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Episode 228: Brains are Jerks and we need Self-Compassion
138 Plays6 months ago
Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast and our final episode for May (aka Mental Health Awareness Month). Sure it's June but Goblins are gonna be Goblins. We are returning to a topic that Alex introduced way back in Episode 84 on Self-Compassion and Self-Care especially in the era of a Pandemic.
Today all three hosts are here to talk about the struggles we have with being compassionate towards ourselves, even when we are compassionate to those around us. We look at what self-compassion is (and also what it is not). We hope you all enjoy!
We also finally have a Linktree with all of our discounts/resources
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
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Transcript
Podcasting Approach and Milestones
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Well, we are back. We have the whole cast. We... I... Tease isn't even the right word. We specifically stated a goal and intention that we had last week, and we are here to make good on that. You notice how I walked around the word try? You did. I was gonna say, I was gonna say, we decided to do instead of do not. Yes. Yeah.
00:00:58
Speaker
So that was everybody sort of, maybe you heard, but I let's, let's shoot you introductions. Pretend that we know what we're doing. Despite the, you know, 227 episodes in six years, as of, I think a week and a half. And, and I don't want to alarm anyone, but we're shockingly close to our six year anniversary. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like two weeks out, but I'm on vacation.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll see what happens. No anniversary episode on the actual anniversary week. Yeah, that'll be similar to every other year, just about. Yeah, that'll be a conversation we'll figure out and go. We'll probably learn very shortly after we do what the plan is.
Goblins and Planning Humor
00:01:48
Speaker
If you haven't figured it out by now, goblins are not great at planning things. I'm impressed we knew what year it was.
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we did have a plan for this one for last week. So we had a plan. It just, you know, to be fair, we've had a plan for this topic for like the entire month of May. Yeah, it actually, yeah. It didn't go as expected, which is totally a goblin thing. And yeah, we're here and we're making it happen.
Commitment to Mental Health Discussions
00:02:20
Speaker
Okay, so
00:02:22
Speaker
This is also my way to say that Mental Health Awareness Month does not end, or Mental Health Awareness does not need to end just because May has ended. This is our proof of that. Yes, that is. Okay, I'm going to introduce myself. I'm going to actually say my name because we are two minutes into this recording and no one has said their names. You have said at least one of our names though.
00:02:45
Speaker
I thought I walked around saying your name, but maybe I did. You said Taeyas. Oh, I said Taeyas. It's like I intentionally walked around saying Hobbs. And now, the third name, the person who's been talking about saying their name, I'm Alex. That is the trifecta.
00:03:01
Speaker
on Twitter, Mel underscore chronic glare pronouns are he him. Our topic this week, we'll get to a little more of the intro, but our topic this week is me mental health. As Hobbs, who will introduce himself shortly said, mental health awareness is a important thing for us. And just because the month of May, which is the month mental health awareness month is over, doesn't mean that mental health is a topic we don't want to talk about anymore.
00:03:27
Speaker
It's a topic we want to talk about all the time. We make a special point of it in May because of Mental Health Awareness Month, but it's a topic that needs to be talked about. There's reasons to talk about it all year long.
Revisiting Self-Compassion
00:03:39
Speaker
So we're here to do that. As part of the topic for this week is self-compassion. It is a topic that we have talked about as best that I could find only once before. And that was in an episode where I talked solo and then Hobbs recorded a mindfulness exercise and it was before Tia joined us. So it was just that short little recording from the two of us. And it seems like we have not revisited it since.
00:04:05
Speaker
I'm super glad we could all be here to visit this topic. I think it's a really good topic to talk about. But to that end, our question that we tend to start episodes with, we try to always have a question for all the hosts to answer as part of intros.
Characters Needing Self-Compassion: Kaia
00:04:21
Speaker
What's one character you think really needs some self-compassion? And seeing as I'm going first, I guess I didn't need my backup.
00:04:32
Speaker
I'm going to go with what I feel like is low hanging fruit though sometimes I say that and everyone else is like, well, I had different answers anyway. Yeah. And so that's, it works out well, but Kaya really seems like she's self-compassion right now has gone through.
00:04:48
Speaker
A lot of stuff has been doing a lot of work in, like particularly we see it in most recently in the murders of Carla Manor said in the story there, but it's like she has done a lot to try to make good and to try to do better and to try to help people and is just really beating herself up for things that are not necessarily in her control. And it's just not, I feel like she's in a better place at the end of that story, but particularly at the beginning, not in a great place mentally.
00:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, no. As Seanan kept saying in regard to the story and her, you know, her visit with us and also her behind the scenes, is Kaia really needs a vacation with Tyvar and they just need to have a good time. Yes. And that doesn't necessarily mean with Tyvar directly that good time. No. Just, Tyvar would point her in the correct direction. Right. Yeah. Yes.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yes, and that diaper might actually sort of fit in some of the things we're talking about later with one of the bullet points in this article, sort of. Yeah. Wow, an article. Whoa, look at you. You got a reference and everything, Alex. We got references. Wow. Reading material for the class. Yeah. It's supplemental. You don't have to read it. I'm going to be doing citing of scholarly works now. Yeah.
00:06:10
Speaker
Taya, you should go next because I forgot we had a question even though we were talking about it before we started. And I made a joke about it online.
00:06:22
Speaker
But that's not my real answer for once. Yeah, this is Taya. Pronouns if she heard they them, you can find me on Blue Sky at Taya Transcend. And I mean, I've got to go with my girl Chandra. She is such a harsh critic of herself. And yep, you know, she just constantly feels like she's screwing things up. And if that isn't a feel, I don't know what. Oh, yeah, that it. Yeah, you're right.
00:06:50
Speaker
You know, she puts so much pressure on herself to do better and be better and have more control of her skills and try to save everybody.
Nicol Bolas and Empathy
00:07:01
Speaker
Yeah. And like one of the most recent stories that I read, I'm not sure if we've had story from her since aftermath, but I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like she was even blaming herself for like Nissa. Nissa's laughed and of course, because
00:07:18
Speaker
But I mean, you know, one of the last stories, big stories that we got for Chandra prior to this at the beginning of the invasion was about her learning to be more mindful and actually be aware after, you know, Jaya is killed. You know, like how she's trying to learn to to manage and to actually use her, her fire or her anger in a way that is a little bit more, I would say compassionate.
00:07:43
Speaker
We're going to find. She really beats herself up over it, though. I don't know how much compassion there was more than just I need to do better and I will. I think she was wanting to learn it. I'm not sure she was there. Yeah. So my girl needs help. Well, yeah. Yeah.
00:08:01
Speaker
So, obviously the being that needs the most compassion, well, self-compassion, and we can talk about other forms of compassion that he is likely owed or deserved, but is really just a character always hard on himself because he really just wants to sit around and yet finds himself embroiled in all of these big events that he gets pulled into time and time again is, of course, Nicol Bolas.
00:08:28
Speaker
I feel like he might need to have compassion externally. Yeah, or himself externally. I don't know how that works. I think if he had more compassion for people who aren't him, he'd be less of these situations. He'd be I got you. So if he was, huh,
00:08:47
Speaker
You know, I'm gonna have to really think about that. Because this was actually not going to be my my real answer for once. So, hi, everybody, I'm hops cue can be found on the interwebs everywhere as hops cue. I am going with low, low hanging fruit.
00:09:04
Speaker
which is Gideon. I mean, there's ever a poster boy for self compassion. It's it's literally Gideon. I mean, Gideon's the poster boy for like half the things we talked about here. But you know, just the level to which he he
00:09:20
Speaker
He takes on this idea that he has to be perfect because if he's not, people will die because people died when poster poster child like number one representation of cannot give themselves a break. No. Yeah.
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, Gideon, I mean, to be fair, it's a hard part, right? This is the thing I think that while a lot of people miss Gideon, that do miss him is because he was kind of a stand in for a lot of just trauma. Mm hmm. And we've covered him on the show over and over again. That's why I was almost remiss to or almost did not want to bring him up. And I also think he fits very well for this. Yes.
00:10:01
Speaker
I agree. He was my backup. His story definitely fits. I think my only reservation as well at this point, he's
Gideon's Perfectionism
00:10:11
Speaker
dead. Last month is five years since War of the Spark came out. Oh my God.
00:10:20
Speaker
Our boy's been dead for a while. Man, he's just been hanging out in the underworld for five years. Gosh. I don't know. I think my hurt there is it feels like he wasn't given the time and breath to actually do experience something like that. But yeah, he was the conversation we had at the time and could have again. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, if we're looking for, yeah, gosh, it feels wild to think that it's five years.
00:10:49
Speaker
But yeah, so Gideon is kind of the poster child, I think, for a lot of this stuff. And one of those is just, I think, like you said, being able to give himself a break. Well, we've talked about this concept of well, we've brought up the word self compassion. So first thing we got to do is define. So this is one of my favorite things to do when we're talking about kind of some concepts, because self compassion, in particular, is one that we kind of think of as being a foreign concept for a lot of people.
Defining Compassion vs. Self-Compassion
00:11:16
Speaker
And we'll get into, I think, some reasons why that is.
00:11:20
Speaker
So I usually like when I do this, when I start talking to people about compassion, I like to start it from just having a discussion of what compassion means. Let's take the self out of it and just define in some ways what compassion is, if you think of that word. So for you too, if I just say the word compassion, what comes to mind? Well, for me, and this is why
00:11:45
Speaker
I think I find it hard to apply self-compassion is for me it implies caring for others. That is something that kind of to me is part of the definition of compassion and it's just that you care for others and what they're going through and would like to alleviate that if you can.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, so it's like there's both an empathy and also wanting to alleviate suffering. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and as a sort of reference with with talk about Gideon, like the idea of giving, you know, the English expressions, just giving someone a break, cutting someone a break, the concept that there's going to be times where people come up short of your expectations or short of their expectations or short of whatever.
00:12:37
Speaker
and just taking that moment to go, but it's fine. Maybe we need to fix the thing, maybe we don't necessarily need to fix what's going on, but it's fine and you don't need to...
00:12:52
Speaker
I don't know. Now I thought I had a good explanation there, but that, that is a component that kind of comes to me, like, especially what we talked about Gideon, like he is incapable of letting himself of letting go of things. He has to see this through and then do this. He literally was planes walking back and forth between two planes, trying to just keep things going to try to protect people in both places rather than, I don't know, sitting down and having a meal sometime to support himself.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, well, talking about self care is definitely an element that I feel hits into this a lot that falls under this rubric of self compassion. And, you know, you kind of mentioned a lot of definitions of compassion that most people have are really rooted in others,
Hobbs' Personal Self-Compassion Journey
00:13:37
Speaker
right? It is kindness or understanding, it is gentleness,
00:13:41
Speaker
Towards others, you know if people make a mistake it is that Alex as you said, it's fine It's it's something that we tend to give to other people or we tend to think of it as something that we give To others. It is something that we feel others deserve kind of as a human experience We tend to think that people are deserving of this compassion. They're deserving to have somebody be kind and
00:14:07
Speaker
we don't always do as well when it comes to doing self-compassion. Yeah, I mean, often like how I honestly, I sort of phrase, or maybe not phrase, but how I sort of conceptualize self-compassion is just the idea of trying to give myself that same thing that I want, that same compassion that I want to give externally, that same support, that same understanding.
00:14:35
Speaker
You know, there are some elements to this that run into this idea that treating yourself well is seen as a negative. It's seen as kind of it's seen as like narcissism or it can be. It can be seen as this idea of quote unquote selfishness. We have a lot that is tied to this idea of selfishness.
00:15:00
Speaker
where if I say that I want something for myself, that's not, that's selfish. That's not something I should be doing. I should be doing it for others. The problem is, we're then never giving ourselves the same kindness and gentleness that we would give to people in our same exact situation. I find this a lot that when I'm working on self-compassion work, and this is a framework as Alex said, you know, there's a reason that we're,
00:15:29
Speaker
that I really wanted to make sure that I was here, I think for this episode is because this is the framework by which I try, why, which I strive or which I work to live my own life, because it makes a lot of sense to me. I am somebody who has struggled 100% with not feeling that I was deserving of any of these things that I would give to other people. So, you know,
00:15:52
Speaker
Classic example, somebody could tell me about all these difficult things in their life and how they're beating themselves up. And I would be like, wow, you need to be gentle. You need to be kind. Like think of this, this, and this, you know, you're, you're, you're still deserving. This doesn't mean you're a bad person, but I'm going to use that word poignantly because butts also a word I don't like. I was not willing to do that for myself because Hobbes didn't deserve that because, you know, Hobbes had to be the one who do that for everybody else, but
00:16:21
Speaker
I didn't do enough good things in my life to be deserving of somebody being kind or myself being kind to myself. And so yeah, it's kind of in a way that feels like some of the cognitive distortions we talked about earlier in May, sort of the minimizing the positive in yourself.
00:16:42
Speaker
you know, in the context of whether or not you deserve that same support and understanding. You're like, Oh, well, these other people are dealing with this as a cool you are too. Well, you know, but that's different. One of the elements that oftentimes comes in is this idea that you know, one of the exercises that we start with for a lot of times when people do start learning to be more self compassionate is thinking of how you would treat a friend.
00:17:12
Speaker
is try to take this out of yourself in some ways to focus on what would I tell a friend going through the same situation I was. Because you'll be amazed at what you would probably tell a friend. And then realize when you're not doing that to yourself, you're kind of saying like, I've heard it this way, like my brain is kind of like an asshole. And it's just a fact of the matter is like, if my friends treated me the way that my brain treats me, I wouldn't be friends with them.
00:17:37
Speaker
Right. Yeah, exactly. You know, I, I have to remind myself of that a lot is that, you know, and I think that one of the reasons it's like, no matter how down I'm feeling, I'm also like, I'm always there for my friends because it's like, I feel like, you know, I, I'm gonna put what little energy I have out to helping them when I could probably use some of that
Mindfulness in Self-Compassion
00:18:00
Speaker
for myself. And, you know, it's, you have to think about how your brain treats yourself sometimes.
00:18:09
Speaker
and what we tolerate and put up with from our own brains. Yeah, a lot, a lot of crap. Yeah, like, I like I flat out like some of the things that my brain does to myself, I would cut people out of my life. My friends were doing this, they wouldn't be my friends. So the core components, I like there's some core tenants that go into this idea of self compassion. We have a really Alex made a reference to it. There's a really fun article on how to cultivate more self compassion. This work really kind of
00:18:38
Speaker
comes a lot out of the third wave of psychotherapy, which draws on more kind of Eastern, like influences like Buddhist type elements, things that are really based in mindfulness strategies. And it's kind of cool. The person who was the first to really kind of design a lot of this and kind of wrote the workbook that I really use is actually leading a self-compassion exercise tomorrow morning in a, well,
00:19:05
Speaker
By the time you all hear this, it will have already happened. But while we're recording it, I am doing a two-day training on early psychosis. And there's been a lot of work on self-compassion in people that are experiencing psychosis. And I actually get to hear her speak tomorrow, which I'm really excited about. But it really comes from some of these core ideas or these core tenets. And we'll share the article. But one of the biggest ones is really bringing in mindfulness. So I'm curious, too. This is another one of those words that I like to hear from other people that aren't
00:19:36
Speaker
necessarily steeped in this What does mindfulness mean to y'all if I just say that word because it's another word that gets thrown around a ton Yeah for for me I'm have a hard time like giving it just a strict definition and more just how I try to practice it but it's it's a lot about trying to To be more aware of the things that I'm doing the things that are going on around me I guess maybe that's a good definition of it like right now
00:20:05
Speaker
Just to throw this name out, a name we haven't actually said for a little while on the show, but I- Is it Yankee Candle? No, it's not Yankee Candle, but that's going on. It's Rope Runner, it's the other one. Oh yeah, it's the other one. I actually have been using for the last six weeks or so consistently, very consistently, daily most of the time, but definitely weekly kind of tracking stuff in a
00:20:36
Speaker
I have been getting them for the last several years. I mean, we talked about it on the show a bunch. We had the creator on an episode a couple of years ago, which was a lot of fun. But for me, it's a tool that I will use for a bit, and then stop, and then use for a bit, and then stop. And so I have...
00:20:54
Speaker
some of these journals going back the last, I don't know, three years that are all incomplete, which is fine, like purpose planners is what they call them.
00:21:05
Speaker
And that's fine. For me, that's the thing I need to kind of get over for myself. It doesn't have to be complete. That's the all or nothing thing that I struggle with sometimes.
Mindfulness Practices for Awareness
00:21:14
Speaker
If I use it for a month out of the six months that each particular book used, if that month was useful, that's great. But for me, that's been helping me lately, just to really narrow in on the things that I'm focused on.
00:21:27
Speaker
with which changes time to time that I use this and that's fine too but I've been focusing on meals in the last couple months because I really want to try to pay attention to what I'm doing for meal planning and focused on spending time with my friends and so it's like those particular things I'm calling out every every week what am I doing to kind of support these things and so I think for me it's it's mindfulness really comes down to the
00:21:53
Speaker
trying to really pay attention to what I'm doing, and then being specific in what I do. Okay. Okay, how about for you? Is it a similar definition? Do you have kind of different thoughts about it? It's a little bit I, I think a mindfulness a lot is self centering or focusing within and, you know, doing that kind of self diagnostic or
00:22:21
Speaker
self-centering where you just you're trying to find something within yourself or calming down and trying to put out the outside world and just focus on what is going on with you. Yes. And that is what I have learned to practice from my previous therapist and
00:22:47
Speaker
kind of just cutting yourself off from distractions or noise that comes from outside and focus on what's going on inside. I like both of kind of the definitions is I'm hearing like a real awareness approach, right? It is bringing attention to something and
00:23:07
Speaker
People often hear talk about like that idea of being present.
Becoming an Inner Ally
00:23:10
Speaker
And the key with mindfulness is it's not about trying to get rid of or to change or to ignore or to avoid. It is about letting yourself experience difficult thoughts and feelings and being aware of them and allowing yourself to experience them.
00:23:30
Speaker
you know, you mentioned like you bring it inward. So you're, you're working to say, bring your attention to something like your breath. And it's a very non judgmental approach to my breathing. I'm not trying to change it. I'm not trying to manipulate it. I am just breathing and noticing that sensation.
00:23:46
Speaker
You know, mindfulness, a key thing is being open and aware. And I think that, you know, Alex, you were mentioning, if I'm choosing specific things in my life that I'm going to be aware of, those are things I'm going to be more mindful. I'm going to bring those to the forefront. There is an intentionality. And yet I am not having judgments about them. I am just learning to sit with them.
00:24:09
Speaker
And that is a key component to self-compassion, is being able to just practice that mindfulness. Because we get so caught in that barrage of self-criticism. One of the main goals they talk about is self-compassion's main goal. And if I had to sum it up in one word, it's instead of being, we're trying to become an inner ally instead of an inner critic. Like at the end of the day, that's what we're doing.
00:24:38
Speaker
You mentioned, hey, our brains are assholes. You mentioned how like the things that our brains could do is it's not being very nice. It is, it is being very critical and it's, there's lots of reasons why that might be. A lot of us want to be critical because we think it's going to motivate us. Yo, y'all ever done that one? Like if I beat myself up, that'll motivate me to do the things I want to do. I mean, that's the only kind of motivation I have sometimes. Yeah. And it works really, really well.
00:25:06
Speaker
Till it doesn't. Till it doesn't. And most of the time it doesn't. And we are learning to be good friends to ourselves. That's kind of the idea of self-compassion. And mindfulness is one of the first steps for that. The next piece is one that I love, which is this idea of common humanity.
00:25:27
Speaker
So common humanity is just this idea that as humans, we do share some things in common. It talks about this idea that we're not alone. Hilariously, a lot of times this comes up with this idea to me that everybody hurts. It's actually very affirming to me to realize that other people go through bad situations or that other people have unhealthy, unhappy brains.
Common Humanity and Self-Compassion
00:25:57
Speaker
You know, there's a pathway here to nihilism. I oftentimes kind of think about this, right? You could think of common humanity being suffering, being a bad thing. Well, it's so less isolating though. Like that, for me, was, I guess, kind of a breakthrough or relief, maybe.
00:26:16
Speaker
when I, before my social anxiety was diagnosed, when I realized, oh, we have a term for this. There's enough people who have gone through this thing I have, we have a term for it, which means that we could start to work, we can do something about it. And it's not just me having a brain that feels broken. Yeah, it's pretty similar for me. There's a lot to,
00:26:45
Speaker
you know, go under and, you know, being kind to yourself is hard. It is. This idea, though, Alex, as you kind of mentioned, the not being isolated, that component that goes along with this. You know, a lot of times we could use that to be very isolating is that when we think that our brain is the only brain or we're the only ones who are deserving of this hatred that we can give ourselves or this criticism.
00:27:14
Speaker
It does feel very alone. And I think about this, so I recently had the experience of going to like a kid's birthday party, right? Jed and I don't have a lot of friends that are age necessarily or are at the same life point as us with young kids.
00:27:35
Speaker
But when we went to the school birthday party, because it's kids in our daughter's class, I hear these parents talking about things that happen. And I'm like, wait, that's normal, right? Like, wait, you all are having the same experience. You're experiencing this in this frustration and you don't know how to deal with it. We're not alone in that. This isn't like our kid is the only kid. And intellectually I can know that, but until I'm around another group of people that all seemed almost embarrassed to talk about these things,
00:28:04
Speaker
Right? Like nobody wanted to be the one to be like, yeah, kind of sucks sometimes with our kids, right? Like you don't want to say that or most of us don't want to say it out loud. And yet when parents did, I saw all of a sudden an identification of a larger idea that it wasn't so isolating. Yeah. You know, thinking about other people can make things feel
00:28:32
Speaker
like you have more, you know, less isolating, like you said, and just that you have more in common with people. And that's something that also that I worked with my previous therapist on quite a bit where they would say, you know, it's like, well, you're not the only one dealing with this. And
00:28:54
Speaker
And I would be, you know, mentally would just be like, but I'm, I'm, I'm worse at it than everybody else's. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's like, especially with like something like,
00:29:10
Speaker
imposter syndrome. It's just like, yeah. But I am the actual one. Right. Yeah, no, I yeah, that's me. You know, it doesn't matter that everybody has these feelings that most people do, except for the people who should and don't. The ones who most need some imposter syndrome are the people who would never have it. But it just yeah, it
00:29:35
Speaker
I don't know. I have a hard time. I have a hard time with this one, especially just because I have a, I have a hard time thinking that, you know, other people is much problem with dealing or as much inner problem as I do, even though I know other people do. Yes. Right. And that is.
Transitioning from Criticism to Kindness
00:30:00
Speaker
It's very uncomfortable to almost give yourself permission to realize that. That's one of the things we kind of talk about here with self-kindness is moving to that thoughts, feelings, and actions of kindness towards ourself instead of the harsh self-criticism actually becomes very uncomfortable to even think about. Because it means that we have to confront the fact that we've been kind of jerks to ourselves.
00:30:30
Speaker
And I say this as somebody whose brain is 100% an asshole to itself. Yeah, there's definitely times where my wife has to listen to me basically say that I'm like the worst father in the world, right? Like how could that statement be anywhere near accurate? Like I am fairly certain I can name tons of fathers that have done worse things than I have in my life. In the moment though, I am an inner enemy, I'm an inner critic.
00:31:01
Speaker
Two questions I love that come with self-compassion is then to ask yourself, or once a question, once a statement, it's actually to ask yourself, what do I need right now? Which is kind of a fun, you know, you mentioned that all looks like self-compassion work, right? I mean, like self-care. That is asking yourself this question of what do I need right now? Yeah, sorry, I'm really distracted because that just reminded me of a book that I've read recently.
00:31:31
Speaker
What is it? A book called Massome for the Wild built by Becky Chambers, who writes some just incredible like cozy isn't quite the right word, sci fi, but just books that have
00:31:49
Speaker
like compassion in them. And the first book is in this site on this moon, some other planet, humanity hits this industrial age creates robots that do all this stuff. And then one day the robots realize that they're self aware. And they're like, yo, we're gonna go live in the woods. And humanity is like,
00:32:08
Speaker
cool and then basically rebuilds their society and tries to figure out what that means. And then a few hundred years later, a robot wanders out of the woods and finds this monk who's having really a self-identity crisis. And the robot says, so what do humans need? We just want to see if we can help.
00:32:27
Speaker
And it's this, now I've read the second book, there's going to be more. I'm sure the second is all it's about, but there's this, like, it's this deep existential question that the robot didn't quite realize was that. And now they're starting to realize, or it's starting to realize the questions a lot deeper than I thought, but sorry. So I wildly distracted from, from that, but I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question? Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
I'm not the only one who's a little out of it today. I did not sleep well last night. Yeah. Yeah, no. And that's the thing. And these are the times where we could start being judgmental or you don't even ask me to repeat it. Alex, you just try to fumble your way through it and pretend that we'll get there and then realize, right, like self-compassion in some ways is being a little bit kind to say, like, I don't know where I was going there. Like, I had a bad night's sleep.
00:33:22
Speaker
I was kind of talking about this idea of asking yourself, what do we need right now comes back to kind of self care and our willingness to actually admit to ourselves, what do I need to be able to answer that question? And the answer not being to beat myself up even more than I already have. Yeah, I'll be honest. I don't think I have a good answer to the question, which is okay, but that yes.
00:33:49
Speaker
It's funny because that question is the one that leads leads a lot of times to some people feeling that they're being very selfish. And I want to reiterate, self compassion is not just self pity. It's not wallowing. I think that's one of the key things. It's not just like saying you're going to allow yourself to be sad all the time, or you're going to just, you know, self self. It's not just pity. It does not mean this. It's, it's not necessarily
00:34:14
Speaker
It's not selfish and I mean this in the sense of like, I actually think it is, but I think it's saying it. It's not selfish in the sense of the negative connotation that we oftentimes have with that word. Well, sometimes it's hard to take care of other people if you can't take care of yourself, if you're not in a good place and that there is some sort of like reciprocal circle of life sort of nature to that where if you
00:34:42
Speaker
can practice some self-compassion, get yourself into a better place that puts you in a better position to then help other people. Right. Yeah. And that's, you know, a lesson that I have trouble learning is I just keep taking more on myself than I can necessarily handle. And I should have myself, you know, some self-compassion for, you know, when I should just say, no more, I can't deal with this right now or
00:35:11
Speaker
You know, I've already got too much. I can't handle more of it. Yeah. You know, being able to have the language to be able to say it, right? Like the spoons analogy or the spell slots analogy, but then to actually do it. Yeah.
00:35:29
Speaker
So there's one concept that I don't think is in the article, but I was reviewing it today, kind of ahead of our episode. I actually did some preparation for once, but it's not really fair because I'm just like, I just love this stuff. And this is just like my normal day today. Hobbs, I believe you're minimizing the positive right now. Yeah, I'm doing a lot of things. I just didn't want to.
00:35:50
Speaker
didn't want to tear away from this fact that we set up that we are sometimes the least prepared people but like branding is very important to me. It's this concept of emotional backdraft when we start practicing self compassion. So I'm not familiar with this. So
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah. So do you know Backdraft, like loosely what Backdraft kind of is? Yeah. So a firefighting movie called Backdraft when I was too young to be watching that movie. I'm familiar with the concept of Backdraft and
00:36:34
Speaker
Where in that context, in the burning house context, I believe that sometimes the fire, the way it builds, then when a wall comes down, it causes more of an explosion just because there's stuff that was pent up in the space.
00:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. Like rush of oxygen in like the door, you know, everything rushes in. It has that fuel. You actually hit the analogy is the is basically the based off of that concept from firefighting even before the movie. Yeah, I forgot about that movie until right now. That's amazing. That is amazing.
00:37:10
Speaker
But it is this idea that most of our hearts are pretty hot with just the suffering that we've accumulated because suffering is a cumulative, especially if we haven't been experienced in it and we haven't been willing to be.
Understanding Emotional Backdraft
00:37:22
Speaker
Self compassionate and so much of it. Yeah, so much of that accumulation, right? Yeah. And suffering. Yeah, so much suffering. And when we open the door.
00:37:37
Speaker
You know, this is kind of a little cheesy, but if you open that door, right, of our heart and start being self compassionate, and we let that kind of come in, the old pain and fear is likely to force its way back out. And it's actually almost, you know, if you think about that, is by starting to practice this, it's to recognize that you may get kind of like that intense pushback, you know, I kind of mentioned, if I start talking about some of these things, and your brain starts
00:38:07
Speaker
being awkward or starts explaining away or it starts feeling things like shame and grief and sadness. That's because you're actually finally attempting self-compassion, which you haven't done. Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker
I think people get scared when doing new things, you know, doing new therapy, doing new, just practices in their life, whether it be mindfulness or self-compassion or any of that, that there is actually oftentimes an increase in feeling not good. I don't know about for you all, but I had that when I, yeah, like I start feeling worse. I believe therapy, not feeling good all the time. Yeah. You know, but if it wasn't,
00:38:53
Speaker
If it wasn't work, it wouldn't be worth doing either. It's like you wouldn't be learning anything or applying anything if it didn't feel like you're trying to make an effort or, you know, you have to have some kind of struggle to move forward.
00:39:13
Speaker
And I really liked that if you notice that you're finding that back draft, that this is where you get to use some of those great, I think we've touched a little bit on them, but that idea of mindfulness in terms of grounding skills, where you're doing things to anchor yourself into like boring everyday activities.
Grounding Exercises for Emotional Backdraft
00:39:29
Speaker
trying to use your five senses. So have you ever done the, I don't know if any of you have ever done this, but one that I really like is washing dishes. I don't like washing dishes. I like it as an example, because there are people who really love washing dishes. I am not one of them. However, if I am doing it normally, I am gonna just like turn the water on. Hopefully it gets just warm enough that I feel that for some reason that the warmer water is better. I don't know. Does that actually legitimate? Does it kill more things? Who knows? I don't.
00:39:58
Speaker
but I feel like I should let it get warm, but I scrub a plate like two times and then put it away. Versus the act of actually washing dishes, where you actually acknowledge the feeling of water on your hand, right? You smell soap that you're using. You kind of, you can hear the water hitting. It's actually doing boring or mundane or everyday activities in a way that is meant to slow them down and to engage your senses.
00:40:28
Speaker
Eating is another good example, brushing your teeth. But you're doing these things where you're doing your best to engage your senses. And these are one way to kind of help if you're feeling kind of some of this back draft. The other ones are things I love like a cup of warm tea, petting your dog.
00:40:47
Speaker
There's some great what are called loving kindness exercises or loving kindness meditations or mindfulness activities. They are meant to be a little bit different than just your normal just breathing exercise or guided imagery. And part of that is learning to kind of safe phrases like may I be safe, may I be at peace, may I be kind.
00:41:10
Speaker
And when you do these, you oftentimes don't start with just yourself because so many of us struggle to do that, that we oftentimes start with like either people we love or pets or other things, you know, and then we bring it to ourselves once we've kind of like eased our way into it. And a lot of the these exercises are actually aimed at doing things like using your hand on your body to kind of try to bring some of that in.
00:41:36
Speaker
And I was saying to somebody recently, I actually like doing this with my pet because having my hand in dog fur is like a much better way for me to feel that kind of grounded. It's one reason I like Callie hanging out on my desk so much is because she's very grounding. Callie was one thing I was thinking of, right? Like you mentioned just her being in the room when you're recording. Yeah, she's in here when I work, when I record.
00:42:05
Speaker
You know, she'll hang out on my desk. She'll hang out sitting right next to me or this morning she was rolling all over the floor with her belly up and asking for pets. So I've, I've petted her with my foot for a good 10 minutes. I probably should have been reading Slack messages or something, but that was much more rewarding to me petting the cat than.
00:42:30
Speaker
reading slack. You also did have that like big non self-compassionate word of should, right? Yeah. Mm hmm. No, yep, you got me. I got to this time. Yeah, it's
00:42:53
Speaker
Grounding things definitely help me. And kind of, even if I'm not consciously being self-conscious, or self-compassionate, you know, it can help take me out of whatever mood I'm in that's not helping me.
00:43:13
Speaker
So this is, you know, some tricks, some tips, you know, that we're gonna be in the articles is this idea of treating. I like this even more than treating yourself as you would a friend. Is treating yourself as you would a small child? Yeah, that is one my therapist used a lot where it's like, you know, they'd say, you know, think about little Taya, you know, struggling with all these things.
Inner Child and Empathy
00:43:38
Speaker
And don't you just
00:43:40
Speaker
feel compassion for her and it's thinking about it like that. It's like, yeah, of course I would feel compassionate for someone going through that, but it's hard to also think of that as myself. Yeah, this is another one of those things.
00:43:57
Speaker
I love self-compassion work and I do think self-compassion work takes so, it's just a different way. And this is why I love that we talk about things like cognitive distortions and we talked about ways that you can challenge those. This is like another framework and I think it's finding what works for you. Self-compassion just, it makes sense to me because I can really do that thing where I can be like, wow, I would totally tell a friend that's going through something X, Y, and Z. Okay, idiot, now apply it to yourself.
00:44:26
Speaker
I am going to still use the word idiot though, don't worry. I'll make sure that's there. Yeah, that was a thing I had to learn for myself the last few years when I'm a larger person in middle school that was the subject of a lot of ridicule.
00:44:45
Speaker
from people. And so a defense mechanism that I sort of developed was self-deprecating humor, because often if you make fun of yourself first, it kind of disarms that from other people. But that sort of just became a habit that sort of turned itself into a shield or really a visage for that negative self-criticism to hide behind. Well, I'm just being self-deprecating when I say these incredibly mean things to myself.
00:45:15
Speaker
Yeah, I don't believe them. Unless. Yeah. And so it's I've it is a thing I've been working on for a few years now to to try to just cut that out because it's I don't think it's helping anymore.
Self-Deprecating Humor Impacts
00:45:32
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:45:33
Speaker
Listen, I'm, I'm late Gen X, early millennial. If I take that out of my vocabulary, I might not know how to actually communicate. Yeah. Which isn't to say that it needs to be removed from other people. I'm just offering, at least for my own experiences. I'm joking, Alex, because I use that as a defense and I have for a long time. No, you don't understand Hobbs. I'm a bad person. And so I needed to clarify that I wasn't trying to be mean.
00:46:06
Speaker
This is why I needed this recording tonight. It's good to have you back, Hobbs. I'm glad to be back. You know, I miss you all and, you know, having to just deal with my, my, my own guilt and shame. And, and, and I think this is an area I've improved in where I'm not going to beat myself up to the same level. You know, I am thankful to have hosts that I know will do this for me and that I will do for them if needed, uh, step up and yeah.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, and we only sort of mess it up.
Summary and Importance of Self-Compassion
00:46:42
Speaker
I'm going to ask for a soundboard item whenever we hear self-deprecation that we just have a sound we get to play on the episode. But that's just kind of an intro to self-compassion. We'll link the previous episode and the article that we used, which is just this is just something that I find
00:47:04
Speaker
really fun to go out and kind of like read about on your own. If you're interested, there's a lot of good resources out there. Yeah. And it's it, you know, I think it works when you can practice it. And it's sometimes I need a reminder to have this mindset that, you know, I, it's easy for me to forget about it, but it does help. Yeah. And then that,
00:47:31
Speaker
like the reminder being helpful is something that I say this a lot when we come back to episodes and I don't know, maybe it's my own guilt from whatever, probably the way this, the way that my brain works. But, you know, especially as I mentioned earlier, we're at six, we're at almost six years for this podcast. So we are repeating a lot of topics. But there's a, there's a reason, like, not just because we've hit this point in time where
00:47:55
Speaker
So a lot of people may not have listened to the old ones or where we have new folks who can come back or who missed the last one or whatever. But holy crap, we might have learned shit in the meantime. Yeah, exactly. It's been six years we could have learned something. But it also even even with all of that wasn't the case somehow, it's still valuable to come back as a good reminder for us and for the listeners.
00:48:20
Speaker
that some of these things are important enough to go back to. That's why we go back to them, because they are important enough that reminders are helpful.
00:48:42
Speaker
Feel free to send us any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to the Goblin Lore Pod on Twitter or email us at goblinlorepodcast at gmail.com.
00:48:51
Speaker
If you would like to support your friendly neighborhood Gob's Hugs, our link tree can be found on our Twitter account and in the description of today's show. This has everything from various discount codes to the link for our Patreon. The music for today's show was by Wintergotten, who can be found at vintergotten at bandcamp.com. The art was done by Steven Raphael, who can be found at Steve Ruffle on Twitter. Gob and Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing forthos content.
00:49:19
Speaker
Check them out on Twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.