PODCASTThe Greater Good Podcast

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.

Today’s Guests:

KRISTIN NEFF is an associate professor in the University of Texas at Austin's department of educational psychology. She created the Self-compassion Scales, and has been credited with conducting the first academic studies into self-compassion.

JASON MARSH, host of "The Greater Good Podcast”, is Director of Programs and  Editor in Chief of Greater Good Magazine.

Transcription:

JASON MARSH: Welcome to The Greater Good Podcast. I'm Jason Marsh. Are you your own worst critic? It's common to beat ourselves up for faults, big and small. But that self-criticism makes us anxious, dissatisfied, or even depressed. According to our guest today, psychologist Kristin Neff. In her new book, Self-Compassion, Neff promotes the revolutionary idea that you can actually be kind to yourself, accepting of your own faults, and enjoy deep emotional benefits.

Neff is an associate professor in human development and culture at the University of Texas at Austin. Her book draws on the pioneering scientific research she's conducted over the past decade on the concept of self-compassion. Kristin Neff, welcome to the Greater Good Podcast. 

KRISTIN NEFF: Thanks so much for having me, Jason.

JASON MARSH: So I wonder, first, if you could start by just telling us, what is self-compassion? 

KRISTIN NEFF: Right. So, um, the quick version is that basically it's treating yourself with the same type of kind, caring, concern, support, um, understanding, forgiveness that you would show to anyone you cared about. Um, but in fact, most of us say things to ourselves, um, make these incredibly harsh, cruel self-judgements that we would never even make about a total stranger, let alone someone we cared about. Um, so it's practicing kindness towards yourself instead of harsh self-judgment. Remembering that imperfection is part of the shared human experience. As humans, we are not perfect. Our life is not perfect. Things are gonna go the way we don't want them to, and that's normal, and we can actually feel connected to others and that imperfection as opposed to feeling separate and isolated.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. So in the book, you identify three core components of. Self-compassion. I heard you just identified two of them there.

KRISTIN NEFF: Oh, sorry. The first one is self-kindness versus self-judgment. Right? Or you might even see self-kindness versus callousness towards self a lot. A lot of times when we suffer, we just take a very cold attitude towards ourselves, so it's being warm, supportive, actively soothing ourselves as opposed to being cold calloused or, or, or criticizing and judging ourselves. The second is remembering, again, that imperfection is part of the shared human experience. That you are not alone in your suffering. That this, everyone suffers. Everyone has things happen that they don't want to happen. So instead of feeling, oftentimes when something goes wrong and we look in the mirror, we don't like what we see, we feel very isolated in that moment. As if somehow irrationally, we think everyone else has these perfect lives, and it's just me who's flawed, who's somehow defective. So when, remember when we remember that imperfection is part of the shared human experience, you can actually feel more connected to people by embracing that as opposed to feeling separate and cut off. And then the third component is mindfulness. Um, there's been a lot of talk about mindfulness, a lot of research on it in psychology. And mindfulness really is necessary to have self-compassion. So first of off, you don't notice your suffering. If you aren't mindfully aware that you're suffering, if you're just repressing your pain or ignoring it, getting lost in problem solving, you can't give yourself compassion. You have to say. Ooh, wait a second. This hurts. This is really hard. This is a moment where I need compassion. If you're just, and again, you don't wanna go there, it's too painful, or you're just too busy to go there, you can't be compassionate. On the other hand, mindfulness involves the clear scene of things as they are in the present moment, without avoidance and suppression, without also at the same time, without running away with our thoughts and emotions, ruminating, getting lost in a dramatic storyline. Um, when we notice our suffering, but get lost in this drama, that can very easily become self-pity. Oh, woe is me. It's not about shared humanity. It's about poor me, and isn't my life so difficult? So mindfulness keeps things in balance saying this is really difficult, but we all have, we all have problems.You know, can I open to this as it is?

JASON MARSH: Yeah. So when I hear you describe it like that, it seems like so obvious and almost intuitive that this is something that would be of such great importance and something we should all really try to practice. And yet the truth of the matter is, which you explained in the book, is that a lot of us, most of us perhaps, are really bad at practicing self-compassion.

KRISTIN NEFF: Yeah.

JASON MARSH: So, why do you think that is and and why is that such a bad thing?

KRISTIN NEFF: Well, I mean, it's very interesting 'cause. In our culture, we value compassion for others. We see clearly that it's good to be a supportive friend and be kind to others to help those in need to maybe not mer mercilessly, judge others, but have some understanding. But we treat ourselves very differently than we treat other people. And I think there's, there's several reasons. Um, one of the big reasons is that people feel they need to be self-critical in order to motivate themselves. It's kind of, we used to be this way with children, uh, spare the rod, spoil the child.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: And we've let go of that, thank goodness, to some degree with our children, but we still apply it to ourselves. So we think, I need to beat myself up if I screw up or make a mistake so that I won't do it again. And it's really a convoluted form of self-care. I criticize myself because at some level I want not to keep engaging in this behavior that's problematic. I want to, you know, I wanna help myself change, but it's, the problem is it's completely counterproductive. Right? 

JASON MARSH: Right. 

KRISTIN NEFF: So self-criticism is very strongly linked to depression, and depression is. It is antithetical to motivation, right? You're not gonna really be motivated to change if you're depressed. It causes us to lose faith in ourselves.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN NEFF: Lowers our self-efficacy beliefs. So if you're constantly saying, oh, what a loser, you're so stupid, you're gonna lower your perceived confidence and that's gonna make you less likely to try. 'cause you, you lose faith. Um, it, it conditions fear of failure. If every single time you fail or make a mistake, you, you know, walk yourself overhead with that club, you're gonna very quickly try to avoid failure at all costs. 

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: That's just a natural survival instinct, which means you may, um, not take risks. You may not try to, you know, maybe you take the course That's an easy a and then probably maybe that the biggest problem with using self-criticism as a motivator is that if it's really painful to be honest with yourself about your weaknesses because you know you're gonna just tear yourself to shreds with self-criticism, your subconscious will pull out every trick in the book, not to have to own up to it. The easiest one is to blame someone else, right? You know, if you think about fights you have with your significant other, you know you did it. No, you did it right? Each one's trying to defend their ego, blaming the. Blaming the other person, it's easier. Um, when you have self-compassion, it actually gives you the courage and the emotional safety you need to say mia culpa. I did do that. I was out of line. This isn't healthy. This is harming myself. This is harming someone else. And that clarity actually gives you, um, not only the wisdom to see what needs changing, but the emotional strengths and courage to go ahead and change it. 

JASON MARSH: And so what about self-esteem? I think. When I first started reading about some of your research, maybe four or five years ago, um, I think what really struck me when I really got it is when, uh, I read about how it was distinct from self-esteem. How do you make that distinction? What's the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion? 

KRISTIN NEFF: Self-compassion and self-esteem both involve positive emotions towards the self, but self-esteem is about positive self-evaluation. Judging yourself positively, I am good, and it all operates at the level of self-concept.

I'm a good person, or, unfortunately, if I can't keep up that self-definition, I'm a bad person. Self-compassion does not involve judgment or evaluation. It's not even, it doesn't even operate at the level, “What type of person am I?” It's just saying, you know, I, I'm suffering. Mm-hmm. Can I respond to my suffering with kindness, understanding, caring, and concern? And so self-esteem is present [00:08:00] when we succeed. You know, when, when, when the news is good. Self-compassion is a way of relating to ourselves kindly when we fail. Or the news isn't good, something really difficult happens. 

JASON MARSH: Right. 

KRISTIN NEFF: Okay. So in some ways, they're really, really different. And yet they do have a lot of overlap. And in fact, empirically, they are. They do overlap that people with high self-compassion also feel worthy. And people who lack self-compassion, who’re really harsh on themselves, tend to not feel worthy. And it seems like self-compassion is the part of feeling good about yourself that's most psychologically healthy. It gives you a much more stable sense of self-worth. It fluctuates a lot less, um, dramatically than, let's say, just having high self-esteem does. It's not associated with narcissism at all, whereas self-esteem actually has a pretty strong correlation with narcissism, and we have this narcissism epidemic in our country now. 

JASON MARSH: Right, sure. 

KRISTIN NEFF: Because of all the self-esteem movement in the schools, right? Um, it doesn't lead to social comparison because self-esteem is, am I special and above average? You know, if I said, Hey, Jason, your, your, your podcast, yeah. It's average. You'd be, oh my God, I wanna go hang my head in shame. It's not okay to be average, I have to be special and above average.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: So you're subtly gonna try to unconsciously position yourself above other people so you can maintain your self-esteem. Very natural. But self-compassion is about shared humanity. It's all about being average. Mm-hmm. It's about being a human, Who, you know, we have strengths and, and beautiful qualities, and we have weaknesses, and we succeed and we fail, and it's all part of this average shared human condition. 

JASON MARSH: Can you have too much self-compassion? Is there such a thing as, as going to the same type of extreme as you have that risk with self-esteem?

KRISTIN NEFF: Yeah, I mean, I've had, I've had that question a lot. It's certainly an interesting question. I don't know, can you have too much love? As long as it's balanced. As long as it's not self-focused, as long as it's not self-indulgence or complacency masquerading as self-compassion, which can happen. You have to be, you know, careful.

But if it's truly self-compassion, you know, I don't know. Can you be too compassionate to others? Um, it doesn't mean there may be some times when self-compassion is not that useful. I don't know if I'm a soldier on the battlefield. Maybe now is not the time to open my heart to myself. Maybe now is the time to just go straight into problem solving mode or something like that. So there may be times when it's not relevant. I don't know if you can have too much. 

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, so I mean, when you first came to self-compassion, I wanna talk a little bit about, you know, your own, uh, personal sort of encounters with self-compassion and how you really came to, uh, embrace it, both personally and, and scientifically. How did you personally, come to believe in the importance of self-compassion. 

KRISTIN NEFF: Right? So yeah, so I did have a hippie new age childhood, but then when I got to Berkeley and went to grad school, I decided I had to reject everything 

JASON MARSH: Of course. 

KRISTIN NEFF: You know, and go for the mind. 

JASON MARSH: Nothing about Berkeley is new agey.

KRISTIN NEFF: Um, that's a good point. But anyway, um, and then, so I think what had, what had happened, it was, oh, if you read my book, I go and tell my dirty laundry. But basically I was going through a really hard time in my life. I had realized that when I just went for the intellect and tried to reject all my spirituality that I was shutting myself down, and it led me to make some pretty, you know, not such great choices for myself. And I was going through a very messy divorce, and I was stressed. About, will I finish my dissertation and if I do, will I get a job? And there was just a lot of things going on in my life. So I decided to give Buddhism a try, cause again, I had done the hippie new age thing, but not, you know, Buddhism's a, it's not really new age, it's old age. It's pretty credible. I started meditating and even before I figured out what this mindfulness thing was, it was kind of abstract. The, the lady teaching the class talked a lot about self-compassion, and I just thought, oh my God, not only is this what I need, but this makes so much sense. Why has no one ever just said befor? Your permission to be kind to yourself and it'll be actually really healthy if you are. And so immediately it changed my life so much so that when I, um, I got remarried shortly thereafter, um, we entered our marriage vows with the vow to help each other be more self-compassionate. We were both so moved by the power of the concept. Um, and then after doing my postdoc and getting the job at UT Austin, I thought, you know, well, it's kind of scary cause no one had even defined self-compassion, let alone done research on it in academia. 

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm.

KRISTIN NEFF: I mean, a lot of people have written about it in, you know? 

JASON MARSH: Sure. 

KRISTIN NEFF: Kind of other circles, but I just knew that this was so important. I wanted it to be my life's work. And so I started doing research on it, but then, and so, and I continued to practice it, going on retreats, et cetera. Um, practicing my daily life. But then, when it really, really saved me was, uh, when my son got diagnosed with autism, which was in 2004. And, um, I can't even imagine how I would've coped if I didn't have my self-compassion practice. 

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: I mean, clearly I would've people do. But it just was such a lifesaver. I was able to fully accept my grief. Um, not feel guilty for for grieving, which a lot of autism parents do. How can I be grieving for my child whom I love so much, to really accept all my complex, intense emotions, to really soothe and comfort myself for what I was going through. Um, in the heat of the moment, it was incredibly powerful.Um, the tantrums my son used to have in public, uncontrollable, nothing I could do. I was completely powerless. 

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: You know, that's with autism, you are powerless. You can try to keep your kids safe, and that's about it. So self-compassion allowed me to accept that and open my heart to it. Not that it didn't hurt, it did. But to just, again, you know, he would be throwing a tantrum, and I would just be saying, let me be kind to myself right now. Let me be kind to myself. Let me gimme, you know, I would actually focus on myself rather than him after I make sure he was safe. 

JASON MARSH: Right. 

Because I couldn't help him. Mm-hmm. But I could help myself in that moment.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: Um, and it just gave me the emotional stability needed to, um, help him and then ultimately to. Embrace him with a much more openhearted and open mind than I, than I would've been able to. And not to try to fix him or control him, but to celebrate who I was and to kind of follow his lead. And, um, you know, it's, I won't go into it here, but we, um, wrote a, we, my husband wrote a book, and we made a documentary called The Horse Boy, which is really a book about what happens if you open your heart and your mind to a child with autism or special needs. How is life gonna unfold? What unexpected mysteries, miracles, adventures are out there for you? 

JASON MARSH: Hmm. Yeah. So it sounds like for you personally, it's incredibly powerful. It's revelation. Yeah. Um, you know, in terms of your, your personal life, but also your, your family life.

KRISTIN NEFF: Mm-hmm. 

JASON MARSH: But I wonder. Why study it? You know, why would it necessarily follow from that, that you should study it scientifically, perhaps, um, in the case that what you find, that there are no measurable benefits, you aren't able actually to find, to prove scientifically that the benefits that you feel like you've found personally are actually quantifiable.

KRISTIN NEFF: Uh. I mean, it is funny. I mean, I can be totally honest. I, I was convinced of the benefits and I felt that what I wanted to do was to demonstrate empirically that there were benefits. Um, I don't know what I would've done if I found there were no benefits. I, um, you know, I probably would've still practiced self-compassion 'cause it worked for me, but. I would've been a bit flabbergasted if the data didn't come out, although I must admit, I was surprised how strongly they came out. And the link between self-compassion and wellbeing is they're really strong, robust associations. I knew that it was effective, but I. You know, I thought, wow, I'm on, we're onto something.

JASON MARSH: Yeah. Yeah. And yet, you know, interestingly, no one had studied poorly, really not in the rigorous scientific way that, that you've studied over the past decade. Why do you think that is? And, and what does it perhaps say about you personally that you were the really the first one to take this on, even though it's been a concept that's been around for thousands of years?

KRISTIN NEFF: Are you trying to raise myself esteem just, well, no. I mean, I think here's what I think happened. Um, there was this meeting of east and west in, uh, the encounter. With Buddhism and other eastern traditions in psychology, and it actually started with the human humanistic psychology movement. And so if you look at, you know, Carl Rogers or Maslow, they really are talking about self-compassion. They don't use those exact words. They might use self-acceptance. The concepts are there, but they, you know, they were clinicians. They weren't really so interested in doing the empirical research. And then, um. The mindfulness movement started happening and people started measuring mindfulness and creating mindfulness in interventions and doing scientific studies on that. And I, I must say, I think there is very wise for the people who wanted to maybe use Western Science to investigate whether the word benefits to these more Eastern wisdom traditions to focus on mindfulness because [00:17:00] it's, it's more cognitive, it. Presses less buttons. Um, I think it was an easier access point. And then after so much had been work, work had been done on mindfulness, that it really paved the way for me to start looking at compassion. But yeah, I mean it's, uh, it's, it's really gratifying. 

JASON MARSH: Yeah. You know, there's just a huge explosion of research right now and, um. You know, I think it's just wonderful when you pull back, you know, what are the findings that you think are most impressive, that really attest, uh, the most to the benefits of self-compassion that you feel like resonate with you most deeply and resonate with, with others as well?

KRISTIN NEFF: Well, I think, um, the data supporting the fact that self-compassion has the same health benefits, mental health benefits is self-esteem in terms of less depression, more optimism, greater happiness. Um, you know, more life satisfaction. So self self-esteem has those, I mean, if you have high self-esteem, you'll pretty much be pretty happy. If you have low self-esteem, you won't, but that it offers the benefits without the drawbacks. So self-esteem, you know, is associated with narcissism. Self-compassion isn't, it's self-compassion, not self-esteem. That predicts stability of self. Worth a type of self worth that isn't contingent on outcomes.Less social comparison, less reactive anger. So I was, I'm not gonna say I was really happy the data came out that way 'cause that was my idea that it gave the benefits without the drawbacks. But the research really does support that. Um, and you know, now a lot of research is coming out with health behaviors, um, that people who practice self-compassion make really wise health choices. They exercise more for intrinsic reasons. They can stick to their diets. They go to the doctor more often. They practice safer sex. All this research is coming out that it's not just a good idea. 

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

And it doesn't just make you feel good.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: It makes you, um, act in healthier ways. People who are self-compassionate are kinder, more giving, supportive to the relationship partners. Mm-hmm. Um, and what I'm really excited about now I'm gonna. To some extent, let other people take the lead in terms of basic research. And I'm really interested in interventions.

JASON MARSH: Yeah, I was gonna ask, that's where I wanna go now. Yeah, exactly. I was gonna, next question was really, uh, I mean the, the results to date sound really encouraging, but is it just simply that people who are self-compassionate also, you know, have these other traits as well, um, 

KRISTIN NEFF: Right. 

JASON MARSH: Practice these other behaviors, or is there research as well suggesting that this is something that could actually be taught and that by teaching this practice of self-compassion that these other benefits could follow? 

KRISTIN NEFF: Yeah. So, yes. I mean, the research is already there and it's gonna continue. Uh, one, one thing they're finding, and there's been a lot of research on MBSR, mindfulness based stress reduction and all the benefits that accrue from that. Well, actually it turns out that self-compassion increases through, um, participation in the course and that in fact, it may be that self-compassion is at least one of the most of, perhaps even the most powerful outcome of MBSR training that enhances wellbeing. Do you know, like John Coon's, mindfulness based, 

JASON MARSH: John Coon's, mindfulness based stress reduction 

KRISTIN NEFF: Right. Um, some of these studies I'm talking about like self-compassion, um, uh, helping you quit smoking, et cetera, that's based on short term interventions. Um, uh, training people maybe over four weeks. But, um, I've just finished collecting data for the first wait list control trial of we've, um, my colleague Chris Germer and I have developed an eight week program, very much similar in structure to mindfulness based stress reduction where every week for eight weeks, two hours a week, we talk about self-compassion. We teach exercises, we do self-compassion meditations, uh, interpersonal exercises, and I will have the data, I'll have the data in my hot little hands very, very soon, um, to see if it does increase wellbeing. We've done pilot testing without a control group and the, and the results are really good.

JASON MARSH: Mm-hmm. 

KRISTIN NEFF: So hopefully, um, we'll have that and you know, I could see this going into the schools already. People are starting to talk about compassion in the school. So I'd like to add this piece of just compassion for yourself as well. And it's just a lot of places this can go. So when you talk about Teaching it, especially in schools, I think in some people's minds it might raise certain red flags of what, if anything, could be some of the downsides. I think, you know, one of the big concerns that, um, I know when we, for instance, uh, published this piece by you on, on self-compassion, one of the commenters raised this question I heard before, which is, is self-compassion. It's gonna make people complacent and lazy and unmotivated. Um, to actually improve themselves and to accomplish more. Um, how do you respond to those questions? Yeah, so that is a very common concern. It's actually, I think the number one block to self-compassion is the fear that if I am too kind to myself, I'll be complacent, I'll let myself get away with anything. Um, the research doesn't show that the research really supports that. People who are self-compassionate, their standards are just as high for themselves. [00:22:00] They just don't get as upset when they don't meet their goals, and that when they do meet their, when they do have a failure experience or don't meet their goals, they cope with it more productively. They don't just, you know, get lost in a rant or they don't suppress their emotions. They actually deal with it, face it, work through it, and as a result, um, people are self-compassionate when they. Don't reach a goal, they're much more lucky to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and reengage at a new goal.Um, uh, it's associated with, uh, what's called learning goals rather than performance goals. So people who are self-compassionate, they want to learn and grow for its own sake, not because they wanna impress other people, which is a much more sustainable, I mean, huge body of research showing that. If your goal is to learn as opposed just to impress others, it's a much more sustainable way of learning and growing.

JASON MARSH: I wonder if, you know, if you were stepping back and you were put in a position where you could engineer our society

KRISTIN NEFF: Mm-hmm

JASON MARSH: In a way that fostered more self-compassion, how would you do that? What are some of the obstacles, culturally or socially that get in the way?

KRISTIN NEFF: I think our obsession with self-esteem and competition does mean that we'd have to engineer things a bit differently here. I think we need to go to the root. Uh, one of the root causes of the problem is really question is self-esteem. What we wanna be aiming for is that what we wanna be promoting in the schools is that what parents wanna be promoting. I. We don't want kids to hate themselves. We want them to feel worthy. But is it all about being better than, is it all about being special and above average? Or is it about being a human being as ha, happy and healthy as you possibly can be about reaching your own potential, whatever that is. And I think if we made that type of cultural shift at the level of parenting and education that I, you know, I think we'd have a real chance of shifting things at the larger macro level.

JASON MARSH: Great. Well, Kristin, thanks very much for joining us. 

KRISITIN NEFF: Thanks for having me.

JASON MARSH: The Greater Good Podcast is a production of The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California Berkeley. Alton Doe and Bernie Wong are our interns. Special thanks to the university's graduate school of Journalism and Jim Richards for production assistance. You can listen to more Greater Good Podcasts and find articles, videos, and other materials from Greater Good at www.greatergoodscience.org. I'm Jason Marsh.