78. How to Stop Being So Hard on Yourself: The Science of Self-Compassion & a Powerful Practice

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so happy that you're here. We are talking about something that matters so much, which is why I come back to it over and over again on the podcast. Because it's one of those things that no matter how many times you've heard it, it is really hard to practice. So if self-compassion is hard for you to practice, it's not because anything's wrong with you. It's because we're biologically wired to essentially not be self-compassionate. But self-compassion tends to be the antidote to so much of our suffering. If I could bottle it up and put it in a pill and pass it out into the world, I would be the richest person in the world because it would literally alleviate so much suffering. And it's so important. And again, it can be really hard to practice, especially if you've been practicing the opposite for so long. So what we're gonna talk about today is briefly what self-compassion actually is. why it's so hard for us to make it a habit and make it part of who we are. then I'm gonna end today by giving you a super simple and effective meditation that you can start practicing on your own that will make such a big difference. Welcome to The Authentic Path. I'm your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, Harvard-trained physician and healer. I integrate science and ancestral wisdom to support you in creating the success you desire in all areas of your life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. All right, let's jump in. So what exactly is self-compassion? So I think at the simplest level, the way I would love for you to think about it is offering yourself the same level of patience, acceptance, kindness of love. That you would offer a beautiful, innocent little child, offering yourself that same level of acceptance, of kindness, the way you would hold that child, doing that for yourself. Now, if we were to look at this from an academic perspective, self-compassion has three components. And this comes from Dr. Kristen Neff's work, who is just the best. She's done the most research on self-compassion. So it has three different components. Number one is self-kindness instead of self-judgment. So you treat yourself with care, with warmth, with understanding when you fail or when you struggle. You let yourself know it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. You replace that harsh sort of inner critic or that self-talk that we have with gentle support. And you speak to yourself again, the same way you would speak to an innocent little child. To your kid, if your kid came home from school and was showing you their math test and they did horrible, would you berate them and expect them to do better next time? Or would you tell them it's okay, let's figure out how we can get you support, how we can help so that next time you would do better? So that's self-kindness instead of self-judgment. The second component is common humanity versus isolation. What this means is recognizing that suffering. That experiencing a failure in life is part of the human experience, part of the collective shared human experience that we all suffer, that we're all gonna fail. when when you think about that as a common human experience, you separate it from the shame or the isolation, which is what we normally do. Normally, when we fail or when we're suffering, we think that we're all by ourselves, that nobody else does this. Everyone else must have it sewed together. We must be the only people that are suffering, that are failing, the only people that are gaining weight when we're in this life That's what isolation does. Isolation puts us in a box and sort of puts that electric fence of shame around us. But when we practice this tenet of self-compassion, which is calming humanity. It allows us to see that what we're experiencing is a shared experience. It reminds you that you are not alone in your struggles. And you don't have to feel isolated. You can understand that we must all experience this. It's just a common human experience. Kristen Neff, I heard her talking about this once, and she said, How many of you, when you decided to come into this human life, how many of you signed a contract that said, I am not going to experience any suffering this time around? No suffering at all. And everyone started laughing, but that is sort of the joke. It's like we come into this life and we expect that everything is gonna be perfect, hunky dory. We're never gonna suffer. But that's just not the case. In fact, in order for us to grow, in order for our soul to evolve, it evolves through growth. Growth is uncomfortable. Sometimes there's suffering, sometimes there's failure. And that is just part of the human experience, part of the soul's journey towards evolution. the third component. Is mindfulness over self-identification. what does that mean? Mindfulness over instead of over-identification. So whenever you are experiencing an emotion, let's say sadness or guilt, what you want to do is you want to experience objective, compassionate mindfulness. I noticed that I'm feeling guilt. I notice that I'm feeling judgment towards myself. That's it. You and you notice it with mindful, compassionate observation, as opposed to identifying with the emotion. So when you when you feel that, you say, my gosh, I'm so guilty. I must have done something wrong. What's wrong with me? Or I can't believe I did that again. And then you let the spiral go on and on and on. So instead of allowing the spiral of your thoughts to do that whenever you over-identify with an emotion, you observe the emotion. And I know I call it noting, which is a mindfulness practice, but it's also observing the emotion from a place of compassionate, non-judgmental awareness. And it's a beautiful way to practice. Okay, so those are the three tenets of self-compassion. Again, it's self-kindness instead of self-judgment. It's experiencing suffering and personal failure as a common human experience instead of isolating yourself. And the third is having a compassionate, mindful awareness over what you are experiencing and feeling instead of this over-identification and allowing your like metacognitive judgment to turn on, and now you're judging yourself for judging yourself. So if that's what self-compassion is, if we know it's good for us and listen. It's good for us. There have been like studies after studies after studies that have been published that show that self-compassion, it is so good for you. It supports you in being more successful. It supports you in experiencing more fulfillment, experiencing joy, happiness. You have more equanimity and inner peace, all of the good stuff, all of the stuff that we want in life. Because we don't want to just like work our butts off and have these like gold medals of success everywhere, but feel empty and actually super self-critical inside. I don't want that. And I don't want that for you either. What we want is we want to be able to achieve and make a difference in this world and make an impact and also experience inner peace and fulfillment and joy and have deep, beautiful personal relationships. That is what I want for all of you. That's what I want for myself. So self-compassion is what gets us there. It's what gives us that. So if we know that to be true, why is it so hard for us to practice? It's hilarious. Well, not hilarious. Ha ha. Hilarious, like, holy smokes, here we are again. And me too. I've been doing this work for over ten years. And I still catch myself sometimes being like, man, get to be nicer to myself there. And so just because I'm teaching this and just because I've been practicing this forever, it doesn't make me the expert. I still have committed to making this a practice. It's why we call these practices, because you practice them all of the time. And yes, eventually it becomes a little bit easier, eventually it becomes a habit, eventually you start noticing that, I'm not so hard on myself for that thing anymore, but maybe there's something else. And then you decide to grow again, and growth will create another level for us to go through this again. Like, uh-oh, there's a self-critical talk, there's the judgment. How do I want to show up when that stuff happens? Okay, so why is it that we don't habitually practice? Well, for one, if it is hard for you to practice this. It's not your fault. It's not your fault at all. In fact, there's absolutely nothing wrong with you. I have so many clients that come to me and just tell me it's it's just like it's like they are a hundred percent convinced they're just bad at self-compassion. I'm just not good at it. I'm not good at it at all. And no matter what I do, I can just not get good at it. And so, for those of you who have similar thoughts to that, I want to tell you it's like anything else. If you put your shoes on. Every day, right foot first, then left foot, right foot, foot, then left foot. And then one day you're like, I'm gonna start with my left foot, and then you mess up. It doesn't mean you're horrible at putting your shoes on left foot first and then right. Just means you gotta retrain your brain to put on your left your left shoe first. Because here's the thing about our brain our brain is biologically wired to not be compassionate. That's kind of wild, right? Like, why is our brain wired like that? Well, it's an evolutionary response. So our brain is biologically wired to do the opposite. It has, in fact, a five to one negativity bias. This means that the brain is essentially grasping onto things that are not good for us, that are bad for us, that are negative around us more than it does the positive. And one of my teachers says the brain is like Teflon for the good. The good will just roll right off and Velcro for the bad. It'll just grab onto the bad. And think about why that is. So if you think about it and you look back at just what we needed to do to survive, just from an evolutionary perspective, if we ate a poisonous berry one day, got super sick and had horrible GI symptoms involved and it almost died, gonna want to remember where that berry was. But if instead we ate this beautiful strawberry and it just felt great and bliss, like, okay, great, I'll have another strawberry another day. So we remember the bad stuff because remembering it will keep us alive. We don't necessarily remember the good stuff because we can go a couple days without eating. But if we forget where that berry was or we forget where the tiger's where the tiger lives and we're we cross the tiger's path, we're gonna die. We're out. So our brain is constantly scanning the world around us and grabbing onto the stuff that's negative. That's just how we evolved. No big deal. It's just how we evolved. We can just know it. And if we know it, now we can do something about it. So, what is it that we need to do to train our brain to do the opposite? Because guess what? That's the good news. The good news is you can actually train your brain to do the opposite. And it takes practice, and that's okay. We can all practice something. I mean, think about something you decided to get good at. Maybe it was like baking muffins or shooting a free throw shot. Or I remember when I learned to intubate a patient. I just was committed. Okay, I want to get really good at intubation. Because I knew it was a split-second decision and it would save a patient's life. So I was all about super committed to practicing to get it better. So there's a lot of things in this world that you have committed to practicing. This could just be one of those other things that you commit to practicing to getting better. So the other reason why self-compassion can be so hard to practice is because if you think about one, the biological wiring that we just talked about, and then you add on all the social and cultural programming. And whatever else you were taught as a kid, whether it's implicit or explicit, like hard work is the only way, or you can't be soft on yourself, or if you're too soft on them, I think about like grandparents' voices right now. If you're too soft on your kids, they're never gonna learn. Or the early bird gets the worm, or you're not gonna get a head if you don't push yourself. You know, all of those types of things that whatever you learned, those things are gonna make it harder for us because those are things Especially if we learn them when our brain was experiencing the most neuroplasticity between zero and eleven years old, that stick on and become our identity. They become our beliefs. You know, I coached a physician once who was essentially working to get her life back in order. If you are a professional, you're gonna you might see yourself in this experience, which is this person is about seven years into her practice, so seven years into your professional life. And now she has young kids. She has a two and a four-year-old. And now she's at this point where she's like, wait a second, what is happening to my life? Because now you have young kids and now your body is changing. And now you're looking at your life and you're questioning, what happened? I don't have time for myself anymore. And it's a pretty common stage that most people go through once you have kids in your professional life. And so she was at this place and she came from she came to me for coaching because she wanted to like get her life back on track. She wanted to feel like she was in control of her life again, like life was not just happening to her. that's what she was feeling like all of a sudden she just felt like her life was just happening to her. And one of the things that she wanted to get back on track with was her physical health and her exercising. She was a runner before she had kids and she was a runner even after she had her first kid. But then she had her second kid and she didn't everything was the same. Nothing else changed but now she has two kids. And so she's trying to figure out how do I get running again. And so she had all these plans. She was going to leave her running shoes by the door. And she was practically literally practicing everything that all the habit books teach you. Leave your running clothes somewhere easy. Make sure your alarm is on. Link it with something that feels good, all those types of things And she was noticing that she could not be consistent. She was super sporadic when it came to this habit that she was trying to build. And she did not understand why. She didn't understand why, because she had what she called a commitment muscle. She knows she felt like really good at once she committed, she was going to be good at it. But she didn't understand why she kept falling off the horse. And so when we worked together, the first thing I started to notice is the way she would think and what she would say to herself when she would miss a run. Every time she would miss a run, I would ask her, So, how did it feel? And she would just kind of like involute, go in on herself, and I can see. I sensed, this must be shame. And so I said, tell me more, like what's happening? Like, what are you thinking? What are you feeling? And she says, Well, every time I miss a run, it just reminds me that I'm not consistent. It reminds me that I just suck at this. And that, and I just keep thinking, maybe I'm never going to be healthy again. Maybe I'm never going to do this again. And so if you think about all of those thoughts, of course she feels horrible. And of course, she, it's like hard for her to keep going if she's having those thoughts. Because if she already believes that she's never gonna keep going and then she misses a run, it's hard for her to get back on track. But then she would notice that eventually, after a couple of days, those thoughts would get quieter, they wouldn't be so loud, and she would try again. But it would be the same habit every time. And so I pointed that out to her, and it was super surprising to her. She didn't connect the dots of she was being so hard on herself, and it was hard for her to be consistent when she was so hard on herself. Because who's gonna want to be consistent if every time you fall off the horse, somebody's berating you, someone's yelling at you and telling you you're no good. And so I said, why don't you practice just letting yourself know that it's okay? That's it. Very simple. If you don't run that day, just tell yourself, hmm, it's okay. I can just do it tomorrow. It's okay. I can just do it again tomorrow. Because it's not about being perfect at it. Is what I was reminding her. It's just about being consistent and doing your best to keep going. Holy smokes, that shifted everything for her. The next week she ran the first day, missed the next day, ran the third day, missed the fourth day, ran the fifth, the sixth, the seventh day. And then she was essentially consistently running again. And sometimes she had planned to run, you know, four or six miles because she was a distance runner, but she'd only get two or three miles in. And she started celebrating herself even for the shorter runs. And that was a huge win. And that right there is the magic of self-compassion. That's why it's so important for us to start practicing because sometimes the things that are getting in the way between who we want to become or the success that we want is not necessarily a gap in proficiency. It's a gap in kindness and self-kindness. the other reason why many of us. And when I say us, I mean all of you listening, smart, high-achieving, high-functioning folks. Another reason why self-compassion can be so hard for us to practice is because we don't think that we've worked hard enough to deserve this level of kindness or compassion. I know that that sounds crazy, but let me say that again. You don't think you've done enough. You don't think you you've worked hard enough. You don't think that you've had enough success to be kind enough to yourself. I know it sounds a little crazy even when I say it, but goodness gracious, this was me and this is one of my clients right now. So what tends to happen is you will have some improvement. And instead of acknowledging the gain, like now you can look back and be like, huh, look, I I was here, but now I'm over here. All you focus on is the gap. But this is not where I want to be. I want to be over there, I'm not far enough yet. And it's this gap versus gain analogy where you're only focusing on the gap. And I want you to imagine you are out going for a run, and in front of you is the horizon. And in your mind, I'm going to the horizon. That is where I'm going. And you don't stop to acknowledge how far you've come. You've run like 10 miles maybe. And you don't stop to turn around and notice how far you've come. Instead, all you do is look ahead, look ahead, look ahead. And it's never enough until you can get to the horizon. But as we all know, we can never get to the horizon. That is the horizon. It's somewhere you will never get. so the magic here is to be able to look backwards and celebrate. And maybe it's not even you're not even at a place where you can celebrate the gain yet, but at least acknowledge it. At least start to acknowledge the gain instead of only focusing on the gap. Okay, so I am going to take us to the last part of today's episode. And I want to end today by offering you a very simple practice that you can start using that is so effective. So this is something that I used for myself about 10 years ago. And the reason why I used it is because I started working at an emergency department, and it was in the region where I was living, it was known to be one of the best hospitals in the region. It had the most affluent patients. And in my mind, it was like the best, smartest doctors. It had access to everything. We had ECMO. We had we had everything you'd want. We had 24-hour chaplain care. And so I just assumed the smartest and the best people worked there. And at that time, I had tremendous imposter syndrome. I my imposter syndrome was on like high alert all the time. And so clearly I just believed that I wasn't good enough to work there. That I just my gosh, I can't believe I got a job there. What am I gonna do? People are not gonna think I'm good enough or smart enough. And I noticed that. I noticed and I would drive into the hospital and I would get really nervous. Or when I was at the hospital, I would notice how I would act. And I'm like, is shocking. I work just a couple miles away from here. I'm not like that at this place. Why am I like that at this place? And it was some serious imposter syndrome. And I wanted to get better. I didn't want to feel like that. It wasn't a good feeling. And so I committed. To practicing the self-compassion practice. And at about 10 to 14 days in, I noticed something drastically shift on my ER shift. It was bizarre. Cause I I sort of I knew it would work kind of cognitively, but I wasn't sure yet. And I hadn't seen the, I hadn't seen the evidence. And so here was my evidence. So in the ER, whenever you have something that requires a specialist, a consultant, you have to call the consultant and get a consult. And so I needed to call a cardiothoracic surgeon. And my patient was having an aortic dissection. This is a big deal. I have to call a surgeon. They have to go to the operating room right away. It's an emergency. Okay, so I call the cardiothoracic surgeon, and the dude is not very kind on the phone. He is short and he's rude and he's cutting me off and he's doing all of these things. And I've had these conversations before with consultants. Whatever, no big deal. I've had them before, but in the past, when I would have them, I would make it all about me. I'd be like, man, how does this guy know that I don't belong here? How does he know I'm not smart enough? my gosh, what am I doing wrong to make him act like this? But This time, the guy's being like that on the phone. And I'm just like noticing him doing that. And I'm super calm and I'm super regulated and I'm just listening. And at the end, I catch myself thinking, man, this guy must be having a really bad day if this is how he thinks he needs to act. And that was that. I got off the phone and I went on my day. And as I was driving home, I was like, whoa, that is incredible. I noticed. That I didn't get dysregulated when that guy was acting like that. The rest of my shift was awesome. And I realized I wasn't experiencing that same level of insecurity or imposter syndrome anymore. And so I was really, really, really grateful for this practice. And this is what I'm giving to you now as a gift. And all of these things that I teach you, as you guys know, they only work if you practice them. So if this is something that is resonating with you, commit to trying it, commit to practicing it. Again. You never have to take my word for anything. Just practice it for yourself and see what comes up. Okay, so here it is. It's three simple lines that you're gonna practice. The first thing you're gonna do is you put your right hand over your heart and you put your left hand over your right hand. Just keep it there for, I don't know, five, 10 seconds first and take a deep breath. And if you're at a place right now where you can do this with me, go for it. Right hand over your heart, take a few deep breaths. And I've said this before, but I'll say it again in case you're new here or this is the first time you've heard me say it. When you put your right hand over your heart for about 15 to 20 seconds, you release oxytocin. Oxytocin is a feel good hormone, it is a vasodilator, it makes you feel good in your body, it makes you relax. But it's also the baby bonding hormone that mothers release when they have a baby. So you put your right hand over your heart, take a couple breaths, and then what you want to do. is you want to envision someone you love. So when I would do this, I would envision my baby when she was firstborn. would envision my husband on our wedding day. So whatever it is that you want to envision, something that brings you tremendous joy and love. I had a client that would always envision her baby puppy, Okay, so once you have that in your mind's eye, then you want to say to yourself, and these are the three lines we're going to repeat, may I love myself as I am. May I accept myself as I am? May I be at ease with who I am. So you first start with someone you love. And after you say those three lines, wait a couple seconds, take a few more breaths, and then you're gonna envision someone that you feel neutral about, not necessarily negative, not necessarily super positive. Could be a colleague, could be a friend, could be the grocery store clerk, anyone. You're gonna do the same thing. Put them in your mind's eye, and then you repeat those three lines. May they love themselves as they are. May they accept themselves as they are. May they live at ease with who they are. And then you're gonna envision someone that you have a slight frustration towards. Now, this isn't somebody that like totally lights you up, that you just cannot stand, and every time you think about them, your face gets bright red. No, no, no, not yet. You wanna envision someone. That just kind of triggers you, annoys you, frustrates you, whoever that is. And you put them in your mind's eye and you repeat it again. May they love themselves as they are. May they accept themselves as they are. May they live at ease with who they are. And that's it. So envision someone you love, then envision someone you feel neutral towards, and then envision someone that kind of triggers you. And in between, you give yourself a couple of breaths. Keep your right hand over your heart if you can, so that you can continue to secrete those feel-good hormones. Now, why does this work? This works because everyone around us is a mirror of who we are. Now, that concept, that mirror concept, that's an ancient indigenous belief. The Toltec tradition believes that, the Yaqui tradition believes that, but many ancient cultures believe something similar to that, that we are a mirror for everything around us. And modern psychology has essentially adopted it too. So what that means is that when we see something in someone else, it's something that we have inside of us. So when we see something we love in someone else, that is something that we have inside of us somewhere that's either untapped or that we appreciate about ourselves. When we see something that triggers us around somewhere else, that's something that lives inside of us too. And so when we can offer compassion, love, acceptance. To all of those parts of those people that either trigger you or that you love, you are essentially offering yourself that same level of compassion. You are essentially offering yourself that deep level of love, acceptance, and compassion when you practice this towards other people. It is so simple and it is so profound and it is so effective. But again, don't take my word for it, try it for yourself. And I want to know how it goes. So if this is working for you, let me know. Write a comment here. I wherever you're listening, whether this is YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, wherever you're listening, send me a comment. Or you can find me on Instagram. That's where I hang out at Vanessa Calderon MD. Let me know how this goes for you. And very soon, I am going to add on a bonus meditation, a bonus self-compassion meditation that you will all have access to if you are on my listserv. If you are not on my list surf yet, get on it. There's a link in the show notes to join. right, sweet friends. I will see you next week. Adios.