#139 - Kristin Neff, Ph.D.: The power of self-compassion

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  A personal crisis led Neff to self-compassion

  As a graduate student at UC Berkeley studying moral development, Neff left her husband for another man, who then died of cancer within a year. Her ex-husband hated her, and she describes herself as full of shame and 'a basket case'. She joined a nearby Thich Nhat Hanh meditation group. Actively speaking to herself with kindness ('Hey Kristin, I know you're hurting') worked almost immediately.

• 02

  Self-compassion has three components that work as a system

  The three are self-kindness, mindfulness and common humanity, the sense that suffering connects us rather than isolating us. Neff says they 'operate as a system'. Self-kindness on its own can become a self-focused 'poor me' state. Mindfulness gives perspective, and common humanity reminds you that you aren't the only one who fails.

• 03

  Self-esteem is contingent; self-compassion is stable

  Since William James, self-esteem has meant feeling worthy because you are good at something you value. That makes self-esteem rise and fall with outcomes. Self-compassion says you are worthy because you are human, so it fluctuates less. She isn't against self-esteem, and the two are fairly strongly correlated. The problem is the unhealthy routes to it: feeling better than others, and bullying, which she links to middle schoolers trying to feel good by comparison.

• 04

  Self-compassion is unrelated to narcissism

  When self-esteem and self-compassion were entered together in a regression predicting narcissism, Neff says self-compassion's correlation came out at 0.0. She calls it 'totally orthogonal'. Self-esteem showed what she recalls as a moderate correlation, though she said she'd have to check the figure.

• 05

  Harsh self-criticism works, but at a cost

  Neff admits that many people have got through medical or law school on harsh self-criticism, so it does 'kind of work'. The side effects include anxiety, fear of failure and avoidance: the next big task feels threatening because failing means another beating. She argues that self-compassion is a better motivator than either self-criticism or self-esteem.

• 06

  The inner critic is trying to keep you safe

  We criticise ourselves because we want to be well and loved, and we fear that failing will harm us or others. Neff says we shouldn't beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up. Instead, we should have compassion, and even gratitude, for the critic's motive. When her programme skips that step, the shift to compassionate motivation 'actually doesn't work', because the critical part feels it is fighting for its life.

• 07

  Childhood trauma makes self-compassion harder, and sometimes frightening

  Early sexual, emotional or physical abuse hinders adult self-compassion, mainly through the attachment system. If care was unsafe, the inner programme may say you're worthless and not worthy of care.

• 08

  Self-compassion appears to influence physical health through the nervous system

  Neff cites a meta-analysis finding a small-to-medium correlation (about 0.28–0.30) between self-compassion and better physical health. She calls it 'significant, not mind-blowing'. In experiments that induce all three components, for example by writing a self-compassionate paragraph about a current problem, sympathetic markers such as inflammation and cortisol go down. Heart rate variability, a marker of parasympathetic activity, goes up. Immune function also looks better. Attia notes the field is nascent and partly speculative.

• 09

  Children can learn it from around age 7 or 8

  There is no good measure of self-compassion in children. Neff suspects it becomes teachable once kids understand friendship, reciprocity and fairness, what Piaget called two-way thinking. Self-criticism kicks in later, because young children have a positivity bias unless parents tell them otherwise. Adolescence, when abstract thinking and identity formation start, is when it matters most.

• 10

  You don't need to meditate to learn it

  In her randomised trial of the Mindful Self-Compassion programme, gains in self-compassion were linked to practice. It didn't matter whether that meant formal meditation or informal 'self-compassion breaks' during the day. A hand on the heart and a kind sentence in the supermarket is 'portable' and 'scalable'.