The Relational Power of Self-Compassion

A Q&A with Author, Psychologist, and Self-Compassion Expert, Christopher Germer

Today’s newsletter is a Q&A with clinical psychologist Christopher Germer. Drs. Germer and Kristin Neff co-developed the evidence-backed Mindful Self-Compassion Program in 2010, and have co-authored several books including their newest, Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout. The idea for this latest book emerged while both were experiencing burnout, and they turned to a tool they know well to provide the antidote.

Neff and Germer have pioneered the science and practice of self-compassion, teaching practical tools anyone can apply to protect their individual health—and the health of their relationships.

The interview is a bit lengthy but covers so many important topics:

• What is self-compassion?

• Why does self-compassion protect our health and prevent burnout?

• What are simple ways to practice self-compassion?

• How can we leverage self-compassion for the good of our relationships?

Chris also shares his favorite self-compassion practices and offers advice for those inevitable moments of being trapped in an impossible choice between compassion for others and self-compassion (This last portion of the interview is available only to paid subscribers. Paid subscribers can also head to the end of this post to enter for a chance to win a copy of this book.)

[This conversation is lightly edited for length and clarity.]

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What is thing thing called self-compassion?

Yael: Chris, for readers who might not be familiar with it, can you explain what self-compassion is?

Chris: Informally, self-compassion means treating ourselves with the same kindness and understanding when we are suffering as we would treat a good friend. This is not what usually happens when we suffer. The last thing we are is kind to ourselves when we suffer. However, when other people suffer, we usually are quite sympathetic, patient, supportive, warm, and encouraging. So, self-compassion is the practice of being as kind and understanding to ourselves as we would toward others. That's the informal definition.

But Kristin Neff, back in 2003, came up with a formal definition that consists of three parts. The first is mindfulness, the second is common humanity, and the third is self-kindness. And we need all three parts to be self-compassionate.

Most people think of self-compassion as only self-kindness. That would mostly mean sugarcoating our experience. But what gives self-compassion power is that we're able to see and touch difficulty in our lives rather than try to cover it with sugar. Self-compassion allows us to open to our experience such that we can see the common humanity of suffering. We feel less alone when we're self-compassionate.

And then finally, self-kindness, which is similar to what I was describing before in the informal definition, which is an attitude of goodwill, warmth, supportiveness, and care.

So those three components together are a powerful combination for responding to suffering in a helpful way.

Why is self-compassion good for our relationships when it’s something we do for ourselves?

Yael: I had the privilege of interviewing Susan Pollock about self-compassion for parents¹ and I remember thinking back then that there is this interesting paradox in self-compassion. By definition, self-compassion is focused inward. Yet we also know that self-compassion is good for our relationships with others—including our relationships with our children, family members, friends, partners, and colleagues!

I wonder if you can speak to how self-compassion, this thing that we tend to direct internally, can foster healthy outward connections with important people in our lives.

Chris: There are really two kinds of connection. There's connection with ourselves, and there's connection with others. What we know is that the way we relate to ourselves has a huge impact on how we relate to others.

For example, if we are in a relationship with somebody who’s angry at us, we're likely to have a threat response, which means we fight, flight, or freeze, This is rarely a good foundation for a conversation or a solution.

However, if somebody is angry at us we can say mindfully, “Oh, this is hard, this is stressful; this person is angry; I'm feeling afraid.” If we're able to be open to the experience and conclude that relationships all have difficult periods and this moment is a difficult moment for me and then to be kind to ourselves in response, then something quite unusual happens—we start to shift our physiology from a state of threat and fear to a state of care by first caring for ourselves.

The irony is that when we're struggling and we respond by caring for ourselves, it changes our physiology from threat to care, from adrenaline and cortisol to oxytocin and endorphins. It even increases our heart rate variability and changes the functioning of the brain such that we can more readily self-regulate. So, there's a lot that goes on neurophysiologically when we care for ourselves.

Yael: That's a beautiful answer that gets why the seemingly trite piece of advice to “put your oxygen mask on first” works.

Chris: Yes, and when we're struggling, we don't usually think to put the oxygen mask on first. We don't realize that the difficulty is in how we are functioning. We don't realize that when we're in a threat state, we cannot solve problems.

How does self-compassion provide an antidote to burnout?

Yael: This also helps us understand the role of the lack of self-compassion in burnout. That is, we feel so compelled to help other people that it doesn't seem there's enough space or energy for us to also care for ourselves. This may be especially true of those of us who inhabit caregiving roles. In the book, you and Kristen talk a bit about a specific manifestation of this: Empathy fatigue. Can you talk about what empathy fatigue is and how self-compassion helps?

Chris: Empathy fatigue describes what happens when we burn out due to the suffering of others. So, when we're a caregiver, we feel the pain of others as if it's our own. And that's because, as human beings, are hardwired for empathy. We will feel what others are feeling as if it is our own pain. When another person’s suffering is continuous and relentless, or if we're in a caregiving profession where we see one person after another who's really suffering, it just becomes too much, you know? We get fatigued from empathy.

But compassion is empathy plus love. And love is a positive emotion. Love is energizing. And when I talk about love, I'm talking about goodwill and care.

When we meet empathic pain with compassion, it is not draining. We can be engaged with suffering for a long time and even have a sense of joy and upliftment, as many therapists do when they come back from a long day at work. Our partners might say, “How come you seem buoyant and you've been talking to people who've been suffering all day long? How do you do it?” The answer is compassion.

A lot of caregivers are just full of kindness and compassion, but it can, at times, get overwhelming. And when it gets overwhelming, people might start to beat up on themselves. You know, “What's the matter with me? How come I can't do this?” In other words, they add insult to injury. They add a kind of strain or struggle or stress to the already existing stress of being overwhelmed by somebody suffering.

So, what would be a radically new way of responding to empathy fatigue? Compassion for ourselves. So, we can say that the antidote to compassion fatigue or empathy fatigue is self-compassion. Because we can easily disregard ourselves to the point of burnout. However, when we recognize that we're suffering from empathy fatigue or compassion fatigue, we can do a compassionate U-turn.

How can we begin to be self-compassionate when we are struggling?

Chris: A compassionate U-turn can start with a simple question. The quintessential self-compassion question is: “What do I need?”

Chris sharing his wisdom with me during our Q&A

Now, when people are struggling with burnout or empathy fatigue, they rarely ask themselves what they need. They beat up on themselves, but they don't see themselves. So, to stop and ask “What do I need?” is a very compassionate move. It’s the wish to care for ourselves. And so that intention or that wish is the engine that drives the train.

Of course, the number of answers to the question is infinite. But when we start to answer the question, we will be changing our relationship to ourselves and our work in such a way that it is likely to become sustainable.

So, the invitation when we have compassion fatigue from caring for others is to fall into compassion for ourselves and ask the question, “What do I need?” And then give that to ourselves. And lo and behold, that changes the whole situation.

[When you are struggling mightily, what kinds of things/actions/words have you discovered you need?]

What can we do when confronted with an impossible choice of either offering compassion to others or offering it to ourselves?

Yael: Let me pose a common self-compassion trap and ask for your advice. A friend of mine who has an enormously demanding job employs an assistant who takes on various tasks, enabling my friend to not burn out from the demands of the job. My friend cares about his assistant as a person, and he also relies on his assistant. Recently, the assistant has been going through a very tough time, which has resulted, for months, in the person not showing up to do much of the job. That is a problem professionally, but it also contributes to my colleague’s growing burnout. As a compassionate person, my colleague faces a painful predicament: fire a person who's already struggling (and pile on to their struggle), or continue to have his personal and professional needs unmet and fall deeper into work burnout.

I'm curious what suggestions you would give to somebody who's trying to figure out where to send compassion in this kind of situation.

Chris: When it comes to actions that we may take, compassion is not enough. We need compassion, but we also need wisdom. Wisdom means we need to know the complexity of a situation, and we need to be able to assess the consequences of our actions. Our job is to choose the action which will cause the least harm and the most benefit. So, that's wisdom. Nobody could ever answer for somebody else since the right thing for one person is not necessarily the right thing for your colleague.