How Self-Compassion Can Heal Physical Pain & Transform Mental Health

Dustin Grinnell (00:00:00 --> 00:02:50)
I'm Dustin Grinnell, and this is Curiously.

Today we have a fascinating conversation ahead with an expert in the field of self-compassion. But before we dive in, I want to share a personal story that led me to explore the power and potential of self-compassion. About 7 years ago, I found myself in a frustrating and painful situation. I was dealing with low back pain that just wouldn't go away, despite trying everything from physical therapy to chiropractic work and various other treatments. It was the one physical problem I couldn't seem to solve, and it was taking a toll on my life.

Then I learned about an 8-week clinical study at Mass General Hospital that investigated the role of self-compassion in alleviating lower back pain. Curious and somewhat skeptical, I enrolled in the study and attended a 1-day workshop on self-compassion, not knowing what to expect. The workshop was led by 2 incredible individuals, Drs. Chris Germer and Kristin Neff, pioneers in the field of self-compassion. To my surprise, the path to healing began with simple acts of being kinder and gentler to myself.

Every day, I listened to Chris's recordings, which encouraged me to say soothing and nourishing phrases to myself, like, "May I know that I am safe," and "May I know that I'm doing the best under these circumstances," and "May I know that I'm a good man." As the weeks went by, the pain began to dissolve, and I felt a deep transformation taking place within me. It was incredible how acknowledging and embracing my own humanity, flaws, and vulnerabilities played a pivotal role in my recovery. Gradually, I returned to my old self—motivated, optimistic, and physically active. Now, years later, I have the privilege of talking with Dr. Chris Germer, who is a world-leading authority on self-compassion. Chris is also a licensed psychotherapist who practices mindfulness and compassion-based therapy in Arlington, Massachusetts.

He's also a part-time lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a founding faculty member of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion. His books include The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy, and mindfulness in psychotherapy. Dr. Germer lectures and leads workshops internationally, and you can find more of his work on his website at www.chrisgermer.com. In this conversation, Chris and I delve into the science behind self-compassion, address some common misconceptions, understand its applications beyond physical pain, and explore how it can positively impact our mental and emotional well-being. So without further ado, let's welcome our esteemed guest and explore the world of self-compassion.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:52 --> 00:02:55)
Chris Germer, welcome to Curiously. Thanks.

Chris Germer (00:02:55 --> 00:02:56)
It's great to be here.

Dustin Grinnell (00:02:56 --> 00:03:24)
So yeah, I really appreciate you coming on to talk about the field of self-compassion. You're an expert in that field. And I figured before we start unpacking this subject a bit more, if we could just kind of start off with some key terms. And defining some words that will be helpful in our journey in exploring self-compassion. So how do you define self-compassion first? Sure.

Chris Germer (00:03:24 --> 00:05:58)
The informal definition, which I might share with somebody over a cup of coffee, is when we suffer, treating ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we would treat a good friend. And this isn't something we ordinarily do. Usually people are much more compassionate toward others than toward themselves. And when we suffer or fail or feel inadequate, we usually beat up on ourselves. We isolate ourselves in shame and we also kind of ruminate.

So treating ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we treat a good friend, that's the informal definition. And it's also helpful, by the way, if you want to be more self-compassionate, to just ask yourself when things go wrong, hmm, how would I treat a good friend right now? And inevitably, it's a little different than what we might be doing in that moment. And then seeing if we could actually talk to ourselves in the same tone, if we could take ourselves for a walk, if we could prepare some healthy food, if we could listen to some good music rather than beating up on ourselves. So it's not only a definition, but it's even a guide or a prescription.

So that's the informal definition. The formal definition was created by Kristin Neff, my dear friend and colleague, back in 2003. And she is a research psychologist, and she defines self-compassion for the research as having 3 components. One is mindfulness, or knowing what we're feeling while we're feeling it, particularly knowing that we're suffering when we're suffering. Part 2 is common humanity, which is a kind of awareness that when things go wrong in our lives, that this is part of the human condition and we're not being singled out necessarily.

That's really important to stay connected with others in order to be self-compassionate. And then the third part is self-kindness. And that's really the part that most people think about when they think about self-compassion. They think about being kind to ourselves. But actually, self-compassion is all three.

Dustin Grinnell (00:05:59 --> 00:06:18)
Why don't you think we act this way toward ourselves anyway? Like, why is it that we seem to have a bias toward self-judgment or harshness toward ourself versus the way we seem to automatically act with a friend, which is the opposite? Is there an understanding of why that is?

Chris Germer (00:06:19 --> 00:08:24)
And, you know, we hear things like, you know, don't be so full of yourself, think about others and so forth. So we're really strongly encouraged culturally. And this is in every single culture that I've visited around the world. And I've been teaching self-compassion on every continent. You know, most cultures really have a bias toward compassion toward others and attempt to block or exclude ourselves from the circle of compassion.

And that certainly occurs at our own peril, as we can talk about later. But the other thing, Dustin, is that the answer might be purely physiological. So when we feel threatened, the body goes in fight, flight, or freeze. And that's when we're threatened from the outside, in particular physically. But when we're threatened from the inside, the same kind of physiology occurs when we feel bad about ourselves or we criticize ourselves.

The same physiology occurs if we have shame. The same physiology occurs, we feel threatened. And then instead of fight, we turn it on ourselves into self-criticism. Instead of flight, we flee from ourselves, we abandon ourselves, we lose a sense of common humanity. And instead of freeze, physically freezing like a deer in the headlights, we get stuck in our heads and we just ruminate.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:25 --> 00:08:29)
And that suggests the reason for the benefits then, right?

Chris Germer (00:08:29 --> 00:08:32)
Yeah, that's a great observation.

Dustin Grinnell (00:08:32 --> 00:08:46)
We sort of— this harshness toward ourselves is a threat. It's a psychological activation of the fight or flight. Now, is the opposite at play when we're being kinder or gentler with ourselves?

Chris Germer (00:08:46 --> 00:10:13)
Yeah, so there appears to be a physiology of compassion, a physiology of care and connection. And self-compassion is all about care and connection, connection with ourselves and caring for ourselves. And so the physiology of care and connection seems to be kind of anchored in the hormones of oxytocin, which is the love hormone, and the endorphins, which is kind of a feel-good hormone. Whereas the physiology of threat seems to be more linked to adrenaline and cortisol. So if we can actually shift our physiology in that way, from cortisol and adrenaline to oxytocin and the endorphins, we have a much better chance of actually treating ourselves psychologically and emotionally in a kinder way. And there are some people actually doing work like this. I have a colleague named Ina Kazan who does biofeedback for what's called heart rate variability, which is a measure of safety and connection. And she's doing a study now where she's teaching people how to shift their physiology using biofeedback and seeing whether that actually increases a person's ability to learn self-compassion. So shifting the foundation, the physiological foundation.

Dustin Grinnell (00:10:13 --> 00:10:32)
Can you share maybe an example of what someone who's suffering or struggling may actually say or do to themselves when they're in a period of struggle in order to activate these benefits, to practice self-compassion? Sure.

Chris Germer (00:10:32 --> 00:13:01)
And even if you wish, making gentle, gently massaging one's chest or making little circles or back and forth movements. So The physical experience of touching or gently massaging our chest decreases the stress hormone cortisol. And it's easy to imagine this. You don't have to imagine it, you can just do it. But also, this is the kind of thing we might do with a young child who is, you know, suffering.

You know, a parent might just sort of gently rub the child's chest and it has enormous impact. So we can actually do this for ourselves. So that's pathway to experiencing self-compassion, particularly a physiological change through touch. But there are other things you can do. For example, right now as you're listening, if you were thinking of a problem in your life, you know, maybe physical problem or relationship problem, and then, you know, inevitably you would be ruminating about it and having cranky thoughts.

But if you Imagine that a person who really loves you and knows you were to walk into your room right now and were to say something to you that you really need to hear and that would make your heart rest. It might make you say, whew, thanks, I needed that. What would those words be? In other words, what words would land really well for you when you're struggling? So you can actually ask yourself that if something bad happens.

You can ask yourself, what do I really need to hear right now? So you might just think the words like, I love you, or I believe in you, or I trust you, or you've got it, you've got this, or you're trying your best, and you're trying your best, you know, and it's enough. You are enough. Words like this are such a comfort when we feel like we've failed or we feel overwhelmed. So those are two pathways, touch and voice, but there are probably umpteen other pathways.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:01 --> 00:13:33)
And there are also daily practices. The thing I wanted to say before too is that this is really like a— gives credence to the mind-body connection. It really is a practice that activates physiological mechanisms through the power of one's thoughts and perspective. Yes. That's really amazing to think a hand over the heart or saying you're good enough in your imagination changes the levels of actual chemicals in your body and causing a behavioral change. That's wonderful.

Chris Germer (00:13:33 --> 00:13:55)
Yeah. Well, the mind and the body are very linked right now. If you were to think about something horrible, like think about war in Ukraine and think about it in detail, your system is gonna amp right up, you know? And during the pandemic, I mean, everybody was, their systems were amped up. So what we think about has a huge impact on the body.

Dustin Grinnell (00:13:56 --> 00:14:24)
And this is sort of providing an intervention of sorts. Yeah. It's taking control, taking reins. Yeah. And so if you're in the moment, if you're struggling, you can provide yourself comforting touch or say soothing or comforting words. But there are also practices that you've written about in your books, and I'm sure you've done in workshops that you give. What are some of those daily practices that people can do to help practice self-compassion?

Chris Germer (00:14:25 --> 00:17:25)
And these are mind training practices. And then there is also behavioral practices, like how would you treat a friend? Maybe you'd go and listen to music together. Well, can you put on some music? So that's behavioral.

So, but what you're asking about right now, Dustin, is mind training practices that are formal mind training practices. So like meditation. So one meditation, which is really quite simple, which is similar to breath meditation, which probably many of your listeners are familiar with, is called affectionate breathing. So in affectionate breathing, we're meditation. We're not just paying attention or noticing the breath going in and out of the body.

We're actually feeling the gentle rhythm of the breath, in particular the way the breath is internally caressing us, internally comforting and soothing us by its gentle rhythm. And this is a very interesting shift. For example, many people don't like meditation because they say, I can't concentrate, because they think they're just supposed to be focusing on the breath. But if you think about the practice differently, it's still about the breath, but Imagine you're not doing the meditating. Imagine your body is continually and rhythmically rocking you from the inside.

And all you need to do for meditation is to feel the rhythm and allow yourself to be internally rocked and caressed by your breathing. And when your mind wanders, it doesn't mean you've failed in concentration. It means you've just missed the chance to be rocked and caressed by your own breathing. And this really changes the whole context of meditation from work where you kind of want to build concentration and focus to a self-compassion practice where you are actually being nourished from the inside. So that's one formal meditation practice.

Dustin Grinnell (00:17:25 --> 00:18:27)
Yeah, I think this is a good spot to maybe address some common objections people may have? Because I think what you're saying is obviously— we'll talk a little bit about the research that has been done in this field, the explosion of research, in that a lot of what you're saying is evidence-based. And yet still, whatever those forces are, whether they're cultural or personal, I can hear people in my life saying, "Nourishment? Like, soothing words, affectionate breathing, like, come on, like, what is this stuff? It's, it's too soft. You know, it's, and then that's sort of harsh way of putting it. But others may just think, I'm not really allowed to be kind to myself. You know, others may think like, being harsh and self-critical is the path to achievement, you know, sure. So how do you deal with what I imagine are very common objections that these people have? Yeah, yeah.

Chris Germer (00:18:27 --> 00:23:42)
The research shows the opposite. And then the other is the word compassion. You know, I mean, compassion is, it's associated with weakness. You know, Martin Luther King said many times that love and compassion are actually a strength, a force, you know, particularly when put into action. As he did.

But compassion is often associated with tenderness. And when people hear about compassion and growing in compassion, they just think, oh boy, I've got enough of that already. It's just gonna make me more vulnerable or more sensitive, you know? So those are two, just the term self-compassion freaks people out. So first of all, I think it's better often to call it inner compassion, you know, because compassion is internal and external and we just don't want to exclude ourselves So there's that.

But the main misgivings, number one is selfishness. But the research shows that those who grow in self-compassion actually become more compassionate toward others. And in relationships, highly self-compassionate people tend to be more accommodating, less aggressive, and so forth. So self-compassion practice will make you less selfish, not more. Another concern is weakness.

Like I said before, some people think compassion is weak, but what we've learned about self-compassion, in fact, the 5,000 articles on self-compassion show much of the same thing, which is that self-compassion is an internal resource or strength or skill that supports emotional resilience. So for example, in the research, people who are highly self-compassionate and they experience divorce, or severe illness or war trauma, they're way more likely to bounce back and to cope and to not get post-traumatic stress disorder. So it's actually a strength rather than a weakness. Another concern, big concern people have is that, and you alluded to it as well, Dustin, is that it will decrease our motivation. You know, we think that being critical of ourselves actually motivates us.

And the research interestingly shows that people who are high in self-compassion are more motivated to reach their goals, not less. And the reason is pretty obvious, because when you are self-compassionate, you motivate yourself with encouragement and kindness rather than with criticism. So anybody who's had an athletic coach, for example, If your coach said, you know, wow, you know, you're not doing very well today. You know, what's the matter with you? I mean, you're, you're weak.

It's not gonna motivate us to do much. You know, we'll just wanna say, you know, I'm outta here. So I have a, a trainer, a young gym trainer who I was doing pushups and I collapsed. And his response was, Excellent, Chris, working to the point of failure. And I completely reframed it.

I was thinking, damn, I'm too weak. I couldn't produce enough pushups. And he was saying, no, no, no, this is great. You know, you're really, you're working up to the edge of your capacity. I really appreciate that.

That's called motivating. And what's the difference? Difference is attitude. So when our internal attitude is encouraging and it is warm, we're actually more motivated. To achieve our goals.

And the research shows that. And then there are some other concerns. One is that it's going to make us self-indulgent, that we're going to, you know, just lie around and eat bonbons and watch TV. And quite the contrary, people who are high in self-compassion, they have healthier lifestyles. They exercise more, they eat less, they drink less, things like that.

And perhaps the last of the main misgivings is self-pity. People think, oh, if I become self-compassionate and then something goes wrong, I'm just going to kind of curl up into a little ball and be, you know, just feel bad for myself. You know, I won't be able to step out. I'm going to just be, you know, full of self-pity. And the research shows that actually people who are self-compassionate ruminate less.

Dustin Grinnell (00:23:43 --> 00:24:06)
And talk about the research a little bit. You know, what have the last couple decades or, or more shown? And I understand there's been somewhat of an explosion in research in this area. And who's doing that work? Where is it being done? How did it get going? And maybe most importantly, why isn't it more mainstream, given the amount of work going on?

Chris Germer (00:24:07 --> 00:29:18)
20 years ago, and that's when the field basically began. That doesn't mean that self-compassion wasn't understood prior to that. You know, many people, particularly in the Buddhist world, understood that compassion goes in all directions and you don't want to exclude yourself. In fact, by including yourself, you will increase your compassion for others. So it wasn't a new idea, but in the research, it started with Kristin's work in 2003.

And yeah, as I mentioned, there are well over 5,000 articles now, and almost every day new articles come out in the research literature. But I have to say that recently, it hasn't been super interesting because, you know, just about every article shows that self-compassion is good for you. In fact, there's a professor at Duke University, Mark Leary, who who said even 10 years ago that the research is getting a bit boring for this reason, you know, because self-compassion is associated with just about every measure of mental well-being and inversely related to distress. So self-compassion is associated with, you know, really diverse things like wisdom, optimism. I mentioned, you know, psychological resilience, so many different measures, anything you can think of.

Grit, uh, is a big one nowadays. And decreases in stress and anxiety and depression and decreases in suicidality. The research, uh, basically is uniformly positive for self-compassion. So what's happening now in the research— initially it was mostly just seeing, okay, what can we say about people who score high on Kristin's self-compassion scale? But now we're discovering, learning actually, what happens when we teach self-compassion to people.

Can we increase the amount of self-compassion that they have? So it was actually for this reason that Kristin and I created the 8-week Mindful Self-Compassion training program in 2010. To move out of simply correlational research into what happens when we teach. And indeed, most of these measures of positive mental health increase when people learn self-compassion. So the research is doing a number of things.

It's just, it's going into new areas. So for example, uh, with specialized populations such as diabetes, or right now there's some research going on in quality of life for people with cancer. Many different projects. I could, I could, I could spend all day answering that question. But what I think is most helpful going forward, and I, I hope that this work is actually happening, is can we bring self-compassion to underrepresented populations or populations which don't usually have access to training like this?

And particularly populations that are marginalized or oppressed who have been taught culturally and societally to feel shame. Self-compassion is a really powerful antidote to shame. So I would love to see self-compassion going to marginalized communities. And I also like to see self-compassion going into the workplace where there's a lot of suffering. You know, you can't talk about it in the workplace, but there is, and there have been efforts to do that.

And generally speaking, women tend to prefer self-compassion more than men. Men are really caught up a lot in these misconceptions that we were talking about a moment ago. And so for self-compassion to go really mainstream, like you were saying, why hasn't it gone mainstream yet? 5,000 articles, it's been 20 years, why isn't it mainstream? I think the main reason is the misconceptions, actually.

And in particular, I think misconceptions that men have. A lot of the research is now being actually conducted by women, uh, so in order to have a broader reach, I think we need to reach men as well. Men need to see that self-compassion will make them, as the research shows, better leaders. That self-compassion will make their relationships, their intimate relationships, easier and better. Men need to see the benefit of self-compassion.

Dustin Grinnell (00:29:18 --> 00:30:04)
Is there a— just to continue that for a second— is there an example of maybe a man from your workshops or in the book or in your practice who was really skeptical or was really attached to these misconceptions, and yet through their work were able to increase well-being, deal with pain, become more resilient? Was there like a guy who was really hard and came in and, and figured out how to be a little kinder, a little gentler, and it actually worked? Because I do think maybe men in particular kind of have to be a little more practical. Like, you have to really get us to do it and feel it, and then we'll, we'll buy it.

Chris Germer (00:30:04 --> 00:31:18)
Well, yeah, I mean, so once somebody comes through the door, they're already open-minded, right? So the reason why men, I think, haven't quite adopted this as much as women is because they don't know about it. They don't know what it is, you know. But what gets men through the door? Often desperation.

There's a thing called the gift of desperation or creative hopelessness. And both you and I, Dustin, I think, and we are men, we have personal stories. You know, for me, I suffered for 20 years from public speaking anxiety, and in desperation, I learned self-compassion meditation. And it, within 4 months, my public speaking anxiety disappeared. And that's actually what turned my career.

Dustin Grinnell (00:31:18 --> 00:33:58)
I mean, the reason why we had met is because I think it was 7 years ago, I was experiencing some low back pain. Not some, it had turned chronic. It had been lasting for 6 to 8 months or so. And talk about self-judgment, right? I was really beating myself up.

This was a problem, a physical pain syndrome that I could not solve. And I threw everything at it, from physical therapy to psychotherapy to pills, topical solutions, every type of like ergonomic solution you can imagine, right? And I read books and what is going on? And I started to just get into this spiral of beating myself up for not being able to solve this chronic low back pain issue. And then I saw a study at MGH that you and Kristen were part of.

It was a study on how self-compassion, I believe, can influence chronic back pain. And I signed up. And your intervention was, I think, a sort of a day-long workshop where we learned what self-compassion was. We practiced some of your practices. And then we made up our own sayings to ourselves, things we could say to ourselves to increase self-compassion.

And over the period of, I think, 8 weeks, I every day listened to recordings of you saying self-compassionate remarks. You had a 3, 5, and 15-minute recording. And like I said, I'd thrown everything at this problem. I'm quite certain that your and Kristen's workshop and practices had a really strong effect on lowering my low back pain. And then within a year, it was gone, and it has never come back.

And I even still to this day can find myself skeptical about self-compassion for all those 5 main misconceptions you laid out so nicely. And it's sort of remembering to remember. That it works and picking it back up. And I even think some of the things you shared earlier, like putting a hand over your heart or imagining a friend coming in the room and saying something to you that is supportive or nourishing, I'm going to bring that back into my life. And I was wondering, maybe since we're on the personal, you talked about what you did to get better at public speaking.

Chris Germer (00:33:59 --> 00:40:13)
So then, uh, 4 months before I learned self-compassion meditation, in particular, I learned loving-kindness meditation for myself. So this was interesting. I'd never done that before because I, uses words which have meaning, like saying phrases to yourself like, may I feel safe? May I be healthy? May I live with ease?

Things like that. So saying nice things to yourself basically. And I never liked that idea too much. I preferred just working with awareness and consciousness in meditation. But I was on a meditation retreat 4 months before a big conference at Harvard Medical School that I had co-organized, and I knew I'd have to speak.

And so at this retreat, a meditation teacher said, why don't you just sit on your cushion and love yourself? In other words, just say these kind words to yourself. And what was different about it, Dustin, is that I did that and I wasn't saying these things in order to have less anxiety. I started saying these things because I was kind of a broken individual. Who really had no clue how to manage public speaking anxiety.

And this horrifying event was coming up in 4 months where I would have to stand up in front of 600 people and something had to come out of my mouth and I didn't want to be shaking like a leaf. So this was really the gift of desperation. And here's the key part, Dustin. I just started to love myself because not in order to reduce anxiety, but simply because I was a broken person and couldn't do anything about it. And when I did that, just open to kindness in this way, to kind words, to saying really kind things to myself over and over and over again, like every morning for 4 months before this conference.

May I be safe, may I be peaceful, may I be healthy, may I live with ease. Just saying this over and over again. And then whenever I thought about the conference, Rather than kind of seizing up, I would just say, oh, may I be safe, may I be peaceful, may I be healthy, may I live with ease. I just kind of loved myself like I was instructed. And then when the conference actually happened and I was introduced and I got up to speak, I panicked like usual, but there was a new voice in the back of my mind which said, oh, may you be safe, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy, may you live with ease.

And it was also in that tone. It wasn't like, may you be safe, may you be, it wasn't combative. It was just sympathetic. It was compassionate and it had a tinge of, what else are you going to do? Anyhow, so this new voice was there and I got up and then the amazing thing happened is that my fear disappeared and I felt this upsurge of excitement and love.

And I looked out over the audience, and usually the audience is the enemy when you have public speaking anxiety because they can judge you. But I just had the same thoughts, like, in my head was, oh, may you be safe, may you be peaceful. I was just looking out the audience and just wishing that everybody would be safe, peaceful, happy. It wasn't conscious, it wasn't with words, but it was just this goodwill that I had been practicing for 4 months just started to overflow and be directed outward because it was inside. You know, it was inside, it was directed toward me, and it was just, you know, basically the state of mind of loving kindness and compassion.

When we're in that state of mind, it just flows in many different directions. Real compassion is omnidirectional. And so I had that experience right then and there. And from that day onward, I've had no more public speaking anxiety. If I have a little twinge, I'll just once again repeat the phrases, not to make anxiety go away, but just to love myself because this is my Achilles heel, this is my weakness.

And so when it's done in that spirit, it's profoundly transformative. We actually have a saying in the Mindful Self-Compassion training program, what we call the central paradox. Which really makes a difference whether or not people benefit from self-compassion. And that is, when we suffer, we practice not to feel better, but simply because we feel bad. So it's not a slick new strategy for combating what we might be feeling, difficult emotions.

It's a way of loving ourselves in the midst of difficult emotions. It's a way of loving ourselves because we have difficult emotions. It's like a mama taking care of her child just because the child is suffering, not taking care in order to drive it away, you know, just spontaneous expression of kindness. And when we do that, it changes our physiology, it changes our thinking, and it changes our behavior. So in many respects, the practice of self-compassion is there are certain lots and lots of techniques.

Dustin Grinnell (00:40:13 --> 00:40:44)
Yeah, I think the central paradox does seem to be maybe one of the biggest barriers here. Because the benefit of you being more confident as a public speaker was an indirect byproduct of learning to love yourself when you're in a very low place. But I think we're trained to mostly want to go at problems directly. Yeah, how do I solve my anxiety? Or how do I get out of this depression? But this is really an indirect thing. It's the central paradox. Yeah.

Chris Germer (00:40:44 --> 00:43:57)
And there are 3, what we call stages of progress. The first is striving, which is I want to feel better and I want to be a better person, or I want to, you know, improve as a person. The second stage is disillusionment, which is when we discover actually I'm the same person and I still feel bad on occasion. But we have this little bird in our head that says, yeah, but you felt really, really good when you first learned this. So the second stage is disillusionment.

And disillusionment is actually really a good thing because it begins to change our motivation. So when we discover this isn't working, then the magic can occur because then we can love ourselves because it's not working. We can love ourselves because we're suffering. We can love ourselves because we are imperfect beings. As Jack Kornfield says, the Purpose is not to perfect who we are, but to perfect our love, to get better at being kind to ourselves no matter what's going on with us.

And that brings us to the third stage, which is called radical acceptance, which is precisely what I described. You know, what we like to say is that radical acceptance is being a compassionate mess. In other words, we're still human, we're still flawed, we're still uncertain, we still suffer, all these things. We still experience the human, the range of human emotion, but we do it really compassionately. This is the third stage.

This is radical acceptance. So when we have the gift of desperation, that's actually disillusionment. It's like nothing worked. You know, I'm an expert in anxiety disorders and nothing worked. I was actually disillusioned.

I wasn't disillusioned with self-compassion, but I was really open to just loving myself for its own sake. And then it worked. It really worked. And so over time, we go through these stages and sometimes we cycle through these stages again and again and again. But if you notice that you're disillusioned and then you just love yourself for that reason, bang, you're in radical acceptance.

When you're in radical acceptance and you say, oh, cool, man, I got this down. You know, I am the most self-compassionate person in the world. Then immediately we're back in striving, thinking, well, I just got to do more of this and then I'm going to be perfect. And then you're like no longer around. So anyhow, the point is that we bounce in and out of these stages, but to know overall, to love ourselves just because we're human.

Dustin Grinnell (00:43:57 --> 00:44:33)
You know, it's— I'm thinking if I were to turn on the TV and see an ad for a drug or something and it said there are pretty much no downsides, there's no side effects, and all of these upsides that we're talking about to well-being and psychiatric problems, pain problems, the benefits that you've laid out, if there was a drug for this, I mean, it would be a billion-dollar pharmaceutical. I mean, doctors wouldn't be able to, you know, you'd be booked out for years. I mean, and you literally cured public speaking, your public speaking anxiety through self-compassion.

Chris Germer (00:44:34 --> 00:44:37)
So once I was desperate.

Dustin Grinnell (00:44:38 --> 00:45:10)
The creative hopelessness, that's a very interesting phrase, or the gift of desperation. That's interesting. You know, I remember in your workshop when you were saying aloud some of the phrases that we could practice or that you said to yourself. You did say things like— you said nourishing phrases. May I be kind to myself? May I accept myself? And may I know that I'm trying my best? Things like this. This was my first experience with it. And I thought, yeah, you know, that's nice. I guess that's nice. Yeah, it is.

Chris Germer (00:45:11 --> 00:45:12)
I guess that's nice. It is.

Dustin Grinnell (00:45:12 --> 00:46:01)
It's nice. You know, I was skeptical. And there was a guy next to me who thought it was just complete hogwash. You should have heard what he said when we got on the elevator. He's like, this is a joke, you know?

And I got it. I got his perspective, but I was more open. I was a little bit more like I said to him, I said, well, haven't we tried everything else? Yeah, exactly. So talk about being at the lowest point, right?

You know, and it's kind of unfortunate that people entered your field through that level of desperation. But what I wanted to say is another phrase that you said aloud was, may I know that I'm a good man? And I remember that one because it stuck with me, but I also remember that one because I felt like you had a lot of emotion behind that one. Does that phrase mean a lot to you? What does it mean to be a good man?

Chris Germer (00:46:01 --> 00:47:05)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That you were very sensitive. You picked up on that. Yeah. So, you know, when I think about my deepest aspirations, I would like to be a good man, you know?

I don't need to be, you know, rich or famous. I'd like to be good. And I'm a man and, you know, men particularly now are a bit beleaguered and battled, you know, boys are in trouble. So the, for me, being a good man is really important. And, you know, how many times does somebody say to us, you know, you are a good man.

And they might think it, but they don't necessarily put language for it. But, you know, I suspect there would be a lot less political turmoil in this world if a lot of people felt like they were good. And you know what? Most people are actually better than they think. You know, when things go wrong, they think they're bad.

Dustin Grinnell (00:47:06 --> 00:47:13)
This just occurred to me. There was a movie, a really great movie called Shame with Michael Fassbender. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

Chris Germer (00:47:13 --> 00:47:14)
I haven't seen it.

Dustin Grinnell (00:47:14 --> 00:48:11)
It's really good. It's sort of a profile of a sex addict, I think. And it's a man who's very isolated and he's a loner, and he's really white-knuckling life. He's isolated from his family and he watches pornography all the time. And and lives this very isolated existence. And what's interesting is that I remember hearing an interview with the screenwriter, and she was a playwright, and she said in order to write the movie, she met with a group of sex addicts. And she said the reason why she titled the movie Shame is because that's what she felt when she met with all these men. She felt the weight of shame. And it's because of the trauma that they had earlier in life and the isolation they were experiencing and the weight of shame. And it seems like self-compassion is an antidote to shame. Yeah.

Chris Germer (00:48:11 --> 00:54:45)
And so toward that end, some colleagues and I have created an 8-week training called Self-Compassion for Shame. So even though self-compassion alleviates shame, the research shows as people increase in self-compassion, they automatically decrease in shame. But if we intentionally target shame with self-compassion and we practice self-compassion for shame, in my view, self-compassion goes deeper. It goes to the very origins of our personalities, you know, where shame first took hold in our beings, you know. And so when we practice self-compassion, that kind of thing starts getting unpacked.

And it's easy to imagine because shame is an attack on the self. It's a self-attack. Guilt is I did something wrong. Shame is I am wrong. It's a sense of self that's under attack.

And so when we practice the opposite, in other words, when we say, may I May I accept myself just as I am? May I love myself just as I am? May I, you know, when we're kind to ourselves in some way, we're actually giving ourselves the opposite message. And not just verbally, but behaviorally too. If we're suffering and rather than being engulfed in shame, we start to treat ourselves as we would like to be treated or as we would treat a good friend.

Usually we're not shaming toward our friends when things go wrong. How would it be like if we treat ourselves kindly when things go wrong? Like, oh, this is really tough. Have a cup of tea. Let's take a little walk, you know.

So everything about self-compassion is actually reverses the shame process. But there's another point to this, Dustin, which is really key. You were, you were saying earlier, you know, if this were a drug, you could make a ton of money selling it in a drugstore. So it's not as easy as taking a drug. And the reason it's not as easy as taking a drug is because of what we call backdraft.

And that is, if I say to myself something like, may I accept myself as I am, immediately we start to actually think about parts of ourselves that are unacceptable or ways that we have been treated unacceptably in the past. And I suspect that that guy in the elevator who you were with was already having backdraft when he thought, oh, this is a crock of shit. When, if, you know, may I accept myself as I am, he was probably starting to feel bad about himself just thinking about that. And in particular, the backdraft was very likely shame. In other words, what is shameful about me?

What is unacceptable about me? So this comes up absolutely reliably when we practice self-compassion. When we practice self-compassion, we actually contact shame. And when we experience shame, we can either go after ourselves with a vengeance or we can go after others. In other words, this program is a bunch of bunk, you know, very likely coming from shame, very likely coming from backdrop, very likely coming from actually considering the possibility of accepting ourselves just as we are.

But here's the good news, that when we start to practice self-compassion and we have backdraft, we start to remember times when we were not treated well or parts of ourselves that we find unacceptable, we can actually be with ourselves and those parts of ourselves and even with those memories that are arising. We can be with old wounds now in the present in a loving and kind way as we would have wished we were treated in the past. We can be compassionate with ourselves because we are adults and we know ourselves in a far more effective way than our caregivers or people in our culture were with us. You know, we were not treated compassionately and mindfully back then, therefore we were wounded. But when these old memories come up, because we begin being kind to ourselves, we can be kind to ourselves in the midst of those old wounds and transform those wounds.

So this is actually how self-compassion heals. It is not as easy as taking a pill. It's a process, and there is some pain involved. There are side effects, but these side effects, when we work with them, are actually the mechanism or the vehicle through which self-compassion heals. So one of our participants, self-compassion practitioners, said it feels like kaboom, but it's really kabloom.

And the really fascinating thing Dustin, is, you know, we say self-compassion is not therapy per se, but it's very therapeutic. Because if we practice self-compassion consistently and we experience old wounds over and over again, and we are— the muscle of self-compassion is really strong, and we can see those old wounds and we can be kind toward ourselves, reflective in a kind way about these old wounds, they actually heal. They get transformed. So we can actually reparent ourselves as adults. No matter what happened to us in childhood, we can reparent ourselves through the power of self-compassion.

And that doesn't mean we have to do this all ourselves. We can do this with a therapist. But when we cultivate this skill of being kind to ourselves, no matter what arises, especially shame, we can at some point actually feel like I am a good man, I am a good person. We can dismantle shame and we can begin to treat ourselves with the same kindness and understanding as we wished we were treated or as we might treat a friend. Right.

Dustin Grinnell (00:54:45 --> 00:55:45)
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, talk about another powerful barrier. It's backdraft. It's the stuff that comes up. When we start, which is that maybe it worked for someone but not me, or I'm really a piece of crap, so this isn't going to work, or this happened to me in the past.

And it's interesting too because you said one of the byproducts of self-compassion practice is perspective. And it seems like perspective is quite helpful. And what you said too, it's like we're adults. We can take a new mindset on what happened. One of the things I was wondering if you'd be up for is maybe just to do a quick series of phrases, uh, maybe like 1-minute, 2-minute practice to let people hear how it works.

Is there like a common one? Maybe it's just a series of phrases. And, and I even remember, like, you know, listening, you, you talked about the words like, you know, using, um, or, ah, or whatever. That I noticed that. Yeah, it's quite helpful.

Chris Germer (00:55:46 --> 00:55:53)
Well, we could do a very brief self-compassion break. It might be more like 5 minutes. Do we have 5, Justin? Of course.

Dustin Grinnell (00:55:53 --> 00:55:53)
Yeah.

Chris Germer (00:55:53 --> 01:00:05)
Not get overwhelmed. For example, maybe you have a health issue that you're going to get checked out by the doctor, but you're not super concerned about it. And then the first part of the self-compassion break is mindfulness. And that is just to recognize, you know, this is difficult for me, just to validate that actually this is stressful. It's a concern.

So just validating it for yourself as you would for a friend. This is hard. Then the second part is common humanity, and that is to recognize that others actually in the same situation probably feel similarly, that this particular difficulty some other people also have, even if we don't know them, and that stress has many forms, but stress is a part of the human experience. So just getting a sense of the size of the cloth, as it were, that we're all humans and all human beings struggle from time to time. And now, if it feels right to you, you can take a hand and you can put it over your heart, or you can put it on your cheek, or you can massage the back of your neck, but offer yourself some soothing or supportive touch.

You can even gently massage that part of your body.

And again, we're doing this not to change how we feel, but just as an expression of sympathy because life is tough.

And then as we did earlier, you can continue holding your hand on your body somewhere, but also imagine that a very loving and understanding person, may even be somebody you know, were to walk into your room right now and were to say to you, maybe even whispering into your ear, say something to you that would be a great comfort right now. And this person wouldn't be denying what's happening or, you know, just trying to cheer you up, but saying something truthful. Like acknowledging, yeah, this is hard, but you know, you'll get through this, or I'm here for you, I love you, I believe in you, you've got what it takes. What words might allow your heart to rest just a little bit more? Just a few words.

Now see if you at the same time can offer yourself some soothing touch as we did before, feeling your hand on your body, and then also just allowing these words and maybe even an image of a good friend to just roll through your mind a bit right now.

Again, we're not trying to manipulate how we feel. We're just taking a moment of self-compassion. We're just receiving for a moment a bit of kindness through touch and words.

Just allowing the words to be there and noticing what that's like for you.

Okay, and so now you can release that practice if you like, knowing you can always return to it. Three parts. One is validating. Second part is common humanity. Third part is some kindness.

Dustin Grinnell (01:00:06 --> 01:00:35)
that was nice, that was comforting. It reminds me— what occurred to me is how seldom I I'm doing something that's comforting toward myself, you know, often pushing quite hard and striving, but just to sit and be still, it's quite nice. And to hear about all the potential benefits of self-compassion, it's actually exciting, you know, to be great to, to get some of those benefits into one's life.

Chris Germer (01:00:36 --> 01:01:16)
Yeah, I think that if they're For me anyway, if there's like one inner resource, one skill that we could practice that would have an impact on many, many, many different areas of our lives, the research shows that this is it. I mean, there may be other skills that we can practice that influence all areas of our lives. For example, getting strong physically. But when it comes to psychological training, this is a very central resource or mechanism. And so if you don't have a lot of time and you can only learn one thing, this is a good one.

Dustin Grinnell (01:01:17 --> 01:02:05)
I guess as we kind of think about coming to the end of the conversation, I always like to broaden it as much as we can. And in, in this subject area, it seems that there is another barrier, there's another headwind, and you've talked about it a little bit throughout, which is the cultural barrier. It's that Western culture doesn't necessarily promote self-compassion as a virtue. And I think people, many people, Americans harbor a deep suspicion about being kind to ourselves. And what's going on? Maybe we think about the US or just the West in general. What don't we get about this? Why are we— yeah.

Chris Germer (01:02:05 --> 01:04:01)
Well, it's not just the US. There are differences between cultures. Kristin Neff did a study in Taiwan, Thailand, and the US and found that people in Thailand were a little more compassionate than people in the US, who were a little more compassionate than people in Taiwan. But the big difference, Dustin, is not between cultures. The big difference is between how we treat ourselves and how we treat others when things go wrong.

That's huge everywhere. And culturally, people often look for explanations like why Thailand may be a little more than Taiwan, right? But I think this is, it's just speculation because personally I've been in China and they say we are not compassionate. We're not compassionate with ourselves because we are Confucian. And I've been in South America and they say we're not compassionate with ourselves because we're Catholic.

And I've been in Minnesota and they say we're not compassionate with ourselves because we're Lutheran. And so every culture has its own reason, but my guess is that the bigger issue is how to turn it around and include ourselves in the circle of compassion. What I like to say is that self-compassion is really a humble enterprise where it's not about selfishness. It's about just including ourselves, maybe even in the bottom right corner of the picture of self-compassion, just adding ourselves, not systematically excluding ourselves. Because if the research means anything, If we deny ourselves self-compassion, we are making ourselves suffer unnecessarily.

Dustin Grinnell (01:04:01 --> 01:04:16)
When I was reading your workbook, I think it's called The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. Is that it? Yeah. There's this quote that really I found kind of staggering. It was from Carl Rogers. Carl Rogers is a psychologist or psychiatrist?

Chris Germer (01:04:16 --> 01:04:19)
He's a psychologist. Right, right.

Dustin Grinnell (01:04:19 --> 01:04:36)
So he said, The curious paradox is that the more I accept myself just as I am, the more I can change. Yeah. How do you interpret that? That's really staggering. It feels very true as well. And yet it is a paradox, is it? Yeah.

Chris Germer (01:04:36 --> 01:06:52)
So actually, that quote was printed slightly wrong. What Carl Rogers actually said was, the more I accept myself just as I am, Change occurs on its own. Okay. Change occurs on its own. And many people notice that when they practice self-compassion.

What happens is when we fight with ourselves, it's very hard to change anything. But when we accept ourselves as we are, then we more naturally change things. So to give you an example, Every year around January 1st, Kristen and I get a flurry of requests for interviews to talk about New Year's resolutions. But one of the funny things about New Year's resolutions is that within 3 weeks, 60% of people abandon their resolutions. Why are they abandoning them?

It's because they are doing these things often driven by shame, and not accepting ourselves. And then when they start to fail, they beat up on themselves even more. The same motivation just becomes more intense, i.e., shame. But if we put all self-improvement on the foundation of self-compassion and self-acceptance, then when things go wrong, we don't necessarily give up because we're not blaming ourselves, we're not shaming ourselves. We get curious like, oh, Jeez, I wanted to exercise more and now I notice I'm not exercising.

When we're really friendly with ourselves, we can say something like, I wonder how I can do this that I enjoy it a little more. That's very different than beating up on ourselves. And then lo and behold, we do something and we enjoy it. And we're, you know, after 3 weeks, we're still exercising more because we are encouraging ourselves in a positive way. So this is self-compassion.

Dustin Grinnell (01:06:53 --> 01:07:08)
My last question is, what do you think our world, our society, civilization would look like if we're all just we were kinder to ourselves, less critical and judgmental of ourselves? What would that world look like?

Chris Germer (01:07:09 --> 01:09:43)
Well, I think there's no doubt that generally we would have better mental health because as people increase in self-compassion, mental health gets better and better. And as people decrease in self-compassion, they feel more and more shame. And shame is associated with just about every form of mental distress. So there's no doubt that if people had the fire of self-compassion inside, if they could recognize in an open-hearted way when they're suffering, if they could not feel so alone, and if they could be kind to themselves, they would suffer less. That's the first thing that would happen.

But the second thing that would happen is they would be kinder to others. And so from my experience, and this happened really in a nutshell for the first time at that conference that I mentioned when I had public speaking anxiety. Very easily, self-compassion translates into compassion for others. And so we are now living in a world where we have global problems that cannot be solved in an insular way by one nation. We need to do this together.

We need to solve global warming, we need to solve the problem of wars, we need to solve social injustice. How do we solve these really global problems, problems that require everybody to participate? The answer in my view is we need to have more fellow feeling. We need to have more compassion. And then the question is, how do we grow in compassion?

Especially when people are frightened and afraid and they shut down? How do we grow in compassion? Well, the easiest way to do it, I think, is to grow in self-compassion. When we feel the pain of these global problems, we— first step is we be kind to ourselves. We recognize our own suffering.

We attend to our own suffering. We change our physiology, and then our heart will open. Toward others. We will feel more like a global community and be more motivated to make a change. So in a nutshell, the easiest way to grow in compassion for others, I think, is to fall in compassion for ourselves.

Dustin Grinnell (01:09:44 --> 01:10:03)
Before I let you go, Chris, where can people go to learn more about self-compassion and to maybe do some practices themselves? How can they start small? Where does someone go right now to learn a little bit more about your work, about the field, about how they can incorporate self-compassion into their life?

Chris Germer (01:10:03 --> 01:11:04)
Well, I would say some written material and some links. So the book you had mentioned, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook is available on Amazon. It's co-authored by Kristin Neff and myself, and it's an extremely popular book. It's been selling like crazy for the last 5 years. So that's a place to start.

And if you want to listen to guided meditations and other practices in self-compassion, you can, and learn all about, you know, different opportunities for learning about self-compassion. In a classroom setting, online or in person, you could go to the, to the website centerformsc.org, which means Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, centerformsc.org.

Dustin Grinnell (01:11:04 --> 01:11:16)
Well, I should say thank you for the workshop you gave 7 years ago where you completely took away my lower back pain. I never got a chance to thank you for that, so I so appreciate it.

Chris Germer (01:11:16 --> 01:11:18)
Yeah, I'm so glad to hear that, Dustin.

Dustin Grinnell (01:11:19 --> 01:11:37)
And thanks for giving me some time and sharing your wisdom and your expertise. I can't think of a better— topic to make more mainstream. And I'm, and I'm glad that we, uh, we were able to, to talk together, and hopefully people can take something away from this.

Chris Germer (01:11:37 --> 01:11:51)
Well, I, I really appreciate that you're doing this work, and, uh, thank you for joining the chorus. And I, um, personally, um, I really enjoyed the interview, and personally, thank you. Grateful to you. Thank you.

Dustin Grinnell (01:11:51 --> 01:11:52)
Thanks so much.

Dustin Grinnell (01:11:54 --> 01:12:03)
Thanks for listening to this episode of Curiously. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Chris German. Stay tuned for more conversations with people I meet along the way.