Are you kinder to others than you are to yourself? Dr. Kristen Neff is a leading researcher on self-compassion. She shares with us the multitude of benefits of self-compassion and how to learn the skill of being kinder to ourselves - and turn your inner critic into an inner ally.

Kristin Neff joins us from Austin, Texas.

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Bio
Kristin Neff received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, and is currently an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology 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 Meditation 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. Kristin is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, creating a scale to measure the construct almost 20 years ago. She has been recognized as one of the world’s most influential research psychologists. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of the book Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and her latest Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive.

In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she 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: A Guide for Professionals. She is also co-founder of the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion.

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For More on Dr. Kristin Neff
The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook: A Proven Way to Accept Yourself, Build Inner Strength, and Thrive
Website

The Mindful Self-Compassion Program (8 week course)

Research Overview:

Self-compassion: Theory, method, research, and intervention

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross

Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes, PhD

Retire Happy – Dr. Catherine Sanderson

The Emotional Side of Retiring – Kate Schroeder

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Mentioned in This Podcast Episode

New Study:
Resilience and Enhancement in Sport, Exercise, & Training (RESET): A brief self-compassion intervention with NCAA student-athletes




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Wise Quotes

On the Benefits of Self Compassion

"The research is very, very clear. There are both mental and physical health benefits of self-compassion. So if you think of the word in Latin - compassion -  passion means suffering. It's how are we with our suffering? And if we aren't with it in a healthy way, in other words, if we dive into it or we become overwhelmed by it, we may develop depression or anxiety or sleep disorders, eating disorders, and then it also may start affecting our health. We might have a lot of cortisol, high blood pressure, and it can have these knock-on effects. So what happens with self-compassion is when we're struggling, we're hurting in some way. If we're there for ourselves, like we would be for a supportive friend, that means we're stronger and we're more able to deal with the tough stuff without being knocked over by it. And so it's linked to better mental health, not only fewer negative things like depression, anxiety, stress, but also positive mind states like happiness and optimism. And that's because if you think about it, kindness and connectedness, these are positive emotions. So we're kind of framing our difficulty. We aren't pretending it's not there, but we're just being kind and supportive ourself to ourselves in the midst of the difficulty. And these are positive emotions that help us cope.