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Welcome to episode 168 of The Nonanxious Leader Podcast. I'm Jack Shitama. Last week I talked about self regulation being the key to self differentiation. Well, that is when you're in the moment and you're trying to regulate your own automatic responses. Self compassion enables you to grow in self differentiation. So as you self regulate and think about the response you want to make, you can be clearer about taking responsibility for self and also staying connected to others. So that's what this week's episode is about. It's based on a Hidden Brain podcast episode that features Kristin Neff, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin. She's the author of Self Compassion, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself and Fear Self Compassion how women can harness kindness to speak up, claim their power and thrive. I'll post links to all of those in the show notes. Over 4000 studies have been done on self compassion. Most have looked at people who are naturally more self compassionate. They tend to be more satisfied with life happier, less anxious and depressed, and more motivated. Research that focuses on putting people in a more self compassionate frame of mind or training them to be more self compassionate in the long run shows that people are less likely to procrastinate or contemplate suicide, suffer addiction, or engage in unhealthy pain avoidance when they learn to practice self compassion.

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They're also more likely to eat and sleep better, as well as practice safe sex. According to Kristin Neff, the evidence is clear. Self compassion will make you stronger, more capable of getting through difficult times, and is good for your well being. To understand self compassion, we first need to understand the opposite, which is shame and self criticism. There is an inner critic that makes self compassion difficult, if not impossible. The inner critic manifests itself in different ways and different people. One can use harsh language with the self, or there can be coldness, shame and or disappointment. Others might disassociate by shutting down and going numb. From a family systems point of view, this lack of self compassion goes back to the family of origin. At some point, there was a need for caring, nurturing, healthy emotional connection that didn't happen. There could have been trauma and the need for safety that went unfilled, or there could have been general anxiety and important people were unwilling or unable to provide healthy connection. Regardless, the Inner Critic The voice in the head did not come out of nowhere. It developed from early relationships, typically in the family of origin.

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According to Neff, the inner critic comes from the desire to stay safe. It taps into the primitive part of our brain and our body's fight, flight or freeze response. She says, quote and so when we're scared of something and gosh when we make a mistake or fail, it's scary. We feel frightened, we feel threatened. So we either fight ourselves thinking we could control the situation and be safe, or we flee in shame from the perceived judgment of others. Or we freeze and get stuck in rumination. And these are all really natural ways we try to stay safe. So you might even say the motivation of the inner critic is a good one, even though the consequences are anything but. End Quote What we know about the primitive part of our brain is that this is also where habits are formed. This desire to stay safe is deeply ingrained, and the inner critic was developed early on in life as a coping mechanism. The interesting thing about this is that shame and self criticism are actually self absorbed States. They are the opposite of selfdifferentiation. Remember that self differentiation is not selfishness or self centeredness. It is knowing who you are and what you are about flaws and all while being in relationship with others.

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According to Neff, the lack of self compassion actually creates unhealthy emotional distance with others. It can cause us to be agitated, elevating our cortisol levels to the point that we have a shorter fuse with others. They pick up on this and will either respond in kind, that is, with reactivity or distance themselves. Emotional Disconnection Another way that the lack of self compassion manifests itself is through comparison. When we lack self compassion, we may compare ourselves to others in a negative way to bolster our own self esteem. This creates unhealthy emotional distance. Because it's a zero sum game. We can't let the other be better because it will diminish ourselves. This makes healthy connection difficult, if not impossible. One more way the lack of self compassion can manifest itself is through unhealthy perfectionism. The need to be perfect is the response to the lack of feeling safe. It's nearly impossible to be perfect, so this results in feeling bad and feeling shame. Neff contrasts self compassion with selfesteem. She says, quote, that's the problem with selfesteem. There's nothing wrong with having it, but it's how do you get it? Do you get it from being better than other people, from being a narcissist and really ego defensive?

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Or do you get it from having to be perfect or having to succeed? And all of these things are bound to eventually lead to problems. The problem with self esteem is that it doesn't help us deal with negative emotions. Life is hard. We're going to face challenges, going to make mistakes, we're going to fail. The question is, how do we deal with the negative emotions that result? If we don't deal with them, they will come out in unhealthy ways. As Neff points out, from a psychological standpoint, whatever you resist grows stronger by not processing them. Not dealing with them. When the negative emotions do come out, they're even worse than they would have been. So it's clear that the lack of self compassion is not helpful. It's even harmful to our functioning as persons and as leaders. The question is, how does self compassion help us to self differentiate? The important thing to understand about self compassion is that it is being honest about self in a healthy way. It's recognizing that we are human, that we are flawed, and that's okay. The paradox here is that when we accept that we made a mistake, it enables us to take responsibility for it.

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What NA found in her research is that people who are more self compassionate are more conscientious, take more responsibility for their mistakes, and are more likely to apologize for those mistakes that's self differentiation. This is counterintuitive because our brain wants to convince us that if we accept our flaws, we are somehow less than. This makes it harder to connect in healthy ways with others because of our own anxiety. When we accept ourselves as flawed, we are better able to connect with others and we are better able to accept them as flawed as well. Because we accept ourselves, we don't have to compare ourselves to others. We don't have to be better than them to feel good about ourselves. This fosters healthy emotional connection. And while Neff points out that studies show that we are generally more compassionate with others than we are with ourselves, she also notes that this is somewhat fleeting. She says,"Most people are very compassionate towards others and not compassionate toward themselves. But when you are self compassionate, what it does is allows you to sustain compassion for others without burning out. So if we give and give toward others and beat ourselves up, eventually our cup will run dry and we'll get burned out. We'll get frustrated. Maybe we'll snap in anger. So self compassion allows you to sustain being there for others."

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Self-differentiation is the ability to know ourselves honestly and accept ourselves for who we are. This gives us more capacity to accept others and stay connected to them, flaws and all. I hope I've made the case that self compassion is essential to self-differentiation. The next question is, how do you develop that self compassion? The best way to silence the inner critic is to do your own work and rework the relationships that help to form it. When I say rework, that means to think about what you were looking for in the relationship and what you didn't get then facing the fact that it didn't happen and working through the grief process so you can get to a different place. If the person or persons are still alive, then you can have healthy conversations with them where you self define without blaming while staying emotionally connected. This can help you change your primitive response from fight or reactivity, flight or adaptivity or freeze, which would be disconnecting emotionally to one where you are able to express yourself in healthy ways while showing you care.

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This might involve getting the help of a therapist, but it would be time well spent. In the meantime, there are four practical steps that Neff teaches to foster more self compassion. First, practice mindfulness. Acknowledge the negative feelings. Accept that you made a mistake or that things didn't go the way you wanted. Mindfulness is accepting the present without judgment. Second, remind yourself that you're human just like others. Acknowledging that you have struggles in your life as all people do reinforces a sense of connectedness to others, NEF says this is what makes the difference between self compassion and self pity. Third, flip the script. Imagine that a good friend messed up the same way you did. What would you say to them? It's likely to be compassionate. Then say it to yourself or an alternative is to imagine what a good friend would say to you in this situation. Finally, make friends with your inner critic. Remind yourself that the intent of the criticism is to make you better. Rather than trying to shut down your inner critic. Allow them to be heard and say, thanks for pointing that out. I'm going to work on that, but I'm going to use encouragement instead of shame.

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Self-differentiation is not possible without self compassion. Work on it and it will help you keep a challenge from becoming a problem. Enable you to take responsibility for self as well as enable you to stay emotionally connected to those you lead and those you care about. That's good stuff. That's it for episode 168. You can connect with me at thenonanxiousleader.com and you can find the show notes at thenonanxiousleader.com/168. Until next time, thanks and goodbye.

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