October 2, 2023 • 19 mins
This week Kat is going solo to talk about self compassion. Self compassion is something that has been heavily researched, defined, and broken down by Kristen NEFF Ph.D. In her research she discovered the three elements of self compassion and in this episode you will hear all about those three elements and how inviting them into your life can create healthier relationships not just with others but with yourself.
Follow Kat on Instagram: @Kat.Defatta
Follow the podcast Instagram: @YouNeedTherapyPodcast
Have a question, concern, guest idea, something else? Reach Kat at: Kathryn@youneedtherapyodcast.com
Heard about Three Cords Therapy but don’t know what it is? Click here!
Produced by: @HoustonTilley
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no internet. I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel
like everything is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat.
I'm a human first and a licensed therapist second. And
right now I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope
encourage you to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you. Welcome to You Need Therapy. Hi, guys,
and welcome to a new episode of You Need Therapy Podcasts.
My name is Kat, and I am the host. Quick
reminder up top to all the listeners, the new ones
and the old ones that this podcast is for more
entertainment and educational purposes and does not serve as a
(01:17):
replacement for therapy or substitute for actual mental health services.
I thought today would be a nice time where we
could dive deeper into compassion, but more specifically self compassion.
These words are the words we hear a lot and
probably even use a lot. However, I often wonder if
we really have been able to understand the fullness of
(01:39):
what the words even mean. So we're going to talk
about that today. What's interesting, at least to me is
that specifically self compassion is something that has been highly researched,
kind of like shame and vulnerability have with Brene Brown.
Self compassion has been deeply studied by doctor Kristin Neff,
and I I think what she has found and her
(02:01):
teachings are super important and can be highly highly influential
and helpful if we take the time to look into them.
They don't have as much of the excitement I guess
around them as some of the teachings that Brene Brown
has done, and that's okay, but I just want this
to be just as important, because self compassion is just
as important as learning about shame and vulnerability. And Kristin
(02:23):
Neff is really honestly a pioneer in the study of
self compassion. She's the first one to operationally define and
measure it, and she did this twenty years ago, so
it's time we are up with the research, you know.
And she's actually been recognized as one of the world's
most influential research psychologists. And I might feel like I'm
introducing her to come on and talk to us, but
(02:44):
I'm not. I'm just going to talk about her research
and some of the stuff that she has and some
of her content. She has a website selfcompassion dot org
that if you are interested in more, you can find
more about her. You can find more about the courses
she offers, and the writings and the research that she's done.
But today we're going to start with the basics. She
also has an awesome TED talk, which is how I
(03:05):
even found her, And after you listen to this episode,
that might be something that you really want to sit
down and watch. It's only like twenty minutes and for
me is really helpful and a game changer in my
personal life and therapy life. So today I want to
talk about learning how to struggle and sometimes in the
in between state and I can be having a hard time,
(03:26):
I can be frustrated with something, honor that experience and
not write that off, but also not take it too far.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to
start by reading Christenev's definition of self compassion straight from
her website, So these are her words, not mine at all.
Having compassion for oneself is really no different than having
compassion for others. Think about what the experience of compassion
(03:48):
feels like. First, to have compassion for others, you must
notice that they are suffering. If you ignore that homeless
person on the street, you can't feel compassion for how
difficult his experience is. Second involves feeling moved by others suffering,
so that your heart responds to their pain. The word
compassion literally means to suffer with When this occurs, you
(04:09):
feel warmth, caring, and the desire to help the suffering
person in some way. Having compassion also means that you
offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or
make mistakes, rather than judging them harshly. Finally, when you
feel compassion for another rather than mere pity, it means
that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is a
(04:30):
part of the shared human experience. There but for fortune
go I Self. Compassion involves acting the same way towards
yourself when you're having a difficult time, fail or notice
something you don't like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring
your pain with a stiff upper lip mentality, you stop
to tell yourself, this is really difficult right now. How
can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?
(04:52):
Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies
or shortcomings, self compassion means you are kind and understanding
when confronted with personal feelings. Ah okay, So I love
the part that says we cannot ignore our pain and
feel compassion for it at the same time. Therefore, to
treat ourselves like we would a good friend, we must
(05:13):
acknowledge that we are hurting, which there lies a key
to a lot of our healing. To heal, we must acknowledge.
You cannot work through something, heal something, change something that
you refuse to acknowledge and think about it this way.
If you were to ignore pain or a friend hoping
that it would just like go away, you wouldn't be
being a very good friend. In most people aren't going
(05:33):
to do that to others, but we so easily do
it to ourselves. You don't generally look at your friends
and say, oh, you messed up once. What a loser
you would say, Hey, man or woman or whoever, you
mess up once. I know that's really tough and it
doesn't change who you are. Also, oh my gosh, side note,
I saw an Instagram post from Aaron Lane, who was
on the podcast to talk about her book Someone Other
(05:56):
Than a Mother, and the post was a picture of
a little note that she was writing to one of
her daughters, and it read win or lose. We love
watching you try. Trying is cool, And in the caption
she wrote, when you write a note to your child
and realize it's also a note to you, and this
is the kind of note that I want to like
write to all my friends and family. I've honestly never
(06:17):
been a big sports girl. Growing up, I liked playing sports,
but I've never really enjoyed watching sports, except if I
knew somebody that was playing, if someone important to me
was playing, then I would be literally like all over
watching whatever game it was. And it wasn't just because
I wanted to like go watch them won or go
watch them be perfect. It was because I wanted to
(06:40):
see them. I want us to support them. I wanted
to cheer them on. I wanted to be there for them.
And I've been to countless games where the people that
I went to go watch lost and countless games or
the people that I went to go watch maybe had
a bad game, and personally, this is how I was.
I don't know if this is universal, but I didn't
leave that event thinking, Oh God, how embarrassed it is
to be them, Like what a wasted my time? What
(07:02):
a loser? I was like, Oh it sucks. I know
they're disappointed, Like nobody wants to perform poorly and nobody
wants to lose, but having off days is a part
of life and it's a part of being human. And
I remember one time. I don't know what game this was,
but my older brother. Both of my brothers were kickers
for football, but my older brother specifically, I remember there
(07:25):
was some game that he played and he didn't do well.
And to be honest, I don't even remember like what
happened or what it was that he didn't do, like
what point he missed or maybe he had a bad punt,
I don't know, but I do remember him like locking
himself in his room for like days, and he didn't
want to talk to anybody, and I didn't get it
because I was like, Okay, you had a bad game.
(07:47):
That is awful. Like I do have empathy for that,
because I mean, I know what it feels like to
have bad game, but personally I still want to be
around you. But I think for him, a bad game
meant more than a bad game. There was no room
for self compassion there. There is no way to embrace
being human as part of his identity as an athlete,
and living that way forever can be debilitating and also
(08:09):
like exhausting. And I think about sports psychology. I'm not
a sports psychologist, obviously, but when you have that much
pressure on you to always be perfect, you're bound to
mess up, and then you're less likely to feel confident
going out there and trying again. However, I really think
self compassion can help you embrace the feeling that, hey,
I'm going to mess up and that doesn't mean that
(08:29):
I can't do well again. I also think this is
something to highlight, especially with this example, that self compassion
is not like self pity, and Kristen says that in
the definition, when you feel compassion for another person rather
than pity, it means you realize that suffering, failure and
imperfection is part of the shared human experience. It's not
(08:49):
about feeling bad for yourself. It's about acknowledging pain and
hardship well knowing it isn't the wholeness of you. And
I think that is very very important to remember, because
I think people do want to. I don't want to
be too soft on myself, and I don't want to
give myself too much leeway because then I won't whatever.
And it's like, no, I don't want to like just wallow,
and self compassion isn't any of those things at all.
(09:18):
Doctor f also breaks down self compassion to three elements,
which I want to share with you in order to
get a real feel for what self compassion entails, and
hopefully that will help you actually bring this into a
more regular practice within your life. So the first one
is self kindness for self judgment. And I'm reading this
also from her work, So this right here is these
are not my words. This is what she says. Self
(09:39):
compassion entail is being warm and understanding towards ourselves when
we suffer, fail or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our
pain or flagellating ourselves with self criticism. Self compassionate people
recognize that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable,
so they tend to be gentle with themselves when they're
confronted with painful expirit and says, rather than getting angry
(10:02):
when life falls short of set ideals. People cannot always
be or get exactly what they want. When this reality
is denied or fought against, suffering increases in the form
of stress, frustration, and self criticism. When this reality is
accepted with sympathy and kindness, greater emotional equality is experienced.
And oh my god, I love the last part, so
(10:24):
I'm going to read part of it again. I really
want you guys to hear people cannot always be or
get exactly what they want. When this reality is denied
or fought against, Suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration,
and self criticism. Okay, accepting the reality of life. It's hard.
When we accept the reality of life, we don't have
(10:44):
to ask questions like what's wrong with me? Because the
reality is the thing that is and quotes wrong that
might not actually be wrong with you is the same
thing that's in quotes wrong with everybody we just are humans,
so therefore we have imperfection and we have shortcomings. And
I see this a lot with dating. You go on
a date, you think it's amazing, you can't wait to
(11:06):
see the other person again or hear from them, or
even if like, you don't think it's amazing, if you're
just like whatever and you just want to see you're like,
I'll give them another chance. This can happen. But then
if you do hear from them, it's not exactly what
you expect. But the text you receive is I think
we would be better as friends, and then the cycle
begins in your head. Or maybe it is you don't
(11:28):
even get any text, and then the cycle also begins
in your head. So when you accept the reality that
the human experience is to not get everything you want,
you don't have to go down the rabbit hole of
all the things you did wrong during the day. When
you fail to accept this, then you keep searching for
answers that will help you understand the reason that this
didn't work out. And it's exhausting because it's pain. It's
(11:49):
painful to like not get what you want, it's painful
to feel rejected. That's all pain, But what this does.
Rejecting reality turns pain into suffering, and it's honestly really necessary.
By not inviting self compassion into our lives, we all
put ourselves through unnecessary extra pain and suffering. Period. Okay,
so let's move on to number two. This is the
(12:10):
second element of self compassion, and it is common humanity
versus isolation. So I'm going to read a little bit
of what Christen says about this on her website. Frustration
at not having things exactly as we want is often
accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation, as
if I were the only person suffering or making mistakes.
(12:31):
All humans suffer. However, the very definition of being human
means that one is mortal, vulnerable, and imperfect. Therefore, self
compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy are part
of the shared human experience, something that we all go through,
rather than being something that happens to me alone. Okay,
(12:52):
and I know I might be being redundant, but I'm
going to read this again too, because I really want
you to soak this part in and it's short, so
he want you to hear it again. Frustration at not
having things exactly as we want is often accompanied by
an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation, as if I
were the only person suffering or making mistakes. All humans suffer.
(13:14):
The very definition of being human means that one is mortal, vulnerable,
and imperfect. Therefore, self compassion involves recognizing that suffering and
personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience, something
that we all go through, rather than being something that
happens to me alone. The isolation this is me talking kat,
(13:34):
not Christen's words. The isolation in this is talking about
how we often think we are special in our pain.
It's just us, something is wrong with us because we fail.
It's very much like I get the vibes from the
same idea of terminally uniqueness that's often talked about in
AA communities, And if you're not familiar with the term
(13:55):
terminally unique, it's this false belief that your experiences with
substance abuse are unlike any others. And often those struggling
with addiction and people's coming to terms with their addiction
will tend to want to think that they are somehow
different or unique from other addicts, and instead of recognizing
like the similarities and their behaviors and identifying that they
(14:17):
have a problem just like the other people that they
are around. In those spaces, these people will focus on
the differences and then exaggerate them in their heads, and
it's not helpful. It actually really can push them away
from getting help and really can push them away from
actually just like recognizing what it is that they need
to work on. So when we invite self compassion in,
we actually recognize that we're not alone in the fact
(14:38):
that we are not perfect, and my imperfection isn't worse
than yours, it isn't better than yours. Without self compassion,
we can often play this like covert narcissism game where
I'm like the best worst, right, so the worst ever,
so I'm the best at being bad, Like I'm the
best at failing. I'm like, my personal failings are better
in the sense that they're worst and other people's. And
(15:00):
I hope this makes sense because they know I'm using
a lot of like confusing. They're not confusing words, but
when they put together their contradictory but you know what
I'm trying to say. Anyway, when we do this, it's
almost like we're like nobody can relate to how horrible
I am and it's just me and I'm this special
bad one and with a termally unique kind of people,
it's that same way, but it makes them like, oh, no,
(15:23):
your stuff is over there and my stuff's over here.
We're not the same at all, when really like, we
heal through community, we heal through people. We heal through
realizing that we're not alone in our pain, in our flaws.
Imperfection is not a unique flaw in any of us.
Disappointment is not a unique feeling in any of us.
It's part of the human experience. And when we can
(15:43):
bring that in, we can offer more care and kindness
to ourselves. And that is again why this is what
we're talking about. This it's one of the key elements
of self compassion. So now we're going to move to
number three, mindfulness versus over identification. And again this part
is christa words or doctor nef. I don't know what
she prefers. I'll ask her if I ever read her.
(16:05):
But self compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to
our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.
This equiliberated stance stems from the process of relating personal
experiences to those who are also suffering, thus putting our
own situation into a larger perspective. It also stems from
the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with
(16:28):
openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness.
Mindfulness is a non judgmental, receptive mind state in which
one observes thoughts and feelings as they are without trying
to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain
and feel compassion for it at the same time. At
the same time, mindfulness requires that we not over identify
(16:50):
with thoughts and feelings so that we are caught up
and swept away by negative reactivity. So also, I said
this earlier as well, But what I often see in
all areas the therapy room, when it literally, when it
comes to anything, is this continued desire to make everything
in the world black and white, a constant, almost inherent
feeling that there's this need to divide things so perfectly
(17:12):
on two sides. We're all in, we're all out, we're
all wrong, we're all right. It's go big or go
home on all fronts. But allowing things to be gray,
allowing things to be both. It's an actual game changer.
We can feel our pain without becoming our pain. We
can feel icky, we can feel those icky emotions while
acknowledging that life isn't always horrible. So mindfulness awareness allows
(17:33):
us to notice these things, but they don't become all encompassing.
They're a part of us. And I sometimes this is
me my personal feelings. Like I get this like nervousness
when we talk about sometimes like the gray area and
like noticing that things aren't all encompassing. I'm not over
identifying with all the negative in my life, just like
I'm not over identifying with all the positive my life.
(17:56):
But when we talk about not over identifying with all
the icky stuff on our life, I get this fear
that I'm gonna get come at with people who are
saying you're sprinting toxic positivity and that's not this at all.
And I want you guys to really hear that, Like
it's okay to see silver lining. Sometimes there's a way
to do it. Toxic positivity uses a butt so with that,
(18:17):
it's like, oh, that happened, but just look at the
bright side. When what we're talking about is using an ant,
we're multi dimensional. We're saying Notice what you're feeling, Notice
the parts that are hard, and also notice that that's
not the wholeness of you. So there's an and it's
not butt. Notice it's and notice also. And my hope
in sharing all of this today is that it can
(18:37):
help you identify ways in which you can be better
at being kinder to yourself. Right, you're allowed to treat
yourself like a good friend. And I really like how Kristen,
our doctor neff uses that language throughout her teachings, like
self compassion is talking to yourself like you would talk
to a good friend. The longest relationship with anyone that
you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself,
(19:00):
So it only makes sense that you work on that relationship.
It makes sense that you nurture that relationship that you
would with any other relationship that you would want to thrive.
So thank you guys for listening this week. As always,
if you have any questions, you can send them to
Katherine at You Need Therapy podcast dot com. You can
follow me on Instagram at cat dot defata and at
(19:22):
you Need Therapy Podcast. So I hope you guys have
the day you need to have and I will be
back with you on Wednesday for couch talks.
I started to realize that not being an expert isn't
a liability, it's a real gift. If we don't know
something about ourselves at this point in our life, it's
probably because it's uncomfortable to know. If you can die
before you die, then you can really live. There's a
wisdom at death's door. I thought I was insane. Yeah,
(00:31):
and I didn't know what to do because there was
no internet. I don't know, man, I'm like, I feel
like everything is hard. Hey, y'all, my name is Kat.
I'm a human first and a licensed therapist second. And
right now I'm inviting you into conversations that I hope
encourage you to become more curious and less judgmental about yourself, others,
(00:54):
and the world around you. Welcome to You Need Therapy. Hi, guys,
and welcome to a new episode of You Need Therapy Podcasts.
My name is Kat, and I am the host. Quick
reminder up top to all the listeners, the new ones
and the old ones that this podcast is for more
entertainment and educational purposes and does not serve as a
(01:17):
replacement for therapy or substitute for actual mental health services.
I thought today would be a nice time where we
could dive deeper into compassion, but more specifically self compassion.
These words are the words we hear a lot and
probably even use a lot. However, I often wonder if
we really have been able to understand the fullness of
(01:39):
what the words even mean. So we're going to talk
about that today. What's interesting, at least to me is
that specifically self compassion is something that has been highly researched,
kind of like shame and vulnerability have with Brene Brown.
Self compassion has been deeply studied by doctor Kristin Neff,
and I I think what she has found and her
(02:01):
teachings are super important and can be highly highly influential
and helpful if we take the time to look into them.
They don't have as much of the excitement I guess
around them as some of the teachings that Brene Brown
has done, and that's okay, but I just want this
to be just as important, because self compassion is just
as important as learning about shame and vulnerability. And Kristin
(02:23):
Neff is really honestly a pioneer in the study of
self compassion. She's the first one to operationally define and
measure it, and she did this twenty years ago, so
it's time we are up with the research, you know.
And she's actually been recognized as one of the world's
most influential research psychologists. And I might feel like I'm
introducing her to come on and talk to us, but
(02:44):
I'm not. I'm just going to talk about her research
and some of the stuff that she has and some
of her content. She has a website selfcompassion dot org
that if you are interested in more, you can find
more about her. You can find more about the courses
she offers, and the writings and the research that she's done.
But today we're going to start with the basics. She
also has an awesome TED talk, which is how I
(03:05):
even found her, And after you listen to this episode,
that might be something that you really want to sit
down and watch. It's only like twenty minutes and for
me is really helpful and a game changer in my
personal life and therapy life. So today I want to
talk about learning how to struggle and sometimes in the
in between state and I can be having a hard time,
(03:26):
I can be frustrated with something, honor that experience and
not write that off, but also not take it too far.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to
start by reading Christenev's definition of self compassion straight from
her website, So these are her words, not mine at all.
Having compassion for oneself is really no different than having
compassion for others. Think about what the experience of compassion
(03:48):
feels like. First, to have compassion for others, you must
notice that they are suffering. If you ignore that homeless
person on the street, you can't feel compassion for how
difficult his experience is. Second involves feeling moved by others suffering,
so that your heart responds to their pain. The word
compassion literally means to suffer with When this occurs, you
(04:09):
feel warmth, caring, and the desire to help the suffering
person in some way. Having compassion also means that you
offer understanding and kindness to others when they fail or
make mistakes, rather than judging them harshly. Finally, when you
feel compassion for another rather than mere pity, it means
that you realize that suffering, failure, and imperfection is a
(04:30):
part of the shared human experience. There but for fortune
go I Self. Compassion involves acting the same way towards
yourself when you're having a difficult time, fail or notice
something you don't like about yourself. Instead of just ignoring
your pain with a stiff upper lip mentality, you stop
to tell yourself, this is really difficult right now. How
can I comfort and care for myself in this moment?
(04:52):
Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies
or shortcomings, self compassion means you are kind and understanding
when confronted with personal feelings. Ah okay, So I love
the part that says we cannot ignore our pain and
feel compassion for it at the same time. Therefore, to
treat ourselves like we would a good friend, we must
(05:13):
acknowledge that we are hurting, which there lies a key
to a lot of our healing. To heal, we must acknowledge.
You cannot work through something, heal something, change something that
you refuse to acknowledge and think about it this way.
If you were to ignore pain or a friend hoping
that it would just like go away, you wouldn't be
being a very good friend. In most people aren't going
(05:33):
to do that to others, but we so easily do
it to ourselves. You don't generally look at your friends
and say, oh, you messed up once. What a loser
you would say, Hey, man or woman or whoever, you
mess up once. I know that's really tough and it
doesn't change who you are. Also, oh my gosh, side note,
I saw an Instagram post from Aaron Lane, who was
on the podcast to talk about her book Someone Other
(05:56):
Than a Mother, and the post was a picture of
a little note that she was writing to one of
her daughters, and it read win or lose. We love
watching you try. Trying is cool, And in the caption
she wrote, when you write a note to your child
and realize it's also a note to you, and this
is the kind of note that I want to like
write to all my friends and family. I've honestly never
(06:17):
been a big sports girl. Growing up, I liked playing sports,
but I've never really enjoyed watching sports, except if I
knew somebody that was playing, if someone important to me
was playing, then I would be literally like all over
watching whatever game it was. And it wasn't just because
I wanted to like go watch them won or go
watch them be perfect. It was because I wanted to
(06:40):
see them. I want us to support them. I wanted
to cheer them on. I wanted to be there for them.
And I've been to countless games where the people that
I went to go watch lost and countless games or
the people that I went to go watch maybe had
a bad game, and personally, this is how I was.
I don't know if this is universal, but I didn't
leave that event thinking, Oh God, how embarrassed it is
to be them, Like what a wasted my time? What
(07:02):
a loser? I was like, Oh it sucks. I know
they're disappointed, Like nobody wants to perform poorly and nobody
wants to lose, but having off days is a part
of life and it's a part of being human. And
I remember one time. I don't know what game this was,
but my older brother. Both of my brothers were kickers
for football, but my older brother specifically, I remember there
(07:25):
was some game that he played and he didn't do well.
And to be honest, I don't even remember like what
happened or what it was that he didn't do, like
what point he missed or maybe he had a bad punt,
I don't know, but I do remember him like locking
himself in his room for like days, and he didn't
want to talk to anybody, and I didn't get it
because I was like, Okay, you had a bad game.
(07:47):
That is awful. Like I do have empathy for that,
because I mean, I know what it feels like to
have bad game, but personally I still want to be
around you. But I think for him, a bad game
meant more than a bad game. There was no room
for self compassion there. There is no way to embrace
being human as part of his identity as an athlete,
and living that way forever can be debilitating and also
(08:09):
like exhausting. And I think about sports psychology. I'm not
a sports psychologist, obviously, but when you have that much
pressure on you to always be perfect, you're bound to
mess up, and then you're less likely to feel confident
going out there and trying again. However, I really think
self compassion can help you embrace the feeling that, hey,
I'm going to mess up and that doesn't mean that
(08:29):
I can't do well again. I also think this is
something to highlight, especially with this example, that self compassion
is not like self pity, and Kristen says that in
the definition, when you feel compassion for another person rather
than pity, it means you realize that suffering, failure and
imperfection is part of the shared human experience. It's not
(08:49):
about feeling bad for yourself. It's about acknowledging pain and
hardship well knowing it isn't the wholeness of you. And
I think that is very very important to remember, because
I think people do want to. I don't want to
be too soft on myself, and I don't want to
give myself too much leeway because then I won't whatever.
And it's like, no, I don't want to like just wallow,
and self compassion isn't any of those things at all.
(09:18):
Doctor f also breaks down self compassion to three elements,
which I want to share with you in order to
get a real feel for what self compassion entails, and
hopefully that will help you actually bring this into a
more regular practice within your life. So the first one
is self kindness for self judgment. And I'm reading this
also from her work, So this right here is these
are not my words. This is what she says. Self
(09:39):
compassion entail is being warm and understanding towards ourselves when
we suffer, fail or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our
pain or flagellating ourselves with self criticism. Self compassionate people
recognize that being imperfect, failing, and experiencing life difficulties is inevitable,
so they tend to be gentle with themselves when they're
confronted with painful expirit and says, rather than getting angry
(10:02):
when life falls short of set ideals. People cannot always
be or get exactly what they want. When this reality
is denied or fought against, suffering increases in the form
of stress, frustration, and self criticism. When this reality is
accepted with sympathy and kindness, greater emotional equality is experienced.
And oh my god, I love the last part, so
(10:24):
I'm going to read part of it again. I really
want you guys to hear people cannot always be or
get exactly what they want. When this reality is denied
or fought against, Suffering increases in the form of stress, frustration,
and self criticism. Okay, accepting the reality of life. It's hard.
When we accept the reality of life, we don't have
(10:44):
to ask questions like what's wrong with me? Because the
reality is the thing that is and quotes wrong that
might not actually be wrong with you is the same
thing that's in quotes wrong with everybody we just are humans,
so therefore we have imperfection and we have shortcomings. And
I see this a lot with dating. You go on
a date, you think it's amazing, you can't wait to
(11:06):
see the other person again or hear from them, or
even if like, you don't think it's amazing, if you're
just like whatever and you just want to see you're like,
I'll give them another chance. This can happen. But then
if you do hear from them, it's not exactly what
you expect. But the text you receive is I think
we would be better as friends, and then the cycle
begins in your head. Or maybe it is you don't
(11:28):
even get any text, and then the cycle also begins
in your head. So when you accept the reality that
the human experience is to not get everything you want,
you don't have to go down the rabbit hole of
all the things you did wrong during the day. When
you fail to accept this, then you keep searching for
answers that will help you understand the reason that this
didn't work out. And it's exhausting because it's pain. It's
(11:49):
painful to like not get what you want, it's painful
to feel rejected. That's all pain, But what this does.
Rejecting reality turns pain into suffering, and it's honestly really necessary.
By not inviting self compassion into our lives, we all
put ourselves through unnecessary extra pain and suffering. Period. Okay,
so let's move on to number two. This is the
(12:10):
second element of self compassion, and it is common humanity
versus isolation. So I'm going to read a little bit
of what Christen says about this on her website. Frustration
at not having things exactly as we want is often
accompanied by an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation, as
if I were the only person suffering or making mistakes.
(12:31):
All humans suffer. However, the very definition of being human
means that one is mortal, vulnerable, and imperfect. Therefore, self
compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy are part
of the shared human experience, something that we all go through,
rather than being something that happens to me alone. Okay,
(12:52):
and I know I might be being redundant, but I'm
going to read this again too, because I really want
you to soak this part in and it's short, so
he want you to hear it again. Frustration at not
having things exactly as we want is often accompanied by
an irrational but pervasive sense of isolation, as if I
were the only person suffering or making mistakes. All humans suffer.
(13:14):
The very definition of being human means that one is mortal, vulnerable,
and imperfect. Therefore, self compassion involves recognizing that suffering and
personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience, something
that we all go through, rather than being something that
happens to me alone. The isolation this is me talking kat,
(13:34):
not Christen's words. The isolation in this is talking about
how we often think we are special in our pain.
It's just us, something is wrong with us because we fail.
It's very much like I get the vibes from the
same idea of terminally uniqueness that's often talked about in
AA communities, And if you're not familiar with the term
(13:55):
terminally unique, it's this false belief that your experiences with
substance abuse are unlike any others. And often those struggling
with addiction and people's coming to terms with their addiction
will tend to want to think that they are somehow
different or unique from other addicts, and instead of recognizing
like the similarities and their behaviors and identifying that they
(14:17):
have a problem just like the other people that they
are around. In those spaces, these people will focus on
the differences and then exaggerate them in their heads, and
it's not helpful. It actually really can push them away
from getting help and really can push them away from
actually just like recognizing what it is that they need
to work on. So when we invite self compassion in,
we actually recognize that we're not alone in the fact
(14:38):
that we are not perfect, and my imperfection isn't worse
than yours, it isn't better than yours. Without self compassion,
we can often play this like covert narcissism game where
I'm like the best worst, right, so the worst ever,
so I'm the best at being bad, Like I'm the
best at failing. I'm like, my personal failings are better
in the sense that they're worst and other people's. And
(15:00):
I hope this makes sense because they know I'm using
a lot of like confusing. They're not confusing words, but
when they put together their contradictory but you know what
I'm trying to say. Anyway, when we do this, it's
almost like we're like nobody can relate to how horrible
I am and it's just me and I'm this special
bad one and with a termally unique kind of people,
it's that same way, but it makes them like, oh, no,
(15:23):
your stuff is over there and my stuff's over here.
We're not the same at all, when really like, we
heal through community, we heal through people. We heal through
realizing that we're not alone in our pain, in our flaws.
Imperfection is not a unique flaw in any of us.
Disappointment is not a unique feeling in any of us.
It's part of the human experience. And when we can
(15:43):
bring that in, we can offer more care and kindness
to ourselves. And that is again why this is what
we're talking about. This it's one of the key elements
of self compassion. So now we're going to move to
number three, mindfulness versus over identification. And again this part
is christa words or doctor nef. I don't know what
she prefers. I'll ask her if I ever read her.
(16:05):
But self compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to
our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.
This equiliberated stance stems from the process of relating personal
experiences to those who are also suffering, thus putting our
own situation into a larger perspective. It also stems from
the willingness to observe our negative thoughts and emotions with
(16:28):
openness and clarity, so that they are held in mindful awareness.
Mindfulness is a non judgmental, receptive mind state in which
one observes thoughts and feelings as they are without trying
to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain
and feel compassion for it at the same time. At
the same time, mindfulness requires that we not over identify
(16:50):
with thoughts and feelings so that we are caught up
and swept away by negative reactivity. So also, I said
this earlier as well, But what I often see in
all areas the therapy room, when it literally, when it
comes to anything, is this continued desire to make everything
in the world black and white, a constant, almost inherent
feeling that there's this need to divide things so perfectly
(17:12):
on two sides. We're all in, we're all out, we're
all wrong, we're all right. It's go big or go
home on all fronts. But allowing things to be gray,
allowing things to be both. It's an actual game changer.
We can feel our pain without becoming our pain. We
can feel icky, we can feel those icky emotions while
acknowledging that life isn't always horrible. So mindfulness awareness allows
(17:33):
us to notice these things, but they don't become all encompassing.
They're a part of us. And I sometimes this is
me my personal feelings. Like I get this like nervousness
when we talk about sometimes like the gray area and
like noticing that things aren't all encompassing. I'm not over
identifying with all the negative in my life, just like
I'm not over identifying with all the positive my life.
(17:56):
But when we talk about not over identifying with all
the icky stuff on our life, I get this fear
that I'm gonna get come at with people who are
saying you're sprinting toxic positivity and that's not this at all.
And I want you guys to really hear that, Like
it's okay to see silver lining. Sometimes there's a way
to do it. Toxic positivity uses a butt so with that,
(18:17):
it's like, oh, that happened, but just look at the
bright side. When what we're talking about is using an ant,
we're multi dimensional. We're saying Notice what you're feeling, Notice
the parts that are hard, and also notice that that's
not the wholeness of you. So there's an and it's
not butt. Notice it's and notice also. And my hope
in sharing all of this today is that it can
(18:37):
help you identify ways in which you can be better
at being kinder to yourself. Right, you're allowed to treat
yourself like a good friend. And I really like how Kristen,
our doctor neff uses that language throughout her teachings, like
self compassion is talking to yourself like you would talk
to a good friend. The longest relationship with anyone that
you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself,
(19:00):
So it only makes sense that you work on that relationship.
It makes sense that you nurture that relationship that you
would with any other relationship that you would want to thrive.
So thank you guys for listening this week. As always,
if you have any questions, you can send them to
Katherine at You Need Therapy podcast dot com. You can
follow me on Instagram at cat dot defata and at
(19:22):
you Need Therapy Podcast. So I hope you guys have
the day you need to have and I will be
back with you on Wednesday for couch talks.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.