You Need These 3 Things for Real Self-Compassion | Dr. Kristin Neff

Episode 7 features Dr. Kristin Neff, pioneering researcher and author, in a powerful conversation on self-compassion, shame, and the deeper work required for real emotional change.

Dr. Neff shares insights from over 20 years of research, breaking down what self-compassion actually is and why it goes far beyond positive self-talk or affirmations. She explains the three essential components of self-compassion and why missing even one can prevent true healing and growth.

From there, we explore how the nervous system shapes our responses, the hidden role of shame in anxiety and depression, and why learning to stay present with our pain is necessary for transformation. This episode invites a more honest, grounded approach to growth one that requires awareness, courage, and responsibility.

This conversation challenges the idea that being hard on yourself leads to success. It calls you into a deeper understanding of self-compassion one that includes accountability, boundaries, and the willingness to face what you would rather avoid.

What we cover:

 • The three components of self-compassion: mindfulness, kindness, and common      humanity
 • Why self-criticism is not an effective long-term motivator
 • The difference between self-esteem and self-compassion
 • How shame fuels anxiety, depression, and people-pleasing
 • The role of the nervous system in emotional regulation
 • Fierce self-compassion and setting boundaries
 • Learning to stay present with pain instead of avoiding it
 • Personal stories from Dr. Neff including her experience raising her son
 • Authenticity and the courage to face what we would rather avoid

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Shame is actually the most uncomfortable feeling to have. Negative mind states are glued together by shame.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

There are people that motivate you and then there are people that inspire you. Dr. Kristen Neff is my guest today.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Compassion is a better motivator than self-criticism. 95% of what we think and feel and experience is generated outside of conscious awareness. So why are we taking it so personally?

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to Capacity Combos. I'm Raquel Hopkins, and this is a space for thoughtful conversations about who we become when life asks more of us. Here we talk with people whose lives and work reflect real capacity, how they stayed engaged, made hard decisions, and grew without shrinking in the face of challenge. This is where we explore what life demanded, and the moment you realize I can hold more than I thought. Hello everyone. Welcome back to Capacity Combos. Today I am talking to someone that I am inspired by. I don't know if you've ever heard me say this, but I say that there are people that motivate you, and then there are people that inspire you. And Dr. Kristen Neff is my guest today, and I am inspired by her because this body of work, this book here, is a reflection of someone who has lived experiences, and it's not just theory. Like I could feel the integrity in the sense of the honesty that came through. She's an educator, she holds a PhD, but this book has substance and it has depth, which is why I'm so excited to talk to you today. So welcome, Dr. Kristen Nev. Thank you so much for coming on Capacity Combos. I will turn it over to you so that you can introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Oh, thanks, Raquel. I'm really honored to be here. Yeah. So, and also I really am touched by what you said. I mean, it is true. So I am an academic researcher and I've been researching self-compassion for over 20 years now. But, you know, maybe I'm not a good scientist because I learned self-compassion first and I saw the impact it had on my personal life. And mainly I do the research just to kind of prove what I already know, which is that self-compassion just can radically change your life. You know, I actually learned about it when I was first learning mindfulness meditation. And I was like in a really low place in my life. I I gotten married young and divorced young, was feeling shame and just feeling badly about myself. And when I went to this mindfulness meditation course, and the woman leading the course said, you know, you should be compassionate to yourself as well as others. It's like I'd never even considered that before, that I could intentionally be kind and supportive and compassionate like I have been to others. And then when I started treating myself with kindness and support, it just made a huge difference. And it's continued to throughout my whole life.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, we talk about self-compassion and kindness a lot. I think what you did or your body of work did was it added this substance and debt that was missing, I believe. Because when we talk about being kind to yourself, it's speaking positively to yourself. And a lot of people are doing those things today. But when you broke it down and you say self-compassion has to involve or entail these three things, which we'll get into. I don't want to go there yet, but I would tell you that as I was reading this book, there was a shift for me. You you talked about your childhood and you talked about attachment theory and you you identified the context of how you had gotten into some relationships. You shared some of your personal stories. And the shift for me was this narrative from who will care for me to am I willing to care for myself? And I think in the book, you actually say that we can soothe and comfort our own pain because we're available to ourselves 24-7.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's amazing if you happen to have friends or family or or a significant other who can be there for yourself. It's not to replace them, but sometimes even if we have really caring, loving people in our lives, we often dismiss it and oh, they're just saying that because, you know, they're my friend or because that's my mother, right? Uh we don't believe it. And so we need to be there for ourselves. And also recall, just to make a slight distinction, because it's an important one, it's not just saying positive things to yourself. I mean, it is positive. Compassion and kindness are positive, but it's not papering over the the hard stuff. Like if you really messed up, it's like acknowledging, wow, I really messed up. If you hurt someone, it's you have to be able to be with the fact that wow, that's I feel so bad that I hurt someone. So compassion, that the word passion, you know, in the Latin, like the passion of the Christ, the suffering of the Christ, that word passion refers to suffering. And so we need to be able to open up to our suffering, whether it's caused by ourselves or other people. We need to be able to be with it, even though it's the last thing in the world we want to do. So that's positive talk is a way of like making the pain go away too quickly. We need to be able to open to it and like honor the fact that, wow, this is really hard, this hurts, in order to give ourselves compassion. So that's a slight distinction from maybe, you know, positive thinking or positive affirmations.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, no, you talked about that in the book, and honestly, I felt seen because I remember a few years ago, I was thinking to myself, like just saying positive affirmations wasn't necessarily challenging my core to get honest about some areas where I was evaluating my worthiness. So I love that you make that distinction because I was very similar to your friend in the sense that why am I gonna do positive affirmations just to fool myself when I know that I still feel inadequate in some ways. I haven't necessarily leaned into my truth in a lot of ways. So I love that you say that.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

We don't want to BS ourselves. No, we don't. Most people who do that are narcissists who can't see themselves clearly. And but I mean, I say that, but kind of half seriously. A narcissist might be very kind to themselves, but they BS themselves. They can't admit any failures, they can't acknowledge their mistakes. It's actually not healthy.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

I took sections of your book to break down, right? And of course I'm biased because I've loved it for so many different reasons. But you said something, another thing that I thought was really powerful. You said the process of pain is the same, even though the triggers and circumstances differ. And that brings me into the three things that are required in order to truly have this skill of practicing self-compassion. Can you speak to that a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, absolutely. And so when people think of self-compassion, they they do think of the warmth-kindness aspect, but it's like a three-legged stool. You need all three in order for this to be stable and healthy. Um, so the first is actually mindfulness. It's kind of what we were talking about. We have to be real with ourselves. We have to see clearly what's happening, right? So if we try to like paper it over with positive thinking, pretend it's not there, then we aren't really acknowledging the truth of what's happening. We hurt, you know. Also, if we try to like sugarcoat it or you know, blame it on other people, if we can't acknowledge maybe when we've made a mistake, the pain of that, or acknowledge when maybe you know someone's hurt us and we'd really not rather it be that, we we actually can't give ourselves compassion. So mindfulness refers to awareness, the ability to be authentically real with ourselves when difficulties are rising. That's actually the first step. You know, if you if you think of an analogy of, you know, treating yourself like a good friend, if a friend called you up on the phone and either you didn't pick up the phone, you couldn't give them compassion, or sometimes we do something else. I I call it over-identification. Sometimes we're aware that we're hurting or that we made a mistake, but it's like talking right over our friend. You know what I mean? So we just like we get lost in our emotions. We we run away with the dramatic storyline and there's no presence, there's no awareness. We're just lost, we're like off to the races. And we can't give ourselves compassion in that case either. We need some space, we need to be aware of what we're feeling, but in a spacious way so that we aren't lost in it or ignoring it. So it's kind of like a balance. So that's what that's the first element of mindfulness.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

I want to go to the mindfulness uh because in the book you talk about awareness of awareness. And I remember when I was trying to get into meditation, I really struggled with meditation. So I thought that my ability to become mindful wasn't there. But what I've learned is mindfulness is accepting life or reality as it is, like that moment that's in front of you. And I actually have an example from yesterday. So I don't like a lot of papers or stuff on the countertops. I don't like a lot of stuff. And you're very neat. I I'm neat. I like things a certain way. I'm rigid in that sense. And we had some things on the uh, a lot of papers on the counter from the mail. And water spilled over yesterday. And I was not mindful because I was like, why do we? I didn't my husband, why do we have all this stuff on the uh paper? And now that he understands my work, he hit me with one of my own lines. You're doing it again. Okay. And I immediately tapped into like, what am I actually feeling? So, like the the course reaction of rather than blaming him or bring blaming my children for the mess that's on the counter, it was all right, I just got frustrated because I prefer for things to be a certain way. And I forgot that, you know, accidents happen, right? I'm moving groceries, all those things. And that was the mindfulness creeping in. It's learning how to use that internal data so that you can decide how you want to show up going forward. And that skill has been so game-changing for me. In fact, when I'm working with clients, I tell them, let's just stick with the basic emotions. If you are able to identify that basic emotion, and then of course there are other things that come from that, you can start to practice being more mindful. So I love that you how you explained it in your book because it actually felt like something tangible that you can grasp versus, you know, whether, I mean, I know that meditation is great and some people do very well at it, but I am more of a practical, uh, more practical person.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

So yeah, you don't have to meditate to learn meditation. I mean, it is very helpful because what meditation does, it like it quiets the noise. So you can kind of watch how your mind operates moment by moment. But but it's not necessary. It's basically just, you know, being aware of what's happening as it's happening. And so what happens, like so normally, and by the way, everyone is reactive, it's built into our nervous system. I react after 30 years, I'm so reactive. So, you know, it is the human condition. So don't hopefully we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

That's why I like you because you consistently refer to the human condition throughout the book, which centers self-compassion almost as a developmental skill. It's not something that someone's gonna teach you once and then you just have it forever, right? It's this yeah, it's a cycle.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

And our nervous system isn't designed for it. That's why we got to be kind to ourselves, because our nervous system is designed to react. You know, if you're if you're an animal and a lion jumps out at you, you gotta run for the hills, right? You don't have time to think about, oh, I'm aware that a lion is jumping out at me. It's like you need to react. The problem is, is when you know the papers on your counter get water on them and you react with the same intensity as if a lion has jumped out at you. There's no threat. Not as helpful. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

There's no there's no danger.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, but the body doesn't know that, you know. So you gotta step in and help our our our poor bodies, which are just trying to protect us is totally natural. But so so mindfulness allows us to respond rather than react. So we accept what's happening in the moment, right? So this frustration is arising, and we don't try to like fight it and make it go away in the moment, because if we do that, if we react, or in your case, the thing that happened that you didn't like was my counter's a mess, right? So we need to accept in the moment that my counter is a mess and this frustration is arising, but it doesn't mean in the next moment we can't change it. So we respond rather than react because we we, you know, react is just, you know, getting angry or blaming people or getting really frustrated. That's not very helpful. What mindfulness helps us do by just getting a little bit of space. Oh, I'm aware that I'm frustrated because the counter is messy. Then, you know, you still may want to do something about the counter being messy. You still may want to ask your husband or your kids to say, you know, this is really important to me, uh, order is really important, and you know, and so we let's let's make a plan, but you do it more from a place of clarity, and mindfulness is what gives you that clarity. And then so bringing it back to self-compassion, right? So let's let's imagine that you're judging yourself for getting so angry, right? The mindfulness, instead of getting lost in that judgment and saying, Oh, I'm so horrible, I'm such a bad person, I mean, I'm a bad mom, I'm a mad wife, all those, all those stories, you just say, ah, you know, like, like, okay, I'm feeling badly right now. It's this is what's happening. What do I need in the moment? Right? What do I need? What would be most helpful in the moment? And that naturally leads to the second component of self-compassion, which is kindness, support, that this desire to help ourselves in some way. Yeah. And you know, it's really important to realize compassion isn't just an emotion, it's actually a motivation. If you look at the brain experiencing compassion, the motor cortex gets active. There's this desire to do something, to help in some way. I mean, the mindfulness is kind of accepting what is happening, and kindness is like, what do I need? What would be most helpful right now? Is there a way I can change things that would reduce my suffering or reduce, you know, solve the problem? There may not be. Sometimes there's nothing you can do. And okay, maybe I need to accept that with kindness. But if you can do something, it's not kind just to let it slide, right? The kindest thing to do is to make a change. But it's done not from like you better do it or else, but just because you know, because I cared. I want I want myself and the people I love to be happy and peaceful, et cetera. So you might say mindfulness creates space, creates space around the feelings that are happening. Kindness creates warmth. This is very, very key. And again, it works with the nervous system. So when something happens, like, okay, and by the way, thank you for giving this example at such a I I have more to add to it, but I'm gonna let you go. Papers, papers on the counter. Okay, um, they get wet, you you explode, you snap more than you want to, and then someone reaction might be judgment. I'm so mean, you judge yourself. It's hard to be mindful of painful feelings, like, you know, I'm judging myself or I'm overreacting. Mindfulness creates warmth. In other words, it's okay, Raquel. Everyone react, you know, it finds it happens. It's it's normal, it's human. When you do that, it makes you feel safe. And this goes back to again, it's our evolution. So just as it's natural when we think a lion's chasing us to run for the hills, it's also natural when our parents hold us and comfort us and give us warmth when we're when we're infants and let us know they're there for us. I care about you. We feel safe. And that's really what the warmth of self-kindness is. It helps us feel safe, it helps us feel supported. We also actually do support ourselves. And that actually also helps be mindful. It's easier to acknowledge, especially when what you feel unsafe about is, oh, I really overreacted. I don't really want to admit that. When it's safe, it's okay. You know, I overreacted, ouch. Then this actually makes it easier to be mindful of it. So they kind of mindfulness. They go together because and kindness helps mindfulness.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yes. Yeah. And I think that because I have, I am much more kinder to myself. It's much easier to be mindful of it. In fact, when the the other component to your self-compassion is being able to see that shared humanity or those common experiences. And I think that that is probably one of the hardest. Because previous years ago, I would say that in that same situation, I would have done a bunch of projecting in the sense that it makes sense that I would want my station or this area a certain way. But when I go to overreact, it's okay because I'm justified in my reacting or over-identifying with that frustration that when my husband does it, then it's no longer okay because now you don't feel like a safe space for me anymore. And I think that the more that I have been able to see myself and other people, I don't over-identify as much, which makes it much easier for me to practice all those components that you mentioned in the book. Like I think that that is probably one of the hardest, especially today.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah. It is, it is. Well, and again, there's a lot of reasons for this. Some some of them are just the way our nervous system works. And this is this is a really important aspect of common humanity. Somehow we think that we're supposed to control ourselves and control our minds, and it's somehow because there's something wrong with us as individuals that we overreact, for instance, or that we get angry. This is part of being human. Like it's how part of how we evolved as human beings that our nervous systems are wired this way. Your husband's being human by, you know, people are human, they they make messes. It doesn't mean that you can't come to an agreement that you, you know, that you shouldn't ask for what you need, which may be some more orderliness in your workstation. But you know, we don't have to blame others. We don't need to blame ourselves, right? We're all kind of human beings, doing the best we can in the moment. And so another way of saying this is just we don't need to take things so personally. We take everything so personally, or we make things personal. And when we do that, you know, it just first of all, it's not totally true. So the reason you are the way you are, Rockwell, is because of so many causes and conditions that are that aren't you. Like it might be your family upbringing, it might be your you know, genetic disposition in terms of like how your brain is wired, your nervous system, the larger environment, how stressed you were that day, maybe what you ate for breakfast, you know. There's so many causes and conditions that went in. Exactly. So many causes and conditions that went into how you reacted. You don't have to take it personally. Now that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take responsibility for it. We we like to say it's not your fault. It's not like you did it, but it is your responsibility because who else is gonna make the change? It's like no one else's responsibility. So it's like if we care about ourselves, we will take responsibility and try to help ourselves and the people we care about. We don't have to blame ourselves or take it personally. And we can do the same thing for other people. This is why self-compassion also helps us have compassion for others, because we can just see we're all human beings. We have our, you know, the way our brains are wired, we have the situations we're facing. You know, we can be kind to ourselves and others because, you know, we're all trying to do our best. Immediately our thoughts go to, oh, that we're gonna let our standards slide. It's actually just the opposite. It's it's because of the kindness. If you care about yourself and others and your relationship with your husband, which I assume you do, you're gonna want to come to some agreement that makes, you know, makes it possible for you to work, that that keeps your relationship harmonious. So the motivation for change comes from this kindness element. And that's what it's like that's what I said. It's like a three-legged stool. If if one of these pieces are missing, it's not really very stable.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

I have so many questions from this. I'm I'm gonna slow myself down. Okay. And I'm gonna go back to in doing the the work that I do, a lot of the observations that I make is I don't necessarily see people struggling with the kindness portion today. That's good. Not in the way that people may have in the past, because we have all of these conversations around mental, yeah mental health, right? So people understand the importance of treating yourself well, taking care of yourself. But you also speak in the book about how that too can lead to narcissistic traits and just self-loathing. And I want to come back to this calming humanity portion of it because I think that when it comes to having all three components in order to become self-compassionate to yourself, it really does require confronting our sense of inadequacy or where we don't feel well. And I think that that is really important, which brings me to you shared in your book about our sense of self being shaped by religion or these groups, these social labels. And you mentioned that during your marriage, you you have your son, you all were so excited about having, is it Rowan? Rowan, Rowan. Okay, you have Rowan. He's 24 now. Oh, wow. Okay, okay. Well, you you talk about sort of not ready to lean into is there something wrong with him? And I remember in the book you stated that I finally had the courage to lean into and just jump on Google and look up autism. And you saw, they say, if you see three out of 10 signs, then it's likely that you do. And you saw nine out of 10 signs. And what I appreciate appreciate about your work so much is it wasn't so much about one of the things you say, you say when I would when I would be at the playground, I would say, why isn't my kid normal? And I think that that is so powerful because those are the questions that we usually. Don't truly confront. We'll say that it's hard, it's hard as a parent to raise children in this manner. So I wanted you to speak a little bit more to that because we are seeing people share those challenges today as a parent. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

So as you notice in the book, I'm very honest about it. I put all my dirty laundry in there. To the horror of my mother, who's like, I can't believe you're writing about this. But I'm like, mom, if people think I'm this perfect together person, Dr. Krista Neff, who's like telling people how to have self-compassion without admitting all the reasons why I desperately needed self-compassion, you know, it's not gonna work. That's a signal. You know, yeah, self-compassion gave me this sense of safety, needed to say, here is my dirty laundry, here are all the mistakes I made, the shame I feel. And it is true. You know, we're talking about, you know, as as a mother of a child with autism, everyone admits that, yeah, it's hard, it's painful, but it's almost as if I have to be like, I'm only thinking about my child, not myself. But it's actually not true. There are feelings, first of all, of disappointment. You know, let's just be, let's just be honest about it. My son's just right there. So we'll we'll we'll be uh mindful about how we speak. But you know, there are feelings that we wish we didn't have, but we do just because we're human beings, like is not the plan I signed up for, for instance. So yeah, feelings like you know, it it's self-conscious. I'll help guide.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

I I'll help because I want to be mindful, right? I'll I'll help guide because those feelings that you're referring to, most of us will bypass those and and and and suppress, right? So I I think it's important to highlight that self-compassion does not mean negating negative emotions.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

And including the emotion of shame. In fact, because shame is so, and there is kind of an irrational shame, like, did I do something wrong? Or, you know, is it that margarita I had? Or, you know, um things just one. But you know, you have these thoughts, like, you know, what is it? And and shame, because shame is actually the most uncomfortable feeling to have. And so it tends to go underground. We don't acknowledge it. And when it goes underground, then it causes all sorts of trouble. It's like the glue that keeps in place, you know, so sadness, if there's shame associated with sadness, we don't recognize that it may turn into depression or anxiety. And a lot of things that are really, we call them pathologies, but really uh destabilizing or really not healthy negative mind states are glued together by shame. So we need to be able to look at it and acknowledge it, you know, even though it's painful. And when we do, one of the beautiful things about self-compassion is it dismantles shame, right? So, so instead of feeling isolated, we feel our common humanity. Instead of like over-identifying, you know, I am just because I did something bad or I am bad, you know, we have mindfulness. And again, the kindness instead of the judgment, we have, we have the warmth and care. So it really helps us be aware of difficult feelings like shame, like disappointment, feelings you think you aren't supposed to have. And what happens is you hold them in mindful awareness. You remember, I'm not alone. It's so normal to feel this way. I don't need to take this personally. And then you give yourself kindness and support, just like you would to a friend who said, I'm feeling this, you know, because of my child or anything else. It allows things, it's it's almost like alchemy. Things arise, you hold it, and it transforms, not through force, but through love. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

It's really But you have to learn to hold it. You have to learn to hold it.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

You have to learn to hold it, you have to be willing to hold it. The biggest motivator is suffering because after a while you think, this isn't working for me. The fighting, the blaming, the repressing, it's not working. Let's try another way.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yeah. Identity, belonging, and and group superiority that you speak. You said that group identity often is rooted in superiority, and research backs up that violent conflict is linked to group identity. And I wanted you to speak to that a little bit more because labels are popping up every single day, because we do have that sense of belonging, that yeah, wanting to feel connected to something very similar to you, you could find a community of parents, and I'm sure you may have that community, but yeah, the balance between saying that my pain is not unique because I'm a mother that lives with a child that lives with autism.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

So let me bring up a couple of points because you raised a really important issue. The first one, I just want to talk a little bit about the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion. So self-esteem is a judgment of worth and it's usually it's contingent, it's conditional. So it may be, you know, I need to feel special and above average. It's not if I said Raquel, yeah, your podcast, it's average, or if you said Kristen, your book, it was average, we'd both be you know, like crushed. It's not okay to be average. So we're always comparing ourselves to others. I don't want to reduce prejudice to social comparison, it's also about power and resources and all that stuff. So nonetheless, it's partly about I want to feel that my group is superior to another group. And that's any group.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

It's religion. I mean any group. Yeah, it's any group. In your book, you speak to Buddhism and you also speak to Christianity.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Like exactly. If you have to get your self-esteem by because my group identity is better than this other identity, then you suddenly start having to put other people down to puff yourself up. Like bullying, for instance. One of the reasons the young kids bully is they want to feel good in comparison to someone else. So that social comparison can have some really nasty consequences. And by the way, we have to remember so much of this is unconscious. So when you're part of a marginalized group, so whether it's a woman and so it's we're both women and maybe internalizing stereotypes that, you know, we aren't as good as math, or somehow we aren't as competent, or we shouldn't be too aggressive or too assertive, right? And then obviously racial stereotypes, like again, even if you don't believe it consciously and you know absolutely it's not true, you've kind of your unconscious has absorbed these things. And these things start can affect our sense of self-worth. Again, consciously or not. So that's why self-esteem is not, it's like a fair weather friend. It's not very stable because it's conditional and it can go up and down. So compassion, it's unconditional because all you need to do to have self-compassion is to be a flat human being, right? It's not based on being better than anyone else or your group being superior or even your own personal achievement. I also have to make clear that it doesn't mean I so some some people take away, like, well, we're all one and you know, all suffering is the same. No, of course not. I mean, come on, there are people dying in war zones right now, and we're in our comfortable homes doing this. There's privileged groups generally suffer less than people who've been marginalized. So it acknowledges that there are differences in the type of suffering and the amount of suffering people experience.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Absolutely. Which brings me to something because in this book, you so beautifully stated that there's a difference between judgment and discriminating wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

That's that was good. That was good, Dr. Christ.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, yeah. So, um, and I think I was maybe talking more about uh myself, but you can also use this as a general principle, you know, self-judgment versus discriminating wisdom. But you can use it as a general principle. So we don't judge in the sense of blame or saying like one group is valuable and the other group's not, or that other people are valuable, but we're not. But we do have discriminating wisdom. We can, you know, say, is what I'm doing okay or not? Is it helpful or not? Is what someone else doing is doing okay or not, or helpful or not? Also, Rakwal, I don't know if you read my book, Fear Self-Compassion yet.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

No, I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Called Fierce Self-Compassion, which you might like. Because one of the things people tend to see self-compassion is just about acceptance and accepting our pain and you know, being kind to ourselves. But it's not kind to accept social injustice. You know, it's not kind to accept it when someone's crossing your boundaries. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is to be fierce, to say no, to speak up, you know, to make social change. That's a really key part of self-compassion. And so my fierce self-compassion book, I really talk about that, like how social justice movements. I talk a lot about gender in that book, because I actually wrote it when the whole me too thing was happening. But, you know, also racial injustice or religious oppression, all those types of um, all the ithums, so to speak. It's not compassionate to accept them. It's the compassionate thing to do is to raise our voices and say no. It's a really key part of it. Also, boundaries. You know, I love what Prentice Hempel says. Boundaries is the line where I can love you and me simultaneously. So it doesn't mean we say, you know, we need to meet our needs and not your needs, but it certainly doesn't mean I need to subordinate my needs to your needs. It's like every human being has value and worth and our job, and it's not easy, but we need to try to figure out how can we love everyone, how can we respect everyone's needs in a way that's fair and just and equitable. So that's that's all that's a really important part of self-compassion that people aren't really necessarily aware of.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

Yeah. Oh my gosh. You okay. I know it's so good. It's so good because when I think about the work that I do with, I think that your book speaks to a lot of how a lot of us struggle without knowing it because we also live in a culture today where everybody wants to be seen, heard. And there is a place for that.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

But it could also pull us away from being or learning the skills of being self-compassionate. I mean, I think about my myself. I was having this conversation the other day. So I talk a lot about capacity, like who you become in the face of adversity, social injustice. And I've haven't taken a stand on what I think as a black woman. And I think that some people would prefer for me to do that.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Ah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

And for me, it's the way that I move throughout life. I support people that I know that would not usually have the resources and or support, but I don't feel that I have to scream it out loud. Right. But I'm also mindful of putting myself in the category of me being superior to others because the most important thing to me is creating a better world for my children. And I don't know that I can do that if I create so much separation between you and I. It's one thing, okay, we're both women, but you're white, I'm black. Like if I start to create that separation, I think that I create more of what we have in the world. And I don't want to be a part of that.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

So that's so beautiful that you're taking your own path. I mean, I think self-compassion tells us we each need to take our own path. And what you're pointing to, I mean, it's actually quite wise. I think what you're pointing to, at one level, there are real differences, the way we're treated because of the color of our skin is different. And yet, do we have to take that personally? It's kind of what you're saying. Like, it's not, it's not personal. We're both human beings worthy of care and kindness and support.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

But you have to truly believe that, which goes to what you talk about in the beginning of the book. Like, we have to be willing to confront our own sense of inadequacy. And if we're not willing to confront those inadequacies, because there was a time where I felt inadequate or other groups, I felt inferior to other groups. And as I've walked my own path, and you you mentioned this in this book, when you really start to learn the art of self-compassion, it can truly lead to unconventional choices.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

And that intrinsic motivation that I have today to where I'm no longer evaluating my worth or making these social comparisons has opened up the world, so many possibilities today where I've gotten to connect with all people. And that is something that I really do appreciate because when it's all said and done, I want to be able to look back over my life and say that I truly have no regrets. Like I do think about my children today and the role that I play in their suffering too.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Interesting. Right. So hopefully not not, yeah. And that's good. The role you play, hopefully not taking it too personally, you're blaming it. No, no, no, no. Because they're gonna have pain. Pain is inevitable. Pain is inevitable. Yeah, yeah. But how much we suffer from that pain, as you know, is kind of is is optional, or at least it at least there's more room, room to play. Yeah, no, I I just love that. And I think what you're really, what you're really embodying, and we also do find this in the research. So your experience is, you know, very you it's it's beautiful, but it's also what happens when you really take self-compassion seriously, is it helps us, first of all, be authentic. That's actually one of the strongest findings of the research literature, is that when your sense of worth comes from the inside, when it's intrinsic, when you can take risks because you know that you'll catch yourself when you fall, it allows you to be authentic. Study after study shows this. And the other thing it does is that when you ask yourself, what do I need, it gives us space to think about, well, what do I value? You know, what I need is totally connected to what I value because it's gonna be different for each person. And it allows us to like work, you know, try to fulfill our values, or I should say, um, get it in alignment with our values. And that's that's clearly what's happening with you, which is so beautiful to see.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Yeah. I was thinking about as you learn to become more self-compassionate with yourself. I also believe that it becomes much easier for you to take responsibility for your life as well. Because it is, yeah. If my worth isn't on the line anymore, I'm not judging myself for being human or just the limitations of being human. I remember what I was gonna say earlier, too, now, Dr. Kristen F. You what you do Dr. Kristen, sorry, this hurts. What you do?

SPEAKER_01 36:34

You want to call me Dr.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Kristen, you can, but what you do so well in that book is you do not pathologize what makes us human. You acknowledge in the book that we have these thoughts and these emotions that we absolutely have no control over, which is why we can have all of these thoughts or those shameful thoughts that we tend to label like that is part of being human. But for the person that is brave and courageous enough to lean into, why don't I have, like, for example, the normal kid that could run around on the playground, very similar to those, those are the people that end up living that very authentic and feeling autonomous, like they have some control over their lives. Because it takes me to the other thing that you talked about in the book, it was about fear. That's what I wanted to get to. This go for and self-compassion, but I'll let you do it. This is your work. I love this work. I love this work because there's substance, there's depth. I crave substance and depth. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

And I just love the way you're you're um making it your own. And like, I'm I'm so glad that you're interested and are helping to like spread the word in your own unique way. It's just that's also inspiring for me. But okay, so let me talk about two things. I just have to make a point. Some people may not be aware of because we think we are our thoughts and emotions. We think we have control of them. What the psychology shows 95% of what we think and feel and experience is generated outside of conscious awareness. It's either subconscious or unconscious. It's linked to so, again, like so many factors that we shouldn't choose. And so why are we taking it so personally? You know, if you think about it. And that's what mindfulness helps us do. We don't identify with it. It's like, it's not me. It is happening. We don't want to pretend it's not happening. And it and ironically, when we don't take it so personally, it helps us take responsibility. And this comes back to fear, the sense of safety, when our when our whole sense of self-worth isn't dependent on getting things right or, you know, being perfect, then it gives us a sense of safety. Remember, I talked about what mindfulness gives space, which isn't really important. We don't identify, we don't fuse with the thoughts and emotions, but the kindness gives a sense of warmth, and the common humanity gives a sense of connection. So we don't feel so alone. And so those things are precisely not only dismantle shame, also dismantle fear. Right. What happens when fear arises? Right? We feel all alone, we feel like inadequate and we can incapable of dealing with it. We feel like we're usually fused with the fear. We get, you know, kind of like all we can think about is our fear, we get, you know, lost in worry um or anxiety. And then sometimes just to like get that extra kick in, we judge ourselves. I shouldn't be feeling fear. Something's wrong with me for feeling fear, which of course just makes the fear worse. Uh so there's reason this is so okay. Let me put my science hat on a little bit. Do you talk with your audience about the the nervous system and sympathetic comparisons?

SPEAKER_00 39:37

No, but I would love for you to, because everybody wants uh a calm nervous system today. In a lot of ways, I don't think that that's reality, but I'll I'll let you speak to it.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

So there's two main aspects of the nervous system. There's what's called a sympathetic nervous system, and that's basically fight, flight, or freeze. And so when we f experience some sort of danger or threat, whether that threat is I'm a bad person, very threatening, or whether that threat is someone's judging me or someone might judge me, or whether that threat is like something actually really stressful and threatening in the environment, we very naturally go into fight, flight, or freeze. So our sympathetic nervous system gets activated. We release like cortisol and adrenaline. We it's kind of like it's funny when my when my son's threatened, he's like, he just, you know, he's like, okay, I sound as our eyes get bigger, we get we go into freak out mode, is the non-scientific way to put it. Totally natural because again, we needed this system to escape from lions and predators as as we evolved as as mammals. But unfortunately, now when it's something like and react that way for something that's not actual an actual lion chasing us, we often turn the fight, flight, or freeze response inward and we fight ourselves. We you know, either to judge ourselves or because maybe to beat others through the punch, right? Because we're afraid of being judged, and we flee into a sense of shame and isolation, or we freeze and we ruinate and get stuck. So fear activates um the sympathetic nervous system very naturally. We didn't choose this evolution, or you might say God chose it, right? If you want to, if you want to think of it that way. But it's not the only nervous system we have. We also have what's called the parasympathetic nervous system. So sometimes this is called the care system or the tend and befriend system. So evolution wants us to survive personally, so our genes can be passed down to future generations, but it also wants our kin, our family members, and our close in-group members to survive because we share genes with them. And those genes, if we protect our family members and people close to us, then that also helps the genetics pass on to future generations. That's kind of how evolution works, right? So this other system evolved, uh, which is called again the care system, the parasympathetic nervous system. And sometimes it's called the rest and digest system. It's what allows us to feel safe. It actually counteracts the fear that's that arises when when our um parasympathetic when our sympathetic nervous system is triggered. It's kind of a a lot of information, but I guess the reason I like to talk about it is first of all, it is so natural. You didn't choose it, you know? It's because you're a mammal. Blame being a mammal. That's that's why it works. But here's here's the interesting thing. When we give ourselves compassion, there's research that shows like when you put your hands on your heart, some physical gesture, it actually changes your nervous system. All the things associated with sympathetic, things like cortisol reduce, things associated with parasympathetic, like heart rate variability increase. It would actually literally calm down our nerve our nervous system. Especially, that's why uh when we get to how to practice this, I love talking about physical touch because it's like the easiest direct way to give yourself compassion. Babies, the first way they learn that they're loved and cared for is their parents touch them. You know, so we can do that with ourselves. It helps actually work with the nervous system, reduce fear. We feel safe when we know I got your back, I'm here for you, I'm not gonna judge you, I'm not gonna shame you, I'm not gonna abandon you. You know, and that's that's largely how it works. Um, it's it's you can see I'm so so excited about it because it's almost like a miracle that this stuff works, but it does. I mean, there's over it's over 10,000 studies now, Raquel. This is this is I'm not making it. It's good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

No, and I and I love the research that you have behind it. One of the I I really resonated with your story because last year when I went viral, I don't, I'm not a researcher, I don't talk, but I do understand what's being said about mental health. So I chose to just talk about it in a way that I felt would connect with people. Like taking the academia jargon and just breaking it down to like common, common language. And then people are like, where's the research? Because it didn't feel good in terms of what I was saying. Probably still does. I want to go because I know that you have to go, but you talked about in the book, you talked about self-criticism, being motivated by self-criticism and self-compassion. And on the self-criticism, what was interesting to me, and you said that research backs this is people that are more self-critical of themselves, they conform because they don't want to risk judgment or rejection. And I thought, like, hmm, that's so good. Like I can't share this book with everyone, but people pleasers, uh-huh. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah. There's a couple things I'd like to talk about. So A, one, yeah, it helps you not be a people pleaser. If your worth comes from the inside, you know, so if you're very cr self-critical and perfectionistic, it's often because you're trying to want other people to like you and accept you. So it's kind of you might say the source is external, not internal.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

It's fear that's still driving it though.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

It's it's fear that's driving it. Fear of being judged, fear of being rejected, fear of not being liked. Actually, the number one reason we found in the research people aren't self-compassionate is because they think they need to be harshly self-critical to motivate change or to get them going or to get their work done or to reach their goals. It's actually untrue. Compassion, we have the research, is a better motivator than self-criticism. Because what self-criticism does is yeah, it gets you gets you to pay attention and maybe you work a little harder because you don't want to slam yourself with criticism, but it creates performance anxiety and fear of failure. I mean, so for instance, we did it, we just did our study with athletes, and you see it with athletes all the time. Like, you know, I just watched the Super Bowl yesterday, right? In big games, we're so like afraid of failing. And you know, if we're critical on ourselves, it creates performance anxiety, which makes it works against your ability to do your best. We actually taught athletes to be like a compassionate, kind coach to themselves as opposed to a harsh coach. By the way, a good coach gives accurate feedback. They don't like BS you. They say this is what you need to improve, but they do it because they care, not because they think you're you suck. You're a piece of, you know, whatever. And it's more effective. And we actually found the athletes who motivated themselves with self-compassion, they it improved their performance. So, you know, it kind of makes sense if you think about it, but it's just such a natural instinct, motivate yourself with um criticism. It's not as effective.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

It's not sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Clear, honest feedback, and it allows you to learn from your mistakes. We know, hello, failure is our best teacher, and we kind of don't want to accept it.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Yeah, nobody wants to fail to today because you actually would have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Failure personally, it's just like, oh, another opportunity to learn.

unknown 46:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

And then people who who have that attitude do learn more and they perform better in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

And learning what you're teaching in this book, I do think it offers us the opportunity to like freedom and peace and liberation. And I love talking about like our reaching our full potential. And I know that that's very subjective, but it still doesn't change that as long as you're here on this earth and you're a living, breathing human being, like opening yourself up to what life, how life is trying to shape you, because we know that it's always shaping us, whether we want it to or not. You might as well activate some of that autonomy and that agency.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Yeah, well, and I and I kind of love where you're going with this, Raquel, because so for me, self-compassion, I study it, but it's also part of my spiritual path. Think about what's happening with self-compassion. Normally we're identified with self. I'm limited, I'm flawed, we feel separate from everyone. What's happening with self-compassion is we're doing a perspective shift. We aren't so focused on a self, we're actually in a field of compassionate presence. We feel loving, our hearts are open, we feel connected, we feel present. Those are actually really positive, beautiful feelings. And if you do have some sort of, you know, religion or spiritual path, when you kind of take the perspective of loving connected presence, what you're doing is you're going beyond your small separate self. And it can be very inspiring, very beautiful, very healing to rest in that field of compassionate presence.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

So I want to be mindful of your time. I just want to like if you want to come back after I read your other book, you're welcome to come back because I would love to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

I'll be back after you read Fears Self Combasion. I'd really love your opinion on it. I mean I'm I'm I'm not actually I'm actually worried about your opinion on it.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

This is powerful. You know, there are books that are foundational. I think though to really grasp this book, you're gonna have to be open to growth because you can't have self-compassion without all three of those things. And I think that that really stretches people. So, Dr. Kristen, please tell people where they could find you, where they can engage more in your work. I know that you have your community, so I'll let you go.

SPEAKER_01 48:50

Yeah, yeah. So if you just Google self-compassion, you'll find me. My website is selfcompassion.org. I got a lot of free resources on there. You can take the self-compassion scale, measure your own level if you want. I've got like free practices, exercises. I talk about it. And then if you want to go further, um, I actually run something called the Self-Compassion Institute. And we I I teach workshops, you can get life coaching, but I also have started this community is a community of people who are really dedicated to bringing self-compassion in their lives. And um, and by the way, it's like we offer scholarships, please don't let money be any sort of barrier. If that's an issue for you, we don't let we don't we don't turn anyone away, basically. So if this is something that moves you, I would say please start at selfcompassion.org. And there are resources available. It's what I've been doing for the past 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 49:41

So when I go to drop this episode, I'm going to gift someone access into that community. I I think that your work and what you're doing is amazing. Thank you so much for not just sharing the research and the education, but for sharing your self in this book. It is absolutely amazing. So honored to have had you on today, and thank you so much for your time. This conversation calls you to pause or reflect on how you're showing up in your own life. That's intentional. Capacity is revealed in the moments we choose engagement over retreat. Thank you so much for spending time with us. I'm Raquel Hopkins and this is Capacity Combos. If you're looking to continue to engage with me, I would encourage you to follow me on Instagram. You can search me by Raquel the Capacity Expert. It's Raquel underscore the underscore capacity underscore expert. Until next time.