December 6, 2023 • 29 mins
In this episode, Mama Judy and I explore the importance of extending compassion to ourselves in order for our creative lives to flourish.
We chat about the differences between internal and external criticism and how neglecting self-compassion for both can swiftly dim your creative spark.
Tune in for practical tips on cultivating self-compassion daily, unlocking the door to a more resilient and flourishing creative spirit.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh good, you made it.
We are so glad you're here.
Welcome to the Mama Judy andJill podcast, an
intergenerational chat aboutlife, art and the creative
process.
I'm your host, Jill, andjoining me is my wonderful
co-host and bonus mom, Mama Judy.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Let's get started Well, hi everyone.
We are so glad you're herejoining us today, mama Judy, and
I decided today that we aregoing to be talking about the
magic of self-competition, andthis is, if you know anything
about self-compassion, andyou'll learn more today about
that.
It is such an essentialingredient in our lives as
(00:39):
creatives for not only creativeexpression, but also for our
well-being as humans, wouldn'tyou agree, mama Judy?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Oh, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And so, mama Judy, I would like to ask you I thought
it would be fun to start withcan you think of a time in your
life where you needed to giveyourself some self-compassion?
And one thing I think I want tosay first is it's so
interesting how we can extendcompassion to people around us,
(01:14):
other people we love but to giveit to ourself sometimes is a
hard thing to do or we don'tthink we deserve it.
And so, if that's you listening, if you've ever felt that, I
just want you to really like sitdown and sit with us today and
listen, and hopefully you'llhear something that, if you have
not been able to extendyourself self-compassion, we
(01:35):
hope that you'll hear somethingtoday that will help you do that
for yourself, because it issomething that we all need.
So, mama Judy, can you think ofa time or a story that you
could share with us where thiswas an illustration?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, probably from the time I was born.
So I mean, we all need to giveourselves self-compassion just
every day, but for me, probablyone of the most recent ones was
learning to deal with thecondition called glupus, and I
(02:10):
had to learn to take care ofmyself, give myself
self-compassion, because I was aperson who likes to be
independent and okay, well, Ican still do everything that I
thought I could do.
And I had to take myself by thehand and give myself compassion
(02:31):
to change my life.
And that sounds strange to giveyourself compassion to change
your life.
But I think, going back to whatyou said, jill, we don't give
ourselves self-compassion andwe're always, if I can use the
word, competing with our priorvision of ourselves.
(02:55):
So maybe if we find somethingthat we can no longer do it
physically, or evenpsychologically or emotionally,
we just try to power through it,instead of sitting down and
saying, okay, how can I treatmyself with sympathy like I
would somebody else who has thesame issue going on?
(03:18):
So probably that's the last one, although I will say also it
creeps over into my art creating.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
How does that look with the art creating?
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, what that looks like is when I make something
that I don't think is goodenough, then I'm judging myself.
Let me give you an example.
If you came to me withsomething that you had created
and you wanted my feedback, andI wanted to give you feedback
(03:55):
without tearing you down, Iwould be very compassionate in
the way that I said it, I wouldbe very gentle in the way that I
said it and still give you good, constructive information With
ourselves.
We don't do that.
We tear ourselves down.
Oh, that's not good enough.
(04:16):
You don't know what you'redoing.
You'll never be good.
I just don't get yet even asmuch as I've thought about this
why it's so hard for individualsto give themselves
self-compassion.
What self-compassion to me isin our art is it's taking care
(04:39):
of that inner child, becausethat's where we all start,
that's where we start from inbeing creative.
We start with that inner child,and we don't give that inner
child the empathy, this empathy,the compassion that she needs
to continually grow.
(05:01):
Why is that?
Why is that such a hard thingfor us humans to do?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well, and you said earlier, I sometimes have to
take myself by the hand and tobe compassionate.
And, speaking about the innerchild, to me it makes it easier
to be compassionate with myselfif I think of myself as a child,
if I look at myself like I'mnot this grown woman that I'm
giving compassion to, but if Ithink about the little girl Jill
(05:29):
, or the inner child, that sortof thing, I can extend
compassion to that little girl.
And so sometimes maybe it'sjust that, because a lot of
times when we need to giveourselves compassion, it might
be that we did flub up or we'vedone something and so, whether
this is artistic or not, this isjust in life in general, we
(05:50):
have to give ourselves a break.
But if we can imagine ourselvesas that little child, that
innocent, pure person, and we'renot doing anything out of
malice or anything like that,that to me makes it a whole heck
of a lot easier to give myselfcompassion.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
It is because you and I can see that and I do this
thing, thing I often take thatlittle girl by the hand or sit
down and talk with her.
We have a visualization.
That's easier for us to do thatwhen we can visualize an
individual and what we're doingis we are visualizing that
(06:27):
individual as our younger self.
Now, if we don't do that, if wedon't show self compassion,
what happens is, I believe, wekill our creativity.
We've touched on this atvarious times, very briefly, but
(06:48):
never under the umbrella ofgive yourself self compassion.
Be kind to that young, aspiringand I use the word young and
you know I'm going to be 79 inMarch.
I still use the word young.
Young in the creativedevelopment is what I'm
(07:09):
referring to.
So I don't care how old you are, it could be 120.
If you're just beginning yourartistic journey, you're a young
artist.
You're blossoming, you'regrowing, you're blooming.
Well, let's say you have agarden and you go out and you
want flowers to grow.
(07:30):
What do you do with them?
You give them the elements thatthey need to grow.
You give them naturalfertilizer, you feed them, you
water them.
You do not go out and stompacross them and yelling, grow,
grow, grow.
They're not going to grow.
Somehow we have a tendency tostomp across ourselves and it's
(07:57):
very debilitating to thecreative process.
You and I have talked aboutfeedback.
We've gotten from our listenersand our viewers about incidents
that have external, incidentsthat have stifled their
creativity.
But this is not about external.
(08:19):
This is about internal,internal criticism.
Not showing yourself compassionfor what you're doing when you
make a mistake will kill yourcreativity just as fast as the
external will.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Right, and but also that internal will come from the
external forces too.
For example, a lot of ourlisteners including you know us,
you know have had to deal withtraumas in our life or abusive
people in our lives.
So yes, that still can enter in, because if you're abused and
(08:59):
told your, your or your this oryour that or not, you're not
treated right, then your owninternal voice, kind of that's
what they learn how to treat you.
So it, so it is connected.
But yet I understand whatyou're saying about the
difference between the two.
But we often do learn thingsfrom abuse and how people put us
down, and then we end up justtransferring that right over to
(09:20):
ourselves internally as well.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's an excellent, excellent point.
Interestingly enough, I've justwatched the autobiography on
Netflix called Sly, on SylvesterStallone, and he talks about
something similar because hegrew up in a very abusive
environment.
And how it does?
(09:44):
You're right, it translates tohow you see yourself.
But once we know that, once weare aware of that, we've had to
deal with those circumstances,that's an example of where we
have to show our self-compassioneven more importantly.
(10:06):
But even without that, let'sjust go to we've all had perfect
lives, nothing traumatic inthem.
We will still show compassionto others before we will show
compassion to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
There is something inherent that we just don't feel
like we deserve what we willgive to somebody else.
I just think we're upside downin that area and I think, for
all of our listeners and viewers, we need to develop a routine,
(10:44):
a habit.
Now, self-compassion alsoincludes under that umbrella
self-care.
But you really have to startwith self-compassion to develop
self-care.
From my point of view, you haveto learn that when you come up
against something that you hearthat voice inside of you giving
(11:10):
critical evaluation, stop andchoose tenderness in regards to
yourself.
You can still give yourself thesame important feedback on your
creativity that you need to,but it's what you say and how
you deliver it to that young,creative person that makes all
(11:33):
the difference in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So how would you develop that?
I know one part of it would beto catch ourselves.
When we see ourselves not beingcompassionate with ourselves,
catch ourselves, call it out andsay what it is and say whoa,
whoa, whoa.
Okay, I'm not being verycompassionate.
And then also and this is notartistically, but I'm just going
to use more of a human termhere let's say you made a
(11:55):
mistake, you did something wrong.
Or let's say, you even lied tosomeone, and so there's a
difference there too, where, yes, you should say I did not do a
good thing there, I should nothave done that, but that's it.
It's not like harshly abusingyourself versus giving yourself
self-compassion, and a lot oftimes there's nothing that even
(12:15):
needs to be reprimanded orstraightened out.
It's just us coming to thisplace of almost like a
negativity on ourselves orsomething.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Oh we are.
We're very negative when itcomes to ourselves.
We might love the whole world,but we will be negative to
ourselves.
And you know, perhaps it's justeven part of culture and
growing up, where we're taughtalmost without realizing that we
need to give to other people.
(12:46):
Well, we are part of thoseother people.
So we just got to learn to bemore compassionate with
ourselves.
And that compassion is soviable, regardless of whether
you're also like with.
I have an extenuating physicallimitation in that I have had to
(13:11):
show compassion to myself inmany ways, but even without that
, I still need to learn todevelop compassion.
When I look at my art and mycreativity I don't want to the
image that I had suddenly in mymind was of, let's say, a vein,
(13:35):
a life source.
And someone came along andpinched it off and held it there
.
What's going to happen to thelife?
It's going to wither and die.
Well, that's what I see ourlack of self-compassion doing to
our artistic endeavors.
(13:55):
If we don't, if we pinch it off, if we're always telling that
you're not good enough, allthose things we've talked about
in the other episodes imposter,fear, all those things come into
play.
At the bottom of that, what weneed to do is go, wait a minute,
(14:15):
I am worthy of it, Ofself-compassion.
Oh, I just used the word thatmaybe is at the root of all this
in our humanness.
We don't feel worthy ofself-compassion.
How screwed up, is that?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I know it seems like we should start there, like be
self-compassionate so that wecan be an even bigger
compassionate vessel to otherpeople.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well it's true, I think we even use the story one
time in one of our podcastswhere I said when you go on an
airplane, what do they tell youabout the oxygen masks?
Put it on yourself first Putyours on her, or you can't tell
(15:02):
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Well, it's the same thing with self-compassion.
If I give myself compassion inmy life, whatever I'm doing in
my creativity, I'm coming from anurturing, sympathetic,
understanding point of view.
If I develop that in myself andin my art, I can then send it
(15:28):
out to somebody else.
Going back to the example ofyou coming to me, let's say, and
asking me to critique somethingyou've done, if I don't have
self-compassion and I'm alwayslistening to the negative voice,
that voice is what I'm going toextend, probably to the outer
(15:53):
world.
So again, sometimes we willgive compassion to people and
sometimes our negativity thatwe've developed for ourselves
will extend to other people.
Both of those are examples ofwhy I think self-compassion is
(16:13):
so important to all of us.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, I was just thinking about some people might
not even realize if they'rebeing compassionate or not.
But one thing is have you everheard of loving kindness
meditation?
It's an actual type ofmeditation.
So I can't remember exactly howit goes, but I've tried it
before in the past.
But it's basically where youstart out by.
I think you start out extendingloving thoughts to the world,
(16:41):
to the edges of the world, andthen you bring it down into a
country and then into the state,and then into your city and
then to your neighborhood andthen to yourself, and so it
feels like start with thesmaller and then go out.
And maybe that's how somepeople do with loving kindness
meditation, but I think all ofus could.
That could be a way toencourage that
(17:04):
self-compassionist to do lovingkindness meditation.
Practice that, because itteaches you how to be
compassionate to others as wellas to yourself.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I love that concept, but that's a good example of
what we were just talking about.
That meditation that you justdescribed started with the world
, and then the last person wasyourself.
And I agree let's start withourselves, and that same loving
(17:33):
compassion we give ourselves,let's extend it out to the world
.
It's just a different way oflooking at it.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I also want to verify one thing, though, on
that.
It might be that start withyour neighbor, then go.
I don't remember Like I mayhave been wrong about starting
with the other way, so it couldhave been the other way.
So if somebody is really doingthat kind of, you may say that
is completely wrong.
But anyway, look that up.
Regardless, you're stillextending compassion to a lot of
(18:03):
people, as well as to yourself,and I think that's just a
critical part.
Or even when you're showing upat your studio, at your table,
wherever you're doing your art,your easel.
Just, you said earlier aboutbeing I don't know if you use
the word gentle, but you know,just being gentle, say a gentle
word to yourself, tell yourselfyou love yourself, or something
(18:23):
like that to give thatself-compassion, because the
more we do it it's almost likethe more we like a friend.
They just grow on us more andmore and more, and the more that
we extend love to ourselves inthat way, the easier it will be
and the less that thatself-compassion will be hard to
give to ourselves.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yes, and it kind of goes back on a very global scale
to Maslow's hierarchy of needs,and the first one is love and
acceptance.
And so if we don't love andaccept ourselves, that's the
pillar that we're going into theworld with.
(19:01):
But let's go back, if we can,for just a moment, because I do
have a tendency to get to theglobal.
I want to go back to our art,okay, and you asked the question
well, how do we?
How do we do that when we seeourselves giving criticism?
(19:22):
And one of the things that Ilearned in an entirely different
when I was learningself-compassion coming out of an
abusive marriage, one of thetechniques was see a stop sign.
So I say to myself wow, that isa horrible piece of art.
(19:44):
Well, I've done it so much thatwhat automatically shows up is
a stop sign.
That's my cue.
I have learned to rephrase whatI just said, to rework the words
.
Okay.
So I say to myself, wow, thatis a horrible piece of art.
Stop sign shows up.
(20:07):
I then say you know that arthas.
That piece that I've just donehas some good components in it,
but this area over here coulduse a rework.
I've now changed the wholescenario on how I see my art.
(20:29):
I'm compassionate To that youngartist.
I'm not destroying them with mystatement that's a horrible
piece.
I'm just saying you know thisover here looks great, but this,
this area over here, you couldredo.
Most people can accept that.
If it was coming from a teacher, that would be fine, well
(20:53):
instructive criticismConstructive and come across.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So and it's great.
And if we can give ourselvesthat constructive criticism,
compassion helps us grow anddevelop as artists too, of
course, because we're not gonnaget stuck, we're gonna go oh
yeah, that's right, and then gooff and try something different.
Or maybe, you know, maybe fixsomething I mean even fix sounds
like a bad word to use, butmaybe fix something or change
(21:20):
something or do somethingdifferent and we're growing and
that's right, and so what we'vedone is we've just changed the
wording so you can learn to doto recognize when you're giving
yourself negative criticism.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
See that stop sign as a visual to remind you change
your wording.
The other thing is that if youcatch yourself let's say you
haven't developed that habit yetand so you just torn your piece
of art to pieces you can thenat any time, revisualize your
(22:01):
response to that.
This can be to your art pieceor to any situation when you go
over in your mind and youvisualize a different outcome.
Okay, so I was really hard onmyself.
Let me see if I can't go backand redo that scene in my mind,
(22:23):
because the mind is so powerfuland by Revisiting something and
redoing the outcome is a verypowerful technique for changing
negativity of any kind.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, it's like the rewiring of the neuro pathways
in our brain, like it is, thathappens and that is important
for humans to be able to do that, and even if it is Surrounding
our art you know, just our artpractices and that sort of thing
.
I totally agree with that.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I guess that's the whole thing, jill.
All of this is a human part ofthe artist that we want to be,
and so self-compassion is very,very important.
It's, it's critical.
It is critical to developingour art.
Yes and self-care is Underneath.
(23:19):
Self-compassion and self-carecan be Okay.
Self-care can be things likeyou're doing this afternoon
You're going for a massage.
That's a matter of self-care,something that I do for myself.
For self-care is I will turn onmy favorite music.
Just listening to that makes mefeel good.
(23:41):
Listening to your body it feelsout of whack.
Take it for a walk, whatever,those are all self-care, which
is part of self-compassion.
Mm-hmm.
And I think the bottom line iswe all need to love ourselves.
We are perfectly imperfect.
(24:03):
Every single one of us, our art, is perfectly imperfect.
Yes, we've talked aboutperfection before.
If we achieve perfection, thereis no growth.
Yes, so we all know we're notperfect.
We need to grow.
Let's not kill the bud bystomping on it as it's trying to
(24:26):
grow Exactly.
Can't you just see Williamgoing out to his garden as it's
growing with big army boots onand stomping across them?
Going, grow, grow, grow.
Uh-huh.
That won't work.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
One thing, too, that just popped into my mind.
You know, my friend Linda.
I was at Linda's house this wasseveral months ago, I don't
remember exactly, but I think wewere talking about giving
ourselves some self-love andself-compassion, and I had just
done a yoga class an online yogaclass, like the day before that
or something and one of themoves that the yoga instructor
(25:03):
had us do was to take our armsand really wrap them.
You know, take them and giveyourself like so that your hands
are wrapped around to your back, and give yourself a tight hug
and like, hold it for 20 seconds.
So we, linda and I, standing inher kitchen at her house, both
did that together and even we'reMom and Judy and I are doing
(25:24):
this now.
So if you're seeing us onYouTube, you can see this.
We are actually doing this aswe're talking on the podcast.
I'm already feeling.
I kind of feel like I want tocry actually.
So that tells you something.
So I'm going to stop huggingmyself right now and maybe I'll
do it later, but but it feels sogood, and even my emotions,
what just happened?
I think I wanted to feel like Iwas going to start crying.
(25:46):
I think because I felt like Iwas loving myself.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I needed that hug Absolutely.
If you were to hug me right now, you probably would not cry.
But when we hug ourselves andwe feel the need to cry to me
what that tells me?
That child within us needed tofeel the love.
Yes, which, by the way, folks,this is a side tidbit If you
(26:17):
hold a hug for 22 or moreseconds, it literally,
physiologically, changes theendorphins in the body.
You want a natural high.
Go hug somebody for 30 secondsor yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Right, it doesn't have to be another person.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Right, yeah, no, I think.
Look at me, I just undideverything we talked about.
She on me, oh naughty, naughty.
Okay so let me rephrase that gohug yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yes, no, and I really want our listeners to do that.
Wait till, like maybe justwe're going to be done here with
this recording and do thisyourself.
The favor of, give yourself ahug it for 22 to 30 seconds and
just see what happens.
And if you're in a space where,if you feel like crying or it
just makes you feel good, like,let that out and let that go, be
compassionate to yourself toallow what needs to come, come
(27:19):
and so it's pretty powerful itis.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
And before we sign off on this, I do want to give a
shout out to Instagramcommunity.
There are many, many people outthere who are phenomenal about
giving good, positive feedbackto somebody else's feed, and my
(27:44):
only hope is that those peopleare giving themselves the same
kind of feedback.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I agree, and and not taking someone else's lovely
feedback as more important thanyour own feedback to yourself.
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, I agree.
Right, all right.
Well, this has been a verymoving session.
Yeah, I hope people findsomething out of this that they
can relate to, perhaps a newthought, perhaps a new technique
to try.
It is for me a reminder neverto lose those techniques that I
(28:24):
have learned along my journey.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I agree.
Yeah, this was good.
This feels good.
All right, everyone, go outthere, be compassionate to
yourself, love yourself, giveyourself a hug, and, mama Judy,
I'm giving you a virtual hug too.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yes, and I'll be that woman in black skipping down
the road hugging herself.
Just smile if you go by.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
A few weeks ago on the podcast, we talked about
hugging trees.
Now we're hugging ourselves.
We don't know where this isgoing next week.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
We like hugs.
What can I say?
Gotta change my endorphins, yes.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, thank you everyone.
Next week we hope you willshare this episode with a friend
and we appreciate you so muchand love you, Mama Judy.
Love you too, my dear.
Okay, talk to you later.
Bye.
Oh good, you made it.
We are so glad you're here.
Welcome to the Mama Judy andJill podcast, an
intergenerational chat aboutlife, art and the creative
process.
I'm your host, Jill, andjoining me is my wonderful
co-host and bonus mom, Mama Judy.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Let's get started Well, hi everyone.
We are so glad you're herejoining us today, mama Judy, and
I decided today that we aregoing to be talking about the
magic of self-competition, andthis is, if you know anything
about self-compassion, andyou'll learn more today about
that.
It is such an essentialingredient in our lives as
(00:39):
creatives for not only creativeexpression, but also for our
well-being as humans, wouldn'tyou agree, mama Judy?
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Oh, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
And so, mama Judy, I would like to ask you I thought
it would be fun to start withcan you think of a time in your
life where you needed to giveyourself some self-compassion?
And one thing I think I want tosay first is it's so
interesting how we can extendcompassion to people around us,
(01:14):
other people we love but to giveit to ourself sometimes is a
hard thing to do or we don'tthink we deserve it.
And so, if that's you listening, if you've ever felt that, I
just want you to really like sitdown and sit with us today and
listen, and hopefully you'llhear something that, if you have
not been able to extendyourself self-compassion, we
(01:35):
hope that you'll hear somethingtoday that will help you do that
for yourself, because it issomething that we all need.
So, mama Judy, can you think ofa time or a story that you
could share with us where thiswas an illustration?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, probably from the time I was born.
So I mean, we all need to giveourselves self-compassion just
every day, but for me, probablyone of the most recent ones was
learning to deal with thecondition called glupus, and I
(02:10):
had to learn to take care ofmyself, give myself
self-compassion, because I was aperson who likes to be
independent and okay, well, Ican still do everything that I
thought I could do.
And I had to take myself by thehand and give myself compassion
(02:31):
to change my life.
And that sounds strange to giveyourself compassion to change
your life.
But I think, going back to whatyou said, jill, we don't give
ourselves self-compassion andwe're always, if I can use the
word, competing with our priorvision of ourselves.
(02:55):
So maybe if we find somethingthat we can no longer do it
physically, or evenpsychologically or emotionally,
we just try to power through it,instead of sitting down and
saying, okay, how can I treatmyself with sympathy like I
would somebody else who has thesame issue going on?
(03:18):
So probably that's the last one, although I will say also it
creeps over into my art creating.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
How does that look with the art creating?
Tell me about that.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, what that looks like is when I make something
that I don't think is goodenough, then I'm judging myself.
Let me give you an example.
If you came to me withsomething that you had created
and you wanted my feedback, andI wanted to give you feedback
(03:55):
without tearing you down, Iwould be very compassionate in
the way that I said it, I wouldbe very gentle in the way that I
said it and still give you good, constructive information With
ourselves.
We don't do that.
We tear ourselves down.
Oh, that's not good enough.
(04:16):
You don't know what you'redoing.
You'll never be good.
I just don't get yet even asmuch as I've thought about this
why it's so hard for individualsto give themselves
self-compassion.
What self-compassion to me isin our art is it's taking care
(04:39):
of that inner child, becausethat's where we all start,
that's where we start from inbeing creative.
We start with that inner child,and we don't give that inner
child the empathy, this empathy,the compassion that she needs
to continually grow.
(05:01):
Why is that?
Why is that such a hard thingfor us humans to do?
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well, and you said earlier, I sometimes have to
take myself by the hand and tobe compassionate.
And, speaking about the innerchild, to me it makes it easier
to be compassionate with myselfif I think of myself as a child,
if I look at myself like I'mnot this grown woman that I'm
giving compassion to, but if Ithink about the little girl Jill
(05:29):
, or the inner child, that sortof thing, I can extend
compassion to that little girl.
And so sometimes maybe it'sjust that, because a lot of
times when we need to giveourselves compassion, it might
be that we did flub up or we'vedone something and so, whether
this is artistic or not, this isjust in life in general, we
(05:50):
have to give ourselves a break.
But if we can imagine ourselvesas that little child, that
innocent, pure person, and we'renot doing anything out of
malice or anything like that,that to me makes it a whole heck
of a lot easier to give myselfcompassion.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
It is because you and I can see that and I do this
thing, thing I often take thatlittle girl by the hand or sit
down and talk with her.
We have a visualization.
That's easier for us to do thatwhen we can visualize an
individual and what we're doingis we are visualizing that
(06:27):
individual as our younger self.
Now, if we don't do that, if wedon't show self compassion,
what happens is, I believe, wekill our creativity.
We've touched on this atvarious times, very briefly, but
(06:48):
never under the umbrella ofgive yourself self compassion.
Be kind to that young, aspiringand I use the word young and
you know I'm going to be 79 inMarch.
I still use the word young.
Young in the creativedevelopment is what I'm
(07:09):
referring to.
So I don't care how old you are, it could be 120.
If you're just beginning yourartistic journey, you're a young
artist.
You're blossoming, you'regrowing, you're blooming.
Well, let's say you have agarden and you go out and you
want flowers to grow.
(07:30):
What do you do with them?
You give them the elements thatthey need to grow.
You give them naturalfertilizer, you feed them, you
water them.
You do not go out and stompacross them and yelling, grow,
grow, grow.
They're not going to grow.
Somehow we have a tendency tostomp across ourselves and it's
(07:57):
very debilitating to thecreative process.
You and I have talked aboutfeedback.
We've gotten from our listenersand our viewers about incidents
that have external, incidentsthat have stifled their
creativity.
But this is not about external.
(08:19):
This is about internal,internal criticism.
Not showing yourself compassionfor what you're doing when you
make a mistake will kill yourcreativity just as fast as the
external will.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Right, and but also that internal will come from the
external forces too.
For example, a lot of ourlisteners including you know us,
you know have had to deal withtraumas in our life or abusive
people in our lives.
So yes, that still can enter in, because if you're abused and
(08:59):
told your, your or your this oryour that or not, you're not
treated right, then your owninternal voice, kind of that's
what they learn how to treat you.
So it, so it is connected.
But yet I understand whatyou're saying about the
difference between the two.
But we often do learn thingsfrom abuse and how people put us
down, and then we end up justtransferring that right over to
(09:20):
ourselves internally as well.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
That's an excellent, excellent point.
Interestingly enough, I've justwatched the autobiography on
Netflix called Sly, on SylvesterStallone, and he talks about
something similar because hegrew up in a very abusive
environment.
And how it does?
(09:44):
You're right, it translates tohow you see yourself.
But once we know that, once weare aware of that, we've had to
deal with those circumstances,that's an example of where we
have to show our self-compassioneven more importantly.
(10:06):
But even without that, let'sjust go to we've all had perfect
lives, nothing traumatic inthem.
We will still show compassionto others before we will show
compassion to ourselves.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
There is something inherent that we just don't feel
like we deserve what we willgive to somebody else.
I just think we're upside downin that area and I think, for
all of our listeners and viewers, we need to develop a routine,
(10:44):
a habit.
Now, self-compassion alsoincludes under that umbrella
self-care.
But you really have to startwith self-compassion to develop
self-care.
From my point of view, you haveto learn that when you come up
against something that you hearthat voice inside of you giving
(11:10):
critical evaluation, stop andchoose tenderness in regards to
yourself.
You can still give yourself thesame important feedback on your
creativity that you need to,but it's what you say and how
you deliver it to that young,creative person that makes all
(11:33):
the difference in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So how would you develop that?
I know one part of it would beto catch ourselves.
When we see ourselves not beingcompassionate with ourselves,
catch ourselves, call it out andsay what it is and say whoa,
whoa, whoa.
Okay, I'm not being verycompassionate.
And then also and this is notartistically, but I'm just going
to use more of a human termhere let's say you made a
(11:55):
mistake, you did something wrong.
Or let's say, you even lied tosomeone, and so there's a
difference there too, where, yes, you should say I did not do a
good thing there, I should nothave done that, but that's it.
It's not like harshly abusingyourself versus giving yourself
self-compassion, and a lot oftimes there's nothing that even
(12:15):
needs to be reprimanded orstraightened out.
It's just us coming to thisplace of almost like a
negativity on ourselves orsomething.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Oh we are.
We're very negative when itcomes to ourselves.
We might love the whole world,but we will be negative to
ourselves.
And you know, perhaps it's justeven part of culture and
growing up, where we're taughtalmost without realizing that we
need to give to other people.
(12:46):
Well, we are part of thoseother people.
So we just got to learn to bemore compassionate with
ourselves.
And that compassion is soviable, regardless of whether
you're also like with.
I have an extenuating physicallimitation in that I have had to
(13:11):
show compassion to myself inmany ways, but even without that
, I still need to learn todevelop compassion.
When I look at my art and mycreativity I don't want to the
image that I had suddenly in mymind was of, let's say, a vein,
(13:35):
a life source.
And someone came along andpinched it off and held it there
.
What's going to happen to thelife?
It's going to wither and die.
Well, that's what I see ourlack of self-compassion doing to
our artistic endeavors.
(13:55):
If we don't, if we pinch it off, if we're always telling that
you're not good enough, allthose things we've talked about
in the other episodes imposter,fear, all those things come into
play.
At the bottom of that, what weneed to do is go, wait a minute,
(14:15):
I am worthy of it, Ofself-compassion.
Oh, I just used the word thatmaybe is at the root of all this
in our humanness.
We don't feel worthy ofself-compassion.
How screwed up, is that?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I know it seems like we should start there, like be
self-compassionate so that wecan be an even bigger
compassionate vessel to otherpeople.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well it's true, I think we even use the story one
time in one of our podcastswhere I said when you go on an
airplane, what do they tell youabout the oxygen masks?
Put it on yourself first Putyours on her, or you can't tell
(15:02):
anybody else.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Well, it's the same thing with self-compassion.
If I give myself compassion inmy life, whatever I'm doing in
my creativity, I'm coming from anurturing, sympathetic,
understanding point of view.
If I develop that in myself andin my art, I can then send it
(15:28):
out to somebody else.
Going back to the example ofyou coming to me, let's say, and
asking me to critique somethingyou've done, if I don't have
self-compassion and I'm alwayslistening to the negative voice,
that voice is what I'm going toextend, probably to the outer
(15:53):
world.
So again, sometimes we willgive compassion to people and
sometimes our negativity thatwe've developed for ourselves
will extend to other people.
Both of those are examples ofwhy I think self-compassion is
(16:13):
so important to all of us.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, I was just thinking about some people might
not even realize if they'rebeing compassionate or not.
But one thing is have you everheard of loving kindness
meditation?
It's an actual type ofmeditation.
So I can't remember exactly howit goes, but I've tried it
before in the past.
But it's basically where youstart out by.
I think you start out extendingloving thoughts to the world,
(16:41):
to the edges of the world, andthen you bring it down into a
country and then into the state,and then into your city and
then to your neighborhood andthen to yourself, and so it
feels like start with thesmaller and then go out.
And maybe that's how somepeople do with loving kindness
meditation, but I think all ofus could.
That could be a way toencourage that
(17:04):
self-compassionist to do lovingkindness meditation.
Practice that, because itteaches you how to be
compassionate to others as wellas to yourself.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I love that concept, but that's a good example of
what we were just talking about.
That meditation that you justdescribed started with the world
, and then the last person wasyourself.
And I agree let's start withourselves, and that same loving
(17:33):
compassion we give ourselves,let's extend it out to the world
.
It's just a different way oflooking at it.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And I also want to verify one thing, though, on
that.
It might be that start withyour neighbor, then go.
I don't remember Like I mayhave been wrong about starting
with the other way, so it couldhave been the other way.
So if somebody is really doingthat kind of, you may say that
is completely wrong.
But anyway, look that up.
Regardless, you're stillextending compassion to a lot of
(18:03):
people, as well as to yourself,and I think that's just a
critical part.
Or even when you're showing upat your studio, at your table,
wherever you're doing your art,your easel.
Just, you said earlier aboutbeing I don't know if you use
the word gentle, but you know,just being gentle, say a gentle
word to yourself, tell yourselfyou love yourself, or something
(18:23):
like that to give thatself-compassion, because the
more we do it it's almost likethe more we like a friend.
They just grow on us more andmore and more, and the more that
we extend love to ourselves inthat way, the easier it will be
and the less that thatself-compassion will be hard to
give to ourselves.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Yes, and it kind of goes back on a very global scale
to Maslow's hierarchy of needs,and the first one is love and
acceptance.
And so if we don't love andaccept ourselves, that's the
pillar that we're going into theworld with.
(19:01):
But let's go back, if we can,for just a moment, because I do
have a tendency to get to theglobal.
I want to go back to our art,okay, and you asked the question
well, how do we?
How do we do that when we seeourselves giving criticism?
(19:22):
And one of the things that Ilearned in an entirely different
when I was learningself-compassion coming out of an
abusive marriage, one of thetechniques was see a stop sign.
So I say to myself wow, that isa horrible piece of art.
(19:44):
Well, I've done it so much thatwhat automatically shows up is
a stop sign.
That's my cue.
I have learned to rephrase whatI just said, to rework the words
.
Okay.
So I say to myself, wow, thatis a horrible piece of art.
Stop sign shows up.
(20:07):
I then say you know that arthas.
That piece that I've just donehas some good components in it,
but this area over here coulduse a rework.
I've now changed the wholescenario on how I see my art.
(20:29):
I'm compassionate To that youngartist.
I'm not destroying them with mystatement that's a horrible
piece.
I'm just saying you know thisover here looks great, but this,
this area over here, you couldredo.
Most people can accept that.
If it was coming from a teacher, that would be fine, well
(20:53):
instructive criticismConstructive and come across.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So and it's great.
And if we can give ourselvesthat constructive criticism,
compassion helps us grow anddevelop as artists too, of
course, because we're not gonnaget stuck, we're gonna go oh
yeah, that's right, and then gooff and try something different.
Or maybe, you know, maybe fixsomething I mean even fix sounds
like a bad word to use, butmaybe fix something or change
(21:20):
something or do somethingdifferent and we're growing and
that's right, and so what we'vedone is we've just changed the
wording so you can learn to doto recognize when you're giving
yourself negative criticism.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
See that stop sign as a visual to remind you change
your wording.
The other thing is that if youcatch yourself let's say you
haven't developed that habit yetand so you just torn your piece
of art to pieces you can thenat any time, revisualize your
(22:01):
response to that.
This can be to your art pieceor to any situation when you go
over in your mind and youvisualize a different outcome.
Okay, so I was really hard onmyself.
Let me see if I can't go backand redo that scene in my mind,
(22:23):
because the mind is so powerfuland by Revisiting something and
redoing the outcome is a verypowerful technique for changing
negativity of any kind.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, it's like the rewiring of the neuro pathways
in our brain, like it is, thathappens and that is important
for humans to be able to do that, and even if it is Surrounding
our art you know, just our artpractices and that sort of thing
.
I totally agree with that.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
I guess that's the whole thing, jill.
All of this is a human part ofthe artist that we want to be,
and so self-compassion is very,very important.
It's, it's critical.
It is critical to developingour art.
Yes and self-care is Underneath.
(23:19):
Self-compassion and self-carecan be Okay.
Self-care can be things likeyou're doing this afternoon
You're going for a massage.
That's a matter of self-care,something that I do for myself.
For self-care is I will turn onmy favorite music.
Just listening to that makes mefeel good.
(23:41):
Listening to your body it feelsout of whack.
Take it for a walk, whatever,those are all self-care, which
is part of self-compassion.
Mm-hmm.
And I think the bottom line iswe all need to love ourselves.
We are perfectly imperfect.
(24:03):
Every single one of us, our art, is perfectly imperfect.
Yes, we've talked aboutperfection before.
If we achieve perfection, thereis no growth.
Yes, so we all know we're notperfect.
We need to grow.
Let's not kill the bud bystomping on it as it's trying to
(24:26):
grow Exactly.
Can't you just see Williamgoing out to his garden as it's
growing with big army boots onand stomping across them?
Going, grow, grow, grow.
Uh-huh.
That won't work.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
One thing, too, that just popped into my mind.
You know, my friend Linda.
I was at Linda's house this wasseveral months ago, I don't
remember exactly, but I think wewere talking about giving
ourselves some self-love andself-compassion, and I had just
done a yoga class an online yogaclass, like the day before that
or something and one of themoves that the yoga instructor
(25:03):
had us do was to take our armsand really wrap them.
You know, take them and giveyourself like so that your hands
are wrapped around to your back, and give yourself a tight hug
and like, hold it for 20 seconds.
So we, linda and I, standing inher kitchen at her house, both
did that together and even we'reMom and Judy and I are doing
(25:24):
this now.
So if you're seeing us onYouTube, you can see this.
We are actually doing this aswe're talking on the podcast.
I'm already feeling.
I kind of feel like I want tocry actually.
So that tells you something.
So I'm going to stop huggingmyself right now and maybe I'll
do it later, but but it feels sogood, and even my emotions,
what just happened?
I think I wanted to feel like Iwas going to start crying.
(25:46):
I think because I felt like Iwas loving myself.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
I needed that hug Absolutely.
If you were to hug me right now, you probably would not cry.
But when we hug ourselves andwe feel the need to cry to me
what that tells me?
That child within us needed tofeel the love.
Yes, which, by the way, folks,this is a side tidbit If you
(26:17):
hold a hug for 22 or moreseconds, it literally,
physiologically, changes theendorphins in the body.
You want a natural high.
Go hug somebody for 30 secondsor yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Right, it doesn't have to be another person.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Right, yeah, no, I think.
Look at me, I just undideverything we talked about.
She on me, oh naughty, naughty.
Okay so let me rephrase that gohug yourself.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yes, no, and I really want our listeners to do that.
Wait till, like maybe justwe're going to be done here with
this recording and do thisyourself.
The favor of, give yourself ahug it for 22 to 30 seconds and
just see what happens.
And if you're in a space where,if you feel like crying or it
just makes you feel good, like,let that out and let that go, be
compassionate to yourself toallow what needs to come, come
(27:19):
and so it's pretty powerful itis.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
And before we sign off on this, I do want to give a
shout out to Instagramcommunity.
There are many, many people outthere who are phenomenal about
giving good, positive feedbackto somebody else's feed, and my
(27:44):
only hope is that those peopleare giving themselves the same
kind of feedback.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
I agree, and and not taking someone else's lovely
feedback as more important thanyour own feedback to yourself.
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Yeah, I agree.
Right, all right.
Well, this has been a verymoving session.
Yeah, I hope people findsomething out of this that they
can relate to, perhaps a newthought, perhaps a new technique
to try.
It is for me a reminder neverto lose those techniques that I
(28:24):
have learned along my journey.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I agree.
Yeah, this was good.
This feels good.
All right, everyone, go outthere, be compassionate to
yourself, love yourself, giveyourself a hug, and, mama Judy,
I'm giving you a virtual hug too.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yes, and I'll be that woman in black skipping down
the road hugging herself.
Just smile if you go by.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
A few weeks ago on the podcast, we talked about
hugging trees.
Now we're hugging ourselves.
We don't know where this isgoing next week.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
We like hugs.
What can I say?
Gotta change my endorphins, yes.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, thank you everyone.
Next week we hope you willshare this episode with a friend
and we appreciate you so muchand love you, Mama Judy.
Love you too, my dear.
Okay, talk to you later.
Bye.
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