Speaker 1 · 0:04Chris Germer is one of the pioneers in mindful self-compassion. He and Kristen Neff have co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion program. They've done so much research on compassion and self-compassion and really helped move the field forward. They co-authored two books on mindful self-compassion. I encourage you to get both of them. One is the Mindful Self-Compassion workbook, which I found is a great tool for myself, but also sharing some of these principles with others. But more appropriate, I think, for most of us in this group is a book called Teaching, the Mindful Self-Compassion Program. Chris spends a lot of his time lecturing and meeting workshops around the world on mindfulness and self-compassion. He's also the author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion. He maintains a small private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts. Chris, thank you so much for coming, and I'm looking forward to learning from you today.
Speaker 2 · 1:12So, what is self-compassion? An informal definition of self-compassion is treating ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we would treat a dear friend when things go wrong. What's interesting is that in the Buddhist tradition, but actually in all ancient wisdom traditions, the message is always you feel benevolent toward yourself. You do like yourself, you've been caring for yourself your whole life. You know what that's like. Why don't you do the same for another person? So in the Vishwri Maga, the instruction is you start with yourself because it's the most natural thing. Ironically, now, it is not the most natural thing. The most natural thing is actually the kindness that flows more easily toward others. So therefore, the way we teach self-compassion is we first connect with how somebody feels toward a loved one. And then we add ourselves, in other words, may you be happy, may you be safe, may you be peaceful. Then we move to may you and I be happy, may you and I be peaceful. And then very gently we see if we can release the other person and just give that to ourselves. So we almost kind of trick ourselves into being kind to ourselves. But what's really interesting about this is if you ever wonder in any situation, how can I be more compassionate to myself right now? The answer is ask yourself simply, how would I treat a dear friend like now right now? Who had the same situation? What would I say to this friend? What would I do with this friend? And then the question is, can you do it for yourself? So people who have been practicing self-compassion for a while, they actually are their own best friend. This is a remarkable thing. Not to leave your home ever without your best friend, with the most nearest and dearest, waking up with your nearest and dearest going to sleep. Because actually, we are more capable of knowing what we need and giving ourselves the love we need than anybody is capable of giving to us. That doesn't mean we don't need it. We are social creatures, we need a lot of love from others. But just by thinking, how would I treat a friend, can I treat myself like this? And then over time, developing that kind of friendship with yourself changes life. There's never a moment of loneliness, there's never a broken heart that isn't touched by your own heart. So this is possible. I've certainly, over the last 15 years, gotten closer and closer to that. And I'll never get there because self-compassion is not a destination. You never arrive. We're only practicing. So there are actually three universal expressions of compassion. Dr. Keltner talked about this. He's from Berkeley. No matter what culture you go in, people can experience compassion by a warm gaze, by soothing touch, or by gentle vocalizations. You know what it looks like, you know what compassion looks like in the eyes. Our skin is remarkably sensitive to variations on intention or motivation. We can tell what people are doing. We can tell if it's a sexy touch, we can tell if it's a compassionate touch, we can tell if it's a random touch. We can tell. It's amazing. And also vocalizations. And it's just astonishing. I think everybody knows this. How much we can feel and understand about another person just from the voice. So the term self-compassion is a bit of a problem. There are two problems with the term. One is self, and the other is compassion. Self is a problem because immediately we think of selfishness. And if you happen to be a Buddhist, you will add that this is the source of all suffering. We're just going to make it worse. We shouldn't do this. We shouldn't focus on the self. But we've actually found that when you focus on the self in a particular kind of way, it dissolves itself. That's a secondary subject. Analyov, who is the resident monk at the Barry Center for Buddha Studies, just wrote an article in Mindfulness Magazine on a Buddhist approach to self-compassion, what works, what doesn't work. And one of the things he said was quite interesting. He said in the very earliest scriptures, when the Buddha actually spoke about compassion, there actually was no self, nor was there an other. So historically, there really wasn't all that much self in there, but there was directionality, like inside or outside. And over and over we see that when self-compassion increases, then compassion for others increases. This is very reliable. Partly, I think, because compassion per se is omnidirectional. It's a state, it's a state of being, and it could even be a personal trait, but it doesn't quite have any rigid focus. In the same way that physiology doesn't have a rigid focus. If you're angry, you can be angry at yourself or somebody else, but someone's going to get it. Same with compassion, you know. Another concern is the self-pity, that it's related to like rumination and me-me-me and so forth. But people are high on self-compassion, they actually connect better to others. They have more of their troubles in perspective. Another concern is that it's self-indulgent. If I'm self-compassionate, I'm just going to sit around eating bonbons and watching TV. That's not going to happen. If you have a kid who comes home and says, Oh, mommy, I'd like to have a gallon of chocolate ice cream for dinner, would you say, I love you, honey, therefore you can have a gallon of chocolate ice cream? I don't think so. Why would you do that for yourself? So, self-compassion is actually what a good friend would do. A good friend would say, Don't eat a gallon of chocolate ice cream. It's going to make you sick. So, some people think people high in self-compassion have lower motivation. They're actually more motivated. And they're actually more successful at doing difficult things because they're motivating themselves with encouragement. Like, you can do it. You're almost there. I believe in you. You got this rather than you suck. What's the matter with you? Can't you ever get it right? Imagine how motivating is that? But that's the voice we sometimes have in our heads. Self-compassion motivates with encouragement rather than criticism. This is huge, especially when we're trying to do something tough. And when people first hear about self-compassion, they gag because self sounds like selfishness, and compassion sounds like weakness, that self-compassion will make me weak or that it is a weakness. And the literature, which is now like 4,000 articles, and there are like three articles coming out every single week, is such a hot subject. And actually, there was a meta-analysis on coping and shows basically that people who are high in self-compassion, they cope way better with difficulties, with chronic pain, with trauma, with divorce, illness, all kinds of things. Basically, self-compassion buffers the impact of negative experience in our lives. That warm embrace allows us to actually be with what's happening, to learn from it, and also to let it go. So self-compassion is not weak. It's actually a powerful factor in emotional resilience. So the research is very clear. Self-compassion increases well-being, decreases anxiety, depression, shame, stress, increases physical health, improved immune functioning, healthy behaviors, more satisfying relationships. But what's particularly interesting, I think, is Kristen's work on different approaches to self-compassion. So there's the yin side, which is what we're mostly familiar with, validating, connecting, comforting. And then there's the yang side, which is more action in the world, like to protect and provide and to motivate. Both are compassionate. If you are in a burning house, the house is burning. What's the most compassionate thing to do? Is it to sit in a chair and comfort yourself because the house is burning? I don't think so. The most compassionate thing to do is to run for your life to protect yourself. And so we somehow forget this. We forget that 50% of compassion is action in the world, which is protecting us, providing for us, motivating us. So I'd like to give you a felt sense of the three components of what self-compassion is. Kristen Neff says it has three components. One is mindfulness, the second is common humanity. I'm not alone. And the third is kindness versus criticism. So mindfulness versus like rumination or over-identification, common humanity versus isolation, and kindness, self-kindness versus self-criticism. These are three key components that are the essence of Hearst's scale, which is basically used in almost all the research on self-compassion. So then the question is okay, this is all well and good. How can self-compassion be learned? And so the research is quite clear that we can learn self-compassion in so many different ways. If you own a dog, if you get a, if you don't have a dog now and you get a dog, chances are your score on self-compassion scale will go up. Because we've actually found that being compassionate toward others increases self-compassion. Find an opportunity to be compassionate to others, and the chances are it will increase your self-compassion. But you can also learn self-compassion by, and this is all in the research, practicing yoga, especially if you do it in a respectful way. Or walking in nature, nature bathing, will increase self-compassion simply because you are taking yourself on a walk in nature for a good purpose. You are training yourself in self-compassion. Psychotherapy. Almost always, when there are improvements in psychotherapy, if a person takes a self-compassion scale, you'll actually find that along with improvements in therapy, i.e., less anxiety, less depression, there's an increase in self-compassion. It is a core healing factor that can be taught in therapy, which will manifest in multiple ways to improve a person's life. So there's a lot of, if we can just focus on self-compassion, we find there's a lot of improvements in many other ways. But no matter what you're doing in therapy, when there is improvement, self-compassion goes up. Also, watching others be self-compassionate will increase your self-compassion. Just through modeling, your self-compassion will go up. So if you want your students to become more self-compassionate, show them in your own relationship to yourself how to be self-compassionate. Furthermore, mindfulness training increases self-compassion. If you learn MBSR or MBCT, the research shows very reliably self-compassion goes up as your mindfulness goes up. And then there are also compassion training programs. There's mindful self-compassion training, there's the compassion cultivation training, cognitively based compassion training, mindfulness-based, compassionate living. All of these programs increase self-compassion. So there are just so many ways to increase self-compassion, but ultimately self-compassion is a motivation. Sharon Salzberg says loving kindness is not about good feelings, it's about goodwill. Same thing about self-compassion. You will definitely feel better in the long run, but to get there, all we're cultivating is the intention. And that intention can be cultivated in so many different ways in our lives. Another way to look at this is it's a really interesting challenge, or you might say, litmus test of our teaching capacity or ability is can I teach self-compassion to someone who may not be interested in the word or the topic without ever mentioning the term self-compassion? And so, in other words, there's the saying, you know, we don't teach about self-compassion, we teach self-compassion. So whenever we call it self-compassion, we're teaching, starting to teach about. And a lot of people, particularly therapy clients, they might be suffering from anxiety or depression, and they really don't want to be told that they are also deficient in self-compassion and they need to become, you know, because it's like, thanks, I needed that. So the question is, especially around mindful self-compassion, how are we with pain, with suffering, with discomfort, with stress? What is my relationship to it? What am I doing? That's the mindfulness part. And then the compassion part is is there some way that I can be with this experience that's mindfulness, or with myself when I'm feeling this, that would make it easier. And so we're actually delivering the medicine without describing the nature of the medicine. So, for example, a therapist, if somebody's talking about, say, a problem with their teenage daughter, you can connect as a human being one to another about, you know, that's really tough. That's mindfulness. We just validated it. We can also explore more how it's tough, what makes it so upsetting? Well, because my daughter's so selfish and I don't believe in selfishness. So then we're getting closer and closer and closer to the suffering. And then the question comes up: what do you need to be able to engage your daughter in a conversation that would be most helpful? Well, I need to calm myself down somehow. Ah, so what might be helpful to calm yourself down? Well, when I start to get out, you know, so you can fall like this. So you're actually delivering the medicine by exploring how do I relate to the experience and how do I relate to myself without ever calling it self-compassion. And as a therapist, to be honest, I do that all the time. I really try not to talk about self-compassion. I think it can be a bit of a diversion from the felt experience from what one is actually struggling with. And then the last thing I'll say is there are actually three questions that answer the question, how can I be more self-compassionate? And the first is the one I mentioned earlier, which is if you're in a fix, ask yourself, how would I treat a friend in the same situation? That's amazing, you know. I once had a patient who was burning herself with cigarettes, but she's a very compassionate person. And I said, What would you say to a friend who is burning herself with cigarettes? What would you say to her? And she said, Oh, I would say to her, Oh, I'm so sorry that you feel like you have to do this to yourself. You are probably suffering more than you are able to say. How can I help you stop? This is literally what she said that she would say to somebody else as she was burning herself. So we all have within ourselves a compassionate self that when we can externalize ourselves, we can activate that self and know how to be kind to ourselves. Question number one, how would I treat a friend? Question number two is what do I need? Okay, that's the quintessential self-compassion question. What do I need? And usually when we're in a bad state, we cannot answer that question. So then you say, what do I need to be safe? Or what do I need to comfort myself? What do I need to soothe myself? What do I need to protect myself? What do I need to provide for myself? What do I need to motivate myself and do it? That's self-compassion. And the last question is, how do I care for myself already? You're wondering, how can I be self-compassionate? Usually you'll ask this question because you're suffering. Because usually, when we're suffering, we're not particularly nice to ourselves. We add insult to injury. But if you can remember, uh, how do I care for myself? Oh, I play with the dog, I drink a cup of tea, I listen to music, I go dancing, I call a friend. Ah, interesting. So, one thing to know is that self-compassion is not just mental training, a lot of self-compassion is behavioral practice. Because, let's face it, we can only meditate for, you know, a few hours a day max, usually 30 minutes. What are we doing the rest of our lives? Meditation is training for real life. And we can actually practice self-compassion in real life behaviorally all the time. And it will surely feed back into your meditation practice.
Speaker 1 · 20:29You know, I think many of us can agree that the more we teach mindfulness, the more we end up teaching self-compassion. And these practices are so helpful. I recommend everyone check out the Mindful Self Compassion workbook and Teaching the Mindful Self Compassion Program, the Center for Mindful Self Compassion. It's been a pleasure and an honor to have you join us today, Chris. Thank you so much.
