From Self-Judgment to Self-Compassion: A Guide to Emotional Resilience w/Nate and Marla Christensen

Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 431 of The Virtual Couch. I'm your host, Tony Overbay.

I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and today I welcome Nate and Marla Christensen onto The Virtual Couch, and we are going to talk about the concept of self compassion, and you're going to probably hear a lot more from me About the topic of self compassion because there's a wonderful researcher named Kristen Neff who has done 20 years of research now and we're going to talk about it today on the podcast But the data is there that says actually being nice to yourself

we'll alleviate and eliminate so many problems that besiege us on a daily basis. And what I love so much about this is it really fits in nicely with my favorite therapeutic modality in the world, acceptance and commitment therapy, which starts from a place of that you are not broken. You are human. You're the only you that has ever walked on the face of the earth. So you think and feel the way you do because you do.

So I think that lends nicely to giving yourself a lot of grace and having compassion on not being perfect and not knowing what you don't know. So when people really do say to you things like, well, I don't like that you did that. That's okay, because maybe I'm not even a big fan of it either. But, it's the first time I've been me in this situation, and that's what I did. So check that out. Let me just jump right into the interview.

Before we get to that, I would love it if you would go to tonyoverbay. com, sign up for the newsletter. And follow me on social media, on Instagram at virtual. couch and on, TikTok at virtual couch or on Facebook and look out for the live question and answers that I've been doing with my daughters, Sydney and McKinley. , those are just highlights of the week.

Or actually, go find the Virtual Couch YouTube channel and there you can see clips, there are YouTube shorts, as well as there's a YouTube video of pretty much all of the podcasts. So please go and subscribe to the Virtual Couch YouTube channel as well And if you have questions, send them to contact at tonyoverbay. com or you can go right to the contact form on my website and I want your marriage questions. I want your parenting questions. I want your mental health questions.

And we'll answer those. If not on those lives, I'll get those answered and we'll post those clips somewhere, somewhere in the world of social media. So thank you so much for joining me today. I don't think I say it at the end of the podcast, but I want to thank Aurora Florence for her always amazing song. It's wonderful. That will take us out. But now without any further ado, let me get to this interview with Marla and Nate

Nate and Marla, welcome to the virtual couch. Thanks for having us. Okay.

I am very excited about this because we are talking about a a concept that you guys sent me an article by Kristen Neff and I've been obsessed with this thing. And it's currently one of these, how did I not know that these concepts existed or were out there? And I don't know if you guys have already done a podcast on, and I want you of course, to tell who you are, talk about your podcast and then.

It, I, my immaturity Nate and I have done a couple of, group sessions where we have some people all together and they they go to talk about a podcast episode and it turns out it's about you guys and not me, which is fine. That's okay. I still allow them to continue with therapy. But yeah, talk about your podcast, the one that maybe inspired this, who you guys are, and then where are we going today?

I will sit back, relax, and just Try to not make jokes because I really like what we're going to talk about today. Go ahead, Nate. Oh, I thought you were going to take it. Okay.

So I am Nate Marla and I are both employees of yours. sounds, Yeah, yeah, but it is true. I'm an associate clinical counselor and Marla is both an associate clinical counselor and associate marriage and family therapist. We see people for therapy and all sorts of different Reasons and ailments and troubles. We are located in Northern California. So we see people virtually and in person in Rocklin in our office the office that Marla is in right now. We have a little podcast.

I call it little because it's Like barely a passion project. We like doing it, but it's hard to find the time sometimes. , we have not quite figured out the magic of scheduling that, that seems to work. So we do it when we can. Is that a Royal we like, do you agree with all that Marla? What are, do you feel like you could figure out that scheduling? Not trying to get you guys in marital discord. It sounds like a confrontation here. Yes and no. How does that sound? That's really good.

It's probably mostly me. What? Oh wait, that's weird. Thank you, Nate. No, it's both of us. I think sometimes life gets busy. For us and some of our priorities shift, but yeah, I'm not sure. I think maybe I love it a little bit more than Nate does. Yeah. Okay. Is that true, Nate? Yeah. It's, it's, it really rubs up against kind of my I enjoy learning. So that part is nice, but organizing material and presenting really kind of exacerbates my anxiety as you well know because we share the ADHD fun.

And when I'm laughing, Nate, because I don't even know how many times you've been on my podcast, this might even be a number 10 or something, who knows, but. I will forget that then I'll say, let's do a podcast next week. And then a few days before you're saying, Hey, so do you have an outline or do you have a specific direction? And then I just think I don't, but I don't think that's the answer Nate's looking for.

And so then we will then end up sometimes postponing the podcast and then maybe the ADHD kicks in. I'll forget about it. But I have always enjoyed when we go on together and then Marla and I today earlier in a session, somebody brought up the one we did on betrayal trauma. And again, said how wonderful that was and how helpful I mentioned it on a group call last night. And I think we put that one together. I think I had let you know a couple of days before, how would you feel about this?

Yeah. Not that one is better than the other. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you make it work, right? Life is life is fun. And your podcast is called, I don't think you mentioned it yet. No, it's called working change. And so it turns out there's a lot of podcasts out there. We had about 50 different names we really like. This one might be a little bit more on the clunky side, but I think it accurately kind of depicts my, maybe my belief that like changes work. It's hard.

And so sometimes, we kind of resist change because we don't want to do the work. Also side note want to give Marla props who just completed her trauma certification. Oh, nice. This week. Congratulations, Marla. Okay. It was a grief certification. Oh, sorry. You're right. Grief certification. Yes. Grief and loss certified now. That's great. And then I'm working on a trauma. Like a bit like a interrelational somatic therapy certification.

Also. Okay. And then if there are people in California, please reach out. Yeah. Self compassion and grief and loss are like my thing right now. I'm loving it. Yeah. And Nate, what are your areas that you really enjoy working? You know, I do a lot of work with anxiety. I am naturally a very anxious person. So I've had to do a lot of work with that. I enjoy helping people with that. Tend to see people with, with anxiety related disorders or maybe adjacent.

So OCD, depression work with people with addiction challenges. I really enjoy working with maturity which sometimes comes up in couples stuff. So working out of codependence and things like that. Okay. And then just putting myself on notice that you guys were on Leading Saints with my, my dear friend, Kurt Francom. It was an amazing episode. I'll put that in the show notes. And then I did a interview with the two of you and Kurt afterward that is, has yet to air.

So if anyone is enjoying Nate Marla, go consume all of their content and then look in the next couple of weeks and I will make sure and put that episode out. Okay. So where are we going today?

I'm excited about this. We are going with self compassion and how we kind of landed on this was Marla and I had been doing a lot of work around the self, like personally and with our clients, and compassion came up for me a while ago in, when I was reading the book that Marla recommended, uh, Radical Acceptance. They recommended it when I was in school, but I was like too overwhelmed with other stuff. So when Marla was going through her program, it came up again and she loves books.

And so she just ordered it and she's like, Oh, here, that book you mentioned that I heard about. And so that, that came up for me and I realized, Holy cow, I am. I'm not very compassionate towards myself. And so that kind of started this journey for us that we've been on for some time. And then probably two months ish ago, maybe a month and a half ago, we did a podcast contrasting pity, sympathy, empathy, and compassion. And we got a lot of good feedback on that.

And so the last one we did was specific to self compassion. To clarify, Dr. Neff who writes a, does a lot of studies on this my understanding is she hopefully still teaches at the University of Texas, but is, done a lot of research on it. She looks at compassion as omnidirectional. So to her, self compassion is, is, while it's, talking about compassion towards self, she would categorize it as a part of compassion. We'll use the term here, self compassion, just to delineate what we mean.

We might also use the word compassion, which is, could be going outward or could be focused inward. But that's kind of what led us to this point. Was there any, uh, any other things, Marla that you wanted to add to what got us here and why we're talking about it? No, I think I saw a lot of one of the problems with clients that come in are that they criticize. There's a lot of negative self talk. There's a lot of rumination and they tend to isolate.

Those are issues with like depression and anxiety and things like that. And so it got me curious of is there something here? That can help with that. And so like Nate said, I love books. I mean, we have way too many. I'm probably going to start a library here soon. It's my own issue. But I came across this and I thought, okay, I'm going to just deep dive, try to find a good book on this, a good workbook for it. And I came across Kristen Neff and I really enjoyed her workbook.

Like it was hitting all of the points for me. And I was like, wow, this like self compassion concept. What is it? Let's really like deep dive into this. And it was super curious. And I kept coming to Nate and being like, check this out, check this out, like saying this with my clients. And like, it's really resonating and wow, this is like really simple and an easy way to describe something. And I was just loving how simple and complete it was and how like nourishing it was.

For my clients also a lot of anxiety was lowering and depression was lowering as they were starting to do some of these concepts. So looking at myself also. And then, you know, looking at my clients and saying, what more can we do to like, stop beating ourself up and just be healthier. So I want to say, do you guys see just often the, I feel like the constant refrain I hear is the, what's wrong with me? And I will not stop going down the acceptance and commitment therapy road of nothing.

You're human. First time you've been you in this situation. So check that out.

And I say that and I just it's what's really interesting why I want to hear you guys talk about this so much as in my own home even I realized while I feel like my interior landscape of my mind no longer does the what's wrong with me and I can't even tell you how liberating and free that feels I think it takes a fair amount of time and it seems like this might be a quicker way to get there than just trying to Just accept that I'm thinking that, which I love the

concepts of acceptance commitment therapy. I'm noticing I'm thinking what's wrong with me, but boy, people just have such a default track that goes to that place. And I showed my path back men's group. It was some yeah. It was some really cool information from Daniel Ayman from the Ayman Clinic.

But he talked about, I don't know, maybe Nate, you're a big brain guy, Marla, you might know this as well but Dr. Ayman even talked about what negative self talk does to a particular part of the brain to the point of where he even said that it causes more Confusion and some other things like that too. So if you guys aren't familiar with that, I'll make sure and grab that. Maybe even insert it in here, the, what he says in that.

But I had to send that to my family and say, man, the, the negative self talk is a really significant issue. I think with people, especially with things like anxiety and depression. And this concept like aligns really well with that. Acceptance and commitment therapy. It, you know, it's, it's how do I accept it in a healthy way? Okay. You know, just, and how do I move forward and how do I be kind to myself? I, it aligns, like it just like inserts right in, I think.

So this concept, I was like, it's really easy to adopt, but the more I'm looking at it with my clients, the more I'm like, why are we not teaching this? Why do we not teach this even to our children? We have a four year old Nate and I, and some of these concepts I'm starting to like. With her, Oh, let's be mindful. Let's like be kind. And it's interesting to see the shift in her just at such a young age, even that she can adopt it, like common humanity. Like, Oh, everybody does it. Oh, really?

It's really an interesting thing that, you know, if we could teach it more, . How would this impact everyone? So what does it look like? So self compassion for like, the best like definition that I can find was being really being open to your own suffering, you know, offering a very nonjudgmental understanding to like your pain, your inadequacies and all your failures, which is hard. It is. I guess you're saying that.

I think already people have to be saying like, but I don't want to, I don't want to think about this. Yeah. Yes. There's a lot of pushback on this. It's, how do I do this? And what is that? And that's what, and you know, it's interesting. She in her papers that she wrote, she came up with some of the things that people will push back against on self compassion. You know, I sent Nate into that area. I'm like, okay, Nate, you talk about that.

So Nate, if you want to talk about those four areas that she said. Sure. Sure. So there seems to be like four, I guess you would call them like four areas of resistance that, that people tend to kind of have. And I don't fully understand why we like feel the way that we feel, you know, we're all similar in age. So, I don't know if we all had this experience where it's kind of like. You hurt yourself and your parents just like, you're okay, rub some dirt on it.

And like, there's not really much acknowledgement about the fact you're hurt. It's more of this kind of like, Oh, it's not a big deal. And so I think there's this, for some of us that are taught that way, maybe this was kind of this innate Oh, ignore the pain. Oh, it's not that bad, any number of things, which.

Which, interestingly, a lot of studies that came up in the paper that, that Marla asked me to review for this reflected the fact that we seem to do compassion better outwardly than we do inwardly. Like, there's just some resistance that people have to it.

So, the four like common resistances or complaints about why people feel like self compassion is a problem are first that they believe self compassion makes them weak, second that they believe that self compassion leads to self indulgence, So, you know, that's Oh, I don't have to be, you know, I don't, I don't need to do anything hard today. I can sit on the couch and eat Twinkies all day. Third is that self compassion is selfish.

So if I'm giving myself compassion, then I'm not thinking about others. I'm too wrapped up in myself. And then the last common complaint is that it undermines motivation. So for some people, it's like, Oh, I can't be too nice to myself or else I'm not going to go do the hard things. Yeah. It's funny because all of those are so good because I think a lot of the stories our brain tells us, but I'm so, fixated is maybe not the right word on the, what we do with our discomfort.

If we alleviate the discomfort, if we avoid discomfort, and then there's a a researcher named Terrence McKenna, who says about, , life and you're jumping out into the great abyss and finding out there's a feather bed. And I found that so many things that we are so afraid of , it is just the story our brain is telling us.

Where if we do give ourselves, and I'm sure we'll talk about this today, but compassion or acceptance, that then, We may actually end up being more motivated to do versus that fear that I won't, but I'll never go explore that because I'm so afraid of this unknown, yeah. And I think that actually ties in pretty well with with some of the studies that looked at some of these complaints that people have.

So if it's okay, I'd like to take a few minutes and like address each of those individually. So we actually can say, okay, well, what, What is, what are the studies and what is science telling us about those complaints? Cause you guys know, that's kind of my favorite. Nerd alert. I got it. Like, sorry, I'll play or whatever. Okay. Yeah. I love this flashing red. Yes. Yeah. All right, so complaint one that self compassion makes one week.

So studies are showing that this is in fact completely incorrect. And what one study was showing in 2021 study related to self compassion was showing that people that are self compassionate. Actually, that have PTSD experience less symptoms and they experience a larger capacity for growth and learning.

Now, that makes a certain amount of sense because for anybody that listened to our podcast about compassion studies on compassion show that the areas of the brain that get activated when someone's experiencing compassion is the oxytocin system and the dopamine system. So these are large systems. So it's components within the system, but the areas of those systems are getting activated. So what that means is it feels, it helps us feel close to others.

And the dopamine system is about like learning and motivation. So like it's absolutely. Usually using those systems related to motivation. So that goes to, I think the fourth complaint, but, the ability to experience lower symptoms and to increase in learning and motivation ties in well with that. A 2015 study of people in the military showed that having low levels of self compassion was found to be a stronger predictor of developing PTSD symptoms than the level of combat exposure itself.

Whoa. What do you think about that? I mean, I did not see that one coming. I was trying to guess where this was going, something about depression . Okay, so if you have more self compassion, you are less likely to have PTSD symptoms, even though you've been in combat. You're on the right track. What they're saying is they can predict with more accuracy.

If you were going to develop PTSD symptoms based on your level of self compassion, as opposed to how severe the whatever the military I'm not exactly sure what the, they use combat exposure. So severity of combat exposure versus weighing that against self compassion. Self compassion is a better determiner of PTSD symptoms, so low self compassion as opposed to combat experience. Yes, the actual level of combat experience. Seems wild. I can't wrap my head around that one, honestly. Yeah, yeah.

When I read that, I was like, wow, That's quite surprising. Didn't, didn't expect to see that because I think with a lot of the population that we all work with, if there's things like betrayal, trauma or narcissistic abuse, and there's complex post traumatic stress disorder, then how much more effective would that be if the person was more compassionate toward their self of lessening those symptoms. That is fascinating. Yeah. It doesn't, yeah.

I mean, I'm recognizing that I'm carrying some of these own, these biases in because as I'm reading this, I'm like, Oh, that surprises me. So, so obviously I have some of these biases myself that I'm working through. So those are related to how self compassion makes us strong and not weak. Then the studies that talk about you know, it, Self indulgence. Self indulgence is defined in in this particular article and I probably should quote the article. I should have done that first.

I'm sorry self compassion theory method research and intervention by Kristen Neff. And this is a 2021, 2023. Yeah, 2023 article. Thank you. So if anybody wants to look at the, there's a lot more to it, which is just pulling a few things out. Self indulgence, as defined in the article, refers to engaging in behavior that is pleasurable in the short term, but harmful in the long term. So again, sitting on the couch eating Twinkies. My taste buds are gonna love it.

You know, I get to be relaxed all day, but not good for my body, not good for my psyche. So what they found was researchers in, uh, were looking at several articles in over 2019 and 2021 found that People with higher levels of self compassion engaged in health promoting behaviors, such as reduced smoking, healthy diet and exercise, seeking medical care, increased physical activity, safe sex, and less bedtime procrastination. Okay. Now it's almost starting to get a little silly.

I remember the first time when I learned about the nurtured heart approach, I felt like it, they had all this data from school systems where, kids got along, they created their crafts better. Nobody went without, I thought, okay, really? But I went and looked at the data and it really supported that. So this is fascinating what this does. And I know that we will get to the point where we'll talk about, cause I'm wondering if people right now are saying, okay, But what do I do?

Do I just tell myself? Yes, we will get there. Okay. We will get there. We will get there. I just want to make sure that I address these concerns because and sorry, I'll try to be, I'm like so amazed by this. I think I'm speaking for maybe the listener where they're like, okay, let's just hurry up and get to the self compassion. Okay. I'm telling them right now, you must have compassion on yourself. To get to the self compassion. Yes. There we go.

So, additionally, a 2018 study showed that eight weeks of mindfulness and compassion training increased immune functioning as measured by you're going to get this word right, immunoglobin. So there was physical changes in the body. Related to increasing mindfulness and self compassion so actually makes us more healthy So it doesn't make us it doesn't cause us to be less healthy and self indulgent. Third complaint that it's selfish. This relates to like relationships.

So if you're having any struggles in your relationship, perhaps there's, something to glean here. 2013 study looking at a hundred couples and long term partnerships found that self compassionate partners, people that are higher in self compassion were more emotionally connected, more accepting, and more autonomy supporting. Of their partners, they were also less detached, less controlling, and less verbally and physically aggressive.

2020 studies showed that self, people high in self compassion were more accepting of their own and their romantic partner's personal flaws. And they all had ponies, and they all had unicorns, and they all had pots of gold. Yes. Everything was wonderful, they had no problems. That's what I was gonna say, I really appreciate it. This is really good, it's really exciting.

Yeah. Okay, last one, and then I'll be done and we can get to the fun part of what to do, and actually Marla has, I think, a little bit more information about self compassion. Self compassion undermines motivation. So we mentioned just a little bit earlier when people practice compassion, it actually stimulates some areas of the brain related to dopamine functioning, which connects well to motivational learning.

They also found that people that practice self compassion were, are motivated to achieve for intrinsic reasons and not because they want to garner social approval. That relates to probably self compassion versus self esteem. I didn't really get into that, but there is some stuff that we could talk about. Self esteem is important, but also dangerous because it's related to how others view us. So it puts us at a need for validation.

Whereas, when we practice self compassion, we can validate ourselves, we can accept, our flaws, we can, You know, work towards whatever end we want, but that's based on our needs and not necessarily somebody else. What somebody else is telling us we need to do. Can I tell a story real quick, Nate? Yes, please.

Funny is that when you guys talked about this, I just went ahead and Googled what study I thought you were referring to and I've gone crazy on that one and it's not the one that we're talking about right now. So I did prepare a few things and it's more about that. So it turns out, which is good because I'll take, I'll tackle that on a whole separate podcast and I have nothing else to add to this one so that it's really helpful, yeah, so I'm, I'm I'll tell you what happened there, Tony.

Okay. It's good.

Um, 2003, Chris and Neff kind of like coined this term and really brought it into the light of psychology. Okay. There's an interesting graph in the. The article that Nate is talking about, and it shows how much self compassion is being talked about in the world of psychology, and it's like literally like zero in the beginning of the century. And then it slowly trends upward and it's like spiking now.

Okay. So somewhere along the way, we really started to understand in the Western world that self compassion was, is, is real. Really all of that and that we should be using it and utilizing it more. It is a very Eastern philosophy. It's rooted heavily in like Buddhism and they talk about it a lot. In that. And so for us over here, we're like, what is this? This is indulgent. This is weak. This is you know, all these selfish things. We've kind of poo pooed on it for a long time.

And now we're like, Oh, wait, wait, maybe we should. And we're studying it and we're applying it and we're finding all of these really great things. And so it's not something when I went to go dig into it, I couldn't find anything about it. Yeah. Until recently. And so it is kind of curious as to like, where has this been? Yeah. Why have we not been talking about this? You know, how does this work? So you had her original 2003 article.

I just found like the other day that there was another 2023 article where she's kind of updated this and added like more research because they've been researching it since then. 20 years later. Yeah. Decades. They've been researching. How does this work? Because she's been very curious as to I've got all these claims that I've put forth in 2003. How does it really impact us? Well, let's go through the research.

So now we've got two decades worth of research that is now showing what she's been saying in 2003 is really what it is. Wow. And yeah, Nate has the end of it. You have the beginning of it. Okay. And I had both of them and I just. so much. Gatekept it for both of you guys.

Well played. Well, we still want it. We still want to talk about some of the stuff in that early article that you feel would be important because we really liked it. This 1 here is yeah, it's just collecting a bunch of data and then adding data to it. to it. The last thing that I thought that would be helpful related to motivation was 2020 study showed that people that were higher in self compassion were more accepting of their mistakes. They looked at errors or failures as opportunity to learn.

As opposed to like trying to hide from any, you know, doing anything wrong. So, that would probably tie to perfectionism. So those are the complaints and those are what science are telling us about why our complaints, whatever resistance we're feeling is natural. I feel it. A lot of people feel it. We have data saying that it's, yeah, that it's actually not correct. So back to you guys. That's good. So what is it, Tony? Yeah. What is self compassion?

Positive affirmations, petting a dog, some meditation, unicorns and things like that. Yeah. No. Tell me more. Yeah. I'm very curious.

So self compassion, we talked about the definition, but it really anchors into three things she talks about. The first one is mindfulness and a lot of people have a really hard time with this. They're like mindfulness. You know, as a society, we, we live a lot in the past. We live a lot in the future. We like to plan. We like to like be somewhere else. She's saying no, let's like anchor and be mindful. Be in the moment, be present.

And she talks about, you can't even have self compassion until you like, you're kind of mindful. So mindfulness is the acceptance of the experience. Can I accept this experience? Can I just even acknowledge it? You know, some of us have our time even acknowledging something. And then the self compassion component is can I be caring now about this experience? So first we have to be mindful. What is mindfulness? Well, the opposite of mindfulness is am I over identifying with it?

Am I ruminating about it? Because if I'm doing those things, I'm somewhere else. So being mindful is like gently observing your feeling for what it is and not judging it. Like removing the judgment, removing how that impacts myself. That's funny. I'm sad. I'm like, Oh, how does that impact me? Well, it impacts me all these ways, rather than just saying I'm sad. Yeah, I'm noticing I'm sad and this is happening. I, this has been one of the biggest things for me personally.

We've been talking before we hit record. I'm in Arizona. We didn't do daylight savings. It's messed a lot of things up. And one of the best things about it is I really have noticed that it is harder for me to get angry. It's frustrating. I'm noticing my frustration as I see clients that are double booked because Arizona has decided to not do it. Do daylight savings and the rest of the country does. And then that is causing some scheduling changes with people that live in different places.

That is a thing. And I love that concept around it is happening. So now what can I do about it? Because if we're all up in our amygdala and our feelings, then I think we often get hijacked by those feelings. And then we either need somebody to tell us it's going to be okay, or we would get to run around and be upset. And those aren't. They're normal, but not so helpful. So I, I love the concept of Oh, this is a thing. It is happening. These are feelings check those out.

And and I know that takes a lot of practice to do. So when somebody is hearing this, I don't think that, and probably most people start tuning out when they hear mindfulness, but it is a key. It is such a key to life, I think. So this is nice to hear that is a very big anchor for this practice. Definitely.

And then, Once you can be mindful of it, you can be self kind. That's the second principle, am I like the opposite of that is self criticism judgment and things, you know, and we have a lot of negative self talk, so it's, how do I be kind to myself? How do I say positive things that are beneficial and not harmful.

So that one, you know, you can work with your therapist on that one, as far as like detangling from the negative thought and being self kind, if I can say what I really love, if I can say one thing real quick, Marla, and I will, I will, maybe I'll, maybe I'll throw this at the beginning or the end, or I'll go in depth, but mindfulness meditation is not about stopping thought. And I get that. I had another one of those sessions yesterday where somebody's I can't stop my thoughts.

And I just said, as can no one else, but then it is all about bringing yourself right back to the present moment, whether that's through your breath or the things you feel or smell. So if somebody is currently then saying, man, I wish I could do self compassion, but I've tried the mindfulness and I can't stop my thoughts. Then please go back and learn more about the practice of being mindful and the meditative practice. I will.

I'll do an updated episode on that or something because that it's, it is it's not what people think it is. And I, and it needs a new mindfulness needs a new PR team. I think. Yeah, it does. You know, and she mentioned that one really good thing to do to be mindful, you take it back to your five senses. Yeah. What can I see, touch, taste, hear, smell in this moment? Am I, can I ground myself back here?

Often it's like, I'm sad and I go everywhere else or I'm angry about Arizona, you know, and I'm all over the place, but Hey, I'm here, I'm sitting in my chair. I can feel here. My feet are on the ground. I'm good. Yeah. This is frustrating. We're doing this now. What do I want to go do about it? Yeah. Which is so much more healthy. And that's kind of like act. How do I want to behave in this moment? That aligns with my values. Yeah. And so that's kindness.

The last one I really love though, it's, it's more of like common humanity. It's like saying that I'm human, I'm having a human experience. I'm not perfect. I'm not going to isolate myself and be all alone, not throw a pity party for myself and say like, Oh my gosh, nobody else knows my pain because I'm special. And I have all this pain that nobody can like even identify with me. It's saying that like more than likely somebody else has experienced this and would feel very similar.

To how I'm feeling and it's hard. It's hard being human. We have these, it's okay. We have these thoughts and that helps us be kind also, what would I tell my girlfriend if she was sitting on the couch with me, or my guy friend, I wouldn't be like, Oh, you're the worst person in the world. You did that. You know, be like, Oh, don't worry about it. Don't sweat it. Oh my gosh, I do that all the time. You'll be okay. We'll, we'll figure it out.

But can I tell myself that and what does that do when I tell myself that, how does that benefit me? That's what self compassion is. It's can I be in the moment, can I be kind to myself, and can I share that this is like a human experience I'm having here? I'm not judging myself. I'm not isolating myself. I'm not criticizing myself in those things. And so it's not, sitting on the couch with your Twinkies like Nate said. It's, really wanting to be an active participant in your own life.

In a really healthy way. I like what you're saying too, that what Nate said earlier, that we're much better about doing it for, with someone else or to, or for someone else, when you were saying, what would I say to my girlfriend who's sitting here and why do we beat ourselves up incessantly? And then I think it does circle right back around to the things that Nate shared, because we are afraid that if we do not beat ourselves up, we will not stay motivated.

We won't accomplish anything that we'll just and I think that today's theme is Twinkies. I was much more of a ding dong guy though. I don't know if you guys I liked those a lot better. Yeah. Or there was a, it's kind of like ew on both of them, so, oh, come on. There was a short, didn't have your D Chales, I think. Pinkies, yeah. Okay. The, yeah, the Chaco dial was really the unsung hero. And I don't know what happened to those, although I'm sure there's still plenty of all of them around.

'cause that was always the thing that supposedly they made one batch in the fifties and they're still around. Yeah, probably . Yeah, I digress. Some bomb shelter. Yeah. Okay.

So, you know the interesting part though, Tony, is that like you talk about motivation and Nate's talked about motivation. And with this, she talks about it's, that's part of self compassion. There's a motivating part of self compassion, but it's a motivation out of like love for yourself. Not out of like fear, oftentimes like we're motivated because if I don't do this, this bad thing is going to happen to me. Or, I'm going to be judged this way or whatever.

So we're scared and we're doing things because we're scared. This is more of I'm going to do this because I value it because it's a good thing for me. It's going to support me. That's going to provide for me. It's going to nourish me. It's going to comfort me and soothe me, but in a really healthy space, not in um, a negative or fearful kind of component. So it is a motivating, like there is a motivating part to self compassion. That I think it gets overlooked. This is, and again, wonderful.

Do you guys as clinicians, though, run into the part where it's, it can just be really difficult for somebody that, it's almost like they were never maybe they were never allowed, like we were saying earlier, to have, feel their feelings, and so then, that's a pretty big stretch, I think, sometimes to try and, and move them into self love. which maybe would be this self compassion. And I really do believe that there's so many things that sound like cliches until somebody really embraces them.

One of those being, if you don't love yourself, then it's hard to show up and really be able to love others. And so it sounds like this is one of those tools for somebody to learn to love themselves. But I wonder just how difficult is it for somebody to almost like allow themselves or give themselves the permission. To do this self care or self compassion or have you guys run into that? what do you see in your office? Nate, have you seen it? I've seen it. Have you seen it? Oh yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you, uh. So for, yeah. So for me, I would say the thing that I run into is you got to work on mindfulness. I would say if you're having a hard time with the emotional part of this then where's the sticking point for you? Are you, do you not want to recognize it because it's just uncomfortable. Do I want to avoid it because I don't want to like have to sit in it because they, some people don't have a tolerance for it. This isn't like, I'm going to sit in it.

I'm going to suffer in it. This is, I'm going to acknowledge it so I can release myself from my suffering. You can come along with me for the ride, but I don't need you to like, I don't need to sit in it and then just become your best friend. Yeah. Which again, sounds amazing. And I know we all know that, but, and so anybody listening that struggles with that, I think it just becomes a boy, you have to hear more cliches. Trust the process.

Do more reading about this, see a therapist , I worry that people listening. And again, that's a me thing that they are doing the, okay. They said mindfulness. They said, love yourself. They said, treat yourself kind. And that, I don't know. Why do you think people have such a hard time with that? With giving themselves grace or doing things that will, , that will help them. You think it sounds , too woo woo or too out there isn't practical. . What do you think?

So I wonder a little bit about one of, one of the workbook that Marla mentioned talked about the yin and the yang of self compassion. I sometimes wonder if, if people their viewpoints on self compassion are maybe narrow or skewed. , I don't know , if it was Kristen Neff or someone else, was talking about the kind of this is the verbiage they used. The masculine and the feminine associated with compassion.

So the feminine with compassion might be more related to mercy and kindness and things like that. And we're all to some degree, both masculine and feminine, but you know, if, if you see yourself as a masculine man and you hear compassion and it's kind of like, I don't know, I don't know if that really appeals to who I'm trying to be, then, there could be resistance there.

The other side of that coin is the masculine of self compassion, which is related to protection, which is related to providing, which is related to discipline. And so you might even find that maybe some women that see themselves as really feminine might have resistance to that because, you know, they don't feel like it embraces like who they are. So I think there's components. That can cause resistance on either side of that.

And I'm sure that there's many other things, but that's where my brain goes.

It is absolutely, I think, a cultural thing. Okay. Tell me more. I think that we had been raised to, to see this as self compassion is kind of like compassion is a weaker thing. It's something that you do when somebody dies and you bring a castle all over. Yeah. But it's not something that like, you know, you rub some dirt on it and you get over it is like our generation, like we said before, how we were raised. And so.

If you're taking too much time to like center on yourself and to think about yourself, you're selfish, like all the reasons that we gave, but it's not, this is more of like, how do we have more of a inclusive idea of what compassion is? Let's broaden this. And so it is, like Nate said, there's like the comforting, the soothing and the validating the yin part, the yang part is more like masculine providing, protecting, motivating. That's an action part.

Yeah. But with both of them it's moving forward in a really like healthy way. If you had just one or the other, it could look kind of harming, but putting them together. It is healthy. You know, how do I comfort myself? How do I soothe myself? How do I validate myself instead of looking for somebody else to do that for me? Exactly. That's what codependency is. Yeah. And so can I do it for myself?

That's me being differentiated, and strong the yang part, how do I protect, provide and motivate myself? Well, again, that's great. That's what we want all of our kids to do. You want them to grow up and do all these good things. So I see both of that and I'm like, yeah, you need both of it. And it's both really healthy. So how do we incorporate all of that in that? And so I think culturally we've just been taught that you just kind of avoid it. You'll overlook it.

You don't whine about it, A man through it, whatever you got to do, but we're, this is not where we want to go. And I think we're wrong. I do too. There's a I don't know if you guys have clients in a minute. If you got another minute here. I'm good. Are you okay? Do you have a second? Yeah. Okay.

There's a quote and this is I'm going to, I'm going to own this, that this is from a fictional book called the Furies. By, Alex Michelitis, Michelitis, who wrote the silent patient, which is an amazing book. And and he speaks so much about.

therapy in his books that I had to go look and see if he was a therapist, but he just says that he's very Pro therapy, but he's talking about when we're young and scared and we feel the sting of shame and humiliation when we learn what emotional abandonment is, whether neglect or simply by lack of tools or awareness from our parents said something profound happens. And this is again, a fictional character saying this within this book, but he says, time stops there. It freezes at that moment.

And then that freeze, a part of us gets stuck at that age forever. And I like where he says, imagine a scared little kid hiding somewhere in the corners of your mind, that kid still feels unsafe, feels ignored and unloved. They still want validation from a parent. And it's been trying to get that validation its entire life. . And so I wondered then, , if we were not.

Seeing our kids and understanding that they had emotions and feelings and validating them and allowing them to really be okay with them. Because then he goes on, this is the line that I think is so fascinating that he talked about the sooner that you reach out to that kid and start talking to them the more peace you'll find in your life. And he said, think about it. Isn't that why he helped you grow up.

The hope was to have a strong adult body to take care of his needs and protect and nurture him because he already knew that nobody else would be able to do it for him. Unfortunately, you were supposed to be his liberator, but somehow you became his warden. So I almost feel like that if we would have maybe had more of that self compassion young and been modeled that, that yeah, this would be more of a factory setting.

But here we were wanting that desperately to know that we were okay, that we didn't have to be perfect as a kid. But then the grownups around us. Not knowing what they didn't know. And this is where I think even a good version of a parent is still trying to say, don't worry about it, but it's going to be okay. That sounds good, but then really, so now it's almost like our inner child had to grow up this big adult to try to then rescue us, but we still don't have the tools.

So we're still going about it like we did when we were a little kid, immaturely. So I feel like this speaks to emotional maturity so well . Yeah, I. Totally agree. This reminds me of the book, The Child in You by Stephanie Stahl about reparenting, which I've had to do a lot of work on because of my own struggles, part, a lot of which was me. You know, I, I had parents that were together and they were loving but I am really neurotic.

It's just genetic and I isolated a lot and I didn't give people an opportunity to love me. And I always wondered why, why nobody loved me when I was hiding in my room. I wasn't giving him a chance to, you know, but it, what I found is. And I think that this is even true in parenting. Like sometimes the attempt means a lot. So even if it's sloppy, if it's just I don't know what I'm doing, but you're just trying, you're just owning it and you're trying.

Like I have found great comfort in my own process of trying to reparent myself and trying to self soothe. I, I really like, what Snarsh teaches about, that process, when I'm not being differentiated, what am I seeking from this person that I can't give myself and is it that I can't give it to myself or is it that I would rather someone else do it for me? Can I do it? And I just don't want to. And that's what I find I often land in is that I am capable of doing it.

It just feels better when somebody else does it. So, and it feels perfectly good when I do it. It just. Like I, it, I don't know. It's less energy, right? Like so. Yeah. But I like think so. I don't know. I hope that ties together well. I think it does. And I think that part too, that I think often is where it goes back to that we still at our core need to know that another person sees us or we may not exist.

While I might be able to do it for myself, I wonder if there's still just this inherent need for, but it would be better. If somebody acknowledges me as a human being and therefore, how will I know that I matter or exist?

Well, if they are doing these things for me and I, cause I mean, there's the negative side that we all see with that one too, where somebody has like some trauma bond to somebody because they feel like, well, this is at least I know that, , I'm in a relationship, which is unfortunately not the healthiest way to do that, but they are in a relationship. Yeah, that speaks to self esteem, Tony. Yeah. Right. Which ties back to self compassion.

Yeah. That we just, you know, we are looking for somebody else's judgment to tell us, okay, I, esteem myself at this level because everybody else is telling me I'm good. Self compassion is the opposite of that. I don't need judgment. Bye. That's good. I can do this for myself. As a child, I can look at my child, even that's young and who was hiding in the corner and say, it's okay. Most children at that age would feel that way. Common humanity. They would all be scared. Like that's normal.

And it's okay to be scared. How are the mindful that, well, that was really terrifying in that moment. I think that that is, more powerful than the self esteem of receiving somebody else who validates me. Oh, you know, that's I'm really sold on this concept. I am too.

I like it all right final thoughts from either of you not to put you on the spot But , anything before we wrap up? I had one statement that I really liked that self compassion is the antidote to shame. I'm a recovering addict and so, you know, very shame based trying to hide from my pain. And I, I totally agree with that statement. That I think really is one of the more powerful ways that I've seen self compassion helped me improve as a human. I like that a lot.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say the same. I would echo that. I would say, as I have seen Nate apply self compassion to himself, it's been really changing for him and who he is and for myself, when I'm more compassionate with myself, it's so much easier, it's remembering it's retraining ourselves to remember these things. Can I be mindful? Can I be kind of myself? Can I just, I'm a human. I mess it up. Can I, you know, I don't have to be perfect. And I think when we do that.

We have a better quality of life and the people around us also enjoy us more. Yeah. I like that Marla. And I think with maybe it's a lot of the work that I do with couples that they're starting to wake up to , their partner's emotional immaturity.

And so then they've been managing those emotions for so long that when they turn inward and start to work on themselves, that I mean, obviously it doesn't all of a sudden magically make the whole relationship better, but I do think that it will often expose the immaturity in a partner. And then and I don't think that that is, what am I trying to say there that it's that would be scary.

That partner might even push more buttons because they want to get that person back into the role that they're familiar with. But I have found that when people get out of I was going to say in a bad relationship, but even if they get out of their own mind and start to look inward and realize they're okay. That's again, what I like about act so much is when you realize you are the only you, and this is the first time you're going through life.

So even it takes the sting out of, well, why did I do this the way I did it? Well, truly, because I did, because, you know, see earlier first time it's ever been me and right now I didn't quite have a rule book or a playbook. And so, but now I can look at that with curiosity. So I just feel like this adds so much more to that because plus I'm doing the best I can and I'm having a human experience and check that out.

And Because I think so much of this back to what Nate's talking about with Shnarsh, where there's a part about that, where if you're good with yourself, you're more likely to be grounded in your response.

And when people are trying to tell you that you must do this or you are doing it wrong, that's where I think the magic of being grounded and differentiated and, self compassion maybe kicks in where then I can say, Oh, well, do tell, tell me what I'm supposed to think and feel, cause, cause ultimately that's a me thing and I'm good, but boy, you have to believe that you're good. . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. You guys, thank you so much for, , for coming on and go listen to working change.

Yes, sir. What's your next episode? Do you know? Do you already have a plan? I think we're doing something on grief. Okay. Grief and loss. That says just grief. Okay. Right. Yeah. All right. Go find working change. It'll be more about loss than grief. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then if anybody wants to find Marla or Nate, well, yeah. What is the best way to get ahold of you guys? I can put stuff in the notes, but what would be the best way? I don't know if we have a great way.

I mean, we have our, our email that we created for our podcasts is working change, coaching at gmail. com. So they can reach out to us through that, but they, I think a lot of people connect to us through you and people are welcome to do that to you. Yeah. Yeah. They use our names also. That's pretty easy. Marla Christensen counseling at Gmail and then it's Nate Christensen counseling at Gmail is another way. All right. Lots of emails, people. Exactly. I'll have them all in the show notes.

I will do that. All right. Thanks, you guys. I'm going to have to stop. Hang on one second. Okay. Thanks, you guys.