The Leadership Vision Podcast
The Leadership Vision Podcast is about helping people better understand who they are as a leader. Our consulting firm has spent 25 years investing in teams so that people are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Our podcast provides information to help you develop as a leader, build a positive team culture, and grow your organization to match the demands of today’s business landscape. We leverage client experience, research-based leadership models, and reflective conversations to explore personal growth and leadership topics. With over 350,000 downloads from 180+ countries, our podcast shares our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture.
The Leadership Vision Podcast
The Power of Self-Compassion: Transform Your Inner Dialogue with Mindset Coach Amy Noel
In this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, we engage in a compelling discussion with Amy Noel, a coach specializing in mindset coaching and mental performance skills. Amy delves into her personal journey and underscores the importance and practice of self-compassion. She introduces the three key components of self-compassion: mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness, and addresses common misconceptions surrounding the concept. The episode also features a practical guided self-compassion practice called the 'self-compassion break.' We highlight the significance of self-compassion for leaders and provide resources for further exploration. Enjoy!
03:00 Amy Noel's Journey to Self-Compassion Coaching
07:24 Understanding and Practicing Self-Compassion
21:24 Understanding the Emotional Brain
22:05 Building Trust and Safe Environments
25:57 Guided Self-Compassion Practice
Resources for Integrating Self-Compassion
- Amy's Website
- Center for Mindful Self-Compassion
- Kristen Neff’s website
- Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook
- Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout
- Mindfuless for athletes
- Navy SEALs and mindfulness
- Mindfulness with children
- Mindfulness for leaders
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Read the full blog post here!
CONTACT US
- email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
- Leadership Vision Online
ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
The most important thing is just setting the intention to be kinder to yourself. Whatever that looks like, it's going to look different for everyone and we don't want to judge ourselves for judging. We don't want to not have compassion for the fact that we're struggling with our compassion practice right? So it's a big shift in how we are with ourselves, and so taking that slow, letting that look different it might look different from one person to the next, and so really, those you know, those three components are so powerful. Seeing, if you can start to become more familiar with that type of messaging, that kind of inner dialogue, if you allow yourself to get through that awkward stage of being uncomfortable with some of this just because it's new and just because it's different, I think you'll kind of find the power after that.
Speaker 3:You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast, our show helping you build positive team culture. Our consulting firm has been doing this work for the past 25 years so that leaders are mentally engaged and emotionally healthy. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Friberg and in this episode of the Leadership Vision Podcast, Linda Brian and I get to talk with Amy Noel. She's a coach specializing in mindset coaching and mental performance skills. She shares her personal journey and insights into the importance and practice of self-compassion. She teaches us about the three key components of self-compassion mindfulness, common humanity and kindness and also discusses the misconceptions around self-compassion and gives us practical advice on integrating it into our daily lives. A little over halfway into this episode, Amy is actually going to lead us through a guided self-compassion practice. It's called the self-compassion break, which we encourage you to do right along with us as you listen and after it's over. It's only about three or four minutes. We talk about giving yourself permission to be kind and gentle with your own experiences. If this feels a little bit weird, I promise you it's not. If you're uncomfortable or have never done anything, just try it, See how it goes.
Speaker 3:There are a whole host of resources that I have included in the show notes, so take a look at that, or you can visit the companion blog piece about this on our website, leadershipvisionconsultingcom. Now, I have personally worked with Amy for the past couple of years and while we don't talk about any of that in this episode, I can attest to the profound impact of these concepts in my own life. So, after you listen to this and then maybe do some of your own research, or if you're already familiar with some of the concepts that we talk about, I would love it if you would drop us a line and just share what your experience has been like. Does this resonate with you, Does it not? You can send an email to connect at leadershipvisionconsultingcom and someone will get back to you. We promise All right. So here's our episode with Amy Noel Enjoy. So, Amy, before we get into, like, all these great questions we have, who are you Like? What's your kind of quick little back of the baseball card bio?
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, well, first of all, thank you for inviting me to come on to the podcast. It's an honor and I love talking about self-compassion, so very happy to be here. Yeah, so my name is Amy Noel. I'm a coach, I'm a mom, I'm a single mom to two teenagers. So, nathan, savor the kids, because I've got one getting ready to go off to college and it's a big life change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, and I was in a past life. I was a physical therapist, was married, went through a pretty difficult divorce, and really my interest and passion in mindfulness and self-compassion was born out of necessity, my own need to find these practices, and they were so transformative and really life-changing maybe life-saving for me during that time, and it was just something that I needed to share with others. And so I went back and, you know, have had multiple certifications and trainings just to really share this with others, and I have pretty much found a little niche in organizations, corporate leadership teams, you know, really trying to work with the people who create the culture for others, and it's been fantastic, it's been really fun. So I'm happy, so happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, amy, I really appreciate you starting with part of your story, because I'm really curious to hear a little bit more about like that. That moment or what stage in the journey did you realize that you wanted to become a professional to help other people? Was that over a course of years, or did you have like one of those moments where there's like a flash of lightning and like, oh, I need to do this?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I think I originally started out, like I said, just needing to take care of myself and I took mindfulness-based stress reduction, which is kind of a gold standard mindfulness course that was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It's kind of one of the pioneer mindfulness courses that almost all of the future trainings is based on or adapted from and, like I said, it really was life changing. It was. It gave me permission to really be with my experience without having so much judgment about what was happening and guilt and shame and and all of those things. And I was in a position at the time to be going back to work. I had not been working. I was a stay-at-home mom with the kids and was now needing to go back to work and it was just what I decided. I'm like okay, this is where it's going to go, this is what I'm going to focus on, get trained in and create a career.
Speaker 1:And I think it was after I had become a teacher for mindfulness that, still going through quite a bit of stressful family dynamics and found self-compassion, and that was really kind of the missing link. Actually, now it's pretty much explicit in most of the mindfulness trainings that you're going to get out there, but at the time I think it was missing, and so self-compassion was sort of that missing link that really created the resilience that I needed. It's a little bit more active of a practice than mindfulness meeting your needs, being able to be with yourself when you're struggling, and so that was very much a lifesaver. I call it a superpower now. So, and then as far as sharing it with others, I think and I like to tell people like the best way to share it with others is to model it so it's.
Speaker 1:I was being asked by a lot of people. A lot of people that were going through a divorce were like wow, what is your secret? Why are you so calm? And I would just start talking to people. People would ask me if I would go talk to their friends, and it just became something that I'm like, okay, I can take this from teaching courses to private coaching, and just kind of evolved from that coaching and just kind of evolved from that.
Speaker 4:So could you tell us, and especially our listeners, some of the elements of self-compassion, and then we'll kind of go from there. Maybe even we'll ask you to lead us in a practice. Maybe our listeners would like that.
Speaker 1:Sure, I mean, self-compassion is essentially like the simplest definition is just treating yourself the way you would a friend, right? So we oftentimes are so much more critical, harshly critical, of ourselves, especially when we make a mistake or we're suffering in some way, in a way that we would never be to even our enemies. Really, you know, we've never say some of the things that we say to ourselves in our mind out loud. It's just not appropriate, right? And yet we do this to ourselves. And so really, it's just the invitation to be kind to yourself, setting that intention, especially when we're suffering or we're having challenges.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and what are the three elements?
Speaker 1:So the three elements that were developed by researcher Kristen F are really the same elements for compassion as self-compassion. So that's important because it's not something you have to really cultivate and create yourself. It's really just the same kind of care and support that you would give somebody else directed towards yourself. And those three components the first one is mindfulness right, which you know mindfulness is a little bit of a buzzword right now. It could be awareness, presence, right, it's just having that ability to validate your experience while you're having it right, without judgment. So it's just, you know, this is a moment of suffering, this is I'm human, this is what I'm feeling right now, and acknowledging how difficult that can be. And then the second component she calls common humanity, and this is the remembering that this is part of life. It's suffering as part of being human. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. Life Suffering is part of being human. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. Really, anybody in this situation would feel this way. This is a normal human emotion. So not judging ourselves for having difficult feelings and experiences at times, and it helps to remember that so we don't feel so isolated in our suffering.
Speaker 1:And then the last component is kindness, and this is really the action step. So we're not just kind of wallowing in our acknowledgement of our suffering. We're actually now saying how can I be kind to myself? What do I need right now? How can I best support myself, comfort myself, motivate myself, protect or provide for myself in some way that serves me right, because the intention is kindness. The intention is showing up for myself in some way that that serves me right, because the intention is kindness. The intention is showing up for ourselves in a kind way. Yeah, so those are the three, three components. It's beautiful oh boy beautiful.
Speaker 4:Well, I think it's one thing to say that I mean is it? Is it too early to ask for?
Speaker 2:I, it's great to say it the agitation that you can maybe see on camera is as you're going through that, amy. It wasn't the first time I've heard you say those things into my mind, where people were struggling with one of these three elements, or all three elements, which I'm saying to illustrate how common this challenge is to practice self-compassion towards yourself. I feel that once people hear this, they'll say well, of course you should act that way. Why is it that people have such strong struggles? Being kind to themselves and to you know, just be aware of who they are as an individual, without judgment?
Speaker 1:I think that's so, that's so normal and very, very common, especially when we first start introducing self-compassion. Especially when we first start introducing self-compassion. Number one, because we've just been socialized not to do this. It's been something that people will view as selfish. Or if I give myself compassion, I'm just going to be lazy, I'm not going to be motivated to change or get better, and we believe some of these things, right. So it's a challenge to some of our beliefs, which is difficult, you know. And the other thing, too, is that it is a practice and it's not like we don't want to criticize ourselves for not being self-compassionate, right.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times, when you introduce some type of whether it's like self-help or, you know, self-care, those kinds of things, you know, it's just one more thing to feel guilty like, oh, I'm not exercising every day or I don't eat healthy, you know, and then we just beat ourselves up about that, right. So it's really there for us to be that krista meff likes to say a compassionate mess. Right, we're allowed to be the mess that we are, we're allowed to have the experiences that we have, and it's just a little bit of a mind state shift into creating an opportunity to hold that with some kindness and just allow ourselves to recognize that we can be our own best friend, right? So if you imagine like I want to achieve a goal, but every little misstep on beating myself up that's not going to serve me in achieving that goal, I'm either going to get burnout or I'm going to give up or the you know the consequences of failing are so huge that I can't even try, right? But if we've got this compassionate inner voice, it's okay.
Speaker 1:You made a mistake, you're human, let's go. You got this. You know it's only going to help us. And you know and studies have shown that you know, people with higher levels of self-compassion are more resilient, they are more motivated. Yeah, I see Nathan over there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is working. Well, what I was let me cut you off. So I was very resistant to this initially. It feels a little woo-woo and it was after learning. I'm usually not like give me the hard data kind of person, but some of that's like what would you? So where am I going with this? What would you say to someone who feels that way? What are some of the statistics, the data? No-transcript for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there's a lot of misconceptions that people might feel resistance to doing this and I don't have exact stats for you right now.
Speaker 3:We'll include some stuff in the show notes. We can find those. Yes, I know that they're out there.
Speaker 1:But the research has been very, very clear that you know. Like, for example, one of the misconceptions is that I'll just be overindulgent. You know, if I'm nice to myself, I'll just let myself get away with anything.
Speaker 1:You know, I'll eat the whole box of donuts. I'll do, you know, I'll do whatever I want. I'll waste all day on the couch watch Netflix. You know, and really research has shown that with more self-compassionate part of you is not still wants you to achieve your goals, still doesn't want you to suffer, right, no-transcript, and they really want that. They're going to cry when you take them away, but we know that's not good for them and we're going to do what it takes to make sure that they don't suffer.
Speaker 1:And it's the same way for ourselves. You know, being lazy and being self-indulgent and doing engaging in behaviors that harm us is not self engage in healthier behaviors. Right, and we have more energy, I believe, to do so. I think some of the time we do a lot of those things just because we're so depleted, and a lot of that is emotional depletion. You know, we're just mentally beating ourselves up and judging ourselves so harshly that it's like we kind of give up and we're just so exhausted and we just take the easy way out. Right, with self-compassion, we have a little more resilience as far as motivation.
Speaker 1:The research has shown that they reach their. You know, people reach their goals just as well, because that inner compassionate voice is just as motivating as that harsh inner critic, just for different reasons. It's not because you're not okay the way you are. It's because it wants you to achieve your goals right. And so there's a little bit different, you know, in that motivation of why we're giving ourselves the messaging that we're giving ourselves and the other pieces.
Speaker 1:Like I mentioned before, when we're not so afraid to fail, right, the consequences aren't so great, like we can allow ourselves to fail and we're going to beat ourselves with kindness. That's not so scary. And we all know we need to fail to grow, we need to not be afraid to get outside of our comfort zone. But with that harsh inner critic, a lot of times we don't even want to go there. So self-compassion really opens up the door to get outside of your comfort zone, achieve more. I'm trying to think of some other misgivings. Oh, that it's selfish, right. Sometimes, especially women people socialized as women have this message that I need to give all this compassion to others and to serve others, but to take a moment for myself or to give myself the care I need. That's selfish and I'm not allowed to do that, right. But we know that we have to fill our own cup. We have to put that oxygen mask on ourselves before we can go out and serve others.
Speaker 2:Wow, I am so captivated by this, by this, amy. Having asked you for help myself and talking to others, I understand that when you ask for help you're kind of in the back of your mind. You're not really wanting the help. Like you might know that something's broken but you don't necessarily want to fix it because you're afraid that it might take away from a quality of life or your performance at work. How would you answer that question for someone who's reluctant to integrate something new and that might change their behavior for the better?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. I think a lot of us kind of go through life, and especially my clients in this area have found a lot of success, right. They may even be at the top of their field, at the top of their game. Things have worked out, so their existing way of operating has yielded some results. They've achieved, they've been able to succeed, and yet they're not happy. They are, you know, other areas of their life are falling apart, things are. They're unsettled in some way or unfulfilled, right, and that's generally where I find people Like. And then there is this hesitancy of well, wait, if I change things, maybe that success that I've achieved or those things that I need to get done will be impacted. Maybe that success that I've achieved or those things that I need to get done will be impacted. And I don't have like a perfect answer for this, but other than you don't know until you try, right, and so there's obviously a reason in there, and a lot of people have the belief it's one or the other I can have. You know, I can be content and fulfilled in my life and my home life and my business is going to, you know, suffer or the other way around, right, and so I think that's a belief that we can challenge a little bit. Right, because you can, you can have all of it. There can be satisfaction and that kind of energy on on both sides, right? So I think the advice that I give people who who kind of find me or come to me with this is to give it a try. Right, it's, it's something that you research has shown me, you know. But, but again, it doesn't matter. Research doesn't matter until you have that. Folks sense, experience yourself. But it's something to try. It's not going to derail your business to give eight weeks to trying to create some neural pathways that are going to change a little bit. And once you start to then recognize what this does for you you know what being kinder to yourself allows you to achieve you will sort of realize like, okay, wow, this actually is only going to make things better. There's I don't have the study, I should have this, but you know they've done research with elite, elite athletes. You know we're watching the Olympics now and you know anybody who's made it there is probably capable of getting a gold medal. You know, like, so they're. You know these elite, their bodies are trained, they know what they're doing. They, you know, and the difference between the ones that are really gonna get the gold are the ones that are able to adapt or reset after a failure. Right, they make mistakes. They need to be able to come right back and be at the top of their game, and that's where self-compassion absolutely can impact us, so like when we are our own best friend with us all the time.
Speaker 1:Think of the resilience and our ability to just come back without judgment. I mean, it keeps us in a mind state where we are in our prefrontal cortex right, the smart part of our brain more of the time. As soon as we shift into our emotional centers and we start getting reactive, you know, we might feel like we're achieving and striving, and you know, but we're really in a part of our brain that is not super skillful, even though it feels like we're achieving and striving, and you know, but we're really in a part of our brain that is not super skillful, even though it feels like we're working really hard and we're engaging, you know, with the striving. That peaceful part of our brain is where we're, we're going to be, most skillful and that's where we want to stay. So self-compassion can kind of help us to stay there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amy, I I am still. I'm just captivated by what you're saying. I also understand that when people ask you for help, it's a type of relationship that you share with your clients that is very, very unique. How is it that you create a relationship of trust where people are willing to, you know, follow you and share with you what they need? And because I know that there's accountability that goes along with that like, how is it that you create that relationship with someone?
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for Sasha for recognizing that. I do think that's so important. I have to say I'm not a therapist and I'm really kind of happy that I'm not. You know, even though self-compassion, mindfulness, mental performance coaching is therapeutic, it's not therapy and I like that I can come in and really partner with someone to see what's working for them and what's not working for them. Right, and to me it's really important that I mean there is nothing that I know or am going to say that you know, like nobody's thought of before you know it's.
Speaker 1:You know, this is, this, is all stuff that's within us, and I think I just like to empower people to know that they have everything they need to do, anything that they are trying to do, and to be happy and to be fulfilled and content.
Speaker 1:And it's not a matter of learning some magic new concept. It's really just tapping into your own inner compassionate self, to tap into your own innate wisdom that our body is giving us all of the time, you know, and so I really try to create a safe environment where people can get curious and find this stuff out there that's being revealed to them. I mean most a lot of the time, you know my clients are revealing things that I didn't think of, I didn't offer them, but they, you know, are revealing things that I didn't think of, I didn't offer them, but they, you know, because of the environment, because of challenging some beliefs and shifting into kind of this new other part of our brain where we are safe and at peace and kind, the wisdom arises and they, you know. So I think people see that and people feel that and they're able to really be empowered by that, which I think is helpful.
Speaker 4:I mean, yeah, it's a nice relationship, yeah, so my question or my comment is it's one thing to talk about it and it's another thing to actually practice. And I think because we, Nathan and Brian and I talked about this ahead of time, we would welcome you to maybe lead us through, and our listeners through, a self-compassion practice. Just something brief and that would give people a taste of kind of the environment and the place and the holding that you have and that you offer.
Speaker 2:And if you're listening to this while you're driving.
Speaker 4:Maybe you can still do it Just don't close your eyes. Just keep your eyes. Don't close your eyes, which I've done before Nathan Soft gaze.
Speaker 2:I've closed my eyes while driving because the person told me to Soft gaze.
Speaker 3:Soft gaze. Would you be willing to do that?
Speaker 1:Amy be willing to do that? Amy, of course, yeah, how, uh? How much time do we have for practice here?
Speaker 2:what, what?
Speaker 3:type what time frame do you want to be? What do you think for a minute? Yes, that would be three to five, how about three?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I think something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because then after I want to talk about it, because my big question all the stuff that you're talking about, I can't imagine someone listening to it would not want all of that. But then it's like but how? Do, I do all that, now what? How do I do it? So I'd love to have you do this Three to five minutes is great. And then we can kind of unpack it. Resources yes, all that.
Speaker 1:So take it away. Sounds good, yeah, well, what I would like to share is a self-compassion break, and this incorporates those three components of self-compassion, and I'll lead it in more of a guided practice. But it's also something that can be done very quickly in the moment. So I'll just invite you to find a comfortable position. Again, there's no magical pose, there's no magical, you know, meditative stance or anything. So really setting the intention to support yourself. Well, so just adjusting your posture and whatever feels comfortable for you. If you'd like to and it's appropriate, you can close your eyes or just soften your gaze and turning inward, maybe taking a few deeper than normal breaths, just allowing yourself to get quiet, bringing some stillness to the body, which helps us to bring some stillness to the mind, and then just allowing your breath to return to a nice natural rhythm. And maybe, when we practice self-compassion, we need to call up a little bit of suffering. So for this practice, let's call up something that is maybe on a scale of one to ten, a three. We're just kind of practicing with some self-compassion, so something that is mild to moderately distressing, painful, challenging in your life right now, and just see if you can imagine what's going on, maybe who's involved, what was said, what happened or what might happen. You might even start to notice where you're holding that in your body. And then we're going to go through a series of kind of inner dialogues and phrases just to meet ourselves, not to make this situation go away, but just to meet it with some more kindness and support. So, offering yourself some phrases, quietly in your mind this is a moment of suffering. Maybe it's just as simple, as this is really hard. This is so stressful. That's the mindfulness piece, that's just really validating for yourself and acknowledging the experience you're having. And then offering a phrase of common humanity I'm not alone. Others have felt like this. This is what it feels like to suffer in this way.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, just asking yourself this quintessential self-compassion question what do I need right now? How can I be kind to myself? I need right now, how can I be kind to myself? Again, it's not about making these circumstances go away or even change. It's about how do I meet myself, because I'm feeling the way I'm feeling, and then seeing if you can offer yourself. Maybe there's some words you need to hear. Maybe this, too, shall pass. May I know my own value. May I know that I'm enough, whatever it is for your particular situation.
Speaker 1:You've called to mind what would be supportive and comforting to hear right now, and one good way as we're first learning self-compassion to tap into this is to think about what would I say to a friend who is maybe having this exact same situation. How would I show up for my friend that I care about deeply and see if you can begin to give yourself that same message? So this is a moment of suffering, this is normal, this is part of life. How can I be kind to myself and take a moment to kind of come back to the breath, maybe again, take a couple deeper than normal breath, just allow yourself to continue to just be exactly as you are, let this practice be exactly as it was when you're ready, just opening your eyes. So that was. That was the self compassion break. And, like I I said we can do this kind of in a more formal guided practice, but that could be as simple as wow, this is really hard, I'm not alone.
Speaker 4:How can I be kind of myself like, yeah, 30 seconds of reminding ourselves in the midst of our suffering, yeah, tell me more about the breath, because the the more that I've practiced mindfulness and self-compassion, the more I'm noticing how I'm breathing. When I'm breathing, I notice how this one breathes or when things are happening, but what is some of the key of the breath other than it's the life force within us?
Speaker 1:other than it's the life force within us. Yeah, you know, for this practice and for mindfulness in general, the breath is really just an anchor to the present moment, right? So anything that the body is doing is in the present moment. Our minds are time traveling. They can time travel to the past or the future, but our body's in the present moment. So anything we anchor into our senses you know how it feels to breathe in our body what we're sitting on, what we can see or hear or taste, is bringing us back into this moment, and so that's really the significance of coming back to the breath is just coming into this moment. What's the experience I'm having right now? Right, and so you don't. I mean, there's breathwork practices out there that are very powerful, but in this instance it's really not about changing your breath in any way. It's just an anchor into this moment and kind of pulls us back and gives us something to pull our mind back from.
Speaker 3:If we find our mind time traveling, there's something always about, even when I'm like feeling stressed or anxious or anything, just taking a deep breath. That immediately helps. I don't know if that's just just that momentary. Is that the parasympathetic nerve, like there's something like physiological, whatever the technical term is but it's just like for anyone who's not done that before, it's crazy how powerful that just simply just pausing to take a deep breath can. For me, it's just kind of really like okay, let's reset here.
Speaker 1:It does work on our physiology right. So the vagus nerve goes right through the diaphragm. So when you take a nice deep diaphragmatic breath it's activating this nerve, which is the sort of opposite of our fight or flight response. It's this rest and digest response. So it does kind of soothe and bring some calming to our physiology, calming to our physiology. Another aspect of just taking a breath is creating a pause, right. So it's kind of interrupting this autopilot that we're on or whatever is going on, whether it's rumination or we're triggered in some way. It's kind of creating a little circuit break where now we've got some time. So the time it takes you to take a couple of deep breaths has now just created that space to pull you out of autopilot and give you more choice into what you're about to do next. So it's kind of. I think both, both of those things you know I there's a reason why people say take a breath. You know, although it's it's a platitude now that people don't appreciate so much, you know, when they're really activated Um.
Speaker 1:so it's important. I think we know the science behind it and the physiology and we can for our own selves understand how helpful and beneficial it can be to do that. It's never fun to have someone just tell you to go take a breath.
Speaker 2:So, amy, as we're like gaining more interest in these things, are there any resources that you might recommend for people who are interested in investing in this a little bit further?
Speaker 4:Including your website and your resources, which will all be in the show notes. Okay, but you can say them here too.
Speaker 1:Yes, well, if you know, definitely, if you're interested in coaching, learning with a trained coach or teacher is really really helpful. It's not easy. It's a very simple concept but it's hard. It's hard to change our patterns, it's hard to change our thinking and it's hard to maybe navigate the things that start coming up once we sort of open up to being, to caring and loving ourselves. Right, we actually have a term for it called backdraft, which is when we're flooding ourselves, our heart, with love and it's like opening the door and the fire's inside and it comes exploding back at you, you know. So it is very helpful to have some support as you're going through this. Um, certainly, you can find all kinds of guided meditations and courses out there. So if you want to do it yourself, there's ways to do that, but it is helpful to have either a class or a teacher or a coach to do that. I'm a coach and I also teach classes. There is the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, which is the community, the nonprofit founded by Kristen Neff and Chris Germer who created the Mindful Self-Compassion course, and they're a teacher training organization as well. If you're interested in maybe get involved in teaching these things, they train teachers, so any certified teacher can be out in the world teaching these courses. So you can look up Mindful Self-Compassion it's an eight-week course and any adaptation of that.
Speaker 1:Kristen Nath, who was the creator of one of the co-creator of the Mindful Self-Compassion course, has her own community at selfcompassionorg and has written several books, so I have a couple of them here. The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook is available. This was actually originally created to be a companion book to the course, but it's also another way to kind of have a self-guided exploration to the concepts. Nice resource. She's written several books. She has Fierce Self-C-compassion how women can harness kindness to speak up and let's see I'm looking to claim their power and thrive. Great book for men as well. Everybody needs this combination of tender and fierce compassion to be with yourself and provide and support and protect yourself out in the world and our society, our world in general. Compassion Kristen's new book is just coming out, september 9th, on self-compassion for burnout.
Speaker 1:So I think, a lot of our community here that we're talking about leaders and people who have found a lot of success and are very, you know, have been driven and passionate and yet are burning out because of it. It's a great book. I just got the advanced copy of that.
Speaker 2:Fun it's awesome.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's coming out too. Find some help, find a resource, find some accountability partners and give it a try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, awesome, amy. Is there anything else? As we're winding this down, as you think back on all the things that we talked about, all the different topics, is there anything that you would want to reemphasize, or something that you'd want to say at this point that you may have been like oh, I wish I would have said that.
Speaker 1:I'm sure I'll be thinking of that for the next week.
Speaker 3:I wish I would have said that Just have self-compassion, it's okay. Lots of people forget.
Speaker 1:You know, I do think that letting yourself be a slow learner, you know, the most important thing is just setting the intention to be kinder to yourself. Whatever that looks like, it's going to look different for everyone. That looks like it's going to look different for everyone. And we don't want to judge ourselves for judging. We don't want to, you know, not have compassion for the fact that we're struggling with our compassion practice, right. So it's a big shift in how we are with ourselves. And so, taking that slow letting that look different it might look different from one person to the next and so, really, those, you know, those three components are so powerful, seeing, if you can start to become more familiar with that type of messaging, that kind of inner dialogue.
Speaker 1:One thing I'll mention is that, especially when I started, it felt very foreign and inauthentic. When I started this, some of the phrases, even that were being offered in guided meditations. I'm like I don't talk like that, this is not landing. Well, I don't. You know this. You know it was really awkward.
Speaker 1:And so, if you're having that experience, you always have the permission to change the phrasing to something that feels more personal to you, and it might still feel awkward because you're not familiar with it.
Speaker 1:You may never have had this modeled to you. You might not have ever even considered that you had the permission to speak to yourself in this way. You might be just exploring like, oh, is this going to take my edge away if I'm nice to myself, and that's okay. But give yourself the time to really become familiar with it. You know, you know it's just a lot of the initial discomfort isn't so much that it's not working or I can't do it, it's more like I just don't know this. This is so foreign to me and it takes some practice. So do it, even though you're not, you know, maybe feeling what you think you're supposed to be feeling, and give it some practice and I think you'll find that you'll just start to become more comfortable receiving these types of messages and giving yourself that same message that you would any friend that you care about and offer.
Speaker 4:Love, amy, thank you for all the ways that you would any any friends that you care about and offer Amy, thank you for all the ways that you have brought healing and stirred compassion in anyone that has crossed your path. We're just really grateful for you and grateful for you coming on and sharing your expertise with all of us.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. The Kristen Neff material and some of the other self-compassion institute and some of that stuff. So just go to our show notes or you can visit us on the web at leadershipvisionconsultingcom, where you can go to resources tab and you can find this episode in the blog post there and a bunch of other materials, and you know what? We would really love it, we would appreciate it if you would join our email newsletter, review our podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, apple podcast, wherever that is. But maybe more importantly, we would really appreciate it if you would forward this episode podcast, the blog post, whatever to someone that you feel might need a little help being kinder to themselves. And maybe that's you and maybe you could send this to someone and say, hey, I'd love to chat about this with you.
Speaker 3:It's something that I'm thinking about, something I'm learning. I don't know anybody in life who probably couldn't be kinder to themselves at certain points in time and, as I said, I have been kind of last couple years thinking about this concept of self-compassion and it's really hard, but the times that I can actually take a breath, as we mentioned here, and take a moment to do that self-compassion break. Even if it's literally a two second pause, it does make a difference. It does help and in some interview I heard with Kristen Neff, she said you know, you can't really be compassionate to someone else if you're not compassionate to yourself first. So listen to this material, internalize it and then reach out to us. We would love to know how it is impacting you, how you're wrestling with it or dealing with it or thinking about it or whatever. So my name is Nathan Freeberg, on behalf of our entire team. Thanks for listening.