Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm Susan Stiffelman, your host and the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting with Presence. I'm a marriage, family and child therapist, a teacher, a long time parent educator, and a mom. This podcast is all about helping you raise confident, caring children with more joy and with fewer power struggles. It's my honor to share with you some of the things I've learned in my 40 plus years, doing this work with thousands of families around the world. But before we get started, I want to make sure that you're getting all of our updates by visiting Susanstiffelman.com and signing up for the newsletter. So you'll receive all of our inspiration and updates, including the great programs we have coming up like Raising Money-Smart Kids with Chelsea Brennan from Smart Money Mamas. That's going to be outstanding.

Speaker 1:
So be sure to stay in touch Susanstiffelman.com. Today's guest is Dr. Kristin Neff. Oh my gosh. What a great conversation you're in for. Kristin is the author of the book Self-Compassion and on June 15th, the new book,  Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness To Speak Up, Claim Their Power And Thrive. I was sent an advanced copy of her new book and knew that I wanted to share Kristin with all of you. It is truly exceptional. Here's our interview. Have a listen and I'll come back for the wrap-up welcome.

Speaker 1:
Kristin, I'm so eager to chat and to dive in, but first, let me just share a little bit about you with everyone who’s listening. Dr. Kristin Neff received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley. She's currently an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. During Kristen's last year of graduate school, she became interested in Buddhism and has been practicing meditation in the insight meditation tradition ever since. Kristen's a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, creating a scale to measure this construct almost 20 years ago. And in conjunction with her colleague, Dr. Chris Germer has developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, which is taught by thousands of teachers worldwide. They co-authored the Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook, as well as teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program. And she's the co-founder of the nonprofit Center For Mindful Self-Compassion. And most importantly, to our conversation today, the author of this exceptional, extraordinary, beautiful gift to the world, especially women, but all people. Thank you for this book.

Speaker 2:
Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me, Susan. Yeah, I'm really excited about it.

Speaker 1:
The book actually for me just personally came at a time when I'm juggling a lot. I'm dealing with a lot of I wouldn't say stress necessarily, but a lot, a lot. And you had sent me a preview copy and I opened it up. I was actually away for a couple of days spending time with family and I thought, Oh my gosh. And I just started to devour it. It started texting the cover already to people. So especially, you know, just as a woman, but also in the context of my work with parents, I'd love to talk about this idea of self-compassion because we're so hard on ourselves. We review all the things we did wrong, the moments we lost, our cool. You talk a lot about treating ourselves as a dear friend. Can you just elaborate on that?

Speaker 2:
Yeah. So self-compassion is really not complicated. It's just treating ourselves with the same kindness, care, concern, support, protection that we normally show our children or our friends or those we care about. Right. And the thing is, most of us are a lot kinder to others and ourselves. And there's some reasons for that, like evolutionarily the care system really did evolve to care for others. We aren't so used to using it with ourselves. We have to do a little hack. You know, you've got to do a little extra effort, turn this care system inward. So it feels a little uncomfortable, but it's really, it's really not that difficult. So we learned there's two types of care. I talk about like tender mother caring, but also like fierce mama bear, caring this protection, this more powerful energy. And we really need to turn both inward in order to care for ourselves. And w and the research shows that if we do that, it makes a phenomenal difference in our wellbeing, our motivation, or, you know, ability to cope our physical health as well as mental health. So it's really worth doing.

Speaker 1:
And, you know, one of the things I talk a lot about in my work, I describe parenting and the ideal dynamic of parent child as being the captain of the ship, the calm captain of the ship, the connected captain of the ship, and that when we hold that place energetically for our children I use my hands. So right-hand represents the parent left as the child. I don't know if you can see, but you know, this is the dynamic, the child leans on you and depends on you. Whereas when we're in lawyer mode, nobody's in charge, we're arguing and debating. And when we're a dictator, we feel down here, we're trying to overpower our kids to feel some control, but we're not in charge. And that part of being lovingly in that place of being the captain of the ship is showing up in a way that doesn't need our child to, or be a certain way so that we can feel good when we're super hard on ourselves, because our child's just had a meltdown or, or they've disrespected us in many ways we can try and make our child behave the way we want so that we can feel better.

Speaker 1:
The child becomes the agent of our wellbeing.

Speaker 2:
Right? Yes. Interesting.

Speaker 1:
And so this idea of self-compassion has this very practical application, if we can not need our children to behave a certain way so that we're not beating ourselves up. Yes. It provides us with the freedom to parent them in a way that, you know, there's more space, there's more ability to show up. Do you want to elaborate on that in any way?

Speaker 2:
Yeah. Well, so, so absolutely. I mean, it's true in all relationships, but absolutely in the parent child relationship. And that's a really good insight that sometimes we want our children to behave and do well, partly because we care about them. We want them to be well, but partly because it reflects well on us. Right. And, and especially so much of a woman's self-esteem is tied up and being a good parent and are other people gonna think I'm a good parent. And you know, it also w we've labor under the solution of control somehow are we should be able to get our kids to act the way we want them to get, you know, and it's so hard, especially once kids reach out adolescence lessons to give up that illusion of control, even though like life kind of lets us know you can be the best parent in the world and your kids still may have issues, you know?

Speaker 2:
So haven't been able to let go of that. And that's why both the fierce and the tender self-compassion are so important. The tender self-compassion is really key to emotional acceptance, right? And a sense of unconditional self-worth when we realize that our work comes just from being a human being, who's flawed, who's going to make mistakes. And we support ourselves anywhere just way you unconditionally love your child. You don't, hopefully you don't say, okay, once you graduate Yale, then I'll start loving you. Right. You hopefully love that child from the moment they're born and this the same type of unconditional tender love and acceptance we can give ourselves. And that's the tender side. And when we do that, first of all, it allows us to be less dependent on other people, approving us, whether it was our spouse or our own parents, or our children, or other people at work, or, you know, other women at the, in the PGA or whatever it happens to be.

Speaker 2:
It gives us that freedom from social approval. But it really, it just gives us the stable platform that makes it okay to fail. And that's so important to be okay with failing because failing is part of life and imperfection is part of life and move more. Remember that, then that gives us a sense of safety, but it's, but it's not all about that. So compassion is unconditional self-acceptance, it's okay to fail, but just like a parent loves their kid when they fail. But hopefully a parent doesn't just stop there. Okay. You failed out of the math course. Oh, well, it's ok I love you. Like, that's not compassionate. Yes. I still love you. And how can we get your math grades up? I know you want to go to college. What can we do? How can I help you? You know, what creative ways can we come up with to get your needs met?

Speaker 2:
And that's the more action fear side of self-compassion. This is when you know, we motivate change. The number one block to self-compassion is the belief that it's going to undermine our motivation. It's the exact opposite. You know, it makes us more motivated, but it's a motivation of encouragement, as opposed to, if you don't do this, you're going to be inadequate. It's actually much more effective, right? So that's the type of fear self-compassion protecting ourselves, right? So if anyone's you know, harming us in some way or crossing boundaries, this idea of drying, clear boundaries, speaking up, you know, whether that's, you know, to your child, I'm sorry. It's not okay for you to do for you to speak to me that way, a boundary that's not okay. Or your spouse or your mother-in-law, whoever it may be, right.

Speaker 2:
Speaking up for yourself, protecting yourself. And then really the other way that fear self-compassion manifests. It's so key for parents is meeting your own needs, right? And this doesn't mean prioritizing your own needs. What my research shows is that self-compassionate people, they are like selfish. They don't prioritize their own needs, but they don't subordinate them either. They're all about compromise. How can we come up with a compromised solution that meets everyone's needs? Because my needs are important. Your are also important, right? So it really takes into account everyone's needs. And unfortunately, because women are so socialized to be valued for as helpers and people, you know, I'm sorry, but patriarchy, it's really convenient for patriarchy. Isn't it. If we feel good about ourselves and we say, yes, I'll help you. Yes. I'll deny myself, but that's really convenient. You know? So we kind of have to stand up to that and say, you know, yes, this is a good thing to give, and I want to help, but I have to sometimes say no to you, and yes, to myself, including to our kids.

Speaker 2:
Right. And the thing is, sometimes we think that selfish to give ourselves compassion. Shouldn't my child can all my compassion, love and energy. No, because you will be able to sustain giving compassion and helping your child. You'll have more resources available to give your child, if you give compassion to yourself and it's not just resources. So that was one reason to have more resources. But also you're modeling self-compassion right. You know, what are you modeling for your kid that the right way to be is to be a doormat? Is that really what you want your child to be a doormat? You know, you know, you're modeling what it looks like to stand up for yourself, that to meet your own needs, you're modeling self worth. And also there's this whole system of mirror neurons. Like our kids' emotions affect us, but our emotions affect our kids. And so for a stress basket, you know, for a number or a basket case, and we're stressed, we're angry and frustrated. Our kids are picking up on that. Even if we don't say anything out loud, which is yet another reason to cultivate self-compassion. So there are so many ways in which self-compassion is actually a gift to our children. It's not selfish.

Speaker 1:
Yes. I'm so glad that you touched on all of it. But particularly that what we were, how we show up for ourselves is the strongest announcement for our children or the thing that they will most internalize as they grow into their own adult versions, that this is, I've already had hundreds, if not thousands of exposures to my mom, you know, honoring herself and setting a boundary. So that feels natural to me. It doesn't feel uncomfortable or awkward when I need to now do that. Yeah. Whereas
If you model, you know, you break the glass, I'm such an idiot. Well, then you're modeling all this. That's the way I'm supposed to be. That's a good thing.

Speaker 1:
Exactly. Yeah. So I'm always interested in looking at the root of a situation like the underneath part. I'm always sort of rooting around for the origin of some of this. And I'd like to just touch on that with you in terms of what gets in the way of us implementing the, the things that you're talking about. And I think we need to, you've touched on saying that we are socialized as women in particular. And of course, all you've been listening. We're glad that you're here, but women know what we're talking about when we are, you know, you talk about w what is it com communion and agency.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. So if you look at traditional gender roles, the map I'm really closely to fierce and tender compassion. So it's agency and communion communion again, is the more nurturing, helping gender role socialization. We, we get which really socialize women to be tender to others, not to themselves, but they don't feel entitled to meet their own needs, but they're very, they feel they're actually a lot more compassionate to others and men are not the less self-compassionate because they feel less entitled to meet their needs, which is interesting. But, and men are socialized to be a gentle, which is again, taking action, which is like the fear self-compassion to do something, to change things. And this hurts both men and women, because we need both, I mean, men they're called names. If they're too tender, they're too sensitive, which means they aren't able to deal with their emotions is productively because they haven't been allowed to learn the skill of tenderness and nurturing and harms women because women aren't allowed to be angry or to assert themselves people don't like, you know, angry or assertive woman, and that actually disempowers women. And so both all people, regardless of gender identity or whatever, you know, all people need fierce and tender compassion. And we need to, you know, we kind of need to buck the system and say, Hey, I need both, you know, maybe I'll express it my own way, but I need to be healthy. And so it is a conscious choice people have to make. And it is something so deeply embedded in us from the time we're just newborns.

Speaker 2:
I mean, one of the very first categories infants learn is gender. About by about four months, they have this basic gender category, even before any of the more complex, if you think about it, gender is almost the first form of oppression in the sense that the idea that women are weaker than men, that's like one of the very first concepts, babies and fertilize, you know, so if we want to have a more just society, we need to make sure that we include this idea of our son, human beings, not seen as fully human, you know, or as less valuable than others based on gender, you know, let alone gender role orientation or sexual orientation or race or class or all those things. We have to include gender because it's so deep.

Speaker 1:
Let's talk about the word you just brought up. Anger. You have a whole chapter that is so powerful. I shared a little bit of it with my husband. I just would love for you to give us a little peak at what you're saying there. 

Speaker 2:
So again, there are big gender differences in anger. First of all, I'm an upset child as a girl. If she's angry, people assume she's just sad, right? Where's the boy they see as anger. So turn the very first, the time we're young for angry as a girl, we're hold all your sad. So our anger is invalidated. People react much more negatively to females, anger than male anger. If Amanda's angry, they actually respect you more. And they're more persuaded by him. If he's saying that he's really passionate, a female, that they think she's crazy and they're less persuaded by her. So our anger isn't, we don't, we aren't really allowed to be angry. And so one of two things happens either. We suppress our anger and some women really have a hard time getting in touch with their anger. And this is a problem because anger can be useful.

Speaker 2:
Anger empowers you. It gives you energy. It focuses you, it decreases a fear. Response can be very effective in standing up to harm is a protective emotion. So that's one scenario. The other scenario is woman kind of bottle it down and then it takes them over. And they think like an alien force has taken over. Like I've been occupied by an alien force. It can't own their anger, right? If it feels totally disconnected from them. And then it's almost like too extreme because they aren't allowed to deal with it and own it and work with it productively. And I, and I must say I struggled. Part of the reason I wrote this book is, you know, even though I'm a teacher, I struggled with anger, right? So I kind of have this reactive anger. And then I'm very good afterward at apologizing and seeing what happened and being self compassionate.

Speaker 2:
But I always thought this was a problem. You know, something that I needed to work with. And it wasn't until I had my own kind of me too experience where I was so enraged and some of the woman, it, it was, it was a horrible situation where this, this man, I was friends with turned out to be a predator. And just seeing the woman's reaction, some women couldn't get in touch to that anger. I was like a volcano. I was so angry, but then I realized, this is actually good thing. Again, you want a temporary, you don't want to explode all over people, all those things. You want your anger to be constructive, not destructive all those caveats. Yes, yes, yes. But we want to bow down and thank ourselves for this protective energy. It's a beautiful thing is as mama bear, this is mama bear protecting her cubs.

Speaker 2:
And if we don't own it, and if we don't honor it, and if we kind of judge it or shame it, then, then we're cutting off our power source. For instance, me, I know part of the reason I've accomplished a lot in my life is because I have this energy source, which sometimes manifests as anger. You know? So you, I wouldn't want to cut it out. Yeah. I do try as much as I can to make sure it's constructive and not destructive. And it's very easy. The difference, constructive anger, alleviate, suffering, destructive, anger, causes easy. You know, when your anger protects like, like me to black lives matter, you know, kind of draws a barrier when it helps. It's useful when it gets personal, when it hates, when it, you know, when it eats you up inside all those things couldn't starts causing harm, then it's not helpful. You know, it's an easy dividing line. You seem to pay attention to it.

Speaker 1:
I love that. So constructive anger helps destructive anger harms.

Speaker 2:
Couldn't be interruptive side of anger. There's a lot of research that shows, you know, it's, it's a useful natural emotion that mama bear. I mean, just think if you didn't get angry, if someone was about to take your kids, you know?

Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the same with outrage, like, it's, it seems like it's friend, its partner is outraged that if we weren't outraged by injustice. Exactly.

Speaker 2:
Having said that we don't want it. We want to be balanced because if we, if we then were all about the anger and we start to humanizing people, we start saying us versus them. Yeah. Then we're just adding to the problem. But if you look at the great, just social justice leaders, like Gandhi or Martin Luther King, they knew this, this is nothing new. Like the love has love and power. They need to be intertwined one without the other is incomplete. Beautiful.

Speaker 1:
And we also know, particularly in women, not only in women, that anger that does not find expression can become depression. It can be a very debilitating force if we don't, because, you know, the beautiful thing is we're sending human beings like that. When we perceive something that feels out of alignment with how we want the world to be, or our child to be our family, to be ourselves. That's a message for us that outrage that. Yeah. And so honoring that, listen to that, trusting that. And by the way, if don't have people around you who are supporting that, you know, find a good community that can really help to be in the midst of others who sort of see through this same the same glasses that understand this in the same way.

Speaker 2:
Right. And, you know, I have a picture of the Hindu goddess, Kali above my meditation cushion, you know, in Kali, like she cuts off heads and she's very ferocious, but what she, what she's really doing is she's cutting away the illusion of separation. Yeah. Heads represent eco she's cutting away ego. She's cutting away illusion, you know, that's what anger can do. It can be very precise and very energizing. So we want to honor it. We, you know, we don't want to don't us, but we want to work with it respectfully and constructively.

Speaker 1:
And that's why I love the word fierce. As soon as I got the book, as soon as I opened the cover, that first word just flew out at me. And I just happened to love it because I feel like that's how I am as a mother still that, you know, it it's like operating at all cylinders. You know, that level of alertness with love, my gosh.

Speaker 2:
Exactly. I felt caring for us when the force is carrying, you know, nothing is more powerful. Yeah. Love is a power. If you love yourself, you won't let yourself be harmed by others. If you love your children, you won't let your children be harmed. You know, it’s a powerful motivator.

Speaker 1:
One of the things I'm so loving about the book is that you have so many practices. And I was hoping that maybe we could pick one. I had Dr. Mark Burton on a recent podcast and he actually referenced one of your practices where you're kind of acknowledging that I am suffering. Other people share this, but you have some things that are really tactful because I know for me, I love, you know, there are moments when I want mother love. I want it to be held or rocked and you know, not always possible. I'm so grateful that just recently I was able to climb beside my mother in her bed, her hospital bed, she's almost a hundred years old and hold her hand and I cannot even begin to describe how comforting that was, but we can't always have that. So you have some beautiful practices that give some of that feeling. Would you mind sharing some of that? 

Speaker 2:
You know, as human beings, we are exquisitely designed to interpret touch as a signal of care, because obviously for the first couple of years, babies need, you can tell your baby, you love them. And they don't know what you're talking about. You really tell your baby, you have them by the touch and the way you hold them. But touch can be more soothing, calming, gentle, more tender, or can also be empowering. Right? So we, we teach a lot of touch to the mindful self-compassion program. Cause it's just like cuts to the chase and works on the level of physiology and you can integrate them. So for instance, if you just put your hand over your heart like this, right, you can just kind of feel, feel the softness and the tenderness and kind of just allow your body take that touch the warmth of your hand.

Speaker 2:
This is really good if you need some self-acceptance right. But now maybe you need to feel empowered. Like you've got, maybe you got to speak up to your boss at work or something. So now make a fist over your heart and sit up straight so that your posture is kind of empowered your shoulders roll back. Right. And just imagine that, okay, I'm going to go in and I'm going to say my peace, you know, just, just, you can just feel it in your body, the energy rising through your spine, right. Kind of your back straight and like a fist, something like this, or know, whatever you find supportive. People are different, but it feels really different than the gentle hand over the heart. But what you can do is if you want to combine them with the caring force now, and actually a lot of us, Zen practitioners naturally do this dance.

Speaker 2:
You have your fist on your heart and you put the other hand over it, right. So if you eat, you have a fist on your hand, in your heart. With the other hand over, it is kind of Joan Halifax called it, calls this strong back soft front. So you're combining the two energies, right? And they, they, they feel a little awkward at first, but you really can have both, even through something like touch, take that hand off and use this as gesture, fist on the heart with the hand over it. So it's strength with love, you know, so something as simple as that you can use just, just through touch and also, you know, be, can also use language. There's a lot of access points to self-compassionate on. Do you have a lot of practices in the book which are now, I hope we will be helpful.

Speaker 1:
It is again, everyone truly, truly, I, you know, I get a lot of books. I'm so fortunate that I have the chance to talk with incredible authors, teachers, writers, speakers, and to read amazing books. And I'm a lifelong learner once in a, I get a book that sort of, I, it just feels so important and so timely. And that is this book. So thank you. Thank you for writing it. Gosh, I know that you pour your heart and soul into the things that you say. So it's truly a gift. Thank you, Susan. I appreciate that. And would you just let people know how they can find out more about your work and anything else that might be helpful to them and as we wrap up?

Speaker 2:
Yeah. So if you Google, self-compassion all, all algorithms lead to me, you'll find my website, which is self-compassion.org. So on that I've got explanations about self-compassion, the fierce self-compassion page. I have practices, I have guided meditations. I have other exercises. I've got a self-compassion scale that you can take to see if you want to. Maybe you feel you need to learn a little more self-compassion I also have a lot of research on there. I've actually the PDFs of original research articles. If you're a science nerd, you can, you don't have to believe me. You can read for yourself and it's organized by category. So it's pretty useful. So that's probably the best place to start. And then if you want to do training, I mean, I have books, but I also have a link there to the center for mindful self-compassion, which is kind of the training wing of what I do. It's a nonprofit I founded with Chris Germer and we offer a lot of online trainings, which you can do. Wonderful.

Speaker 1:
Thank you. Yeah. Kristin Neff, everyone, please follow her work at self-compassion dot org, right? Yes. And this book belongs in everybody's library, not just in your library next to your bed, follows me around the house. Here's self-compassion so thank you. Thank you. Just by way of wrapping up. I always like to give people one thing they can focus on this week and now some of you you've heard a lot of ideas, so you might want to pick and choose from the things that Kristen talked about today, but would you share one practice? If somebody is at a loss, what's one thing they can do as a parent to bring more self-compassion into the week ahead.

Speaker 2:
So I would just say just occasionally you can even make a little reminder on your phone, just ask yourself, you know, notice what you're, how you're speaking to yourself and just ask yourself the simple question, what I speak this way. So when I really cared about like a close friend, and if the answer is no, then just ask yourself, well, how would I in this situation? You know, maybe your kitchen's a mess or something like that. What would I say to a friend? And then just try saying that to yourself and see what happens.

Speaker 1:
Thank you so much again, Kristen.

I hope you enjoy that. I obviously clearly love Kristen to work if you couldn't tell. So I hope you've taken some practical ways of bringing more self compassion into your life from our, I have a little bitty ask. If you are finding these podcasts helpful, please take a few seconds to leave a rating or a review or tell a friend or do all of those things because it really does help us get the word out. You can also hit the subscribe button and then you'll be notified just as soon as a new episode is released. Remember to stay in touch, get your regular doses of parenting Susanstiffelman.com, where you can sign up for our free newsletter. There's some great stuff coming up, including Raising Money-Smart Kids with Chelsea Brennan on June 23rd. And you'll get all the notifications. If you sign up at Susanstiffelman.com, all right, then that's it for today. Remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy, stay safe, stay well.