One of San Antonio’s leading voices on mental health and wellness shares her thoughts on mindful self-compassion, self-care and the role meditation plays in both.
We’ve followed with interest for some time the work of San Antonio’s vibrant and thoughtful Cynthia Phelps, a passionate advocate for emotional and psychological well-being. She periodically offers classes on the topic of self-compassion, an important topic in a frenzied, fast-paced world. With another one of her 8-week courses upcoming in autumn 2018 (details), the timing was perfect for a chat.
Come learn what she has to say on some important ideas.
“Self-care” is such a big buzzword right now, especially for women, as is “mindfulness.” How does the idea of self-compassion fit with those two words?
Mindfulness is a component of self-compassion, and self-care is often a result. Let me elaborate. Self-compassion is the measure of how well you treat yourself, especially during times of suffering. If you are kind and supportive of yourself during difficult times (just as a dear friend might be to you), then you will have high levels of self-compassion. Likewise, people with low self-compassion tend to treat themselves harshly, use unhealthy coping mechanisms, and isolate themselves during times of suffering.
Self-compassion can also be thought of as a practice and a discipline. To practice self-compassion you must be aware of your own suffering. So mindfulness is the first step in practicing self-compassion, because it is the practice of mindfulness that allows us to become better at recognizing our own suffering. On the surface, this may sound absurd, of course we recognize our own suffering, right? But in fact, we may suppress it, or even tell a story and downplay it. Mindfulness allows us to honestly, non-judgmentally, acknowledge our suffering. This is the first step towards giving ourselves compassion for having to experience suffering.
Self-care, ideally, is the action that comes out of the practice of self-compassion. It’s asking yourself: “What do I need right now? What do I really need?” That second question is there to try to dig deeper to answer the question. Often our first response can be something glib, like “a million dollars, or a pool boy and a pedicure.” While those things might be nice, they are not getting at the core emotional need(s) that are crying out for attention. For instance your suffering might be due to a perceived isolation, where the core emotional need is connection. This could be simply addressed by a phone call to a dear friend, or an event that gets you out of the house and interacting with people.
For many, the concept of mindfulness can sound a little “woo woo”—mystical or odd. Can you talk briefly about what modern research tells us about its value and effectiveness?
Mindfulness has its roots in a variety of religious traditions. Many of the mindfulness practices emerging in the west over the last 40+ years are based on eastern religions such as Buddhism. But it’s important to note that mindfulness or the sustained practice of mindfulness (meditation) is also called “contemplative prayer” in the Christian tradition. So you can judge for yourself if you find the practice to be mystical.
My introduction to mindfulness was through a research article on self-compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff [at The University of Texas Austin]. There are many studies that show positive impacts of mindfulness and meditation for things like anxiety, depression, stress, and pain management. However, it’s fair to say this research is difficult to control and still in its early stages. Other measures, such a brain imaging, are shedding light on some of the possible areas of the brain that are engaged during meditation. Some of these brain areas are involved in emotional regulation, attention, and self-referential thinking (what you think about yourself).
I recently published a small study that showed there was a correlation between self-compassion and risk for addiction, meaning if you had low self-compassion you were at higher risk for addiction (we looked at alcohol, cannabis, and opioids). It’s my opinion that the self-kindness portion of this practice will be more tightly correlated with the positive mental health effects, so I expect to see the practice of self-compassion emerge in the future as being more powerful than just mindfulness or meditation alone.
Many of our readers are women at mid-life, a period of complex responsibilities, needs, demands, caregiving—and we’re not even really even talking about “jobs”! Just the relationship stuff can feel challenging at times. How can cultivating self-compassion help them manage better and/or achieve an enhanced sense of self-efficacy and well-being?
Self-compassion is not a magic elixir that makes you happier while coping with a litany of complex responsibilities. However, self-compassion can get at the heart of your suffering, help you define your emotional needs, and craft a plan forward.
When I work with individuals to help them implement self-compassion, often the first step is to illuminate how they are speaking to themselves in their own head. When we find unkind or unsupportive thoughts, we stop and acknowledge how this is making their suffering worse. Then, we re-craft these thoughts to something kind and supportive yet still very true. These new thoughts should elicit a different set of emotions, such as warmth or relief.
Once the thoughts have been shifted, we begin to look at what actions might need to be taken. This is a complex process, but a large part of it is acknowledging that life is a series of choices, even when feels like it’s not. By just giving ourselves props for making tough choices, it may release the pressure. However sometimes our situation calls for more drastic action. For example, maybe it’s time to change your behavior to be more compassionate to yourself, so you can be well. This may look like saying “no” to some responsibilities, figuring out how to get more support, or cutting ties with difficult people. If you are taking good care of yourself, then you will have a better fighting change of being able to care for others.
Self-efficacy is the knowing that we have the capability to do something. Rarely is this the barrier to the complex responsibilities, needs, demands, and caregiving of the middle-aged woman. More often I think we need someone to tell us how amazing we are, how great of a job we are doing during difficult times; someone to see our suffering and to hold our hand and grieve when we screw it up or drop the ball. This is what we can learn to do for ourselves; this is self-compassion. This process creates the well-being we are all looking for.
For people who are interested in your upcoming autumn program, but still need a little more information—and for those who don’t live close enough to San Antonio to participate in the workshop, can you share some additional resources for exploration?
You can learn more about my upcoming Mindful Self-Compassion Class at my website. Take the class online or find one near you at the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. Also, Dr. Neff has some excellent information on her site, Self-Compassion.org.
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Thanks for reading!
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