm

anyone's feelings. I don't want to hurt people, of course, But the engine that that volcano inside me is actually beautiful something I should be thankful for because it's powered so much of what I've done in life, you know, and when when harness for good, it's an incredibly powerful force for good. And so anger actually has a lot of constructive uses. We don't want to belittle anger, We just want to make sure that it's integrated with tenderness.

So again we're using anger as a way to alleviate suffering, not in a way that causes more suffering. Oh, totally. It makes me wonder why it takes you so long to write this book, because you would have thought that, you know, this would be an idea you would have had like twenty years ago, you know. Like the funny thing is is, actually my dissertation was on a gender role hierarchy in India. I was all about helping balance rights and responsibilities of an Indian family life. And I

was really into gender and power. Yeah, and so I was always kind of was interested in this, especially how people balance the personal needs with others needs, so kind of Carol Gligan and justice and Carol was really interested in all that. And then I got on the self compassion tagent and so I've been focusing on like that for about the last eighteen years. And then like it's all coming full circle. I didn't even do it on purpose.

I realized, wait a second, I used to study this, I used to study thoughts about gender hierarchy and power inequality, and now I'm doing it in the context of self compassion. And it's it's so, it's so satisfying to me because you know, one of the problems criticisms that can be leveled at people who do psychology work, you know, is it just too much about personal wellness? You know, personal wellness isn't enough. And we've got systemic racism, we have sexism,

we have health and equality, we have global warming. You know, it's not enough just to turn inward. We need to we need to do both right. We need to change, make interchange, and we need to be engaged in changing the world. And you can't look at the world without considering issues of like power and patriarchy and racism and all those things. And so it feels really satisfying for me to be able to come back to my roots, you might say, and to integrate them. There's a deeper

level of integration going on with your deeper level of integration. Yeah, I see that, I clearly see that. Yeah, could someone Okay, this is the question I have then could self compassion too much self compassion or fear self compassion become too selfish? You know, just playing off of what you said, you know, is there a point where you could be like, come on, like try focusing on the compassion for these other people who are suffering. Yes, well exactly. So it's always a

matter of balance. So I kind of talk about how, you know, the three elements of self compassion just to go over again er mindfulness, kindness, in common humanity, and these are really the three core constituent components of self compassion. So you need mindful, you need to be aware of suffering. You need to be turned toward pain without exaggerating it. You need some perspective, you need kindness, you need to care about that suffering, and you need a sense of connectedness.

So it's not pity, it's like, okay, we're all human and when and I've got how does that look when it comes to meeting your needs? And so kindness means providing for yourself, fulfilling counting, you know, saying that I need to fulfill myself. Mindfulness is let's see, its fulfiliing authenticity, knowing what you need. And this is where I go into the whole human potential. Work in that chapter about mindfulness leads to authenticity really asking what's true for me?

But common humanity this is what This is where the balance comes in because common humanity recognizes interconnection. So if you are to be selfish and prioritize your own needs over those of others, you would lose the threat of common humanity. Right the same time, if you subordinate your own needs to those of others, you lose the threat of common humanity. What common humanity really points to at a deeper level, its interdependence intervene this awareness of how

we're all in this together. And so for the difference you might say between self love and self compassion, self love, maybe it is selfishness. You know, maybe narcissists do love themselves. You know, whether or not they really do is hard to say. But nonetheless, there's nothing in the construct itself that would balance that out. But compassion, the fact that other people are always part of the equation, it kind of prevents selfishness. And again, if you look at the research,

it reduces the sense of separate self. So I actually believe it or not. I have a study where I looked at how people balance the self needs and others needs when there's a conflict in interpersonal situations, and self compassionate people were more likely to compromise. They didn't subordinate their needs, but they also didn't prioritize them, so that it actually led people for balance, and that balance leads to more authenticity, more voice, more relational well being. That's awesome.

I don'd love to see that study. Is that recent. Actually it was a while ago. It was because it was all your peoples. It's because I had been doing research on how people balance in the context of power and equality, how people balance the self and others needs. This was my interest and then I got into self compassion. So I just threw in my new self compassion scale, one of the studies that I was already doing, and I found this out. And that's why it's so interesting

that it's come full circle. I didn't intend it, but that's where life has led me. It's kind of cool. I love it. I love it. Yeah, so many things are coming full circle for me as well, and I'm like, wow, that's fascinating how that happens. Well, okay, again, this is

a really another nerdy question. But I was looking the literature recently because I wanted to include some items from your scale in my book Transcend, which I did, Which I did, and well, I talked about the merits of self compassion as part of our MASWOW called being love love for the being of others. And then I said, you can love the being of yourself as well. So then I argued you could turn it in turn it

within the same spotlight. But what I noticed is that in predicting psychopathology, some people argue that self coldness is a better predictor than self compassion. So I've been I've been wanting to nerd out with you about that. Okay, you want to get into psycho I can go there. I do love psychometrics because I know the reverse coded items will. It's been this big debate and it's actually been good because I've had to get really serious about

my psychometrics. So here's the thing it is. I think the way it works is that the reason self compassion is linked to reduce psycho pathology is because you're reducing negative ways of coping with negative emotions and pain. Right, So when you reduce self judgment, feelings of isolation and over identification, which are the reverse coded items in my scale. That seems to be if you kind of look at it psychometrically, a more powerful predictor of why things like

anxiety and depression are reduced. But if you look at they go hand in hand, right, So in other words, and we know every single intervention study you look at, when you increase self kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, self judgment, isolation, and of identification go down. It's like a seesaw. So yeah, it seems like one side of the sea saw seems to be more responsible to it. But they work together.

They operate in tandem. And actually a paper just came out using RASH modeling which found a unitary factor structure I've been. I reflected twenty different samples, thirteen different translations, so I had to get serious about my psychometric You seeing by factor of exploratory structural equation Modeling e SM, which is is the system. Here's the thing, and you would understand this guy that operates as a system. People's minds don't think in systems. They think in black and

white terms. To see that the black or it's the light. It's simple, but they aren't separate. They interact as a system and they operate in tandem. So I just I'm writing up a study now it shows if you increase to writing just the three positive components, the negative components go down, and if you try to reduce the negative components the positive up. They work in tandem. So it's like,

are they different? Well, yeah, that kind of bar and that's kind of marginally interesting, and what's the mechanim's of action. But it's like saying, okay, well is it wind speed or storm surge that creates the negative effects of a hurricane. Well, they operate together. So yeah, it's kind of interesting and I think it's worth looking at them. But first of all,

they don't It's not black and white this. It's not like there's two factors do not fit the scale, six factors fit the scale, or one factor fits the scale, two factors don't fit the scale, because then you're merging these things that are different. It's an interactive system that coheres. Yeah, so there really is a strong higher order leadent construct there. It's not higher order, it's by it's as okay, okay,

the by factor doesn't mean two factors. I know, the language is terrible, it's just it's not like there's one like intelligence is a higher higher order model is I C G, which explains these lower order factors of you know, of the intelligence verbal. So this is like so it goes both it's bi directional. It's actually bi directional, and other the items. It's not like the subscales are explained by this higher order factor of self compassion, which is

like somehow above it. They're actually it can it can, It's what can. What's the verb form of constituent? It constitutes. It constitutes self compassion. So it's not like there's this self compassion thing out there that explains all the variance in self kindness, mindfulness, common humanity. They co they cohere is the system. It's not. It's not hierarchical. It's bi directional. I'm trying to I'll show you. I'm trying to think of how to model that. Because listeners are probably lost,

they probably don't care. I'll send you a paper, please do. I'm trying to think of how to model that. You have to model it with structural equation modeling. But I have to say that even though the debate has been a pain in the ass, it's been good because I've had to really up my skills. And there's a brilliant statistician I work with from Hungary who who's really great, and he found a way to model it as a system and it does operate and it works together, it

works in tandem, and all the intervention research confirms that. Yeah, I'm really into psychometrics and test construction. So the way you describe it, I'll send you the papers, and also the rash modeling, because the rash modeling part of it is just negative and positive affect is interfering as well, so negative tends to clump with negative and positive tends

to clump with positive. It does seem to me the way you're describing is that it best represented as a reflective trait in the sense that it's this idea of self question emerges from the interaction of a general specific factor. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But the general isn't necessarily higher than this. The general is reflective. Yeah, it's kind of probably bi directional, you know, he interacts in some way.

It's not, it's not you don't have to have the order there just is there both the general and but us ninety five percent of the shared variance is explained by the general factor. So it's like that's good. Then there is a lead in general factor. Oh there is a general factor. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, hierarchical. Okay, well we won't we will will put that tables anymore, but I'll tend you the paper. But it's kind of fun if you're into psychometrics. I can't wait to read the paper.

It's it's so interesting because that you have some people in the field they are like so adamant about like it's all about selfness, you know, like like we need to help people who are being harsh to themselves as a and how do you do that through your self compassion trainings? And that's the thing. If you look at any sort of whether it's state scale, it just developed a state scale, whether it's short term mood induction or whether it's long term, how do you reduce self coldest

you increase self compassion. It's like they go hand in hand. It's like you know, you sit on one end of the seesaw and the other one goes changes that they work intendem There is no studies that show they operate separately. I hear you, So what's the point, you know, I mean, I know what they would say, clinical intervent it is clinical interventions. Why how do you reduce self coldest? You increase self compassion So if you call it reduced uncompassionate responding,

how do you how do you increase compassionate responding? Increase it? One person in this guy that he talks about, it's not it's not increased protection, it's it's long ability. Well, reduce vulnerability is protection. I mean they go hand in hand. It's kind of like people they lose their they lose their marbles over it, and it's like, practically it's almost pointless. Bother No, they're not going to the practical level. They're they're looking at just what is the best predictor what

I don't in a cross sexual study? Correct? Correct, If you do an experimental study, all the evidence is to say that these here is a system and also cross sexual psychometrically. But yeah, it's kind of this is a this is a problem. When you've got a scale that's been used like four thousand times, people like to challenge it, which is good. But it's good. It's good because it's made me get my chops in order. Whatever. I think the scale is pretty uh well validated at this point.

With I am revising it though this is I'm not right. I'm sure I'm shortening it because yeah, it's a Now that I've got the better psychometrics, I'm going to reduce it items instead of twenty six so that will be helpful. Oh good, I can that's coming sticking in more into my studies, you know, like you know it'll be like, okay, well we'll add this help a six item short form that has a unitary factor strut. Okay, here's if you had to pick one of your favorite the the best loaded,

highest loaded on the general factor. What's the number one highest loaded item? Listen, I'm not sure what that is actually, I have to chet I've got that data. It's the data exists somewhere. Yeah, I've got it. I don't. I can't. I'm not going to take my time now, but I'll send it to you afterwards. I bet it's like can I it's probably just simply I am kind of myself or something like that. That's probably the probably something like that. Yeah,

face valid. Yeah, So okay, let's talk about the common humanity facet because I think it's so relevant to all the divisions we're seeing right now and all the the sort of the tribalism. Now, how do you how do you like if there are certain people that are really thinking of really tribal mindset in the extent to which even anyone that resembles someone in their out group, they immediately have this visceral action night like, I hate that person.

How can they learn principles of self compasion, especially the common humanity facet, to maybe connect more with others? Yeah, I mean so, I think there's so much work to be done with this, Scott Total. So common humanity is a very tricky one. It's a tricky one to teach people because sometimes what happens so in the bigger picture is really pointing to the big interconnection, like the big Khuna. You know, it's like we're all intervening, We're all not

just you know, the kind of Buddhist self realization. That's where it points ultimately. But people can understand it at that level that shown mushrooms or something. So in the normal, the normal squaking state, what happens sometimes is common humanity is uh. People start It's almost misinterpreted to mean that somehow belittles their own suffering. When I say things like

you aren't alone. Other people feel this way. Sometimes it's really important to counter the isolation, but sometimes people feel that kind of belittles their suffering. And again because it's hard that the mind is so comparative, and it's probably we're just wired that way. We're always trying to compare. How do I compare to others? They suffer more than media, they suffer less to me. Who's special lit above average

is not. It's very hard to come to this place where each individual is unique and precious, and yet we're all part of this larger whole. So honoring the whole doesn't somehow devalue the individual, And it's kind of again a system's way of thinking that's this challenging for people. So when I teach it, I often just talk about

trying to help people feel less alone, because isolation. Actually, it's looking like that's probably the most powerful contributor to psychopathology, that feeling of isolation and being separate, I believe it or not, even more than the self judgment seems to be the most per predicture of depression, for instance. And so when I teach self compassion, I usually just try to help people understand that they aren't alone, and sometimes it can actually be useful to think of members of

your group and that you aren't alone. So especially if you're a marginalized group, you know, so look at like the Me Too movement or the Black Lives Matter movement in this In this sense, what's happening is people are like feeling less alone identifying with members of their group.

And that's not a bad thing, right, So, I mean it's it's complicated, right, So when you kind of get rid of group where you get a rid of group identity and try to say we're all one will all lives matter, and that can be a problem because you're in a way kind of invalidating the fact that group membership does count. You know, it is part of our identity. So if it serves people to feel more connected to their group, then I think there's not necessarily a problem

with it. It's only when you start dehumanizing people that's where the problem comes. In humanizing people who are output members or dehumanizing yourself. I mean some people actually they dehumanize themselves. And so from that point of view, I think the element of humanity the everyone here, the second baby, we take a first breath in this world, you don't need to earn the right to compassion, and it is

our birthright, you know. Then you can even extend that to animals or you know, but plants even, and so it's it's a it's a complex, you see, it's tricky and uh so I was I'm kind of ultimately, I'm a pragmatist. That's kind of Ultimately what I come down

to helps what's going to help you. And so if it's going to help you feel less alone and isolated by feeling bonded with your group, you know, maybe your queer, maybe you're you know, a person of color, or maybe you know, I think that's okay as long as you aren't humanizing other people. Now, the question you asked, which is really interesting, which is how can we use self compassion, especially this common humanity point to help kill these divisions.

There are some research that suggests people who score higher on the common humanity subscale are less prejudiced. Oh wow, that's very interesting, Christin. Yeah, and there's not a lot. There's a little bit. I don't want to make too much of it, but there's a little bit of data that suggests that because what it leads you to so usually you know, the items are framed as human beings. You're not saying, like your group members, I'm just saying, but sometimes I teach it that way because it can

be helpful. But what self compassion does, even though the s word is in their self, it actually reduces the sense of separate self. With more self compassion, you take things less personally. Ironically, that's what you're doing when you frame your experience in light of the shared human experience. Everyone fails, everyone makes mistakes, everyone struggles, everyone needs an

imperfect life. You're reducing the self, reducing self focus. That's one of its biggest benefits is that it actually reduces self focus. And I think when you take things less personally, then it can allow you to see other people more as human beings. And so there may be some way of actually harnessing the power of this to understand our shared humanity. I agree. Yeah, that's another book that needs to be red is just a book self compassion to

heal the divine, you know. And the only reason I add about the group is because for a really kind of flabbergasted me, you know, I always thought, well, I always wanted to share humanity. Bit but I was getting comments like from some of some black participants. They had makes me feel kind of like, you're saying, we're all the same. Well, this is this color blindness. This is actually it's easy for white people to say color blindness, but not if you're not a white person. You know,

there is color does make a difference. Things like that. It made me realize, wow, I've got to be you need to be careful. That I expected. They get some pushback, they yeah, but it's also true. So I think that's why sometimes you need to go left, sometimes you need to go right. It's kind of like, where are you coming from to get to that place of balance? Yeah, I mean I think that's a great that's that's the great question. It is all about the balance. You know.

Aren't there certain situations though, where someone should probably have more common humanity than they do, and they're like they're being resistant to it to an unnecessary degree degree? Probably yeah, probably, Yeah, I mean, so common humanity really is the wisdom element of self compassion. So mindfulness is more the intentional, attentional element. What are we paying attention to, what are we willing

to be aware of? The consciousness element. Common humanity is the wisdom element seeing the larger picture, and then you know, it's kind of self compassion really is what what do I need to alleviate my suffering? What do I need to be well? And people I think sometimes people think I'm dear abby, and like I can tell them, I don't know. You're the only one who knows that you need to use your own wisdom. And then the kindness element is the hard element, that's the love element, and

that's why you really need all three. I think if you don't have the wisdom or you don't have it's the system. Yeah, it's hard to think in systems. We're just poor little black and white thinkers. But the reality is the systems. You know that I do. I love it. No, I'm all about systems. It's all about the whole, the whole person as well. Yeah, hey, hey, are you familiar with the Quiet ego research with the Heidi women. Yeah, Jack, I know that I love that stuff. Well, that stuff,

I love it. Yeah, Yeah, it's so good. And they have a common they have. They took some of your items, I think, you know, they not took that sounds like stolen, stealing, but they adopted, adopted, uh, from one of my facets. Yeah, there's some overlap. Yeah, and that that is there is and that's one of that is one of the things that self compassion gives you, you know. And that's also what I think we need more in the world right now. We do we do well it. We need a lot

of things in the world. I mean, that's the thing I'm starting to see, yea, is it just depending on where you're coming from, what you need is going to differ. You know. That's how we need to empower people to ask themselves, what do you need? Because I mean there's also I think this social justice movement that's happening, it's really important and we have to do it well. We have to do it wisely. We don't want to add to the violence of the division. We don't just want

to add to aggressiveness and hate all that. We have to be really careful. And on the other hand, we need to we need to start doing something about it. We don't have a lot of time, you know, look at global warming. We don't have unlimited time for us all to sit on our cushions and get enlightened, you know. So it's like it's also this is why we this

is why we also need the fear of energy. The quiet ego stuff is a little bit more of the acceptance so I call I call tender self compassion, being with When we can be with ourselves, we can be with what is, and that's kind of the transcendent, very very important. But we are in bodies, right maybe ultimately we aren't right now. We are in bodies living in a concrete, in just world, and we also need to

take action to try to change things. We need both. Yeah, then that's a big part of why you wrote your book was to have fear of self compassion. But certainly you can have fear self compassion and dial down the loudness of the ego. I mean absolutely we could have a higher level of integration there, and that's what makes it healthy. So on my chapter of anger, I kind of end with I think talking about that is if the ego gets in the way with anger, it all

goes pear shaped. But if you can harness the power of anger in an ego less way, and it's just this energy, this young force that's being harnessed for good, that's really useful. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, it does make your head spin a little bit, though, doesn't it sometimes make you wish that, like did I choose

to write profession? My head hurts because, you know, because non dual thinking paradise, it goes to paradox, it goes to non dual thinking, and it is challenging for our brains to think, you know, to use our dualistic brains to think non dual terms. You got to just point it there, take your best shot. I enjoy it, Kristen, until you like playing around with paradoxes and yeah, yeah and nerding out John Chaw who says, if you think

about it too much, your your head will explode. That's kind of I'm shocked my head hasn't exploded yet, But maybe this will be the kind of the last question because I a lot of but I did like a Twitter Q and A, and I asked people, what do you want me to ask Kristen? And by the way, a lot of oh did you not? Do you see it? Did you You You didn't see all the comments on Twitter? Maybe you didn't, So I can just tell you A lot of people were like, Chris f is my idol

or my mother's idol? It was one of the two, one of the two I don't want mother's idle. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very good, it's very good. It's very good. I'm just scrolling through so so a lot of a lot of just just a lot of love for you, uh or my wife. My also, my wife loves her work so much and it's and is so jealous that you get

to talk to her. Exclamation, Ah, that's all right. But then another kind of set of questions we talked about this kind of bas striking and the good balance again, we're going back to the the balance thing between self compassion but also taking responsibility for maybe your naughty bits, you know, you know, like the aspects of yourself that like you should work on, you know. Yeah, but that's one of the that's one of the core misconceptions of self compassion.

Absolutely research shows the research, but I think Adam Berkeley shows if you get help people be self compassionate about it transgression with the harm sowe in the past, it helps them take more responsibility. It doesn't lessen responsibility. Helps you take more responsibility because it's safe to admit it, right, if you're going to shame yourself, if you're going to criticize yourself, it's not safe to take responsibility. You could want to blame it on other people because it's too painful.

Project self compassion does it actually increases your ability to take responsibility. It increases your motivation to improve. But it does it from a different reason, so you don't it's not coming from a place of like I need to improve because I'm so inadequate, Like I need to improve because I care about myself and I care about other people,

and I want to be healthy and well. And it's a much more sustainable motivation and works more Over time, people are more self compassionate, They say sorry more often, they apologize more often, because again, it's safe to take responsibility. And again, that's that's the slight. That's that's also why I wrote this book. This is the en and young the here's instant tenderness. It's the dance of acceptance and change.

You know, you know obviously this one, Karl Rogers, is the curious paradox is the more I accept myself, the more I can change. It absolutely works that with personal responsibility, it is not saying yourself off the hook. Quite the opposite. You need to you need to be brave and strong to say that hurts so badly. Actually, self compassion is linked positively to shame free guilt. It's not linked to shame the guilt that isn't about shame guilts, which is I'm still so badly what can I do to help?

It's actually positively the guilt. Well, it sounds like you're saying it's a necessary but not sufficient condition for taking responsibility. So some people might just stop at the self compassion part though, and never move on to the table. Then that they aren't being self compassionate if they aren't sure, Okay, so that's like necessarily parent. If you're a compassionate parent and your child does something wrong, you love them unconditionally.

You know that's that's a given, and that's that that's the end part. But if you're a compassionate parent, do you just say, well, whatever, just don't worry about it. Tell you a little you're into shoplifting, No big deal, I love you, sweetheart. Would you really be a compassionate parent? No, because you'd be hard, no, seriously, be harming your child hard to be a good comparent. Did you got to do the tough stuff and say I care about you so much that I need to work with you to

change his behavior because it's harmful. And so if we don't take responsibility for what things are doing that are harmful to ourselves and others, we are not by definition being compassionate. We aren't working in our best interest. Wow, thank you so much for this conceptualization. And well and kind of like uh, you know this laying this misconception arrest because you must get it, like I get every day,

all day, every day. Yeah, and and the journalists do the journalists broke about my works, like give yourself a break, you know, to go easy on yourself. Maybe that's what you need. But maybe what you need is like to say, you know, it's not working for me. I got to do something different. You need to apologize, you need to you know, you need to go to anger management, whatever

it is you need to do. And so ways, it's kind of almost by definition, self compassion can't be bad for you because the definition of self compassion is the alleviation of suffering. It's like it's like, what do how do I achieve well being? And so if you aren't achieving well being, then it's by definition not self compassion. Maybe we use unskillful means, you know, but then you need to change things. It's it's it's it's the ends not the means, right, just like you can be you

don't want to like harm. You don't want to be so self compassionate in a way that traumatizes you. You You don't want to open up so fast that it caused you trauma, because that's not being self compassionate. So it's really just an orientation. It's an orientation of of wanting wellness for yourself and others because what affects you affects me, and what affects me affects you, because that is the truth.

We are interdependent. There's a really deep truth there. We found in our sample of dark triad, you know, psychopaths that they're very their their self coldness was up the kazoo, you know. So there's something about like, uh, you know, harnessing this kind of light of this beam of love that you can just be flexible in terms of shining

inward as well as outward. Yeah, does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, So so you found that narcissists were self critical, Well, those are Scareheim dark triad, which is all three you know, they're they're you know, so psychopathy macavelism, and narcissism. That you know, all three interesting. I should look at just narcissists. Uh, those are square high narissism. What what what's your prediction there? You know, the narcissists are I have no idea. What

what would self compassion look like a narcisst. I really don't know. It'd be really fascinating those numbers. Yeah, well, I do know if you if you take like the Rosenberg self esteem scale and self compassion, and they're pretty highly correlated. But if you partial out their their shared variants. I actually published a paper narcissism was only correlated with self esteem and didn't correlate it all with self compassion.

That's so that's revealing, Yeah, the kind of orthogonal. Well, so, for instance, we created the counterparts of the dark triad, we created a light triad, and we were curious about the light triad correlated with self compassion, and we found zero point eight zero correlation. Really, yeah, it was so high, so high, the three aspects of the light triad. I can send you the paper afterwards. I love that. Yeah, yeah,

I think you'd really find this interesting. But I just want to thank you so much Kristin for coming on my podcast twice, but also you know, nerding out with me again. I hope you enjoyed it. I can't believe I did a podcast and talked about bifactor books, Floor Jory, structural equation, Bodily. Did you enjoy it? I did. It's fun.

I got to use all parts of my brain. Is good, wonderful. Well, all the best in this book tour, and I'm sure you'll be helping lots of men and women, you know, get get in touch with their own sort of unique self actualization and acceptance. So thanks so much much. I'm serious, Scott, I'm charging you with writing the follow up book for man. You're the perfect person, you know, Like when you said that earlier today, I got chilled. I really got chills,

Like my whole body got chills. And that usually only happens when there's some some really germ of a seed of of something that really is inspiring me whole body, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, that book needs to be written. But you know, if you look at your reach, it's partly because you're able to talk about that, the more the emotions in an incredible way, which is really useful. So thanks chat anyway, thanks for being so awesome, great fun.

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