← Compassion in a T-Shirt
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- [00:01]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Hi, I'm Dr. Stan Steindl. Welcome to Compassion in a T shirt. My guest today in some ways needs no introduction. Dr. Chris Germer is a clinical psychologist and part time lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He co developed the Mindful Self Compassion Program with Dr. Kristin Neff in 2010 and now MSC has been taught to over 250,000 people around the world. He's the author of the book the Mindful Path to Self Compassion and he co authored with Kristin Neff two books, the Mindful Self Compassion Workbook and Teaching the Mindful Self Compassion Program. He's just a wonderful human being and deeply thoughtful. His work has made a massive contribution around the world and I'm sure you'll get something very helpful out of this conversation. And so I bring you Dr. Chris Germer. Yeah, well, because I mean mindful self compassion, I mean it's such a successful and widespread program. I mean it's, it's really all over the world. And but I, I am curious, like.
- [01:17]
Dr. Chris Germer
What, what are the, what are the.
- [01:19]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Origins of it really? Like how did you and, and Kristen Neff perhaps meet or what was it like in the early days to you know, know, writing the program even or, or rolling it out? I was curious about some of that.
- [01:32]
Dr. Chris Germer
Thanks, thanks for asking. Yeah. Well, I come out of the mindfulness tradition and I'm a clinical psychologist and for 20 years I suffered from public speaking anxiety that mindfulness didn't help and therapy didn't help. And I was also specializing, specializing in anxiety disorders and nothing I knew helped. And until I broke down and learned loving kindness meditation to supplement mindfulness practice. And I never liked that too much, but that's, you know, using words, phrases that warm up awareness like may I be safe, may I be peaceful. And basically after four months of practicing every morning loving kindness meditation and at the same time worrying about a upcoming conference at Harvard Medical School. So I would like, sit on my cushion, panic, love myself up, sit on my cushion, panic, love myself. Then when it came time to the actual event, when I stood up to speak, there was a new voice in the back of my head which was saying, oh, may you be safe, may you be peaceful. So by simple conditioning, something new started happening in my head that wasn't the usual, oh, this is so embarrassing, you're shaking like a leaf, people are going to think you're a jerk and all that. So that was my first exposure to self compassion through basically loving kindness meditation for myself. And, and I was amazed at this. It was a watershed moment and a few Things I learned from that experience. One is that when we give kindness to ourselves very quickly, it turns into kindness toward others. And so almost at the same time, when I started hearing this loving voice in the back of my head, I looked at the crowd and of me, like 500 people at a, you know, Harvard Medical School conference. And I just felt so much love for them. I just wished them well. I hope that. I was hoping they'd have a great conference. So there was a real change of heart, you know, as, you know, Paul says, warming up the conversation. And when the whole state of mind, the whole physiology, the whole intentionality and motivational system has shifted, everything shifts, you know, so that was a epiphany. But, but the main epiphany was that I was never suffering, suffering from an anxiety disorder. I was suffering from a shame disorder. In other words, it wasn't that I was trembling, it was that my fear was, you know, I would be basically devalued and disrespected because I was trembling. So there was shame behind it. And I didn't know I had a shame disorder. But this practice actually started to alleviate the shame disorder to the extent that I could see it, you know, see that I was struggling with shame. So that was a watershed moment. But the other thing I learned as a mindfulness practitioner was that sometimes when we're in the grip of intense and disturbing emotions like shame, we simply cannot hold that experience in loving awareness until we hold ourselves in loving awareness. And in mindfulness, usually we kind of shift from self focus to moment to moment experience, but sometimes we actually need to give ourselves some self focus with a lot of love. And so that's basically my introduction to self compassion through the doorway of shame.
- [05:37]
Dr. Stan Steindl
You know, it's actually just, just on that little section. I mean, it's sort of you, you really sort of almost stumbled across it. And yet it was then such a powerful effect, you know, just shocking really. Almost there you were at this conference and, and kind of a bit bowled over by the arrival of this, this other part of you that was kind of wishing you well and this sense of warmth and love for everyone in the room and this kind of insight around shame that the anxiety or the trembling or whatever, but behind that was this self conscious emotion around sort of the fear of how you may be held in the minds of others and that they will devalue you or see you as no good and ultimately kind of perhaps reject you or cast you out.
- [06:34]
Dr. Chris Germer
It's sort of, what do you think.
- [06:36]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Is the mechanism there between the phrases and the practicing of the phrases and the way that it then kind of arrives when it's needed.
- [06:50]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah, I think it's just conditioning, you know, in other words, panic, love, Panic, love, panic, love, Panic, love. And eventually next time I panicked there was the love.
- [07:02]
Dr. Stan Steindl
I.
- [07:02]
Dr. Chris Germer
Whereas before it was like panic, self criticism. Panic, self criticism.
- [07:06]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Got you.
- [07:07]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah. But this time it was just, you know, panic, may you be safe. Panic, may you be peaceful. Panic may be healthy. May, you know, and, and, and then, you know, those two just got blended. The voice changed rather than a self critical voice, which is the vo. The voice of shame. Right. The language of shame is self criticism rather than that voice. You know, I just got conditioned with a new voice.
- [07:36]
Dr. Stan Steindl
No, I think that's the. One of my favorite jokes is why does Pavlov have such lovely hair? It's because he uses classical conditioning.
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Dr. Chris Germer
That's. Those are right.
- [07:50]
Dr. Stan Steindl
But that's sort of, in some ways it's a very, it's a very deep and, and you know, powerful theory, isn't it, that one of classical conditioning. And in a sense that's what's happening there. You've got the, the stimulus of panic. The, and the, the, the, the, the self compassion, the loving kindness becomes the conditioned response.
- [08:11]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yep, yep. That's. It's very simple. It's not very esoteric how, in my view, how, how it worked. Yeah, yeah.
- [08:21]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Okay. So sorry I interrupted you a bit there. You were, you were kind of going on with the story.
- [08:26]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah. Well, you were asking about sort of the origins of Mindful Self compassion program. So two years later in 2008, there was a retreat through the Mind and Life group for scientists. And I heard Kristen Neff was going to go. So I invited her to drive out there with me when she came up to Boston from Texas. And, and we kind of hit it off. And at one point I said, you know, you're a researcher, great research, but you really may want to think about how to teach this, you know, because she was doing mostly correlational research. You know, how about an intervention, new kind of research. And so she got intrigued and then we decided, why don't we just do it together? So that was in 2008. And then the first course we did was in California at Big Big Sur and Esalen Esalen Institute, actually in the same room where Fritz Pearls used to, used to, you know, do encounter groups. That was a funny thing, you know, but you know, 12 people showed up to our first event and three people quit after the first night. After the first day so it was pretty ragged in the beginning. You know, we, we, we had so much to learn, Stan. We had so much to learn. And so we, you know, started to learn and people started to help us. You know, like from the University of California, San Diego, Michelle Becker and Steve Hickman, they started to help us. Then they created with us mostly themselves a teacher training in 2014. And that's when we really started to hunker down. Like, what exactly is self compassion, particularly in relationship to mindfulness? You know, this is called mindful self compassion because it's really anchored in mindfulness practice. So that, you know, term kind of, you know, it sense brings that to the fore. But they, they had been teaching, you know, MBSR teachers for years and so they were helping us. How do you do this? And we were working with them, like, what's unique about self compassion? And, and so that was in 2014. Now, ten years later, we have three and a half thousand teachers around the world and it's taught in 31 different languages. Probably 250 to 3,000, 300,000 people have taken it. So people have been super interested in this thing. But mostly, not mostly, but due to their help, the, the training has evolved and it continues to evolve, you know, now such that the program itself is mostly kind of a community project of the community, basically the global community of teachers who tell us what works and what doesn't work. And we're, we've, we're not embarrassed about like changing it every year somehow to make it work better. So that's what we've been up to. Yeah, that's 2000. That's a story. Thanks for asking.
- [11:52]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yeah, 2014 was actually my first experience with it. I, I was at the, I think it might have been January is, I can't quite remember, but it was when Steve and Stephen. What, what, which university was he from at that stage? That was.
- [12:17]
Dr. Chris Germer
University of California, San Diego.
- [12:19]
Dr. Stan Steindl
San Diego. And their center there I think might have been running it. And it was a five day intensive out of Joshua Tree.
- [12:29]
Dr. Chris Germer
Oh, that's where you were. Oh, that's where we met then, Stan.
- [12:32]
Dr. Stan Steindl
That's where we met. Yeah, yeah.
- [12:34]
Dr. Chris Germer
Oh, wonderful. Yeah.
- [12:35]
Dr. Stan Steindl
And it was you and Kristen and Kristi Arbon was also the, the sort of third facilitator. And yeah, it was. I, I remember landing at LA airport and the border control said, what are you doing in America? Or whatever they ask. And, and I.
- [13:01]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yes, exactly, exactly. Yeah. As if you, you're about to commit a crime, you know, that's right. But I thought to Myself.
- [13:09]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Oh, well, I'll tell him. And so I said, well, I'm here to do a mindful self compassion course. And he sort of looked at me and he, he said, what's that? And I said, well, I think, I think we're all going to sit around in a circle on cushions learning to be kind to ourselves. And, and he goes, don't they teach you that in Australia? And then he smiled, he gave a little, a little, little grin and, and luckily waved me through. But yes, and, and so, so that must have been in the early days.
- [13:44]
Dr. Chris Germer
He probably thought, he can't be making this up. This has got to be surreal.
- [13:49]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Well, it turned out to be true. I mean that sort of, in a funny sort of way that, you know, I, I remember very fondly the, it was a large group, there must have been 60 plus people there, I think. And we were all in a large circle on, on cushions and other other sort of seating arrangements. And it was very emotional and there were lots of tears. And that was probably one of my big insights from that experience, was that to turn towards oneself with compassion is actually very, very emotional. And up comes all sorts of feelings, not least sadness and grief sometimes, but also obviously joy and love. But, but, well, it's great that you.
- [14:35]
Dr. Chris Germer
Could allow yourself to just go with it in that way, you know, because otherwise sometimes people get anxious because they fight it, you know, but if you could just let it flow, then all many pockets of really unconscious grief get exposed and washed out. Right? Yes.
- [14:55]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a very washing out feel, you know, sort of cleansing, processing kind of a feeling. And you said many profound things. You know, probably the big one for me was that sense of undeserving of self compassion. And your comment was that, you know, Stan, your compassion is for all people and all living beings. You're a person too. So the main thing you're doing is just widening your circle of compassion to also include yourself. And that really helped at the time, you know, to try to work through.
- [15:35]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah, yeah. Because we have kind of cultural prescriptions against including ourselves in the circle of compassion. As if that's somehow lesser or even forbidden. Yeah, yes. No, it's a humble, it's a humble self. Compassion is a humble enterprise. We're just humbly including ourselves somewhere in the picture, including. Even if it's the bottom right corner, for goodness sakes. But we deserve to be there. Right? Yeah.
- [16:03]
Dr. Stan Steindl
You mentioned that over those 10 years things have evolved and the program itself has continued to evolve. What would be some of the Examples there of, you know, kind of MSC of 2014, you know, compared to today. Are there any sort of examples of how it's, how it's evolved or changed?
- [16:24]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah, well, mostly it's just become smoother, you know, less, less choppy, you know, smoother. But two new areas of content are trauma sensitivity and diversity, equity and inclusion. So when we actually, when we started this program, Stan, in 2010, we were really not aware of how powerful self compassion is to open and potentially heal old wounds. And we were not also completely aware of the prevalence of trauma. So we learned this over the years that actually we need to make this program trauma sensitive because just about everybody in the world has some kind of trauma and the more we give ourselves love that will expo reveal itself. So we need to be able to anticipate it and be with it and transform it and so, so that we basically wo trauma sensitivity into the whole thing. That was one change and then the other is, you know, is a greater awareness of the impact of cultural or social pain and social shame. How, you know, since this is self compassion, we're actually talking about our self experience and, and in the creation of a self as we grow older, there are, you know, our, you know, primary caregivers and siblings and friends. But there's also cultural elements and, and there's so, so many people, in fact, just about all of us have identities of one sort of the other that are not really well received in by the dominant culture. Dominant culture has a fairly narrow bandwidth as to what's good and what isn't. At least in modern, you know, societies. Maybe it's, maybe it's different, maybe it's not in, in, in less industrialized societies. But the bottom line is, is that we've all suffered from cultural shame. There, there are parts of us like some people because some people because of their skin color, their sexuality, you know, but also some people because they might be sensitive or they might be artistic and not interested in being a doctor or you know, male identified and not female. There's so many reasons why we have been devalued and this comes up in the training. You know, people discover that and we needed to name this, we needed to open the door to this. We needed to validate that aspect of pain so, and then respond to it with compassion. So those are the two things basically validating trauma, validating cultural pain and learning to meet it with compassion. Those are two, I would say, the main, more general thematic improvements over the last 10 years.
- [20:09]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes, and you mentioned really right from the start in 2000 or when you really first were working with your own fears around public presentation, you identified the shame piece. And that's really kind of almost coming back in there now with, in and around shame based trauma or shame around, you know, identity or, you know, it's sort of, it seems to be, you know, kind of coming back to that key aspect of what self compassion really tries to help with, is sort of moving away from the harsher self hating shame based self criticism and towards something that's more like self compassion and loving kindness and so on. So I wonder if we could talk a little bit about that piece. I mean what is your take on shame and perhaps even know like what is shame from your point of view?
- [21:11]
Dr. Chris Germer
Well, what I've always appreciated, Stan, that you and I have been pretty focused on this topic of shame. You know, you've been working perhaps more in the compassion focused therapy world. But you know, I would say 50% of what I know about shame comes from that work and also your wonderful work. And so yeah, I, it's just a delight to be able to talk with you about shame because, because we're basically been swimming in the same pond, you know. Well, so yeah, I mean I can, I can give the language to that. You know, what is shame? It's often helpful to distinguish it from guilt. Right. Shame means I am bad, guilt means I did something bad. You know, guilt is more behavioral, shame is more self oriented. And shame is as you mentioned earlier, a self conscious emotion which really means it's not in full swing until a child is say two and a half when they can actually imagine themselves in a social context. So it's a self conscious emotion with negative self evaluation. You had mentioned, you know, considering ourselves favorably in the eyes of others is a instinct that we all have. And when we fear we're going to be considered unfavorably or devalued in the eyes of others, then we have anticipatory shame. And, and also the, the self criticism or self devaluation tends to be global. In other words, in a, in a moment of shame, it's not. There's a part of me that's feeling bad about myself. It's like all of me. You know, that's why some parts psychology approaches like internal family systems so helpful for shame because just assuming that we're parts breaks up the, you know, the global assessment. Global negative self evaluation of shame. Yeah, so it's a self conscious emotion with negative self evaluation and that tends to be global. It's a way of you Know, just defining shame. How about yourself? Would you add something to that, Stan?
- [23:46]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Well, one of the things that comes from Paul Gilbert's work is the idea of sort of external shame and internal shame, I suppose, and the idea that external shame is that sense that others are perceiving us in these very negative ways that sort of others see us as inadequate or inferior or no good, whereas internal shame is kind of. We see ourselves now as inferior and inadequate and no good. And both of course, are our own perceptions of things. But he sort of has differentiated those two pieces. Would, would that be something that, that sort of resonates for you as well, or what are your thoughts?
- [24:34]
Dr. Chris Germer
Oh, it resonates with me personally as well as professionally. So, for example, with my public speaking anxiety, it was mostly external shame. I didn't go around carrying a, you know, 50 pound suitcase of shame with me, but when I got in a public setting, then it came out, so. But you know, I had a certain vulnerability, which means there was something I was carrying around. So, you know, I would say external and internal is kind of on a continuum.
- [25:07]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes, that's interesting.
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Dr. Chris Germer
So that I, I had mostly external shame, but some internal. It wasn't definitely, definitely not only external. And I, in my life, I've never carried around some of this just disabling, toxic shame that people carry around if they've suffered, you know, from extreme neglect or abuse and such things.
- [25:33]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes, yes. Yeah, I think that's. It is a nice way to think of it on a bit of a continuum because in some ways if we have a lot of external shame, at some point we might decide that it must be true. And so therefore we take it on as, as being true of ourselves and, and it moves more into a sense of, of internal shame. I like how you, I think we.
- [25:57]
Dr. Chris Germer
All have some internal shame, Stan. Yeah, I think we all do. And, and you know, I've been thinking really deeply about this. This isn't part of the new shame course, but it's part of my experience and that is that when we're born, we are thrown into duality, we're thrown into vulnerability. You know, we're no longer in the womb, we're very vulnerable. And you know, the wish to be considered favorably in the minds of others starts from the moment of birth. You know, we have a need to be loved and cared for. This is as profound as taking an in breath, you know, but from that moment onward, we're also subject to not being loved, not being considered favorably in the minds of others, because everybody is a conditioned Human being, our parents are just people, you know. So right from the get go, once we're in duality, we actually are starting to acre experiences of disconnection which as they accumulate, start to take the form of shame. In other words, disconnections are, you could say, the building block of shame. And the patterns of disconnection that we may experience at from day one are the ones that shape our shame experience. But I think everybody, as long as we're born into duality, feels some at least capacity for shame. I mean, certainly evolutionarily we all have the, just about everybody has capacity for shame, but the particular texture or contours of shame depend on our learned experience, you know, And I think we all have that. So, so I think we all have a kind of vulnerability, you know. So in my case, when I was very young, I didn't feel fully welcome in the world. You know, my parents were really nice and things, but I don't know, I, I, I always felt I needed to be loved up just a little bit more, you know, and, and that experience I think was just kind of a residual shame that came out in the form of when I do public speaking, the need to be loved, you know, and, and, and I can tell you, Stan, that this personal insight only arose maybe 10 years after I had the first epiphany about the power of self compassion. But what I hadn't understood is what it was the source of the internal shame, what was the source of the cap, the where did the shame come from that expressed itself so fully when I was trying to do public speaking. And so I needed actually and in my experience to go really to early childhood experience and feel what it was. And I feel like that urgency to be appreciated and loved and not devalued in public setting has since been mostly healed such that I can do talks now and I don't feel the urgency as a human being. I still wish to be loved, we all wish to be loved, but the urgency has subsided. So there's another way of saying that I think in, I think we all have internal shame, some more than others, but that it's existential. I think it's part of living with a separate skin in duality. Yeah. What do you think about that?
- [30:13]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yeah, well, that's right. We're kind of sort of, it is built in in a way like we're born with that, that propensity towards shame, you know, just from a, from an evolutionary point of view perhaps or something like that. It's sort of built in for, for all of us. And then things sort of start to happen when.
- [30:38]
Dr. Chris Germer
Right.
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Dr. Stan Steindl
On birth, when we're confronted with the. The sort of. The reality of what it is to live and to live as a social being and to have certain caregivers in our lives or attachment figures and depending on what they do. And lots is sort of, you know, bedded down right from those early years even perhaps.
- [30:57]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah. We are born into a world of duality and disconnection. Right?
- [31:02]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Duality.
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Dr. Chris Germer
We are neither dual nor disconnected. But that's, I think, the vulnerability. And if you even look at like the story of Adam and Eve, it's kind of interesting. Like Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. It was mostly the tree of duality, right. They were in oneness, naked in the garden of Eden. They were fine. And then they ate from the, you know, tree of knowledge. And what was the knowledge they got? They got the knowledge of separateness. And the really interesting thing was, is that Adam and Eve were in the garden in this story, ashamed because they were naked. And then they heard God walking around in the. In the garden. And, and. And they were shy. And then, you know, I think God asks, like, why are you hiding? And they. I think they said something like, because we're naked. And then God said, who told you you are naked? Who told you you are naked? And what this means was, is that it's. The problem was not that they, you know, violated God's will and ate the apple. The problem is that they developed duality, I. E. In their consciousness. They were all. They were kicked out of the garden before they even had to leave the garden. They were out of the garden with duality. Yeah. So anyhow, this. This is a sad story. Basically, shame co. Arises with duality. But. But we can actually return to the garden because we can begin to soften this sense of duality. And how do we soften the sense of duality? We do this with contemplative practice where we can actually cultivate compassion. Compassion for ourselves, compassion for others. We can come. We can cultivate wisdom. We can actually discover our inseparable nature, that we are in fact not even for a moment separated from anything. And we can have this direct experience in contemplative practice. We can actually return to the garden. It's called liberation. You know, it's called self realization. We can return to the garden. But the problem is duality. You know, some people say the problem is ego, but the problem is duality. We are born into it. We feel ashamed. And shame ultimately, in my view, only gets Resolved. When the problem of duality gets resolved.
- [33:51]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Love it, Love it. Is duality therefore an illusion? Or when we resolve it, are we now in a different illusion?
- [34:03]
Dr. Chris Germer
No, duality is the illusion. And when we resolve it, we are free of illusion.
- [34:08]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes. Right. Okay, so where does mindful self compassion as a program fit in with that? Like in a. In a sort of a practical sort of or operational sense? You know, what, what might it be that one can learn there or do there that helps to move us towards resolving that notion of duality? Feeling connected and feeling not separate. How does that work?
- [34:39]
Dr. Chris Germer
So what I was just describing is not the agenda of mindful self compassion. Mindful self compassion is to alleviate self suffering. It's not to alleviate suffering in an ultimate sense, which is to alleviate duality. Yeah, but whenever we alleviate suffering, to some extent, we're softening the sense of the separate self, you know, so just to kind of put these things in context, we're not trying this, you know, and some people consider, you know, self compassion as a spiritual practice in the, you know, in terms of alleviating duality, but we look at it more as a, as a way of alleviating unnecessary suffering. Right. Yeah. And, and in that context there, you know, at least in Kristen Neff's definition of self compassion, there are three components, each of which soften the experience of suffering. So the first is mindfulness. In other words, being able to be with our moment to moment experience without catastrophizing with, you know, worrying about the future, regretting the past, how to be actually present with what we're feeling. That's hugely helpful to alleviate unnecessary suffering. The research is ample in this regard. The second quality is of self compassion is common humanity, which is really closer to this non duality aspect, which in Kristen's view, and in mine as well, really is closer to Thich Nhat Hanh's view of, of inter being. In other words, this sense of non duality to be, to recognize the essential interconnectedness of all things. Yeah, but Kristen, because we're mostly so, you know, keeping things a little more practical, talks about common humanity. In other words, just to know that when we're suffering, we're not alone, that suffering is part of the human condition, that there are others who, who would feel just the same way as I under the same circumstances. And that's enormously relieving as well, because the sense of being alone in our suffering really magnifies our suffering. So that's a mechanism. A mechanism is common humanity. A mechanism is mindfulness. And a third mechanism or component of self compassion is kindness. You know, is kindness. And my goodness, you and Paul Gilbert and so many others have, you know, you know, just have a fabulous armamentarium and whole framework for warming up the conversation, you know, how to, how to be kind to ourselves. The alternative of which is, you know, self criticism. Yeah, yeah. So those three elements do soften the rigidity of the sense of self. Yeah, but that's not the agenda. The agenda is simply to suffer less.
- [37:59]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Which might be to sort of soften the shame. I suppose to feel less of the shame is to feel less is to experience less suffering. That kind of, that idea that we experience certain disappointments or even pain in life and then we start to struggle with that and to criticize ourselves for it. And it's that second layer of suffering that I think is a bit of a target there of mindful self compassion and self compassion.
- [38:34]
Dr. Chris Germer
But yeah, self compassion in general. I mean, I think that if self compassion is nothing else, it's an antidote to shame. You know, I learned that from you and Paul and others. Yeah. But you know, some people say, you know, I don't have a shame problem. I got a problem with my spouse or I suffer from anxiety or I, I'm suffering from burnout, you know, so, you know, we don't say, well you got a shame problem. We say, so let's, let's lean into this burnout experience or this or what you're struggling with, with your partner or something. Yeah. So I think when it, when we think about mechanisms, what ultimately is happening, my lens is similar to yours, which is there's probably the alleviation of shame because shame really sustains and maintains so many, you know, forms of emotional distress. You know, people who are stuck in grief or anger or fear, often they're stuck in shame, they just don't know it. But this is a kind of deeper surgery. We don't, we can't do that right off and we're not going to do it in an eight week MSC training, you know, but, but I think it's really helpful for folks who are interested in shame to look at self compassion as you, as you are, which is that it's really about the alleviation of shame. And through the mechanism of alleviating shame, we alleviate a mountain of suffering, unnecessary suffering. I think this is why you and I are just so fascinated with shame, because it is such a difficult emotion. But what keeps it difficult is avoidance. You know, we basically don't want to see it. It's it's, it's basically a taboo word. Shame is an emotion of denial. And so if we can turn toward it, which we can, with the resources of mindfulness and compassion, then it loses its grip, you know. So I think to have that lens is really powerful and I would love to see people, more people have the lens because it's such, it's so cost effective, it's so liberating with, with relatively little effort to, not to, to learn how not to have shame consciously or unconsciously ruled out our lives.
- [41:20]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes, I, I, I do find that all very fascinating as well. I, I did a previous video that I titled Born to Feel Worthless or something. And, and it's this not, not born to be worthless, but we're kind of born to feel it somehow. And it, it's, and, and then it, it sort of just begins to sort of, you know, from there and then become sort of seems to often be behind so many sources of distress, you know, anger, grief. I was actually talking to Professor Darcy Harris just yesterday who does a lot of work in compassion based approaches to grief and loss. And one of the things she mentioned was just the problem of shame coming in and complicating all of that grief because we feel like, ah, I shouldn't be feeling this way or I should be over it now or you know, it was only my, my cat that died. You know, I shouldn't be feeling so much grief. And, and what will people think? And so, yes, shame just, it's kind of ubiquitous and it sort of sneaks into everything sometimes.
- [42:26]
Dr. Chris Germer
And, and yeah, so in your, in your paper with Marcella Matos, you know, you, you really made the case for how shame is both a cause and a consequence of, of certain forms, of many forms of emotional distress. So what you're just describing now is, is how, you know, not letting us feel grief can basically prolong grief. But there's another aspect to it. Often when somebody's grieving, they're actually, when they think they're grieving, they're actually not grieving because they're feeling shame about how they were or behaved while a person was alive.
- [43:13]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yeah.
- [43:13]
Dr. Chris Germer
So if, for example, I have a really, if I had a really conflicted relationship with a spouse or a parent and then they pass away. And I think, oh man, I should have said this, I should have done that. And you know, you know what? I just was too selfish a person and I really didn't see. And all those thoughts that may go through one's mind after somebody passes away are struggling with shame. They are not grieving. They're not grieving. So when people say how come your grief is lasting so long? It's because I never even started to grieve. I'm just beating up on myself for how I, the kind of person I was, you know.
- [43:53]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes.
- [43:53]
Dr. Chris Germer
So in that way, in that way, shame, it, you know, commingled or in grief makes grief so sticky. Not just that I'm not allowed to because I feel embarrassed that I'm grieving, you know.
- [44:08]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes. It, it sneaks in at both ends and, and has a very complex kind of multi, multi dimensional effect really at different phases of the whole process. And, and your example is an interesting one because you differentiated earlier shame from guilt, for example. And so often in a case like that, the way through the shame and towards the grieving might actually be to shift from shame to the guilt of all of that, of the things that I did or didn't do and that I feel perhaps guilty about that. And yet the guilt really is coming from more like the soothing affiliative system which is about not wanting to hurt someone that we love, you know, and so therefore it's a sign that we were sort of, we do feel that love for the person and then shifting to the grieving from there. It's all.
- [45:03]
Dr. Chris Germer
That's interesting. Interesting.
- [45:06]
Dr. Stan Steindl
The different, the different feelings, the different thoughts, the different motivations behind it sort of.
- [45:12]
Dr. Chris Germer
Well, what you just said was beautiful and I think worth your listeners, but worth perhaps reiterating for your visitors because it just was a penny dropping moment for me. And that, that is that the motivation behind shame, if we are feeling ashamed vis a vis somebody who died, is that we really wanted them to, you know, feel loved or be happy or we're, we're beating up on ourselves because, because of some actually very sweet and positive intention that we had that we feel we failed at. So there's a kind of quality of innocence behind the shame, you know, and in the MSC program we don't actually address this, but the, the shame, the self compassion or shame program, but we, we do touch on innocence and that is the innocent wish to be loved as the foundation of shame. In other words, because we wish to be loved and we're not and we feel we won't be loved, then we feel shame. But what you're also saying is because I want to love and because I want others to experience my love or to be happy, therefore I feel shame, in both cases there is a very beautiful, innocent motivation and when we can connect with that motivation, we actually Slip through the, we could say the net. The, the net or the web of shame. You know, when we're in shame, it's like, why me? Why does that happen to me? We're like a small bundle of self oriented misery. But if we can slip through it to what we could call the motivation behind shame, which is an innocent wish to be loved or an innocent wish to love or the beautiful and innocent wish for other beings to thrive, when we can see that and then we see how we may be failing at that, then we have shame. So to see innocence behind shame actually allows us to be more compassionate because we are naturally compassionate toward innocent beings. When we see our own innocence, we. It basically throws open the door to compassion. Right. When we can see our innocence, when you could break through it opens the door to compassion. I'm appreciating what, what you said about the shame we feel when we haven't been who we wanted to be with others also innocent, very innocent. Beautiful intention.
- [48:02]
Dr. Stan Steindl
In fact, those of us who really don't experience any shame, you know, sort of, that's sometimes more of a concern in some ways, you know, to, for those who, who are experiencing shame, it is a sort of really a, a telltale sign of, of this innocence and of this sort of wish to be loved and wish to love and wish for, you know, all of us to thrive.
- [48:30]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [48:33]
Dr. Stan Steindl
It's all such phenomenal work and you know, such a huge impact really, the MSC program. But all of the other things that you've done, I mean, what's it like to look back on all of this stuff and to kind of, you know, just to appreciate, I guess, what you've done, done and achieved so far.
- [48:55]
Dr. Chris Germer
So to be honest, I don't, I don't take it too personally, personalize too much. I, I can tell you there's a lot of joy in it and most of the joy comes through connecting with people like you, Stan. In other words, we had a lovely time in Brisbane and you know, it's just really wonderful to have this conversation and, and they're just basically there's such a wonderful global community that we are a part of. And you know, my particular enjoyment or, or privilege is that since I'm associated with this one aspect of the compassion field, then I actually get a chance to have more conversations like this and meet with people all over the planet who want to bring compassion into this world. I mean, what can be a better, more beautiful way of spending our short time on this planet? You know, So I just look at the whole thing as a enormous blessing and privilege to be able to immerse ourselves in this. You know, I, I think, you know, one of the reasons why we love this work is because the work is love. You know, this is what we're, what we're doing, Stan, and is, is basically we're providing a scientific excuse for love training, you know. Right. Compassion is, you know, love with suffering, you know, but it's love, it's mostly love, you know, so what an enormously beautiful thing to be able to swim in this pond together, you know.
- [50:47]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes, I, I, I feel like all of that as, as well. I mean it's funny because although it can be very difficult for humans, you know, it, it, it is about relationship, isn't it? And connection and, and, and love and, and when we can really engage with that and embrace that calm and confident and able to, to sort of, you know, do all of that, then we really do thrive. There's so many things that are really tricky in the world at the moment and yet here we are just still trying to, you know, kind of bring this on board.
- [51:24]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah, all, all these war zones, even as we speak, the ones that we hear about in the news, you know, different people especially now are saying we need some resources. Can you teach us this stuff? You know, and yeah. So, you know, I think ultimately it's subversive. You know, compassion training is subversive because it's about love and authenticity, but it's the kind of subversion that makes every individual in every culture thrive. You know, when we've lost our moral compass and we don't can't find the way to love and, and compassion, we're really lost. And so you know what a privilege is it is to go to difficult places to, to remind people basically of this resource, this gold mine that all of us have in our hearts all the time.
- [52:41]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Right, lovely. You, you mentioned the self compassion for same for shame program I think you said. But yeah, I was going to just sort of check in somewhat before, just before we finish, but just to hear like what, what's, what is happening next or what's, what are some of the things you on the go that people might be interested in other endeavors and so on.
- [53:03]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah, well, so it is ironic that like 17 years after I first learned self compassion through the doorway of shame that some colleagues and I have, you know, developed an eight week graduate training. I say people who gret who've taken the MSC program, they can take the self compassion for shame program because it's more emotionally Activating. We need people, people to be resourced before they do it. But it, it definitely takes the practice to a much deeper level and it's super exciting. It's such a, it's such a joy. I mean can you imagine that shame program? That's a joy. Well, you can manage it but you know, it's so liberating. It's just so joyful. It's just so wonderful. But so it's an eight week program, you know, 24 hours total. There are two other programs. There's a six hour introduction to self compassion for shame and a 12 hour self compassion for Shame core skills. Anybody can do the intro. You need some self compassion for the core skills. But you know, basically it is self compassion training with a focus on shame. So this is. People are pretty self selected. They actually have decided I want to look at this. So to, to basically look at shame means that people are going to look really, really deeply inside with the support of the resources of mindfulness and self compassion. So it's almost as if setting up this, just setting up the room saying okay, this is about shame. It's going to be deep. This is about self compassion. It's going to be warm. It's almost like you can do anything when you've got together people who are, want to do, who have that in mind and they're gonna, they're gonna blossom. But we have been really carefully honing this program now. Six sessions, twice in China, once in Germany and three times in English speaking countries and, and it's ready to go. So actually on February 8th we have our first teacher training. So people who are mindful self compassion teachers now will get the full curriculum and they can teach it. And so it's going to be available in the next year all over the world and often in, and soon in many different languages online.
- [55:58]
Dr. Stan Steindl
That was one of my questions was whether yeah, it was available online or whether given the topic it needed to be face to face.
- [56:06]
Dr. Chris Germer
But yeah, we found it works online. So the curriculum is actually designed for online learning but it can also be applied in person. Personally I enjoy in person a little more because there's more back and forth. It's more of a embodied whole bodied experience. Right. Like right now we just see each other from the neck down. From the neck up, you know. Yeah, but you know it's just something, something special stand to hang out together, you know, in person.
- [56:38]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Sorry. The whole, the whole zoom thing has, has really been wonderful from the point of view of for example me being able to hang out with you, even though you're all the way on the other side of the world. So it's, it's opened up some, some wonderful things and at the same time, there is something very special about just being in a room together. And, and I, I run the Compassionate Mind training course online, which has been great because it, you know, people from all over the world sort of come along, but sometimes I've run it in person and yeah, it's, it's great, you know, in person as, as well.
- [57:16]
Dr. Chris Germer
But it's almost a luxury now, isn't it, Stan?
- [57:20]
Dr. Stan Steindl
What's. Which one is.
- [57:21]
Dr. Chris Germer
Sorry? It's almost a luxury now to meet with people in person, you know, for people to gather together, you know, a group of 10, 20 or 30 people for a common purpose. It is becoming a luxury.
- [57:36]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Yes. Yeah.
- [57:37]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah.
- [57:38]
Dr. Stan Steindl
Well, just before we finish, how can people find you? Or you have a website, I'm fairly sure. Chrisgoermer.com Is there other ways to find you?
- [57:52]
Dr. Chris Germer
Yeah. And the center for Mindful Self Compassion is the organization in which Kristen Neff and I co founded. And they are mostly responsible for providing information and resources for people around the world who are interested in the Mindful Self Compassion program. And so that's center for msc dot org. Yeah. But I have to say, you know, I strongly recommend people contact you and also Compassionate Mind foundation because you know, this work has way more overlap than not and all these different angles just, just make it beautiful.
- [58:43]
Dr. Stan Steindl
No, I think it's a wonderful sort of world of, of compassion out there, isn't it? There's lots to, to dive into and lots of ways in is the way I like to think about it, you know, and different, exactly. Different people sometimes are drawn into different in different ways and yet there is also so much overlap. I'll put links to your various contacts and also your books as well and things like that just so that people can find them easily. But Chris, thank you so much for just giving me your time this evening where you are, I think it is, and a Friday evening even. So thank you very much. It was lovely to speak with you.
- [59:24]
Dr. Chris Germer
It's so great. Spend some time together, Stan. Thank you.