Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
One of our worst mental habits is being excessively hard on
ourselves around our own flaws, mistakes, and shortcomings.
Psychologist Kristin Neff wondered what kind of toll this habit
takes on our happiness, and she started to explore whether
there might be a healthier way of relating to ourselves.
She has spent her life researching the concept of
"self-compassion,"
or quieting one's inner critic and replacing it with
a voice of support, understanding, and care.
What are the reasons self-compassion is such a novel and significant idea?
What are some of the cultural forces that run counter to the practice of self-compassion?
Are you compassionate towards yourself in the face of failure?
Do you have any knee-jerk reservations about practicing self-compassion?
What social, cultural, or psychological factors might give rise
to those reservations and prevent you from extending compassion toward yourself?
Compassion Is:
• Being touched, moved by the experience of pain and
suffering
• There is a flow of kindness, tenderness, care and concern toward experiencer of pain and suffering.
• There is wise action to alleviate pain and
suffering.
• Compassion is a verb. – Thich Nhat Hanh
Components Mindfulness:
Awareness of what’s happening (and our reaction to what’s happening)
Self-Compassion: Acceptance of what’s happening (and our reaction to what’s happening)
Compassion – Common Humanity: Wise effort in response to what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening)
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
What is self-compassion?
The practice of quieting the inner
critic, replacing it with a voice of
support, understanding, and care
for one’s self.
1. Self-kindness versus Self-judgment
Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.
Self-compassionate people recognize that being imperfect, failing, and
experiencing life difficulties is inevitable.
2. Common Humanity vs. Isolation
The very definition of being “human” means that one is mortal, vulnerable and imperfect. Therefore, self-compassion involves recognizing that suffering and personal inadequacy is part of the shared human experience – something that we all go through rather than being something that happens to “me” alone.
3. Mindfullness vs. Over identification
Self-compassion also requires taking a balanced approach to our negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Strategies for Self-Compassion
Being self-compassionate might seem unnatural at
first. These strategies can help. This may be harder for
some individuals, particularly if you’ve experienced
trauma.
Consider how you’d treat someone else. Imagine what you’d do if someone you cared about came to you after failing or getting rejected. What would you say to that person? How would you treat them?
Watch your language. Pay particular attention to the words you use to speak to yourself. If you wouldn’t say the same statements to someone you care about, then you’re being self-critical.
Comfort yourself with a physical gesture. Kind physical gestures have an
immediate effect on our bodies, activating the soothing parasympathetic system Memorize a set of compassionate phrases. Whenever you find yourself saying, “I’m horrible,” it helps to have a few phrases at the ready. Pick statements that really resonate with you.
Practice guided meditation. Meditation helps to retrain the brain, Neff said. This way, self-compassionate gestures and self-soothing become more natural.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
The Benefits of Self Compassion
http://www.emmaseppala.com/scientific-benefits-self-compassion-infographic/
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Challenges To Self-Compassion
Ancient ways of thinking implied that happiness was a function of virtue (being good) Becoming virtuous also meant a fair amount ofself-harshness, guilt, and self-flagellation.
The ancients (mostly in the West) believed that these were main ways to achieve happiness and that one didn’t achieve it until the afterlife.
Happiness was viewed as a duty that involved pain to the self, sacrifice, even something as extreme as martyrdom.
• Martyrs in many philosophies, religious and spiritual traditions, are considered the holy examples of ideal leaders. • Martyr traditions espouse the notion that you have to suffer, you have to criticize yourself and your own existence and make big sacrifices in order to be happy. • Along with that is the classic idea that mistakes, or often what we call sin, requires punishment. (And in children if you spare the rod you spoil the child.)
That is the history behind physically punishing and punishing in other ways when mistakes get made.
From a Darwinian perspective we should be driven by the fear of punishment.
The Freudian tradition, which suggests that humans are driven by selfish, destructive, aggressive impulses that need to be firmly controlled. Behaviorism was a tradition where ideas about the mind and mental life were really relegated to punishment and reward. The self esteem movement also created problems with regard to how we see ourselves and our ability to be self caring.
Is it ok to be average? What is wrong with being average anyway?
Part of the issue with this is from an evolutionary standpoint we are hardwired to compete, From the earliest times when we went from a nomadic to hunter gatherer society competition was necessary to survive to be average meant death.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you lost all sense of time? Hours passed, but you
didn't notice; you felt calm, focused, deeply satisfied, even meditative?
This state is known as flow a concept pioneered by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:
• He set out to understand the roots of creativity and
productivity.
• Flow has been linked to increased happiness.
• Flow is an optimal state, or commonly called being "in the
zone." In flow people are not distracted or have a wandering mind.
• People are most likely to achieve flow--and the positive states
that accompany it--when engaged in a task that is challenging but for which they also have adequate skills.
• The balance between challenge and skill is integral to flow,
and it may help to explain why people are more likely to report experiencing flow when working than during leisure.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Why is Flow Important?
The ability to single-task (as opposed to multi-task) is one of the keys to true productivity.
Not the kind of productivity where you knock off 20 items from your to-do list, where you’re switching between tasks all day long and keep busy all the time.
True productivity is the kind where you actually achieve your goals, where you accomplish important and long-lasting things.
• Let’s say you were a writer, productivity might mean writing one or two important and memorable articles rather than 20 or 50 unimportant ones that people will forget 5 minutes after reading them.
• It means getting key projects done rather than answering a bunch of emails, making a lot of phone calls, attending a bunch of meetings, and shuffling paperwork all day long. It means closing key deals. It means quality instead of quantity.
Once you’ve learned to focus on important projects and tasks, Flow is how you get them done.
How to Achieve Flow and Happiness at Work Choose work you love
Choose an important task Make sure it’s challenging, but not too hard Find your quiet, peak time Clear away distractions Learn to focus on that task for as long as possible Enjoy yourself Reap the rewards Keep practicing
https://youtu.be/mN6i9a0LBGY
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Flow is characterized as a heightened state of focus, a closerelative to the concept of mindfulness.
• We are more likely to get into a state of flow when there's the right balance between challenge and skill.
• What happens when a challenge ramps up and we don't have the skills to meet it? We're at risk of experiencing "frazzle.”
Daniel Goleman is the best-selling author of many books, including Emotional Intelligence and the recent
Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence.
Goleman explains the relationship between focus, flow, and frazzle, providing more insight into the conditions that foster flow.
What kinds of situations might push you from feeling flow to feeling frazzled
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Many of the themes of this unit—self compassion, focus, flow--converge on another mental
habit that relates to happiness
: goal setting.
Setting goals for ourselves, and progressing toward those goals, can foster well-being,
perhaps because our happiness is intertwined with having a sense of meaning, hope, and
purpose in life.
Goals are the way we can turn our values and dreams into reality. Happiness doesn't just happen - it comes from thinking, planning and pursuing things that are important to us.
Being a source of interest, engagement or pleasure
Giving us a sense of meaning and purpose
Bringing a sense of accomplishment when we achieve what we set out to (or milestones along the way) - this also builds our confidence and belief in what we can do in the future
Goals help focus our attention. Actively working towards them appears to be as important for our well-being as achieving the end results we are aiming for.
Goals are most successful when they're something we really want to achieve and when we set them for ourselves - rather than being something someone else wants us to do.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Long-term
Short-term
Day-to-day
A big career or life goal - for example to become a doctor or
obtain a qualification.
Might be a plan for the coming weeks or months.
Might be just to cook something different or contact
an old friend.
Smaller goals may seem unimportant. But having personal projects that matter to us - and are manageable - has been consistently shown to boost well-being, especially when they're supported by others around us.
• It's even better if we can link our smaller goals back to our bigger aims and priorities in life.
• The way we set goals influences the actions we take to achieve them, the effort we put in and how persistent we are at sticking to them.
• Some of our goals may be ambitious, but it's important that they're still achievable. Achieving our goals brings a sense of accomplishment and makes us feel more positive about the future.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Over 2000 years ago, Aristotle said "Well begun is half done." With regards to goals, he's right
(as he seems to have been on a lot of things).
Paying attention to how we set our goals makes us more like to achieve them and achieving
them makes us feel good about ourselves and our lives.
Decide.
Write it down.
Tell someone.
Break your goal down.
Plan your first step.
Keep going.
Celebrate.
Unit 6: Self Compassion/Flow/Goals
Goals and Optimism
Science shows that
people who are
optimistic tend to be
happier, healthier
and cope better in
tough times.
Although we may
have a natural
tendency to be more
optimistic
or
pessimistic, there are
things we can do to
take a more optimistic
outlook, without losing
touch with reality.
Optimism is about believing that things are more likely to turn out good than bad. Our level of optimism can influence how persistent we are in aiming for our goals and how we deal with setbacks (resiliency).
Taking an optimistic approach to our goals includes:
Choosing goals that take us towards something positive we want to achieve, rather than goals that help us avoid things we don't want.
Being proactive when problems arise and looking for ways to resolve them, rather than ignoring or putting off dealing with issues.
Avoiding dwelling on the negative - learning to accept difficult things that we can't change and re-adjusting our goals rather than avoiding them.
