Psychology Professor Reveals How To Silence Your Inner Critic | Dr Kristin Neff | FBLM podcast

Dr. Kristin Neff 0:00 Often life's a battle. Who do you want inside your head as you go into battle? Do you want an enemy who's cutting you down, who's shaming you? Or do you want an ally who says, "I got your back. We can do this. I believe in you. I'm here for you." Clearly we're gonna be stronger, more confident, more able to deal with the difficulties of life when we're our own ally, when, when we support ourselves as opposed to pulling the rug out underneath ourselves, which we do with self-criticism. But, uh, yeah, there's a lot of hard science that also shows that, you know, when the tough get going, the tough get self-compassionate if they wanna be strong and get through. Because it's basically the idea of being really supportive towards yourself when you're struggling. And of course, being supportive to yourself is gonna make you stronger rather than shaming or slamming yourself. [laughs] It's, it's kind of an idea that once you break it down, it's like, "Oh, yeah, I never thought of it that way." But our culture has a lot of myths about things like compassion. They think it's, like, just soft and sweet and sugarcoating. And that, that is why the, the hard science helps, um, because it, it shows people that, hey, this stuff really works.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10 Right at the start of this conversation I thought we should probably define a few terms-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:15 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:15 ... because a lot of these terms get used, and everyone's got a different understanding of what they mean. So how would you describe self-compassion?

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:26 Right. So, um, there's kind of two levels. There's just describing what it is, and then there's actually defining what goes into it. So at the simplest level, compassion, kind of the cr- agreed-upon scientific definition, is concern with the alleviation of suffering and the motivation to do something about it, right? And so y- at, at the simplest level, you might think that compassion is just, self-compassion is just compassion turned inward. We're concerned with our own suffering. We care about ourselves, and we try to help ourselves so that we are healthier and don't suffer so much. Um, but of course, you know, in science we need a l- a, a little more precise definition, especially because 20 years ago I decided I wanted to create a scale to measure this thing and to conduct research on it. And so, um, in my model there are actually three main ingredients of self-compassion. The first one is something that people have heard a lot about these days, and that is mindfulness. Mindfulness and self-compassion, they're, they're actually very closely related. So mindfulness is the ability to turn toward what is, to be aware of what is. To not run from it or, or, or dive into it too much when, especially when things are painful. And if you think about it, most of us when things are painful or especially if that pain is caused by feelings of inadequacy or making a mistake, either we avoid it, we don't wanna think about it, you know, we just go into problem-solving mode, or we blame other people. Um, or we do the opposite and we kind of get consumed by it. We get so lost in our pain and our suffering that there's no perspective. And so in order to, to give compassion to ourselves, it takes a little bit of perspective-taking. We kind of have to step outside of ourselves and say, "Hey, you're really having a hard time. Is there anything I can do to help?" And that perspective is actually mindfulness, where we're aware of, um, what's happening, and we also have some perspective about what's happening. So you might say that's the first step. Um, and then of course when we're aware of what's happening, we also have to respond with, with kindness. I mean, we may be aware of our pain and just say, you know, "Suck it up," or, you know, [laughs] "It's all your fault." That's actually not compassionate. Um, compassionate means there's some sort of sense of warmth, some sense of care, some sense of understanding. It's a, it's a kind response as opposed to a harsh response. Uh, and then finally what's really important, what differentiates self-compassion from self-pity, and a lot of people get these two confused, and they're very, very different. Self-pity is woe is me. Um, compassion and pity are different. So Rangan, if I, if I had, um, compassion for you, you'd probably like it. I'd say, you've, maybe you were telling me about a problem you had, and I said, "Oh, yeah, I've been there," you know. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?" Whereas if I pitied you, you wouldn't like it because I'd be looking down on you like, "Whoa, you really got it bad. Poor, poor thing," you know? [laughs] So the difference between pity and compassion is the sense of interconnectedness, right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 4:27 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 4:28 If you look at the word compassion in the Latin, com means with, passion means to suffer. There's this sense of suffering with, suffering together. And so with self-compassion, instead of poor me, it's just recognizing that, you know, hey, life is difficult for everyone. Everyone's imperfect. It's nothing to do with me personally, right? You know, we, we all make mistakes. We're all imperfect. We're all flawed. We all go through difficult times. And the reason that's so important is because more often, you know, especially if we, we make a mistake or even if you get a, a, an unpleasant call from the doctor, our irrational reaction is something has gone wrong. This isn't supposed to be happening. You know, and again, it's not a logical reaction, but emotionally we feel like what's supposed to be happening is perfection, and maybe everyone else in the world is living a problem-free life, and it's just me who's made this ba- big mistake. Or it's just me who's struggling with this personal issue. And it's kind of just a fallacy of the mind. And so with self-compassion we remember, oh, wait a second, this is the human condition. You know, being human isn't about being perfect. Being human is about being flawed and struggling and doing the best we can. You know, falling down and getting ourselves up again. And so these elements together, this sense of mindfulness of our, of our, of our difficulty and pain, a kind reaction to it, and then feeling connected in that experience, these, all these three things have to be there, according to my model, um, in order to be self-compassion. And empirically they tend to go together. They tend to engender one another. Um- And, and as you mentioned, the research now, there's over 3,000 studies on self-compassion. There's two or three coming out every single day, and it really overwhelmingly supports the benefits of this mind state that, you know, th- when we, when we turn toward ourselves with, um, this supportive way of being.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 6:21 Yeah. Something I've observed over the years, particularly as I've got more and more experienced, is when you look at the patients who really transform and change their lives, not just in the short term, but also in the medium term and long term, as I've sort of become more aware of this, I'm seeing that it actually is because of self-compassion. It's those ones who start to quieten down and then ultimately eliminate that inner voice, that nasty inner voice in their heads, that actually starts to change things. So it's, for me, I feel that self-compassion is really important for health outcomes as well as our day-to-day wellbeing. And I guess the question I'd put to you at the start, for people who are listening, for people who are watching who are skeptical-

Dr. Kristin Neff 7:19 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 7:19 ... right, why should anyone consuming this podcast at the moment be bothered about self-compassion?

Dr. Kristin Neff 7:27 Right. So, um, well, self-compassion is really the antidote to our more habitual way of being, which is harshly self-critical, right, or really cold to ourselves. Um, and talk about health, right? There's a, there's just a new meta-analysis that came out showing that self-compassion is linked to physical, as, as well as emotional health. Because of course, I'm sure as you know, our state of mind impacts our body, right, and how healthy and how well it's functioning. So when you're harshly self-critical or, or cold to yourself... And, and by the way, w- believe it or not, we wanna... We don't wanna judge ourselves for judging ourselves. We don't wanna beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up. Because really what's happening when we're really hard on ourselves is we're just trying to stay safe, right? We feel threatened in some way. When we feel we're inadequate, or we've made a mistake, we feel like, "Oh, gosh, I better need to change this because it's gonna cause problems in my life." And so we go into the threat defense mode. You know, we, we attack ourselves thinking that somehow if we attack ourselves, that's gonna... We're gonna whip ourselves into shape, and we'll be better, and therefore we'll be safe. So it kind of comes, the underlying motive of self-criticism is a good one. The problem is, is it's really counterproductive, right? So first of all, when, when we're really hard on ourselves or harsh with ourselves, um, it, it activates the sympathetic nervous system response, which is associated with things like, um, high cortisol levels, um, inflammation, um, high heart rate, um, e- eventually blood, high blood pressure and heart attacks, things like that. So when we're constantly in, you might call it the freak-out mode [laughs] the threat defense mode, we feel really threatened. You know, our body's on very high alert to deal with the danger. But if the danger is really like, "Does this dress make me look fat?" You know? I'm sorry, but, you know, things like that, we just... The things we criticize ourself for, um, constantly means we're, we're... we feel like a lion is chasing us, and that constant activation, um, actually is bad for our physical health. So what self-compassion does is it, it... By the way, it doesn't say, "Oh, that's fine. You don't need to change." But it says, "Okay, maybe you do need to change," but it does it with encouragement and support as opposed to harsh self-criticism. It comes... It's kind of like a, an ultimately, um, uh, a really wise coach or a really compassionate parent. A compassionate parent doesn't say to their child, you know, "Okay, little Johnny, you don't wanna go to school today. That's fine. Oh, you want the whole entire bag of cookies? Oh, I love you so much." [laughs] That's not a compassionate parent, right? That, that parent is harming their child. A compassionate parent cares about their child and wants the best for them. And so the same thing with self-compassion. If we care about ourselves and want the best for ourselves, we're gonna make change unhealthy behaviors, we're gonna try to reach our goals, um, we're gonna do whatever we need to do to be healthy. And so what happens when we're self-compassionate at the physiological level is it actually taps into the parasympathetic nervous system. So this is the system that gets activated when we feel loved, when we feel cared for, when we feel connected, when we feel secure, like in our tribe, right? W- um, and this helps us feel calm and relaxed. It lowers cortisol levels and increases heart rate variability and improves things like sleep, and that's why self-compassion is also linked to better physical health.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 10:55 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 10:55 Right? Uh, so, so think about this. There's been a lot of, um, work done with army veterans, um, people who'd, who'd, uh, i- in the USA who'd had seen combat either in Iraq or Afghanistan, and they found that those veterans who were self-compassionate about what they had faced and also maybe what they had done, um, in other words, who are an inner ally to themselves, who had their own back as opposed to beating themselves up all the time or feeling a lot of shame about what had happened or just total despair, those who were supportive of themselves were less likely to develop, to develop post-traumatic stress syndrome. They could function a lot better coming back to daily life. They were less likely to abuse alcohol, less likely to try to commit suicide, which unfortunately is a big problem-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 11:39 Yeah

Dr. Kristin Neff 11:39 ... among veterans, you know. So when you go into... Life's a battle. It m- you know, not always, but often life's a battle. I mean, this coronavirus is certainly, we talk about it like this battle. Who do you want inside your head as you go into battle? Do you want an enemy who's cutting you down, who's shaming you, who's saying, "Oh, you're crap. I hate you"? Or do you want an ally who says, "I got your back. We can do this. I believe in you. I'm here for you"? Clearly we're gonna be stronger, more confident, more able to deal with the difficulties of life when we're our own ally, when, when we support ourselves as opposed to pulling the rug out underneath ourselves, which we do with self-criticism.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:16 Yeah, I think that's a great analogy because- As you were talking then, I was thinking about, well, what's the opposite of self-compassion? Is there an opposite to self-compassion?

Dr. Kristin Neff 12:26 Yeah, so, so s- compassion, like, i- in, uh, i- in terms of how we measure compassion, it- it's an increase in positive behaviors like being kind to yourself, being mindful, um, feeling connected to others, and it's a decrease in things like self-criticism, of feeling isolated from others, or f- feeling what's called over-identified. That's when you kind of exaggerate and get lost in how bad things are.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:50 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 12:50 So both change simultaneously.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:53 I love how you brought up the stress response because-

Dr. Kristin Neff 12:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 12:57 ... I find that most things these days [laughs] when it comes to health and wellbeing can be explained on an evolutionary level, particularly when we just look at our core stress response, and it strikes me that the stress response really evolved, didn't it, to help us against those physical threats?

Dr. Kristin Neff 13:13 Exactly.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:13 But you're sort of saying that actually if we don't practice self-compassion, if we're harsh with ourselves, if we're critical of ourselves, then we're still activating the stress response, not against a, a physical threat, but almost against our concept of who we are ourselves. And, and actually-

Dr. Kristin Neff 13:34 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:34 ... we, we're not getting away from ourselves. We live with ourselves. We're with ourselves 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So actually, you're making this powerful case that actually if that's happening, if we have that negative view of ourselves or we talk to ourselves in a really harsh way, which is so, so common, and I would imagine is the norm in society-

Dr. Kristin Neff 13:57 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 13:57 ... well, many of us are activating our stress responses every single day.

Dr. Kristin Neff 14:02 Ab- absolutely. So basically when we attack ourselves, our body is, i- it's, it's acting, the sympathetic nervous system is activated, often more so than physical danger. I mean, if we think of how stressed we get and how upset we get when, when we feel shame or maybe you've gotta, like, publicly speak and you ma- you say something really wrong or... You know, these things can be incredibly scary, right? Incredibly activating. Um, and our bodies feel it. Uh, and I have, I have to say, I just did a little bit of cross-cultural

Dr. Kristin Neff 14:33 research, um, and the UK was near the bottom of 17 countries I looked at in terms of levels of self-compassion. And I, I think it's partly because... Um, the USA was also fairly low. It was, like s- seventh to the bottom, but the UK, I think, was, was just about the lowest. And I think it's, it, it really comes from, again, we don't wanna beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up because it comes from this underlying desire to be safe and healthy, the idea of, "Well, just push it through. You should, you know, get through it. Don't complain," and kind of this-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:03 Yeah

Dr. Kristin Neff 15:03 ... it's this idea that if I'm really hard on myself that somehow that's gonna help me or somehow that's gonna help other people. You know, it's gonna make me less self-centered. It's gonna make me, you know, less of a complainer. Um, the problem is is it's just wrong. I mean, the research shows it's just wrong.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 15:19 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 15:20 So for instance, self-criticism is an incredibly self-focused state, uh, and it's also unmotivating. So, so I, I... Let me back up a little bit. It, it kind of works in some circumstances. I mean, I'm, there are people I'm sure you know got through, could get through med school off of harsh self-criticism. Uh, but what it does is it [laughs] yeah, but it creates, uh, they see these, not these, you know, you might, might say unwanted side effects that are really damaging, right? So for instance, it lowers your sense of self-confidence. Um, it makes you more anxious. So for instance, if you take a really big exam and you're afraid that if you don't get the, the score you need you're gonna beat yourself up, that's actually gonna make you more anxious as you're taking the test, and it's gonna lower your ability to perform at your best. Um, also, when you f- when you do fail, and even doctors who are expected to be gods, they're only human, right? What happens is when you fail, because you can't, like, handle the failure, oftentimes people just give up. Well, then I, you know, "I'll just drop out of med school," or, "I'll just do something else," or, you know, make, make some other choice because it, it feels so unacceptable to be, to fail. Uh, whereas with self-compassion, right, it's a much more effective motivator. Uh, so put it this way. Shame is not exactly a get-up-and-go mind state. I think we can all kind of recognize that. [laughs] Um, also saying, "It's okay. Don't worry about it," that's not a motivator either. That's not self-compassionate. Self-compassion, if you imagine this coach, maybe, like, a, a football coach, in, in the British term soccer coach, who's, like, really good, really knows their stuff, really believes in their players, and that coach is not gonna, like, just let their players slide if they're doing something that's not good. They're gonna say, "Hey, I know you can do better. Here's how to do better. What can we learn from our mistakes?" Right? "How can we practice and, and, you know, make up for any weaknesses so we can do better in the next game?" That's the type of com- mindset that a compassionate mindset is, and it's just much more effective, and it's more sustainable over time. So for instance, when you criticize yourself, it's painful, right? It actually starts to harm your body. It starts to harm... You know, it feels bad. It hurts you. Self-compassion, this is the amazing th- amazing thing. Even though it's aimed at suffering by definition, you know, so it's like when we're feeling badly about ourselves or maybe we're just going through a really hard time in our lives, when we kind of embrace ourselves like a friend with kindness, with support, with care, even though we're suffering, compassion itself is a positive emotion and activates the reward centers of the brain, right? We all, we all want kindness. We wanna feel connected. We wanna feel that peace of mindfulness. These are positive states of mind. So what we're doing is we're holding a negative, um, um, experience with this positive state of mind, but not in a way... It's not like sugarcoating. It's not like positive thinking. You know, it's not denying- ... the negative state of mind. It's not like saying, "Oh, yeah, things are fine. Yeah, everything's gonna be wonderful. Every day I'm getting s- stronger and stronger," because I actually may not be [laughs] , you know? Maybe I'm sick. So it doesn't, it doesn't repress or, or sugar or p- or paper over, um, the negative feelings. It embraces the negative feelings and says, "Okay, this is reality. This is what is. Um, this is hard."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 18:45 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 18:45 "How can I help myself deal with this?" And so the warmth and the kindness and the feeling of connection, you know, everyone struggles, that actually gives us the strength and sense of support as we're coping with the negative emotion simultaneously. So it's like generating good feelings alongside of recognizing the bad feelings, and this is really the power of it because it allows us to more productively deal with the problems we have. Um, it feels good, it feels... helps us to connect with other people, and it's much more sustainable over time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:19 As we record this, we're in the middle of January, and I've just, coming towards the end of two weeks off, I guess, a virtual book tour. Um, I released a couple of weeks ago a, a book which is a... It's called Feel Great Lose Weight, but it's a compassionate approach to people who have been struggling to lose weight for many years.

Dr. Kristin Neff 19:42 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:42 It's, it... And, and what's been really interesting in all the media interviews, there's a question that often comes up which is to do with the whole motivation piece. And it's really-

Dr. Kristin Neff 19:51 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:51 ... interesting that I say, "Look, everyone's been on a diet before for two or three weeks-

Dr. Kristin Neff 19:57 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 19:57 ... and lost a bit of weight or felt a little bit better." But the question is how many of those people are still able to make those changes long-lasting in two months, in three months, in four months, in five months? And I, and I find myself a lot talking to these interviewers on TV saying, "Well, look, you can lose weight on any diet in January, frankly, if that's what your goal is." But what I see as a doctor is in Marchtime, not only have people put back on the weight, they've gone higher, but even worse, they've damaged their feeling of self-worth.

Dr. Kristin Neff 20:28 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:28 They don't blame the diet. They feel like failures, and that feeling of being a failure leads to them going, "Ah, screw it," and leads to-

Dr. Kristin Neff 20:37 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:37 ... more comfort eating and more-

Dr. Kristin Neff 20:40 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:40 ... negative behaviors. And, and actually there's, there's a whole section on compassion and actually what is that inner voice? How do you talk to yourself?

Dr. Kristin Neff 20:50 Mm.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 20:50 And I can't tell you how many messages Chris and I've had over the last two weeks, private messages from people saying, "That is so impactful because I am really harsh with myself. I talk to myself like I would talk to nobody else."

Dr. Kristin Neff 21:05 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:05 And I guess that is, and i- this is what doesn't get spoken about for, in many conditions, but something like weight loss, which all round the world people are trying to lose weight in a sustainable way, they're trying to beat themselves up. They're trying to be the drill sergeant. They're trying to be the-

Dr. Kristin Neff 21:22 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:22 ... the kind of mean coach saying, "Come on, you can do this," when actually when you shift to having that compassionate voice to yourself, the changes, they may not be as quick-

Dr. Kristin Neff 21:35 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 21:35 ... but they're certainly more long-lasting and more sustainable, right?

Dr. Kristin Neff 21:39 Yeah. Yeah, so, so let me, let me tell you a study, one of the earliest s- studies that came out on self-compassion and dieting behavior. And there's a lot of research showing that, yeah, it helps people, um, lose weight. It helps them h- do intuitive eating so they don't eat when they're stuffed because they, they don't need to emotionally eat because they have a, a better, healthier way to deal with their pain than food, which is self-compassion. But in th- in this study, what they did is they had, um, they, they gathered I think it was mainly women who were on a diet. Um, these were undergraduates. And as part of... And they had them come in to do, um, one of these psychology, uh, subject pools. So they all had to take this, um, participate in this experiment. And, uh, they, they pretended that they were doing a taste testing session as part of the experiment, and one of the things that they had to taste was a donut. And they had to eat the whole donut. It was like a big, greasy, fried, glazed donut. And all these women were on diets, right? They, they recruited them because they were on diets. And then, um, afterward, they, um, either they... So, um, t- they broke, broke them into three groups. One group, they told them to be compassionate about the fact. "Hey, don't beat yourself up," you know? "It's okay. It was kind of part of i- We know that it's, it's, it's troubling, but everyone had to do it. You know, it's only human. Don't beat yourself up. Try to be kind and supportive to yourself." Um, w- the other third, they, they tried to boost their self-esteem. You know, "Hey, write about things that you really like about yourself." And the third group, they didn't tell anything, which kind of, which meant they were probably beating themselves up. I mean, they didn't tell the subjects, "Beat yourself up," but they probably were beating [laughs] themselves up, right? And then, and then the second part of the experiment, they said, "Okay, well, we've g- we have another part of the experiment. We'd like you to, to rate how flavorful these, these candies are." They were like M&Ms. Um, so they gave them a big bowl of candies, and then they left the room. The experimenter left the room for a while and said, "Okay, just try these out, see if you like them or not," and then they came back in. And [laughs] then later they, they actually measured how many M&Ms they had eaten. And what they found was that the women who were told n- to be compassionate about breaking their diet, which they had done with the glazed donut, didn't eat very many M&Ms. But the ones who, um, were either told to boost their self-esteem or weren't told anything, so in other words they beat themselves up, ate a lot more M&Ms. And so again, that's, that's kind of illustrating what happens, right? We break our diet. We feel, we, we beat ourselves up, "I'm a loser." We feel upset. What's our habitual way of feeling better when we feel upset? We eat, right? And by the way, there's another study, 'cause, 'cause, you know, o- overeating is also linked to diabetes. There's another study that showed that people who participated in the Mindful Self-Compassion Program, which is the program I've developed with colleagues, eight-week self-compassion training, um, not only did they gain self-compassion, they actually lowered their glucose levels. Right? And part of this is related to the fact that they're more able to stick to the regime, whether it's medication and eating. But it actually, eight weeks of training actually f- they measured their glucose before and after the training, and their glucose levels actually, it went down and, and w- were stabilized. So it, it's really powerful medicine. Um-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 24:51 Yeah, I mean, the, the, the phrase I've often used, which seems very apt in relevance to what you just said, is that we used to eat to fill a hole in our stomachs.

Dr. Kristin Neff 25:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:03 Now we're often eating to fill a hole in our hearts.

Dr. Kristin Neff 25:06 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:07 And if we're not compassionate to ourselves, then actually that, in many ways that, that hole in our hearts becomes bigger and bigger, and we seek all kinds of different behaviors. Yes, it could be food, it could be sugar, but it could be gambling. It could be scrolling for four hours on Instagram every evening. It could be, you know-

Dr. Kristin Neff 25:29 Alcohol. Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:30 ... alcohol, porn addiction, whatever it is. There can be all-

Dr. Kristin Neff 25:33 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 25:33 ... kinds of things that actually are stemming from this lack of feeling whole at who you are, compassionate to who you are. I, uh, s- something you said before about medical students I found really interesting because I think I used to be... Not, uh [laughs] okay, let, let's be totally honest here. I was very, very harsh with myself. I, well, I can remember [laughs] I, I'm not sure I should be admitting this, but I, I can remember at medical school going with one of my buddies to the pool hall i- in Edinburgh called Diane's Pool Hall, and you know, I love playing snooker and pool. It's one of my favorite sports to play. And if I wasn't playing very well or I was losing against a friend who I thought I should be beating, I'd go into the men's toilets, and I'd look in front of the mirror, and I'd look at me, and I'd slap my face. "Come on, you loser. You can do this. Sort yourself out." Now, this, this sounds really trivial, okay? Be- because it would work. The thing is it would work in the short term.

Dr. Kristin Neff 26:35 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:35 I'd come out thinking that, yeah, I'm, I'm a loser for losing that last game. I'm gonna sort myself out, and then go and I'd play really well after that typically and, and win. So that then reinforces, oh, this works. This works.

Dr. Kristin Neff 26:50 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 26:50 And I, I remember doing, um, you know, I, I can, I can, I can feel it as I talk about it similar type of behavioral patterns. Now, that's been getting less for a number of years, but we still fall into old patterns, and I tell you why that story, it almost comes full circle. I'm very mindful, I try to be, of how I behave and talk to myself in front of my children.

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:15 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:15 Because I don't want to model negative self-talk to them.

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:18 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:18 I was playing snooker with my son the other day, and normally I don't, but something slipped out. It, it wasn't too bad, but I was like, "I can't believe you missed that." I was talking to myself.

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:28 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:29 And my son said to me, "Hey, Daddy, come on. Don't talk to yourself like that."

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:32 [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:33 And it was, it was really gorgeous actually because-

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:36 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:36 ... in the past when he's ever said anything like that, I've said, "Hey, darling, listen, it's okay, you know? But don't, don't talk to yourself like that. Talk- treat yourself better than you would treat even your friends," right? "Why would you talk to yourself like that?"

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:48 And it was so lovely that he started to, in a really compassionate way, call me out on it, and I thought-

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:53 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 27:53 ... "Oh yeah, thanks. Thanks for reminding me."

Dr. Kristin Neff 27:56 Yeah, yeah. A- and modeling is definitely one of the ways we develop our levels of self-compassion as adults. Um, and, and it's either parents were critical of you or they are very self-critical, and then we pick that up.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:09 But in, but in that story, I just wanna say I f- I feel that that negative self-talk, in the short term it got me-

Dr. Kristin Neff 28:15 Right

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:15 ... to get through an exam, win a snooker match, right? But I think it came at a cost, and it's what you said about-

Dr. Kristin Neff 28:23 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:23 ... those hidden side effects.

Dr. Kristin Neff 28:25 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:25 I think it came from a, a place of lack, of not feeling, uh, good enough-

Dr. Kristin Neff 28:32 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:32 ... at just being me. Because why does it matter if you lose a snooker game? Why... But for me, it became my identity. If I lost it-

Dr. Kristin Neff 28:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 28:39 ... it would say something about who I was as a person. As I become more compassionate to myself, I feel happier. I feel calmer. I feel I'm less likely to engage in behaviors I'm trying not to engage in because I just don't feel the need to plug that gap anymore.

Dr. Kristin Neff 29:00 Yeah, you know, no, absolutely. So what, I mean, the research is, shows not only, um, are you happier and you're more satisfied with your life, and you're also able to give more to others in relationships, right? Some people think that self-compassion is selfish, but in fact, people who have self-compassionate romantic partners, they say their, you know, their partners are, they're kinder, they're more intimate, they're more loving, they're less controlling, they get less angry. You know, people are more satisfied with partners who are self-compassionate, and that's

Dr. Kristin Neff 29:30 because when you aren't beating yourself up and you're kind of filling your own reserves with these feelings of kindness and support and connectedness, you actually have more available to give others. But I, I wanna return to the point about motivation, and the reason it's so important is because what the research shows is the number one block to self-compassion is people believe it's gonna undermine their motivation. So, so it's really huge. Um, and so let's talk about the fact that it, it, it kind of works in the long run. So there are kind of two forms of self-compassion. There's, um, accepting self-compassion, when we accept ourselves as we are, but there's... And I call that kind of tender self-compassion. But in order to alleviate our suffering, you know, sometimes the right thing to do is to accept ourselves as we are, and sometimes the right thing to do is to try as hard as we can to change, right? And I, I like to call that fierce self-compassion, the energy of, you know, this is not okay. Maybe s- saying that to someone else, protecting ourselves, right? That's not okay. You can't treat me that way. That's absolutely part of self-compassion. And sometimes it's inside saying, you know, maybe we, we might say that to our inner critic. You can't treat me that way. Or we might say, you know, maybe it's not okay to lose. I mean, you know, it's ultimately the bottom line is I'm still worthy if I lose, but if I wanna be happy, may- maybe I'm a professional athlete, and there, self-compassion is starting to take off among athletes. Maybe I'm a professional athlete, and if I wanna be happy, of course I wanna be the best. Of course I wanna win games. And to say like, "Oh, don't worry about it if you win or lose," that's actually not being kind to yourself because it's really important to you to win and to be the best athlete you can. And so, um, I think people get confused, and they think self-compassion is just about acceptance. Again, so what, what, the way self-compassion motivates is it says, "The bottom line is if you fail, you're still worthy. You know, y- that your worthiness isn't contingent on success or failure. I will still love you. You'll still be worthy, and I w- I won't hate you if you lose. But at the same time, I want you to succeed. And, and, and I'm gonna do..." Here's the important thing. "I'm gonna do everything I can do to help you succeed, including looking very carefully at how you failed and seeing how we can learn from that failure to help you do better next time." That's, you know, on, on top of that bottom line of unconditional self-acceptance. And that is actually much more effective, right? Any parent, any parent knows that they can, they could... There's three ways of reacting to your child who's failing. One is, "You stupid loser. I'm ashamed of you." Yeah, the, the child may try harder next time to p- get up their grades, but, you know, they're, they're, they're, if they may just hate themselves. They may give up out of school. They may just internalize this as low self-esteem. You know, they might turn to drugs. You c- you... There's gonna be a lot of negative consequences if you tell your child who's failing, "I hate you. You're a loser." Um, another way might be, and you may think this is compassionate, but it's not really compassionate. The parent just says, "Oh, that's fine. Don't worry, sweetheart. It's okay if you fail out of school. You know, everyone fails sometimes. That's all right." And they just leave it there. A parent who just leaves it there is not helping their child, 'cause their child needs to get good grades so they can go to college and succeed in life, right? So a compassionate parent who wants to motivate their child, the first thing they say is, "It's okay to fail. Everyone fails. It doesn't one iota impact my love for you. But I want you to succeed. You know, I care about you. I want you to achieve your best. So what can we learn from this failure?" You know? And this happened with my son when he failed an exam, actually, you know? And he was really upset 'cause he failed an exam. And so the first thing I said is, "Hey, everyone fails. It's okay. Give me a hug." But what did I do? I called all his teachers, and I found out, okay, what's going on with his study routine that wasn't working. We changed his study routine, and then he started succeeding on his exams. That's compassion, right? And so people get confused. They think it's just the tender accepting side, and they don't see the fierce motivating, what, what can we do to make things better side. And we actually need both to be self-compassionate. And in combination, they're much more effective than saying, "You better do better or I'll kick your ass." You know, it, which kinda works but has lots of negative side effects.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:06 Yeah. I, I really like that. There's a, there's a, there's a real subtle difference, isn't there, between just accepting everything and saying, "That's okay," but, but that, that, there's a way where you get that middle ground, where you do accept and say, "Actually, whether you win or lose doesn't change my love for you." Right? It's not your identity as a person.

Dr. Kristin Neff 34:25 Right. It's not, your worth isn't contingent on it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:28 But, but let me help you, and let me help, that's with a child, but also with yourself, right? It's-

Dr. Kristin Neff 34:33 With yourself

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:34 ... There, there was this... I, I did this, uh, online event last night. It was a independent bookshop near London that we normally I'd go and speak there, but obviously because of the restrictions, it was done on Zoom.

Dr. Kristin Neff 34:45 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 34:46 And I gave the talk, and there was a lot of questions. And actually, this is really fresh in my mind. It only happened a few hours ago. And the lady said, s- because it, it was a book event, and she said, "Rangan, I really like the book. It's helped me understand things to do with my weight, but I'm, I'm really struggling with motivation." Now, I couldn't speak to her. It was just on, you know, the chat functionality on Zoom.

Dr. Kristin Neff 35:10 Right.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:10 But I answered, and I was thinking, okay, it's hard to know what's going on exactly without hearing, you know, the nuance of that individual's story. But my feeling is, and I directed her to the, that compassion part within the book, talking about how you talk to yourself. Because I b- and I was thinking, I was lying in bed last night thinking about that question, and I was thinking that motivation's really interesting, because if you really do have compassion for yourself, then motivation actually I'm guessing is not that tricky. If you really love yourself, then would someone who loves themself do nothing at all for their health each day? Would someone who r-

Dr. Kristin Neff 35:55 Of course not.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:55 Exactly. W- if-

Dr. Kristin Neff 35:56 Of course not

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:56 ... So actually-

Dr. Kristin Neff 35:57 That's not compassionate.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 35:58 So-

Dr. Kristin Neff 35:58 How is it? It leads to suffering.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:00 Exactly. So what she doesn't need is someone beating her up and saying, "You're lazy," or the government saying, "You gotta try harder. You are not pulling your weight. Lose weight and save the NHS," which is some of the, uh, messaging that's been coming out over the past few months. And I think there's, they're, they're missing a big part of the picture, which is, first of all, for anyone who's really worked with people, they will know, as you've already mentioned, that shame never helped anybody change in the long term.

Dr. Kristin Neff 36:29 No.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:30 Nobody.

Dr. Kristin Neff 36:31 It doesn't.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:31 Uh-

Dr. Kristin Neff 36:31 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 36:32 But-

Dr. Kristin Neff 36:32 Whether you shame people for being overweight or, like, you, you look at things like race relations, right? If you wanna shame oppressors and, you know, that's not gonna help them say, "Okay, you're right. I'm gonna change." You know? So even people who are doing really bad things, we need to help them change from a place of care and compassion. Doesn't mean acceptance. That's n- acceptance is not always compassionate. It's part of compassion, but y- you can't accept behaviors that are harmful. That's not compassionate by definition. So it's how do you change? Is the change motivated by love or is it motivated by fear? So shame, self-criticism is like saying, "Unless you wanna feel l- unless you wanna hate yourself, you know, you better change." So it's like, "Okay, well, okay, I guess I don't wanna hate myself or I don't wanna feel shame, so I'll try." But that feeling, that un- uncertainty, that feeling like, "Okay, maybe I'm a bad person," that's like, again, pulling the rug out from underneath yourself, creating anxiety that's gonna make it harder for you to succeed. But motivation out of love, "Hey, I want you to change because I see that you're unhappy. You know, I care about you. You are a worthy person. How can I help? How can I help?" That, you know, that's really what self-compassion is. How can I help? And if you don't say how I can help, then you are, you're just part of the problem, whether it's for yourself or other people.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 37:57 Yeah. I wanna get into practical tips later on in this conversation, so for people who want to start a practice of self-compassion, they can have a few pointers as to where to go. But this whole idea of societal conditioning fascinates me. Why is something that really w- you know, when you, when you look at it rationally, when you make the case for it, it's quite obvious actually that this is the way we should be talking to ourself-

Dr. Kristin Neff 38:26 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:26 ... with love and with compassion, yet we don't. And you mentioned that Britain is very low down, if not bottom of the table. Doesn't surprise me, if I'm honest, because we have a phrase here, you know, you stiff upper lip. You just-

Dr. Kristin Neff 38:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:39 ... get on with it. You, you know, particularly for men, I think.

Dr. Kristin Neff 38:43 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:43 Um, so I, so I'm interested in different countries-

Dr. Kristin Neff 38:46 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:46 ... uh, the sexes, men-

Dr. Kristin Neff 38:48 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 38:48 ... the women. Are there, you know, what are the obstacles to self-compassion that you've seen across genders or across different countries, and how might we start to overcome them?

Dr. Kristin Neff 38:59 I think part of the reason we're so hard on ourselves is I do think it's part of our human physiology. Um, if, as you know, the threat defense response is the quickly, most easily triggered nervous system reaction to danger, right? It comes online first before the parasympathetic nervous response kicks in to say, "Okay, it's now safe," or you can feel safe by being connected. They call it our reptilian brain on purpose because even reptiles have this brain, right? This is a natural response, natural safety response. It's universal. We don't wanna beat ourselves up for it. We wanna have compassion for it. So that's, that's, that's one level. But then on top of that, there are also all these cultural things. So in terms of cultures, now there hasn't been a lot of cross-cultural work. There's just been a little bit, and so I don't wanna say too much about it because it's complex. But there are obviously cultural differences. Um, and it's not just East/West. Because, for instance, um, in Thailand they have higher levels of self-compassion. Thailand is more Buddhist. They, they actually, a lot of people meditate. Um, it's kind of part of the culture, this more gentle approach to other people and themselves. Whereas China is incredibly low. [laughs] It's more Confucian. They actually believe in self-criticism as a way to motivate change. So it's not East/West. Um, so there are differences in Eastern cultures, also in, in Western cultures. Um, Italy is actually higher in self-compassion.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 40:27 Oh.

Dr. Kristin Neff 40:27 The UK is, is very low. The United States is kind of in between, but on the lower end. So a lot of the cultural messages we get about, um, you know, is self-compassion selfish? Is it gonna undermine your motivation? Is it a form of self-pity? Is it gonna make you weak, right? All the, all these things get in the way. Um, gender, now gender's really interesting. I'm sorry, but gender roles really mess everyone up. [laughs] Because gender roles tell men that they're allowed to be fierce, but they aren't allowed to be tender. It's okay to be angry. You should be angry. You should be active. You should go out and, you know, conquer the world. But don't be too sensitive. Don't be soft, right? And so men, um, th- men's ability to feel the tender self-compassion is inhibited, right? Because they, they think it's a weakness. Power plays into this as well, right? So power, a kind of a, kind of, um, engenders that, that fierce action. So, um, men are allowed to be fierce but not tender. Women, it's the exact opposite. We're allowed to be tender and soft and loving, but we aren't allowed to be angry or fierce or stand up for ourselves to claim our power. So gender kind of messes up men and women in slightly different ways. So if you look at g- in terms of who's more compassionate, they're actually pretty close, but women are s- women are slightly less self-compassionate than men. And, and basically the reas- the where it comes from, and that's linked to gender roles, androgynous women are not, it's because women are taught they shouldn't meet their own needs. They should always meet other people's needs. So women are actually much more compassionate to others than men are, but slightly less self-compassionate because we feel like, oh, we, we aren't allowed to meet our own needs, and that's, that's kind of a form of fierce self-compassion. So gender and culture really play into all of this, and it's, the reason it's a [audio distorts] is because this is a human thing. [laughs] You know? It's not about being male or female. It doesn't matter, you know, whether you're cis-gendered or transgender, whatever it is, um, whether, you know, whatever culture you're from. As human beings, we need both tender and fierce self-compassion in order to be healthy and whole. Um, but society really is a barrier, and that's, so I'm writing this new book called Fierce Self-Compassion that's released, um, it's gonna be released in June, that really talks about this and really talks about how we need to stand up to some of these restrictive gender roles and say, "Actually, you know, what do I really need to be ha- healthy, to be happy, to be whole?" Whether that's physically healthy, whether that's mentally healthy. And in order to be healthy, we need both fierce and tender self-compassion, and they need to be in balance. Again, like with motivation, if it's too much acceptance and not enough of that fierce, "Hey, you gotta do something about this. It's not healthy," that's not good. On the other hand, if it's just about, you know, striving and get it right and be the best, and there's no bottom line of self-acceptance, that's not good either We need both, you know, constantly, and they're always in balance. And part of what, a part of the issue is we get knocked off balance and we say, "Okay, what do I need?" Well, sometimes I need a little more acceptance, sometimes I need a little more change. You know, we don't know. It changes moment-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 43:53 Yeah

Dr. Kristin Neff 43:53 ... to moment. But how many people actually pause to ask themselves, "What do I really need in this moment to be healthy?"

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:03 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 44:03 Think about that. Think about if before I- and by the way, I'm, I'm guilty too with all the craziness in the United States, I've been watching way too much TV. [laughs] But sometimes I catch myself and I say, "What do I need right now? Do I really need to watch more TV and get upset? Or maybe what I need is to go to bed, or maybe what I need is a cup of tea." Asking yourself the question is really, um, will eventually provide the, its own answer.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:30 Yeah. I mean, so many things I want to follow up on there. But what you said about women definitely mirrors my own experience in clinical practice.

Dr. Kristin Neff 44:38 Uh-huh.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 44:39 The, the way I've seen it show up is that when I would talk to a lot of my female patients about, "Hey, listen, you, you need a bit of me time every day. You need a bit of time to yourself, you know. Or what I can see is that you're looking after your kids, you're looking after your parents, you're looking after your husband. But what are you doing for yourself?" And I've found that when I actually can help, um, them take a bit of time for themselves, the, the, the results on their symptoms can be quite dramatic. One, one patient with really bad Crohn's disease and with lots of, um, gastrointestinal symptoms every day went down by 50%. Now I didn't call this self-compassion, I just asked her to take 15, 20 minutes to herself each day where she just did something unashamedly for her, not with-

Dr. Kristin Neff 45:28 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:28 ... a phone, not with anyone else. And I was like, really? And I've seen that over and over again because as you say, it's to do with the stress response, and the stress response affects every single organ system. So if you can start-

Dr. Kristin Neff 45:39 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:39 ... to lower that, you can see-

Dr. Kristin Neff 45:41 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 45:41 ... improvement in symptoms in all different kinds of areas of the body. So that's, that's one thing I really resonate with in terms of how you described it. Again, I didn't see it as self-compassion, but now I would probably look at it slightly differently. The other point was how you said that a lot of women are really good about being compassionate to others-

Dr. Kristin Neff 46:03 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:03 ... but not to themselves. And then, and then I really thought, well, this is quite an interesting conflict, isn't it? Because-

Dr. Kristin Neff 46:10 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 46:10 ... one might imagine that if you can radiate compassion, then that's gonna, that's gonna go to others and to yourself. But what you're saying is that these things are, are actually quite separate.

Dr. Kristin Neff 46:22 Yeah. Believe it or not, so in the research, there's a very small correlation between self-compassion and compassion for others. Now what we know is when you, when you learn to be more self-compassionate, it increases your, not only your ability to be compassionate to others, but to sustain being compassionate to others without burning out. But because so many people, especially women, you know, a lo- it doesn't, you know, it's actually not true to say you need to be self-compassionate first before you can be compassionate to others, because that's actually not the case. There are many, many people who are very kind, compassionate and giving to others who treat themselves horribly. So they don't necessarily go hand in hand. Part of what happens when you learn to be more self-compassionate is they become more integrated. And again, you, you are more able to therefore be even more compassionate to others, but especially to do it in a balanced way that's not gonna burn you out. Um, but yes, women... A- and I, and I hate to say this, well, I don't hate to say this, I'm gonna just say it. Um, hierarchy comes into this to some level. I mean, women, they were, they, we've been taught that we're supposed to meet other people's needs and that our needs don't count. And that's really convenient for people with power who c- get to say that, "Okay, women, you meet my needs, don't meet your own." You know, and part of, I think this movement toward equality that women are asking for is, "Hey, my needs count too. I, it's not okay for me just to meet others' needs. My needs count too." It's not that my needs count more than other people's needs, but they have to be inc- included in the calculation of what do I do in this moment? There always has to be balance. Um, so you might say in a way that self-compassion is a political as well as a personal act because once you start saying that my needs are important too, then that also shifts the balance of power-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:20 Yeah

Dr. Kristin Neff 48:20 ... um, in society.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 48:22 Is the ability to be self-compassionate something you are born with, or is it a skill that can be cultivated?

Dr. Kristin Neff 48:31 Uh, it's, it's both. [laughs] It's both. You know, a- any, any question like that, nature or nurture, it's always both, as you know. Um, well, so certainly there, there may be some genetic thing linked to the nervous system. We actually don't have any information on that. But certainly the way we're raised, we know has, um, a, a big, big part of, it's a big part of it. So if you're raised by parents who, um, criticize you or if there's a lot of conflict in the home, right? Or maybe, um, you know, i- i- if your parents were at all abusive towards you, then you're gonna have much, a much more difficult time being compassionate as an adult. Because when you think about it, feelings of closeness and connection are supposed to make you feel safe. But if the people, your family members actually made you feel unsafe, then it's very hard to treat yourself as if you're worthy and give yourself that sense of safety through your own care. Um, but having said that- Uh, self-compassion absolutely can be learned, es- even, even by people, like, with horrible trauma histories. There's a, an amazing scholar named Sir Paul Gilbert, who's from the UK, who does, um, a probably... He's the most famous person in terms of the clinical work on self-compassion. He's developed a type of therapy called compassion-focused therapy that's specifically designed for people who struggle with self-compassion, who maybe come from, you know, early h- childhood trauma. And they've found ways to help people who, even people who are really afraid of self-compassion, help them learn how to be more self-compassionate. So it absolutely can be done. Um, and, and for people, you know... So, so again, if you have a trauma history, it, it's a little, it takes a little longer, you know, you go a little more slowly. But for people who don't have a trauma history, it's actually a lot easier than you might think because we already know how to be self-compa- we already know how to be compassionate to others. We've learned the skill of how to be warm, how to be supportive, how to be understanding, how to be accepting toward others, especially our good friends. And so really the only task is we need to give ourselves permission to be that way with ourselves. And once we give ourselves that permission, we already know what to do. It's not, it's not like rocket science.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 50:47 I think that's quite empowering because whenever we talk about children or parenting, it can often be quite charged for people. And, you know, many parents will know the feeling that, "Ah, maybe I'm a bit critical of my kids."

Dr. Kristin Neff 51:02 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:02 "That's how I was raised." There may be that penny dropping moment when you said that, where somebody's thinking, "Wow, yeah, I'm kind of bringing up my kids with this kind of, uh, critic- critical voice, negative self-talk." But then what you went on to say is really quite empowering, which is actually this can be learnt, this can be changed. If you do not have a history of, I think, severe trauma, it can be very, very quick. And even if you have-

Dr. Kristin Neff 51:30 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 51:30 ... been significantly traumatized, there are ways to actually change this, and I think that's an incredible message to be giving out because it's really, really empowering.

Dr. Kristin Neff 51:40 Yeah. In, in a way, what you might think of, if self-compassion is a way of re-parenting ourselves, right? Maybe our parents weren't unconditionally accepting. Maybe they weren't supportive. Maybe they didn't encourage us with love. But we can actually learn to do that for ourselves. You can learn treating yourself consistently fairly, kindly, with encouragement, with support. You can actually learn to feel worthy and to feel safe, um, as an adult. We aren't totally dependent on our parents, which is the good news.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:09 Yeah, that's a nice idea, that we can be the very best parent to-

Dr. Kristin Neff 52:15 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:15 ... ourselves. Maybe the, the aspects of our parenting that we go, "Oh, I wish my parents had done this," for example, we go, "Ah, you know what? I can sort that out right now, and actually I can be the very best parent to myself."

Dr. Kristin Neff 52:27 And, and but we also wanna have compassion. Maybe your parents were critical, or maybe you're kind of critical. You know, we also wanna have compassion for that, 'cause remember, at least n- not e- there are some psychopaths out there, but most parents [laughs] who are really critical, they actually think they're helping their child.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 52:43 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 52:44 Again, maybe you were raised that way. And they actually think, you know, it used to be the, the, the accepted parenting philosophy, spare the rod, spoil the child. People honestly believed that unless I'm very harsh with my child, maybe even giving them physical punishment, they're gonna be spoiled, and it's gonna harm my child. And so the best way I can help them is by being very critical and strict. Um, you know, of course, we know now from research that it's not true, that if you, if you, you know, you may actually harm your child, can make them, you know, turn to drugs, may have them, give them low self-esteem. But the, the underlying motivation of it is actually a good one.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:23 That point I think is so key. You can have the success, but it comes at a cost.

Dr. Kristin Neff 53:31 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:31 A- and that's, I think, the, the, the real conflict we have because a lot of people feel that if you beat them up or beat yourself up, you can motivate yourself to make changes, work harder.

Dr. Kristin Neff 53:41 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:41 But at what cost does that happen? And-

Dr. Kristin Neff 53:43 At what cost?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 53:43 And I think that's where your work so beautifully comes in because it's showing people that, hey, you know what? Yeah, that's what we used to think. That's what we used to do. But as humanity evolves and researchers and scientists like yourself study this, you, you realize, actually, no, that wasn't the best way. This is the best way.

Dr. Kristin Neff 54:03 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:03 Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your children. This actually can lead to success without those negative side effects, and I think-

Dr. Kristin Neff 54:12 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:12 ... that's the magic.

Dr. Kristin Neff 54:14 This is what we need to know about fierce and tender self-compassion. Because if your choice is be harsh or just totally accept anything, that actually then is kind of a toss-up which one's better. And so the choice was actually a false one for parents who didn't really realize there was this third way. They call it, they call it authoritative parenting. You aren't authoritarian, but you aren't indulgent, right? You're, you're actually, you have got rules, you have boundaries. You, you know, you might be quite strict. But the bottom line is unconditional love and acceptance. Um, and then once you realize that there's actually a third way available that's much more effective, then it makes a lot more sense than it did when we thought our choice is, you know, harsh change or just complacent acceptance.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 54:58 Can you fake it? And what I mean by that is, can you start saying nice things to yourself that maybe part of you doesn't really believe and you feel a bit uncomfortable?

Dr. Kristin Neff 55:10 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 55:10 But, yeah, can you fake it until you actually make it?

Dr. Kristin Neff 55:13 [laughs] Yeah. So first, it does feel weird at first. I'm gonna, it's, straight up, it feels weird at first, especially if your habitual way of relating to yourself is, um, uh, you know, just really harsh. But what we also encourage people to do is to try to use language that feels comfortable. Because if you're, if you're super syrupy sweet and you don't believe it, you're gonna, you're gonna be creating conflict in your mind. So you might just say, um, you know, "May, may start to be kinder to myself," you know? "What I wish for myself is that I can begin-" To be a little more supportive toward myself. And that's kind of a, a lower bar to, to jump over. Um, you know, um, uh, you c- you can also maybe start trying, maybe it feels a little more comfortable, you don't wanna just shut down your self-critic. You can say something like, "Thank you, self-critic. I know you're trying to help." And so instead of just saying, you know, "Get out of here," you can say, "Actually, you can stick around, but maybe, maybe I, you know, and I wanna hear what you have to say. Maybe you've got some useful information, but would you mind saying it in slightly more constructive terms?" [laughs] Right? So there's a lot of ways you, you can work with yourself that feel comfortable for you. Um, often, you know, I tell people that to think about what you would say to a good friend in a similar situation. And so people are different. They have different go-to phrases. They've got language. You know, a woman may something, say something different to her best friend than, you know, a guy, uh, c- might say to his friend in a pub. He might say something different [laughs] , right? So whatever feels comfortable for you is the type of language you should use. It's really all about changing your intention.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 56:50 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 56:50 You know? It, in a, in a way, it doesn't even so much... I- this is the amazing thing. It doesn't even matter so much what you say to yourself or, um, what you actually do, as that you're intending to help yourself. So for instance, when we tell, teach self-compassion workshops, um, sometimes it can be kind of, uh, difficult to be self-compassionate, you know? F- sometimes when we try to give ourselves unconditional love, we immediately remember all those times in which we weren't loved. And, uh, and especially with people with, you know, trauma histories, it can be kind of scary to be compassionate. You, you spend your whole life closing our hearts to keep ourself safe, and then we start to open our hearts and a lot of pain rushes out. And so it, it can be a little overwhelming. And so we tell people if that's the case, then just, you know, do something else. So, so close, go ahead and close d- close down your heart again, but do it consciously. Do it not out of habit like you might do scrolling for hours, but, but do it consciously. Like, "You know, this is a little overwhelming. I think I'm gonna stop this self-compassion practice because I'm feeling a, a bit overwhelmed." So when you do it, your intention is actually to help yourself.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:01 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 58:01 Uh, and so even closing down with the intention to help yourself actually builds the muscle of self-compassion. We had a woman at one workshop, in the middle of the meditation she got activated, and she st- stood up and stormed out of the room, and she said, "You know, that was the most powerful moment of self-compassion the entire workshop because I did it to take care of myself, and that really stuck with me." [laughs] So again, it's not exactly what you do, it's your intention about why, why you're doing it.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:32 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 58:32 Th- and that's really amazing, isn't it? You know?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:34 Yeah. It-

Dr. Kristin Neff 58:35 You build the intention, and eventually that intention starts becoming more habitual, and then it starts becoming more comfortable. You know, and eventually, you know, th- walk, you may have to walk slowly, but you'll get there eventually.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 58:50 Well, it strikes me that the first ingredient for this in many ways is awareness. Awareness that you are-

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:02 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:02 ... not being kind to yourself. You're not being-

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:04 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:04 ... compassionate to yourself. And actually, awareness is really the first step for any change, whether it's for compassion or anything else. A- and so really I'd love to go into some sort of practical things that people can do.

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:17 Okay.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:17 But it strikes me that for different people, self-compassion will look completely differently. There's gonna be a unique-

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:25 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:25 ... approach for them. And for some people, journaling is really, really effective.

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:30 Yes.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:30 Because it's the first time that they actually get out of their own head, and they're actually just writing stuff down, and suddenly they can see their thoughts on paper, and just the act of writing. But I know some people who don't like journaling, who maybe, um, you know, talk to themselves in the mirror.

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:48 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:48 Uh, have a dialogue with them. But I guess h- what are the different ways? Is it always voice or can there be other ways-

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:55 No

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 59:55 ... in which we can practice this?

Dr. Kristin Neff 59:57 Yeah. The last 10, 10 years of my life has been spent primarily on developing ways to teach people how to be self-compassionate. It's not enough just to know that it helps. People need to learn how to do it. So we developed The Mindful Self-Compassion Program, and, uh, it's available in workbook format. It's cheap on Amazon. And we have 37 different practices in there, [laughs] it's empirically validated to help. And these practices are really different. So we do have, like, compassionate letter-writing. So, so just writing a letter to yourself with the three components of self-compassion. First paragraph, you know, mindfulness, being just aware of what you're feeling, aware of your pain, kind of validating this is really hard. Uh, writing a, writing a paragraph reminding yourself that you aren't alone, this is part of the shared human experience. And then, and then writing a paragraph with kindness, just the, the way you might write to a good friend who is going through a similar thing. That's very powerful. Some people like to write. Uh, we have meditations. You know, meditation is one of the most powerful ways to actually change, you know, your neural circuits, your neural pathways, build new habits. And so there's a lot of meditations. Uh, I have guided meditations on my website that people can listen to. A meditation's very powerful for some people. They love it. Um, other people don't like meditation. There are really simple things. One of the simplest is touch, believe it or not. So the first two years of life before babies have language, uh, the primary way that parents convey, um, compassion to their chil- there's actually three primary ways. One is touch, physical touch. You know, the warm touch. Uh, one is tone of voice. Babies can't understand words, but they understand the, the tone. Is it harsh or is it tender and warm? Um, and also gaze, compassionate gaze. Um- So one way is just touch, just putting your hands on your heart, putting your hands on your face. A, a lot of this, a lot of us do these gestures naturally when we're upset, but if you do them intent- intentionally, in other words, your awareness is with the gesture, what it can do is it actually changes you at the physiological level. Touch activates the parasympathetic nervous response.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:02:09 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:02:09 So if you're upset, you can put your hand on your heart or on your belly or on your face. You can give yourself a hug if that feels comfortable, right? And that kind of bypasses the mind, which is sometimes useful because sometimes the mind, the storyline going on there is not very helpful. So you drop out of your head and you go into your body and use some sort of touch to express compassion. Sometimes it's just a, "Aw." You know, just this, "Aw," just a warm tone. Doesn't even matter what you say, it's just that, that t- warm, tender tone that can convey it. Um, one way, we actually don't have any, um, these exercise in our program because it, we, it requires a mirror and it's, and the program is designed to be done in groups. But, and there's some research showing compassionate gaze in the mirror. If, if you can do it, it may be a little difficult and you may feel really absurd, but if you can gaze at yourself kindly in the mirror, that can be one way to get self-compassion. We really recommend that people find, try out different ways of being self-compassionate. Find the ones that are, feel easy and pleasant. Start there, and then you can try other ways that expand your, um, repertoire, so to speak. So people really need to experiment to find out, to find out what works from that for them. Even just asking the question is self-compassion. What do I need that will help?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:03:33 It's just taking that pause, isn't it, and asking yourself, like you would ask a friend, like you would ask your child-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:03:38 And just kind of getting about the, because I know you're, um, a, a, a doctor in terms of, um, for caregivers is self-care. Sometimes people don't have time for self-care, right? So for instance, these, these healthcare workers who are just overwhelmed with dealing with the, the pandemic and, and COVID patients, you can't really say, "Oh, take time out for yourself. Have a cup of tea. Get a massage," because they are absolutely stressed to the max. The nice thing about self-compassion is it doesn't necessarily demand self-care. Like, so it, it leads to more self-care. So self-compassion take, can take a lot of different forms, including just in the moment of stress and overwhelm, just saying silently to yourself, "This is so hard. I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling overwhelmed. Aw," you know? You know, like, "Poor thing," or what- whatever it is you might naturally say. "I'm here for you. It's gonna be okay." It can be done in the moment, um, which is, so in a way it's, it's more flexible than self-care, which actually takes time. Uh, we just actually, we developed a program for healthcare workers, um, a six-week training program, only one hour a week, and every single practice was designed to be done on the job. We didn't give them any homework. We didn't give them anything they had to do in their off time, 'cause they didn't really have any. Every practice was designed to be done on the job while they're at work, and what we found is it reduced stress, um, it reduced depression, it increased self-compassion, it increased compassion for others, and most importantly, it reduced, reduced burnout, and actually helped them, um, be able to do their jobs without it finding s- being so draining. So this is pretty powerful stuff.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:05:24 Yeah. I mean, this is so powerful, and you know, this, it's a very compelling case that you've put together with the research that it's very hard for any of us to make the case that we should not be practicing self-compassion.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:05:37 The nice thing is self-compassion takes no time. Doesn't take any more time than self-criticism. Self-compassion is a mind state, right? It's just how you relate to what's happening in your mind at the moment. Uh, again, just the way self-criticism is. So it doesn't take any extra time, but when you're self-compassionate towards your stress, you're going to choose to try to take time for yourself. Um, but so sometimes you need to start with self-compassion about for the fact that you have no time and you're really stressed and you're overwhelmed. You start there, and then that act- We also do need physical time for ourselves, but, uh, and again, we can't really start there. We need to start with compassion toward how stressed and busy and overwhelmed we are, and that will lead to taking more time for ourselves. But, you know, sometimes, there are some circumstances where there actually is no time.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:06:31 Yeah.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:06:31 Right? Um, so, so and, and here's the thing for caregivers, um, especially for caregivers, is the more compassion we give ourselves in the moment when we're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, not only will it help us be, be able to hold the stress and, and overwhelm of it, it actually helps the people we're caring for. Um, and I write, I write a lot about this, and I talked about it in my TED Talk with my son Rowan, you know, who's autistic, and he, he's doing great now. He's, well, he's actually, he's, he's 19. His autism's doing great. He's suffering with panic attacks now, which is quite common, so we're, we're dealing with that, which is, which is stressful. But when he was younger, he would have horrible tantrums related to his autism. And, you know, in the midst of a tantrum, you can't, like, say, "I, I, you know, I need some time for myself." You, you have to be there for your child. And so what I would learn to do is give myself compassion for the pain of being in the, in the center of my son having an uncontrollable tantrum, right? And, um, and so what we know about how the brain works, and you know this, um, we've got mirror neurons or we've got this thing called empathic resonance, where the human brain is designed to feel the emotions of others, and that was evolutionarily advantageous for us, right? Our ancestors who were more empathic, they could coordinate better, they could cooperate better, they passed their DNA on to later generations. But- Autistic kids actually are very empathic. They can't perspective take, but they're very sensitive, and that's part of the reason they shut down. So my son and I were very empathically attuned. And what I would find is if he was being upset or having a tantrum, the more I got frustrated and upset, and, and of course it happened, the more he would, his tantrums would increase. But when I could give myself compassion for how frustrated and overwhelmed I was, when I could fill my own mind with kind of this more loving, connected presence, he would calm down. So we actually feed on each other's emotions. And so just as there's this thing called secondary traumatic stress, if you're in the presence of someone feeling trauma, we feel their trauma too through our mirror neurons. There's also, I would argue, something called secondary compassion. In other words, when we give ourselves compassion, the person w- when we're with feels that and can actually, they can help regulate their own emot- uh, emotions through us. Right?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:01 So, I mean, that is so powerful that in the moment by being compassionate to yourself, it impacts on your child's. Uh-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:09:11 And by the way, you don't have to say, "I'm feeling calm." Maybe you aren't. I was not feeling calm when my son was having a major tantrum.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:18 So what did you say to yourself? What does that look like?

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:09:20 "This is so hard. I feel so overwhelmed. I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help? I'm here for you. I support you. This is really difficult."

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:29 So something that simple, and I, I, I really wanna, wanna pause on this point because I want people to understand that it can actually, from what I'm hearing from you, be that simple. In the moment you just, instead of going down the critical pathway, you go down the, the compassionate pathway-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:09:46 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:09:47 ... and you feel better, your son responds and, you know, all kinds of secondary and tertiary effects on the back of that.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:09:55 That's right. You've got more ability to cope. You don't have to pretend things are other than they are. In fact, if you do that, it's gonna backfire. It's not gonna work. You embrace the fact that this sucks, this hurts. I feel horrible. You know, I'm stressed, whatever it is. You d- you don't, you don't deny it, you embrace it, but you feel concerned about it. "I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?" That's what compassion is.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:10:21 Are there practices that we can do with our children?

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:10:27 Um, so, uh, not in the Mindful Self-Compassion Program, but there are, um, so there's some books on my website, which is if you Google self-compassion, you'll find me. Um, I've got a resources page, and there are some great books people have written for kids that tend to center around, um, being a good friend to yourself, right? You know, so when you, when kids learn about what it means to be a friend or what a good friend's like, you actually help your, your child, y- kind of what you did naturally, to be a good friend to yourself. So there are some good books. Um, there is a program for young people, for teens, called Making Friends with Yourself that y- again, if you go... So my website is self-compassion.org, but you can link to, um, the, the, my org- my nonprofit organization, which is called centerformsc.org. Um, you can take a, a program for teens online. And a, a program for younger kids is actually being developed. It's not fully online yet. And there's also some great st- work for parents, self-compassion for parents. Again, you can find that on my resources page. And the self-compassion for parents books also have some practices that people can do with their kids, I'm pretty sure. So yes, and what's, what's amazing now is that self-compassion has been established, and now we're seeing all the adaptations and proliferations. How do we do this for teens? How do we do this with people on diets? How do we do this with people with addiction? Pe- you know, first responders, um, military. Um, I actually believe, believe it or not, just got [laughs] so great, I just got an invitation to speak to the female, um, New York City p- uh, police, police women, I guess female police officers in New York City, inviting me to come get a, give a talk. So it's kind of spreading throughout society, which is so exciting. I can't even tell you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:15 Yeah. That must be so gratifying. You've been doing this for-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:12:18 It is

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:18 ... years. I mean, getting the research there, getting this being accepted. Part of the literature I think has been really important, you know, because as-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:12:27 It is

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:27 ... we said right at the start, it can feel quite soft-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:12:32 It can, yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:32 ... to many people. But you've really got that hard science behind it now to make that really, really compelling case. Kristin, I've, I've so enjoyed speaking to you. There's so much more we could have spoken about, and maybe at some point we'll get to revisit this on this podcast. But what I always like to do at the end is leave my listeners with some practical tips. Uh-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:12:56 Yeah

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:12:56 ... this podcast is called Feel Better, Live More, because when we feel better in ourselves-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:13:02 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:02 ... we get more out of our lives. And I wonder, with all your wisdom, with all your experience, do you have some practical tips to leave my listeners with, please?

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:13:12 Yes. Well, even more than a practical tip, I'll lead you through a little practice. It's called the self-compassion break, which actually people can do. It can be their first self-compassion practice. So the self-compassion break, and the reason we call it a break is because that say you take that pause. You know, you might be in the middle of stress or the middle of something difficult. It only takes about five minutes, a little break you can take, where what we do is we intentionally bring in the three components of self-compassion. So you want, you want me to lead you through it, and your listeners can just-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:41 Yeah

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:13:41 ... follow in?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:13:42 That'd be amazing. Let's do it.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:13:44 So, um, I like to do this with my eyes closed. It's not necessary, but when we close our eyes it helps us to go inward. So you may wanna close your eyes. Okay, and, and to practice this, we actually need to, to call up a little, um, difficulty so we can give it compassion. So I'd invite you to think of something that, uh, you're struggling with right now Right, so it may be, may be related to the pandemic, right? Maybe uncertainty, maybe you're bummed out because things are shut down or you're in hard lockdown. Uh, it may be something different. May be a relationship issue or a health issue. So just think of one thing right now. A- and make sure that when you think about it, you don't feel overwhelmed, it's not, like, a really big problem. Because if you feel overwhelmed, you're gonna be distracted, and you actually won't be able to learn the practice. So something that's, like, a four on a scale of one to 10. Okay, so just choose wisely. And then just play out the situation in your mind, make it, make it present for you. What's happening, right? How are you feeling or what's going on? What are you afraid of, if that's relevant. Right, what's going on? Who are the people involved, if that's relevant. Okay, so what we're gonna do now is we're gonna bring in the three components of self-compassion by saying some phrases that we, we want to evoke them. And I'm gonna say a phrase, then I'm gonna invite you to come up with your own language that actually feels comfortable and right for you. So again, thinking about this difficulty, this challenge. So first we wanna bring in mindfulness. So telling yourself, you know, this, this is what hap- what's happening right now. This is a moment of struggle or suffering. Right, we're, we're turning, we're turning toward it. We're, we're recognizing it. And again, using language that may fit. It may be something like, "This is really hard," or, "Yeah, I'm just, I'm just really hurting right now." So using some language that really calls attention and awareness to the fact this is a moment of difficulty. And then we also want to remember our, our shared humanity in this, right? So suffering, challenges, stress, difficulty, this is part of life. You know, there's nothing abnormal about having challenges like this. Mm, so whatever way you want to talk to yourself about this. Maybe it's just simply, "I'm not alone. You know, other people feel this way, too." And then finally, we wanna give ourselves some kindness in the face of this difficulty. So one way to do that is with physical touch. So you may wanna try putting your hands on your heart or maybe your face, right? Putting your hands somewhere on your body that feels supportive. Feeling that supportive touch. Right, and, and saying some words of kindness and support to yourself. You may, you may think, you know, "What would I say to a really beloved friend who was going through this exact same situation that I'm going through?" Right, what would I say to express my support, my care, my willingness to help? Right, a- and then just try saying it to yourself. It may feel awkward. That's okay. We're just setting our intention to be more supportive to ourselves. Okay, and then you can open your eyes. So that's it, really. It's pretty simple, just bringing in mindfulness, remembering common humanity, and giving yourself kindness. How did that, how did that, um, go for you, Rangan?

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:18:57 Yeah, yeah, really good, actually. Um, even just the act of stopping and going inward is powerful in and of itself, right? It just feels ... I feel calmer. I feel-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:19:11 Mm-hmm

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:11 ... like a bit of the noise has just shut down or switched off or, or the volume's gone down in my mind.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:19:18 Yeah.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:18 Um, and I, yeah, I feel happier. I feel calmer, actually. That's, that's definitely true.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:19:25 Yeah. So again, this is a practice. It's not just a good idea. It's something you can do. Um, a- and again, on, on my website I've got a lot of free, um, guided practices, and I've got some written practices. So that can be a place to start. And then if you're interested, now that everything's online, um, got a lot of online trainings, um, that people can take. So it, it's much more ... It's pretty accessible if you wanted to go deeper into this.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:19:52 Yeah. Kristin, listen, thank you so much for the time you've given up today to speak to me. I know you're busy trying to finish off your next book-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:20:01 Yes

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:01 ... which I'm really excited to read when it comes out in June. Um, what is the website for people who wanna check you out and check out the various courses that you have created? Uh, what's the best place to find you?

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:20:13 Uh, just, if you just Google self-compassion, uh, all the algorithms point to me 'cause I got in early. So spell self-compassion any way and you'll come to my website, self-compassion.org. Um, and that's the ... Uh, that's probably the best place to start, and then you can link to the Center for MSC from there, and you can see my workshops, my books. Uh, and again, a- there's a lot of free stuff on the website, including my TED Talk and videos. So-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:38 Oh

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:20:38 ... it, it, I design-

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:40 Yeah

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:20:40 ... oh, and by the way, for those of y- those science nerds out there, which I know there are many science nerds out there, I've got, like, hundreds, probably even thousands at this point of the PDFs of research articles organized by category on my website. [laughs] So if you wanna look at the science side, that's also available there.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:20:57 Oh, fantastic. Well, we'll link to-

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:20:59 Oh, you can take a, you can take a test as well. You can test your own self-compassion level with my self-compassion scale. So that's there as well. [laughs]

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:06 Oh, fantastic. Well, look, we'll link to everything in our show notes as well for people.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:21:09 Great. Great.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:10 But, um, you're doing incredible work. Thanks so much for your time. And until the next time we get to speak, be kind to yourself.

Dr. Kristin Neff 1:21:18 Thank you.

Dr. Rangan Chatterjee 1:21:19 Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Please do think about one thing that you can take and apply into your life. Inspiration is not enough. You need to take action. If you did enjoy that, please do press Subscribe, hit that notification bell, and why not check out this conversation that I've picked out that acts as the perfect follow-up?