Join Dr. Kristin Neff for a lively discussion about what it means to be a compassionate mess! It's okay. Our hosts Dr. Kristina Hallett and Kristin Sunanta Walker jump in to ask questions about what self-compassion really means especially in today's world.

Kristin Neff got her Ph.D. in 1997 at UC Berkeley, studying moral development. She is currently an Associate Professor in Human Development at the University of Texas at Austin.

During Kristin's last year of graduate school she became interested in Buddhism, and has been practicing meditation in the Insight tradition ever since. While doing her post-doctoral work she decided to conduct research on self-compassion - a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not yet been examined empirically. In addition to her pioneering research into self-compassion, she has developed an 8-week program to teach self-compassion skills. The program, co-created with her colleague Chris Germer, is called Mindful Self-Compassion.