If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.
Are you your own worst critic?
It’s
common to beat ourselves up for faults big and small. But according to
psychologist Kristin Neff, that self-criticism comes at a price: It
makes us anxious, dissatisfied with our life, and even depressed.
Kristin Neff
For the last decade, Neff has been a pioneer in the study of
“self-compassion,” the revolutionary idea that you can actually be kind
to yourself, accept your own faults—and enjoy deep emotional benefits as
a result. Last year, she distilled the results of her research in the
popular book Self-Compassion.
Neff, an associate professor in human development and culture at the
University of Texas, Austin, will present highlights from her work at a
Greater Good Science Center seminar at UC Berkeley next Friday, March
23, called “Self-Compassion and Emotional Resilience”—part
of our “Science of a Meaningful Life” seminar series. The event will be
webcast live, so anyone around the world can participate.
As part of the “Greater Good Podcast” series, she recently spoke with Greater Good Editor-in-Chief
Jason Marsh about how self-compassion differs from self-esteem, why
self-compassion can be hard for Americans, and the transformative effect
it had on her own life.
Below we present a condensed version of the discussion.
Quest: So please start by telling us: What is self-compassion?
Ans: The
quick version is that it’s treating yourself with the same type of
kind, caring support and understanding that you would show to anyone you
cared about. In fact, most of us make incredibly harsh, cruel
self-judgments that we would never make about a total stranger, let
alone someone we cared about.
Quest: In your work you’ve identified three core components of self-compassion. Could you please tell us what they are?
ANS: Right,
the first one is self-kindness, as opposed to self-judgment. A lot of
times when we suffer, we just take a very cold attitude toward
ourselves. So self-compassion involves being warm and
supportive—actively soothing ourselves—as opposed to being cold and
judging ourselves.
The second part is remembering that imperfection is part of the shared
human experience—that you’re not alone in your suffering. Often, when
something goes wrong, we look in the mirror and don’t like what we
see—we feel very isolated in that moment, as if everyone else has these
perfect lives and it’s just us who’s flawed and defective. When we
remember that imperfection is part of the shared human experience, you
can actually feel more connected to people in those moments.
The third component is mindfulness. If you aren’t mindfully aware that
you’re suffering, if you’re just repressing your pain or ignoring it or
getting lost in problem solving, you can’t give yourself compassion. You
have to say, “Wait a second. This hurts. This is really hard. This is a
moment where I need compassion.” If you don’t want to go there, if it’s
too painful or you’re just too busy to go there, you can’t be
compassionate.
QUEST: When
I hear you describe it like that, it seems so obvious that this is
something we should all try to practice. Yet the truth of the matter,
which you explain in your book, is that a lot of us, most of us perhaps,
are really bad at practicing self-compassion. Why do you think that is?
And why is that such a bad thing?
ANS: It’s
very interesting because 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.
We treat ourselves very differently than we treat other people. And I think there are several reasons why.
One of the big reasons is that people feel that they need to be
self-critical in order to motivate themselves. We think we need to beat
ourselves up if we make mistakes so that we won’t do it again. It’s a
convoluted form of self-care: I criticize myself because I don’t want to
keep engaging in this behavior that’s problematic.
But that’s completely counterproductive. Self-criticism is very
strongly linked to depression. And depression is antithetical to
motivation: You’re unable to be motivated to change if you’re depressed.
It causes us to lose faith in ourselves, and that’s going to make us
less likely to try to change and conditions us for failure. If every
time you fail or make a mistake you beat yourself up, you’re going to
very quickly try to avoid failure at all costs. It’s a natural survival
instinct. Which means you may not take risks—maybe you take the course
that’s an easy A [instead of a more challenging one].
Maybe 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 going to tear yourself to shreds with
self-criticism—your subconscious pulls every trick in the book to not
have to own up to your weaknesses.
The easiest trick is to blame someone else. Think about fights you have
with your significant other—“You did it!” “No, you did it!” Each one’s
trying to defend their ego, blaming the other person. But when you have
self-compassion, it actually gives you the courage and the emotional
safety you need to say, “Mea culpa—I did do that, I was out of line.”
And that clarity actually gives you not only the wisdom to see what
needs changing but the emotional strength and courage to go ahead and
change it.
QUEST: So what what’s the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion?
ANS: Self-compassion
and self-esteem both involve positive emotions toward the self. But
self-esteem is about judging yourself positively: I am good. Or,
unfortunately, if you can’t keep up that self-definition: I am bad.
Self-compassion does not involve judgment or evaluation. It’s not
about, “What type of person am I?” It’s just about: I’m suffering—can I
respond to my suffering with kindness, understanding, caring, and
concern?
Self-esteem is present when we succeed. Self-compassion is a way of relating to ourselves kindly when we fail.
Self-esteem is all about being special and above average. You subtly
try to position yourself above other people so you can maintain your
self-esteem. But self-compassion is about shared humanity—it’s all about
being average. It’s about being a human: We have strengths and
beautiful qualities, and we have weaknesses; we succeed and we fail and
it’s all part of this shared human condition.
QUEST: I
want to talk a little bit about your personal experience with
self-compassion, how you really came to embrace it both personally and
scientifically. How did you personally come to believe in the importance
of self-compassion?
ANS: I
had a hippie, New-Agey childhood. But when I got to Berkeley for grad
school, I decided I had to reject all that. And then what happened
was—if you read my book, I tell my dirty laundry—but basically I was
going through a very messy divorce, and I was stressed about finishing
my dissertation and finding a job. There was a lot going on in my life.
And I realized that when I just went for the intellect and tried to
reject all my spirituality, I was shutting myself down. So I decided to
give Buddhism a try.
I started meditating. And the lady teaching the meditation 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 before, ‘You really should be kind to yourself, and it’ll
actually be really healthy if you are?’” It immediately changed my life,
so much so that when I got remarried shortly thereafter, we ended our
marriage vows with the vow to help each other be more
self-compassionate. We were both so moved by the concept.
After doing my post-doc and getting the job at UT-Austin, it was kind
of scary because no one knew how to even define self-compassion, let
alone conduct research on it in academia, although a lot of people had
written about it in other circles. But I just knew that this was so
important, I wanted it to be my life’s work. I started doing research on
it, and I continued to practice it—going on retreats, practicing in my
daily life, etc. But when it really saved me was when my son was
diagnosed with autism in 2004.
I can’t even imagine how I would have coped if I didn’t have my
self-compassion practice. I was able to fully accept my grief, not feel
guilty for grieving, which a lot of autism parents do: “How can I be
grieving for my child who I love so much?” I was able to accept all my
complex, intense emotions, to really soothe and comfort myself for what I
was going through.
With autism, you are powerless. When my son used to have tantrums in
public, there was nothing I could do. I was completely powerless. I
could try to keep him safe and that’s about it. So self-compassion
allowed me to accept that, and open my heart to it—he’d 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…” I would actually focus on myself
rather than him, after making sure he was safe. I couldn’t help him,
but I could help myself in that moment.
Self-compassion gave me the emotional stability I needed to help him,
and then ultimately to embrace him, with a much more open heart and open
mind than I would have been able to—to not try to fix him or control
him but to celebrate who I was and kind of follow his lead. I won’t go
into it here, but my husband wrote a book, and we made a documentary,
called The Horse Boy, which is really about what happens if you open your heart and your mind to a child with autism or special needs.
QUESTSo
it sounds like self-compassion was a revelation for you in your
personal life and your family life. But why study it? Why would it
necessarily follow that you should study it scientifically, especially
given that there was a chance you could find no measurable benefits?
ANS: Well,
to be totally honest, I was convinced of the benefits and felt that
what I wanted to do was demonstrate empirically that there were
benefits. I don’t know what I would’ve done if there were no benefits. I
probably would’ve still practiced self-compassion because 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 by how strongly the links
were between self-compassion and well-being—they’re really strong,
robust associations. I thought, “Wow, we’re onto something here.”
QUEST: Looking
back over the last decade or so of research, what are the findings that
you think really attest to the benefits of self-compassion?
ANS: Well,
there’s the data supporting the fact that self-compassion has the same
mental health benefits as self-esteem: less depression, more optimism,
greater happiness, more life satisfaction. But self-compassion offers
the benefits without the drawbacks of self-esteem. Self-esteem 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—as well as less social
comparison, less reactive anger.
Now a lot of research is coming out around health behaviors, showing
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 showing that self-compassion is not just
a good idea, and it doesn’t just make you feel good, it makes you act
in healthier ways.
Also, people who are self-compassionate are kinder, more giving, and supportive to their relationship partners.
QUEST: Those
research results sound encouraging, but could they just reflect that
people who are self-compassionate also have these other traits and
practice these other behaviors? Or is there research suggesting that
self-compassion can actually be taught, and that by learning
self-compassion, those other benefits will follow?
ANS: Yeah,
the research is already there, and it’s going to continue. There’s a
lot of research on MBSR—Jon Kabat-Zinns’ Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction program—and all the benefits that accrue from that. Well, it
turns out that self-compassion increases through participation in the
course; in fact, it may be that self-compassion is perhaps even the most
powerful outcome of MBSR training that enhances well-being.
Some of the studies I’m talking about are based on short-term
interventions, training people over four weeks. But my colleague Chris
Germer and I have developed an eight-week program, very similar in
structure to mindfulness-based stress reduction, where two hours a week
for eight weeks, we talk about self-compassion, we teach exercises, we
do self-compassion meditations, interpersonal exercises. I’ll have the
data very soon to see if it does increase well-being. We’ve done pilot
testing without a control group and the results were really good.
I could see this going into the schools. Already, people are starting
to talk about teaching compassion in the schools, so I’d like to add
this piece of having compassion for yourself as well.
QUEST: That
brings up a point you mentioned earlier. When you talk about teaching
self-compassion in schools, I think that might raise some red flags in
some people’s minds. I’m thinking of the concern I’ve heard before: Is
self-compassion going to make people complacent and unmotivated to
improve themselves and accomplish more?
ANS: Yeah,
that is a very common concern. It’s actually, I think, the number one
block to self-compassion: the fear that if I’m too kind to myself, I’ll
be complacent.
The research doesn’t show that. The research really supports that
people who are self-compassionate, their standards are just as high for
themselves, but they don’t get as upset when they fail to meet their
goals—they cope with it more productively. And as a result, when
self-compassionate people don’t reach a goal, they’re much more likely
to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and re-engage in a new goal.
Self-compassion is associated with 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 want to
impress other people. There is a huge body of research showing that if
your goal is to learn as opposed to just impress others, that’s a much
more sustainable way of learning and growing.
QUEST: So if you could engineer our society in a way that fosters more self-compassion, how would you do that?
ANS: I
think our obsession with self-esteem and competition does mean that
we’d have to engineer things differently here. Is that what we want to
be promoting in the schools? Is that what parents want to be promoting?
We don’t want kids to hate themselves, we want them to feel worthy, but
is life all about being better than others? Is it all about being
special and above average? Or is about being a human being as happy and
healthy as you possibly can be, about reaching your own potential? And I
think if we made that type of cultural shift, at the level of parenting
and education, I think we’d have a real chance of shifting things at
the larger macro level.
Forgiveness
holds the possibility for expanding our capacity to love. There is only
one reason to forgive. If we want to be free, if we want to live as the
full and unlimited expression of ourselves, if we want our hearts to
open, then we are being invited to put an end to all stories that keep
us closed and contracted.
