[00:00:05] Henry Emmons, MD: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons, and welcome back to Joy Lab.
[00:00:10] Aimee Prasek, PhD: And I'm Aimee Prasek. We are in our Element of Self-Compassion; we're digging into the first of the three parts of self-compassion that Dr. Kristin Neff identifies, which is mindfulness versus over-identification. So if you missed last episode — that was kind of a self-compassion 101 — feel free to go back after this one.
So what does mindfulness and over-identification have to do with self-compassion? This is really all about understanding our inner experience, and that matters because so much of the bullying we do to ourselves — our self-criticism — can happen without our conscious awareness. As we noted last episode, we often don't realize how mean we are to ourselves. And honestly, overall, we're also not very good at, like, identifying our inner experience —understanding what's happening in our minds — unless we give it some focused practice.
So, Dr. Russell Hurlburt has done some interesting work here, essentially finding that we are often mistaken about what's in our mind; we're not really tuned into or can kinda accurately detail our inner experience. I see you smirking, Henry. Do you — are you thinking about something about that?
[00:01:33] Henry Emmons, MD: Well, that's — that's a big understatement, hahaha, that we're not always aware of what's going on in our minds. There is so much happening there. And I — oh God, I was just listening to a book on solitude. This is such an aside, but I'm gonna go there — and the author was talking about Montaigne, the French philosopher from the 1500s. I couldn't believe it was that long ago. And Montaigne, when he was in his 30s, he bought a tower to live in that — he just lived in there and I think he was by himself. Maybe he was married, I don't know. But I got the sense he was alone. And his goal was to just get so quiet that his mind would empty and it would be so good for him. And instead, the exact opposite happened he was just filled with all these crazy ideas, and it was almost torturous. So he had to — so that's when he started writing about things and getting his philosophy going. But it was just such a funny image. Hahaha.
[00:02:49] Aimee Prasek, PhD: I love that. I did not know that. I think I have Montaigne right behind me here.
[00:02:54] Henry Emmons, MD: Oh, That's funny.
[00:02:55] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, like — yeah, who doesn't feel like they're in a tower of their own, like, crazy-making? I love that. So I think this — and also, [with] research sometimes you're like, "Well, duh." This is maybe — I mean, Hurlburt does some consciousness work that's just fascinating. But yeah, maybe this is more like, "Oh, duh" work. But it really matters because, you know, our — like, if we're having these background conversations that we don't know what's going on, or we're not tapped into what's happening in our mind — not registering it, so to speak — this stuff still influences us, you know. Importantly, research has found that self-observation though, is a skill that can be trained. So we can understand our inner experience with practice. And mindfulness is a strategy. It's a method to do that. It is learnable. It's not something you have to do in isolation, as Montaigne found out. But you could if you choose to be...
[00:03:56] Henry Emmons, MD: Don't leave me alone with my own mind. Haha.
[00:03:58] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, this can be a partner activity. So when we're talking about mindfulness, we're usually referring to the state and practice of mindfulness rather than a trait, I should say, right? So we're — we're paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment without judgment. That's kinda Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn's definition.
And then over-identification means we're stuck in, absorbed by, swept up in, our thoughts. We're very much not in the present moment, and often clouded with lots of judgment. So our work is to build this mindfulness skill. And as we do here a lot in Joy Lab, we can add an intention or a lens to that kind of paying attention, and the intention here is self-compassion. So we can pay attention in the present moment through the lens of compassion. Which is so much more enjoyable than being stuck in a tower, not knowing what's going on in your mind, all alone, and getting swept up and stuck in these cycles of thoughts that can often be so harsh. There are skills we can learn. That's what we're doing.
[00:05:17] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah. The basic problem, I think — and I see this in almost everybody I work with, and frankly, almost everybody I know — is that we believe our thoughts are true. We don't even question them, because we over-identify so much with our thoughts that we no longer see that they are not reality. We believe they are reality.
So imagine you're at a college reunion, as I was recently, and you see someone that you knew but you weren't really very close to. But you greeted them warmly, and then they proceeded to blow you off and go talk to somebody else, which is exactly what happened. Now, the automatic thought, which just pops into the mind as quick as it can be — it goes something like this: "What the heck? This person clearly doesn't wanna talk to me. What is wrong with me?" So, you know, we've all been there. It's just such a familiar thing. It happens to everybody. The thought pops in, and at least in my experience, there's not much you can do to stop it. That just happens. What is important is what we do next, after the thought has popped up. Do we see it for what it is, which is just a thought, or do we think it is the absolute truth with a capital T and then build a story around it?
There's a lot of approaches in psychology that point to this as the core problem. Cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, a lot of mindfulness-based work, and a lot of what we draw on. Descartes — another French philosopher — said, "I think, therefore I am." It's a very famous line, and — which has gotten quite panned in recent years, but for a lot of us, I think the modern version is, "I think, therefore I am unhappy," because it is really our thinking that is making us feel so miserable. If we believe it — if we believe I am failing, I am not enough, I am not loved — that is not a recipe for being happy or joyful.
So I'm gonna break this down a little bit. I think there are three parts to this, and we all do them, so we're all gonna be familiar with each of these.
First, we think. Nobody's arguing that one.
Second, we don't realize we're thinking because most of it is running kinda like background noise, you know, during — while we're going about our lives, taking a shower, driving, falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night. We would be surprised how many thoughts we repeat in a day , and we might be shocked to find how many of them are negative.
Third, we believe them. We build a story about ourselves, often a sad one or a negative one, and because we forgot we built it, it starts to feel like it's true. And since the story creates real emotion behind it, we often conclude the emotion is proof. Of course I feel bad, because something really is wrong with me.
[00:09:02] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we build a story about ourselves and we forget we built it. I think that's one of the most important things to really take in. There's this classic study known as the "lost in the mall study." Do you know this study, Henry?
[00:09:19] Henry Emmons, MD: No, but I have a experience [with] being lost in the mall.
[00:09:23] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Aww, were you lost in the mall?
[00:09:24] Henry Emmons, MD: My son was, oh my God, when he was really little. Oh geez, it was just awful.
[00:09:29] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Oh, no.
[00:09:31] Henry Emmons, MD: But go on.
[00:09:32] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Okay. Oh, of want to learn more about that, but — so, actually this study wouldn't have worked for your son. So this is from Doctors Elizabeth Loftus and Jacqueline Pickrell, and I think it says something about how we can craft these stories unconsciously. So they had a group of 24 participants provide details on four events in their childhood — the family members of those participants provided those accounts. The twist was that one of the events was a fake one. It was a story about them getting lost in a mall, that the researchers made up. So the participants had never been lost in the mall. Even though they'd never been lost in the mall, 25% of the participants claimed to remember getting lost in the mall. They even provided extra details of the store they were in, how they felt. So they crafted a story about themselves based on something that wasn't true.
There's another funny story, I think, from Wade and colleagues — another small study, but so interesting. So they had 20 participants. They gave them a photo of them in a hot air balloon basket, but it was a fake photo — it was a convincing fake — and half of those participants looked at the photo and said they remembered that hot air balloon ride they took, haha.
[00:10:50] Henry Emmons, MD: Hahaha. Half, oh boy.
[00:10:51] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Right? Isn't that wild? And then a follow-up study compared a fake photo of a balloon ride with a fake written story, and the story actually produced even more false memory reports and balloon stories. I think that's fascinating.
So there's a lot to talk about there with, you know, the research on, like, memories. And I am not saying that we can't remember anything, or that we shouldn't trust ourselves, or that we should dismiss people's accounts of events. But when it comes to our focus now on mindfulness and over-identification, this research kind of highlights maybe two interesting things for me. So first, if we don't know what's going on in our minds, we won't know when we're making up stories or if we're soaked in a story that's not true, because we can craft stories really easily, like [from] a one-sentence, or a little paragraph, prompt; a picture of us in a balloon. The way we talk to ourselves — little messages that we send — can craft stories. So mindfulness can almost serve like a BS detector in a way, I think. When a story that we're over-identifying with pops up, if we've been practicing some mindfulness, we can see, "Ooh. Hmm. That's a story that I've told a lot." And you kind of hold it in your awareness as just a story; just a thought, as you said. It probably has bits of truth mixed with some totally false stuff, and some interpretations, and judgments, and creative license. And that insight can help us to kind of see the light; to come out of a dark story that's maybe anchored in shame, or resentment, or fear, and into a more clear-headed, self-compassionate present moment without the story looming over us so much.
The other thing this research makes me think about is perfectionism. And these — these studies didn't research this at all, or measure this at all, but here's my take. I would guess a chunk of these participants simply did not wanna reveal that they didn't remember something. "I [would] rather spin a web of a story than look stupid or forgetful," Which is that socially-prescribed perfectionism that we talked about some episodes ago I'll link to that in the show notes — this pressure to look perfect that we feel so often. And that type of perfectionism, socially-prescribed perfectionism, has risen the most in the last few decades out of the other types of perfectionism. Hello, social media. I'm blaming you right now. So we can craft these stories for other people, so they see us more perfect, so we don't rock the boat maybe, so that we feel like part of the group. So that swings us into over-identification pretty quickly, and self-compassion is a powerful remedy for that. It's okay if you don't remember. It's okay if you screwed up. Self-compassion can give us a lot of courage to tell the truth.
[00:14:17] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, you're reminding me that — this conversation about perfectionism — when I created the resilience training program for folks with anxiety and depression, I was probably perfectionistic myself, and I included so many different things in the program — you know, lifestyle and mind-body practices. Partly 'cause I just knew that these things were helpful, but people resonate and respond to different kinds of practices, so I wanted to be comprehensive. What happened, though, was that a lot of people got more stressed because they put such pressure on themselves to do everything, and then they'd beat themselves up if they didn't do it perfectly. So they tried to eat perfectly, exercise perfectly, meditate perfectly, and of course, nobody does that. I learned pretty quickly how much more effective it is , and how much more self-compassionate, to just focus on a few things and do them just well enough.
There's a psychiatrist at UCLA named Dan Siegel who I really like, and he talks about this chaos-to-rigidity spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, we're scattered, we're emotionally reactive or unstable. That's chaos. On the other end, we're tight, compulsive, inflexible. Rigidity, right? And a lot of us will drift one way or the other when we're under stress, you know, we might live in the middle but get stressed and we tend to gravitate toward one side or the other. When I'm stressed, I do get a little more rigid. I find myself wanting to control, or be more precise, or not as willing to bend and be flexible. Knowing that's my tendency means I can watch for it. And of course, we wanna try to stay in the middle, finding that middle way. And being there is not being flat. It's a living balance, and mindfulness skills just help us keep anchored when we're drifting one way or another. And partly because we notice it right away. We're aware of it 'cause we've been practicing more awareness.
And this is where we're helped by that 51% rule that I've talked about before, which says you don't have to do everything right — if you make the healthier choice just a little more than half the time, you're moving in the direction of greater health and wellbeing. You're not trying to be perfect, you're trying to be good enough.
[00:17:13] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. I love that self-compassionate approach to change. It is more effective. That John Steinbeck wisdom makes sense here. "Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."
[00:17:25] Henry Emmons, MD: That was Steinbeck? Wow.
[00:17:28] Aimee Prasek, PhD: I know. It's true.
[00:17:30] Henry Emmons, MD: Who knew?
[00:17:31] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Steinbeck knew. Haha.
— Or Steinbeck struggled with it. You know, you teach the stuff you need to learn, right?
[00:17:37] Henry Emmons, MD: Oh, it's so true. So true.
[00:17:40] Aimee Prasek, PhD: I was gonna refer you, Henry, to [an] episode on letting go of control that we did. I'll put it in the show notes for you. Hahaha.
[00:17:47] Henry Emmons, MD: Hahaha. Sounds good.
[00:17:49] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Everybody else — yeah. It's an easy one, yeah. But this is what we're working on, as a compassionate community. You know, I said that socially-prescribed perfectionism has increased a lot, and maybe just to put a little bit more specificity on that, perfectionism really has gotten worse over the last three decades or so, particularly for millennials and younger — significantly worse. Socially-prescribed...
[00:18:20] Henry Emmons, MD: Really?
[00:18:20] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, and socially-prescribed has gone — you know, has been the, sort of, fastest rise in there. A lot of factors in there. We'll have to do a whole episode on that.
But perfectionism does pull us out of the present moment. It is not compatible with mindfulness because you're in a state of comparison, and sort of always monitoring for error, or a gap between this perfect ideal and how you're performing. It gives more attention to the fear of not measuring up than to the effort you're making in the present moment. So it's [an] exhausting process.
So to kind of bring us full circle here, unless we know whether we're in the past, present, or future with our thoughts — or if we can't see that we might be constructing fake stories about ourselves, or when we're stuck in these comparisons of perfectionism — then we have no chance of getting out of over-identification, and getting some freedom from the tyranny of unnecessarily self-critical or false thoughts. That's the power of mindfulness when we use it as a skill. That can help us get out. And it's different for everyone — how you practice it, how often, in what way. But as you practice, in the way that works for you, you will be able to more accurately identify your inner experience, to more quickly see your thoughts as thoughts, to shake off impossible expectations. There's a lot of power here. It's not immediate. It's a practice. There's a lot of power there.
So let's give some practice ideas, and then ways to actually interrupt over-identification. One simple strategy you can use any time is to kind of get out of your head and into your body, ideally outside. You could try walking, biking, paddleboarding, hiking, or if you use a wheelchair, being outside and moving through your neighborhood. The point is to really feel your body in contact with the earth, or ground, or wind, or warmth of the sun. And if focusing on your body feels like too much, that's fine too. You can give more attention to, you know, what you're seeing, your scenery, the sights. Even cooking something and giving your attention to the smells, the motions of stirring, the sounds and sizzles. The point is to fill your awareness with what is happening around you, and to fill it with something nourishing as you're working on the skill of paying attention to what you wanna pay attention to. And start with the easy stuff, the stuff that you're like, "Yeah, I wanna pay attention more to this."
[00:21:04] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah. Yeah, the body is the most direct way I know of to get out of the thinking mode. So if my mind is looping but my feet still touch the ground, I've got a chance, right? So, like, when I felt blown off by my old classmate, like I described, I happened to be standing so I was immediately aware of the feeling that came up in me when this happened, and — but I was able to just simply tune in to the sensation of having my feet on the ground, and oddly enough, that settled me a little bit.
It just surprises me, actually, how well the body works as an anchor. If you're feeling chaotic inside, the body can get you grounded. Or if you're feeling rigid, the body can help you soften in that moment. Either way, it brings you back to the present and it can be as simple as your feet on the ground, placing your hand on your belly, going for a slow walk; drinking some water, and actually paying attention to the drinking of the water. So the body can keep you grounded so you don't go too far into your story. That's really one of the most helpful things you could do is just disrupt the story.
The next step is to see thoughts as thoughts, and then you realize they have no power over you except what you give them. A thought is just something your brain produced. It is not reality and you can practice that, even, by labeling it. Instead of thinking, "I'm not worth talking to," how about, "I'm having the thought that I'm not worth talking to"? You haven't argued with it. You haven't fixed anything. You've just added a little space, and that space is where you can start getting your agency back.
Now obviously I still get caught up in my thoughts. The difference is that now I can catch it faster than I used to, and I can come back to center sooner than I used to. When I notice I've gone off balance, I can just say something like, "Oops," or, you know, not saying, "I'll never learn," or, "I'm not worthy," just, "Oops," and then I gently find my way back. And that's self-compassion.
[00:23:42] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Absolutely. There's a practice right there. Yeah. And naming the thought, like, "I am having the thought that," — we talked about that — that kind of cognitive defusion in an episode for our Element of Confidence. I'll link to that in the show notes. Doing thesekind of body-focused practices was also my way into mindfulness. Meditation was not; I was not interested, or able at that time in my life, to be still — still in my mind or still in my body, and that's okay. So notice what you need. There's been a lot of pressure, I think, that mindfulness needs to look a certain way, like sitting on some cushion for 45 minutes a day. No. No, no. Doesn't have to be that. For example, I've been practicing mindfulness for 25 years now — I still resonate more with these types of moving practices. I don't know if that'll ever change. Not sure. But that's kind of what I sink into, in a good way. And they can be really slow-moving, or the opposite of that. Honestly, there's a group fitness class I like — it's called Group Fight — and we're all just punching and kicking the air, laughing and sweating. It is the opposite of a mindfulness meditation, and I can hold my attention there for, like, the whole 60 minutes, just punching and kicking the air, which is — seems ridiculous, but when I finish, I'm like, "Wow, I don't think I thought for 60 minutes." What a blessing. 'Cause I can think for the rest of the 23 hours in a day, and I won't lose anything. There's no shortage.
So, you know, do you. And I think mixing it up can be really helpful, like mindfulness cross-training. So, you know, practice our Joy Lab Experiments, which are, most of the time, more kind of still-types of practices. Then try a gentle yoga, or qigong, or tai chi or, you know, another type of a moving practice that has a gentler kind of attention. Try weightlifting and play with powerful focus, or swing a paddle, or pickleball, or table tennis and feel some coordination and attention. Or beer pong without the beer. You could use water and finish more clear-headed and hydrated than you thought. Or a warm bath that feels soothing in your body. You could journal, do a quiet meditation, you know, then try a walk, as we've said. So, however you move or find stillness, you can do it in such a way that you practice mindfulness and self-compassion. Having a variety of strategies like this can be really helpful.
So with this aspect of self-compassion — with mindfulness — we are creating a more clear space. Clear so that we can see better, but also clear in such a way that our mind kind of gets a little quieter, and that is wonderful.
And that sets us up for the second aspect of self-compassion — self-kindness versus self-judgment — which we'll get into next episode. So be sure to check out the Experiment for this episode — it really helps you to tap into that difference between mindfulness and over-identification, and how you can build that skill of noticing thoughts, and placing your attention where you want it.
And I wanna close us today with Dr. Neff's reminder that mindfulness and self-compassion can help us move through pain — through whatever it might be. "Painful feelings are temporary by nature, and they ease if we don't prolong them through resistance or avoidance. The only way out is through."
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