A (5:17)
Okay, let's jump into why we fear compassion. And why do we as parents fear, in some ways being compassionate toward our kids in their hard moments. And I want to answer this in two ways. First, I want to say the first thing that comes to mind. And I think this is where me and a lot of my friends, this is like kind of the first thing we say to each other. Then I'm wanting to get to the second thing. I think there's a deeper reason why that's probably more true than the first reason. Okay, let's get to the first reason. I think we worry that being compassionate toward our kids, especially when they're having a big reaction to something we deem to be a small childish thing. We think that compassion is going to lead to kids being soft, being snowflakes. My kid has to know how the world works. No one cares if you don't get the flour on a cake when you're an adult. And I want to prepare you for that eventuality. I want to make you strong. I don't want you to have a meltdown when you're 18 or 48. About Fill in the blank now, just to break this down a little bit. And again, I thought these things myself. Being compassionate to your kid when they're young does not lead to your kid being soft when they're old. Interestingly, the way we respond to our kids today has the biggest impact on how they respond to themselves when they're older. And the ability to say to yourself, oh, that stinks. Oh, I didn't want that to happen. Oh, that makes sense. That this is hard, ironically, is the thing that stops you from spiraling. You've already ended the loop. Something was hard. You named it for yourself. This is hard. I'm allowed to have a hard time. Oh, this is disappointing. Yes, it is. And I'm allowed to feel that way. That actually ends the loop of that feeling faster than almost anything else. Because we're all searching for compassion. We're searching to be understood. And so when we berate ourselves, ironically, that makes us so much softer because we're not able to deal with the feeling because it lasts longer and gets even bigger. Having said that, I almost don't even want to entertain the question. Because the question does compassion when our kids are young make them soft, weak adults when they're old? I think it just allows us to walk down a path that is just a lot less productive than a different, deeper, more self reflective, more true path. And here's what I think it's really about. Why does compassion feel dangerous to our kids? Anything that's new tends to feel dangerous. Because our body is kind of saying, oh, what is this? What is this response? What is this feeling? I do not have this in excess. I don't know what this is. What is this foreign body? You know what our body tends to do with foreign bodies? Reject it. Read it as a danger before you figure out if it's safe. And I think for most parents, compassion wasn't such kind of limited supply, was so rare, maybe was completely absent from your own childhood when you were struggling, that your body reads compassion as dangerous. Even though it's actually just new, it's unfamiliar now. The irony is if you want to kind of give something to your kids that's even slightly different than what you received, you're going to feel like that new thing is dangerous. It's going to bring an uncomfortable feeling in your body. So in a way, I think we have this kind of amazing framework. Compassion does kind of feel dangerous because it's new. And if I'm trying to be a cycle breaker, then that new dangerous feeling is maybe the best signal I have that I'm actually giving something very different to my kids. Compassion is a huge part of self regulation. And just to define what self regulation is, self regulation is our ability to have a feeling and not be taken over by it. I think that's really important because maybe some of us think even unconsciously self regulation means I don't have hard feelings. That's not a possibility. Everybody in the world feels mad. Everybody in the world feels jealous. Everybody in the world feels disappointed and less than other people and sad. That's just part of being human. So if we think about the feeling as kind of one of your fists, and then you think about the other fist as how you respond to that feeling, those two things together determine how a feeling lives in your body and whether you're able to regulate the feeling and move on and make a good decision, or whether the feeling takes over you, in which case we tend to be very, very reactive. I want you to think about compassion as one of the key ways we can make a feeling more manageable. So in a way, if you're, say, less than feeling, I got fired from a job, I feel less than. I feel unworthy. Let's say that spikes, which of course it would if you got fired from a job or for your kid, of course it would if you weren't invited to a birthday party, kind of the same situation. Except one is when you're, I don't know, 45, and one is when you're five. Okay, you're both gonna have hard feelings. Compassion is one of the key things that can help that feeling not explode further and can almost make it smaller. Not smaller, like suppress it, but smaller, like, wait, this feeling is a part of me, not all of me. Because let's take your 5 year old not being invited to a birthday party. Now I get it. For me too. It's easier to say we have an urge right away. It's not a big deal. You guys aren't even really friends. Some people get invited, some people don't. Oh, you'll get invited to the next one, right? Or why are you making such a big deal out of this? It's really not a big deal. Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about. So what's happening for my kid in any of those situations is they feel less than unworthy, disappointed. If I add my criticism, my invalidation, the feeling just gets bigger. It's so counterproductive. Plus, my kid has learned to pair hard feelings with an invalidating self critical voice. Well, guess what? A parent's voice becomes a child's self talk, meaning when I approach my kid's distress with invalidation. You're making a big deal out of nothing and criticism. You're such a crybaby. What is happening in my kid's body is now they're more likely when they get older. And let's say what's happening when they're older is they get fired from a job. They're more likely to say to themselves, I'm making a big deal out of nothing. I'm such a crybaby. Which, guess what, is only going to make it more difficult for them to find their feet, find their confidence, find their self trust, find their resilience and actually move on and figure out what they want to do next. And it will get in their way of reflecting. I wonder why I got fired. I wonder if there's a pattern I should pay attention to. Is there anything I can learn? When you're overwhelming yourself with invalidation and self criticism, your body can't get grounded enough, it can't recover enough to do that higher level work of self reflection and kind of planning for the future. When instead a parent's voice is something like this. You really wanted to go to that birthday party. It makes sense. You're upset. And listen, I know there's going to be a day when it doesn't feel this hard. And yes, you are going to school tomorrow. We're not going to miss school just because you're upset. You're upset. That is real and I know you're going to get through it. Okay, let's fast forward 40 years. I'm upset I got fired from my job, of course I'm upset. I'm allowed to be upset. That makes sense. And I might give myself one day to stay in bed. But after that I'm gonna get out of bed, I'm gonna get into a routine, I'm gonna figure this out. That is what we want for our kids when they're older. And that doesn't just happen with age. What happens when we're older is we activate the circuitry that was put in place when we're younger. And I think what I'm trying to illustrate here is the circuitry that leads to resilience and growth and self reflection starts with compassion.
