Meet Kristin Neff, Author of "Fierce Self-Compassion"
Interviewed by Diane Cyr
If you think of self-compassion as gentle and loving, you’re only half right. To be fully self-compassionate is to embrace both yin and yang, tender acceptance, and Mama-Bear fierceness, as Dr. Kristin Neff explains in her latest book, Fierce Self-Compassion. As an associate professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, Neff, a renowned leader in the self-compassion movement, applauds the fact that more women are putting those inner warriors to work, as evidenced by the #MeToo movement and women’s marches. In this interview, Neff talks about the ways in which self-compassion both supports and emboldens self-worth, benefiting not just the individual, but the world at large.
MENTAL HEALTH EXPERTS USED TO TALK ABOUT THE VALUE OF SELF-ESTEEM. HOW IS SELF-COMPASSION DIFFERENT?
Self-esteem is a judgment. It’s a valuation of self-worth, and it’s conditional on social comparison, which leads to social disconnection. Bullying, for instance, starts with self-esteem, when someone begins to feel superior to the nerdy kid. Because it’s contingent on measurements like appearance, popularity, and success, self-esteem is a fair-weather friend; it’s not there when you fail.
Self-compassion is also about having a sense of self-worth, but it’s not based on judgment. It allows you to accept your flaws, and all of us are flawed human beings. In that way, self-compassion is a healthy source of self-esteem.
SOME WOULD ARGUE THAT SELF-COMPASSION WOULD EXCUSE YOU FROM ACHIEVING, DOING YOUR BEST.
If you love your kids, does it mean you let them sit around watching TV and eating sugar all day? Self-compassion is caring about yourself, and when you care for yourself, you’re going to try to do your best, but your self-worth is not contingent on achievement. If you fail, you learn and grow from your failure. That’s more motivating than self-criticism.
Our culture thinks self-compassion will make us lazy or self-indulgent. And it’s not just Western culture: Even in China and Japan, there’s a belief that self-criticism is healthy. But harsh self-criticism undermines the self and creates shame, and shame is not healthy. It’s a radical action to have self-compassion.
WHAT ROLE DOES “FIERCENESS” HAVE IN SELF-COMPASSION?
Fierce compassion is when you take action to relieve suffering. In helping others and saving lives, firefighters and health and safety workers are doing acts of compassion, even if they’re not acts of emotional comfort and acceptance. When there are behaviors or situations causing suffering, you need a healthy balance of fierce and tender self-compassion. We can become passive if we aren’t taking action to protect ourselves. Or we can become striving or achieving or lost in anger if we’re not tenderhearted.
This has especially been manifested in gender-role socialization. In the #MeToo movement, many of the perpetrators were powerful, complex people, and there’s a yin tendency in our gender to focus on the good, to not speak out and be angry. But we need yang, that anger, that fierceness. We don’t want to get lost in anger and harm others, but we want to harness the force of it, to be strong and focused on protecting ourselves and others. And it’s starting to change. People are seeing the beauty and usefulness of constructive anger.
HOW DO YOU BALANCE RIGHTEOUS ANGER WITH SELF-COMPASSION?
It has to be done skillfully, and it’s hard to do skillfully. We have to be in touch with our anger: When you hear the #MeToo stories, you should be angry. With Black Lives Matter, you should be angry: I don’t know how you can watch the George Floyd video and not be angry. But we can’t get lost in it. We also have to value our anger, but we also have to value the power of kindness—the power of compassion and tenderness and holding pain with love.
HOW DO YOU BEGIN THE JOURNEY TO SELF-COMPASSION?
Mindfulness is the foundation. If you don’t have an openness to what’s happening, especially pain, you can’t begin the journey. You can’t give yourself compassion. You don’t need to learn mindful meditation in order to learn self-compassion, but in any moment of suffering, you need to start the process by being mindful of your pain.
HOW MIGHT WE HELP OUR CHILDREN WITH SELF-COMPASSION?
The best thing to do is to model it, and the more out loud, the better. Anytime you shove something down your child’s throat, they’re going to rebel. Modeling is the way people learn. So if your child breaks a glass in the sink, you say, “Well, it happens to everyone, we’re human. Let’s try and be more careful next time.” Or when my son was feeling anxious, I’d say something very simple, like, “Try putting your hand on your heart.” Although when he was younger he rejected the idea, now he’s 19 and onboard, because he sees that it works.
