Shake It Off Podcast – Episode 3

KENDRA: Welcome to shake it off a podcast that gives you the tools, strategies, and stories to optimize and prioritize your physical and mental health.

LAUREN: Welcome back to shake it off Podcast. Today Kendra and I are speaking to Dr. Stan Steindl about overcoming shame and self-criticism when our inner bully takes over. Dr. Steindl is a practicing clinical psychologist and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Queensland, and Brisbane, Australia, which is where I completed my doctorate. In fact, Professor Matt Sanders, founder, and developer of Triple P Positive Parenting Program was Stan’s first clinical supervisor, if I have that right. 

DR.STAN STEINDL: That’s right, yeah.

LAUREN: Back in the 90s, and my primary Ph.D. advisor from 2012 to 2016 at the University of Queensland. So we have that kind of joint connection. And Stan has over 20 years of experience as a therapist, trainer, and researcher, and works with clients from a motivational interviewing and Compassion Focused Therapy perspective in areas of trauma, addiction, and other clinical, generally clinical areas. And he presents on these topics around the world. So we’re really excited to have him here today. He is the co-director of the UQ Compassion Mind Research Group, along with Dr. James Kirby, and this is actually another connection that we share. James and his wife, Dr. Cassie Telogen, are peers and friends of mine, and we did behavioral research and our doctoral degrees alongside each other at UQ, in the same lab. So we want to dive into some questions about your research and all of the extensive work that you’ve done with Compassion Focused Therapy and shame. But first, we have a question to help our audience get to know you. So I understand that you have really long work days and weeks where you can be conducting training, and running your clinical practice and podcasting and research. And my question is, what practices and tools do you use to boost your energy so that you can show up and be present? And energized for long hours and for those long days that you work?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, yes. Well, well, thank you very much for having the opportunity to talk with you. And it is fun to think of those little touch points because I don’t know that you and I have literally met back then.

LAUREN: Yeah, this is the first time we are meeting.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Which is funny, isn’t it? We sort of must have been ships in the night because some, yes, Matt Sanders absolutely is an early mentor of mine, and something about hero really, in terms of the contribution that he’s made to the world and to mental health and, you know, sort of Child Mental Health. And of course, James Kirby is a very dear friend and colleague and Cassie, as well, and, and I was just suddenly thinking that he’s he’ll have his book out very soon, or at least in the next little while, so you must have him on that as well.

LAUREN: Oh, okay. Well, that’s a great idea. Yes.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Choose compassion, I think is the title of his forthcoming book.

LAUREN: I’m gonna look out for that.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah. But yeah, that’s a fascinating place to start, you know, what is it that kind of energizes a person to sort of get up and do the work I do sort of a lot of training. And oddly, in these last couple of years, a lot of it has gone online. So you know, for example, just this week, I was doing a two-day online course. It was actually on motivational interviewing. And, you know, when you’re presenting online, on Zoom, or something like this, you actually have to kind of up the charisma, sort of, like 200% to, to actually make it, you know, engaging and sign up because the poor people on the other end, are also, you know, kind of having to sit there and sort of, obviously, we try to make it interesting and, and so on. But I think the answer is in the question. The thing for me that I think keeps me energized is, is the diversity of all of that, you know, being able to do different things and I know different people are different on this, but for me, absolutely. I think that’s, that’s kind of the key is I really, it nourishes me in a sense to have variety and to do different things and to be able to do a workshop on motivational interviewing be Monday, Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, I have a full list of clients where I get to work with people individually. And it’s a sort of a shift in, in sort of different parts of myself, I guess can be brought to that. And then on the Thursday, you know, I might supervise, I’ve got an honors student at the moment who were working on sort of exploring self-compassion amongst people with autistic traits, and sort of really, you know, that’s a whole nother area that that kind of, so I think this is probably what it is, is, is just sort of having diversity, different experiences connecting with people. You know, that’s exciting as well, you know, and then, you know, today, the week kind of culminates with getting the talk to you.

LAUREN: That is a variety of things.

KENDRA: That is the good thing about the world. Obviously, being more online, as you do, you can reach across the globe and speak to people like we are now which is great. So it offers that diversity, not only the people but obviously the places that you can reach out to as well, in terms of you know, who you’re connecting with.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, totally has opened things up hasn’t that I mean, I think I think I was already a bit familiar with online stuff. And I used to do some supervision, for example, of people in at Open Arms, which is an organization here in Australia that works with veterans. And so I used to do that kind of on Zoom. But it’s just exploded in terms of the opportunity to connect.

KENDRA: That’s right.

LAUREN: Yeah.

KENDRA: So Stan, I have a question on your blog, and on, you know, on your Instagram and your website, you talk about shame. And I’m wondering, are embarrassment and shame the same thing?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Well, actually, it’s usually because there’s probably a range of self-conscious emotions, I guess, we might think of the different sorts of emotions that really relate to how our concerns or thoughts or feelings around how we might be being held in the minds of others. And so that, and so I guess, well, shame, but embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, self-consciousness, all of these self-conscious emotions, I suppose. And one of the common ones that people compare is, is guilt and shame. You know, sometimes that’s even said a little bit in the same breath, you know, people will talk about guilt and shame, you know, sort of together, but actually, they’re quite different as well. And one of the ways that it’s been described, I think, originally, it was a fellow called Michael Lewis, he wrote a book called The exposed self. But Brene Brown has also popularized the idea that guilt is I’ve done something bad, and shame is I am bad. And I think if we want to, it’s a similar distinction in a way between, perhaps shame and embarrassment, where shame might be I am bad. Embarrassment is more, not so much I’ve done something bad that, you know, I’ve done something silly or foolish, or some sort of faux pas or, or, or, you know, that, and it’s very embarrassment is very common, you know, we might sort of little things that we might do I remember a little while ago, I was riding my bike. And I was going down this hill and around a corner and there was gravel on the road. And I went, and actually, like I had quite Yeah, I had quite nasty kind of gravel rash up in the leg and elbow and stuff. But the first thing I did was I jumped up and looked around, you know, did anyone see? And that’s, that’s the embarrassment piece of it, I think. So, shame really is a much more kind of global sense of self as being inadequate or inferior or unworthy, no good. This sort of sense of the whole self. Whereas embarrassment is a more fleeting emotion, depending on things that have happened, that perhaps seems silly or foolish, and so on.

KENDRA: It’s interesting, I am very interested in the body, and what I notice is when people do experience shame, or even myself, if I experience shame, I notice how the body kind of closes in when you feel that and when you’re going through that an experience and you know, your shoulders will start to slump and you just, it’s almost like you you try to hide I read your body. And so if I find that really fascinating.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes, the shame is, is absolutely associated with certain body postures and sort of the Slumped Shoulders, the bowed head that even the hand that the face in the hands, really trying to hide or just disappear is the urge there and we do these sometimes in Compassion Focus Therapy, we’ll do what we sort of called Spider diagrams, where we sort of try to disentangle all the different components of, you know, for example, shame, where there’s, there’s certain bodily sensations and body postures, there’s certain thoughts that go along with that certain feelings. Shame can be textured with lots of different feelings, you know, from anxiety to anger, to sadness, and so on. And then, you know, the attention, whereas the focus is tension go, we’re often very keyed in to what other people might be thinking, there’s certain behavioral urges, urges to hide and so on. And so yes.

LAUREN: Withdrawl maybe and isolate, that sort of thing.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Absolutely, yeah, with withdraw or isolate, or, or hideaway. And so we tried to sort of disentangling all of those little bits that Paul Gilbert, who’s the founder of compassion, focus therapy, he talks about turning the smoothie, into a fruit salad, trying to disentangle these, these different components of, for example, shame, bringing awareness and understanding to what it is to experience that, that emotion.

LAUREN: So it sounds like it’s like our internal mind bully that’s, like self, like criticizing and shame, making us feel like, we like maybe putting us down and, like you said, saying that we’re not good enough. And that sort of thing. I’m curious, where the shame comes from, like, Is it always a childhood trauma? I guess, I, being a behavioral researcher will relate things oftentimes back to childhood, is that always the case where That’s where it starts?

STAN STEINDL: Well, I think in CFT, you know, we sort of go back further actually, you know, to, it’s a very evolutionary-based approach. And so, you know, the evolved function of shame, is actually quite interesting to consider, you know, that the idea really is that, you know, humans are a very hyper-social species, you know, we really grew up together, we sort of relying on each other, we feel safe together, and, you know, in connection and closeness, and so on. And so what other people are thinking or feeling about us, you know, are they approving of us? Or aren’t they, that was key, in an evolutionary sense, you know, if they didn’t approve of us, and we were rejected or cast out of the group, then we were dead, you know, it’s sort of no small thing really, to be, you know, kind of disapproved of, and rejected. And so, shame, in a way evolved as a kind of a protective mechanism, really, you know, this hyper-awareness then of, of, you know, how I’m being held in the minds of others. And so, you know, rather than sort of, if people are sort of judging us, we sort of, you know, kind of maybe stormed off and leave the group and that wasn’t going to work. So instead, we slumped, the shoulders bowed the head gave these little behavioral indicators of, of, you know, sort of regret and shame and so on. And then people were like, oh, okay, you can stay. So we’re still safe in the group. But the tricky thing, of course, and all sorts of evolved aspects of human beings is like this, you know, there are trade-offs. And so, on the one hand, shame was very, very important in this whole social safeness, but on the other hand, that leaves us with this very painful sense of social threat. And you know, cuz that that activates the threat system, which then has all of these kinds of other types of very unpleasant, uncomfortable aspects to it. So it’s the first fit is it’s kind of built-in, you know, we’re sort of born with brains designed to include shame as a part of the experience. But then as you said, yes, absolutely, you know, where we’re then shaped by what happens to us, you know, and so we’re born perhaps into a family or a community or a culture, or maybe we have some other form of being cared for or, and so on, things just start to happen. And, you know, sometimes shame becomes a part of that we have certain shame experiences, and they get bedded down really, in terms of shame memories that can then last and start to, I mean, it’s interesting with shame memories. And, you know, you might notice this, too, I certainly do, you know, you think back up to a shame experience when you were young. And even now, I mean, I’m 50. And even now I can think back to certain childhood or sort of adolescent experiences of shame. You sort of feel it again. Yeah. And, and so it has these traumatic qualities that they really lost, you know, and also become a bit central to how we see ourselves. And so that’s where it I think that now as we go on through life, we have these, these certain experiences as young people that get laid down as memories. And then we start to, you know, have that sensitivity around kind of shame and judgment and, and that inner, inner sort of voice, that critical voice that you’re talking about.

LAUREN: Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like if I’m understanding this correctly, so there’s this social safeness, or social threat that we then start to form or like, move towards, over time, depending on our experiences, as we’re younger and going through, like our teenage years, and that sort of thing. And that’s kind of what forms how, like, we respond to those memories, those experiences, and those memories of shame is what forms how we react maybe as an adult, right.

DR. STAN STEINDL: That’s right I remember, as a teenager doing a performance on guitar, and my girlfriend at the time was singing, and I was playing and I, I completely lost my place. I was kind of like, in front of like, 150 people or something. I’m sort of dramatizing this a little bit, but it was bad. It was bad. I felt stupid. And my girlfriend looked at me, and she sort of had this quizzical look, and I was lost. And, and, you know, that I really haven’t performed since, you know, like, it sort of creates this sense in me that I’m just, I’m no good at that. I’m no good at music. I mean I still love it. I still got my guitars, nicely placed in the background. But I don’t tend to do that. And that’s just a sort of a silly or minor example. But yeah, exactly. We’ll have these experiences, and then they Primus and especially from the point of view of our relational experiences. And if we have these, these relational experiences, traumatic experiences of shame, then that influences how we relate to others, you know, throughout our lives potentially.

LAUREN: Oh wow, I can really relate to that even from an experience in my later 20s, where I submitted a report. And I’m like, deeply at this point in my life, especially it was like, deeply attached to my work and like my output. So having feedback was important to me. I wanted the feedback, but I got this report ripped apart. And it was not good for us for the place I was working. It wasn’t good for our client. And there were so many parts of that, that afterward, it was hard for me to write reports, I felt like oh, God, I can’t do this. I’m gonna screw it up. And I’ve even now to this day had to like, do some kind of strategies around reworking my thoughts on how I am who I am as a writer because of that, which is all from just this one report and this one piece of feedback or its feedback or, you know, this issue that happened, yeah, experiences that happened around it. I can definitely relate to that.

DR. STAN STEINDL: It was sort of a shameful experience. And the way you phrased it was, you know, who I am as a writer. And that’s at the heart of it. I think it’s a nice way of saying it actually the shame and shame experiences really start to form our sense of who I am.

KENDRA: That’s so fascinating because I can imagine it especially, you know, mentioning going back into childhood, you know, for example, if you’re seven years old, and you come to school and you’re wearing something that’s different than what the other kids are wearing, and the other kids give you just, you know, they’re on to about it saying this doesn’t, we don’t like it, and then all of a sudden, that probably shapes what that kid is going to wear moving forward. And I know that’s such a minuscule example. But using that in the sense of, you know, perhaps that was a form of their expression, and then all of a sudden they are feeling shame towards it.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes, it sort of influences what they were going forward. But it also influences whether they ever feel any good, whatever, they kind of create that. That really pervasive thing. I don’t know, this is a bit of a silly thought, but it just popped to mind. I mean, have you watched Stranger Things? The latest series of that?

KENDRA: I have not, but I’ve heard good things about it.

LAUREN: I haven’t watched it, I need to watch it.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Sort of its date back to my, to my childhood, you know, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. With the rumpus room type stuff. Anyway, there’s, there’s some in the early episodes, yeah, there’s some really really, sort of awful to watch examples of that, where the level and is experiencing that kind of shaming by the people around her in the school and to do with her appearance or her behaviors. And it kind of depicts exactly, you know, what you’re saying? And is that funny, but appearance is a big one, with shame, you know, being shamed for how we look. And of course, you know, we, we have no choice in the matter, really.

KENDRA: And it’s fascinating how that just varies from culture to culture. I mean, even between Australia and the United States, I notice the subtle differences of, you know, who’s wearing what. And it’s just fascinating how, at the end of the day, it’s just such a common, I mean, this is a necessity to have warm clothes and good hygiene, and but we it becomes such a bigger thing than that, doesn’t it? Yes.

LAUREN: Now that we have kind of an understanding of shame, and where that comes from, I want to highlight some of your research on Compassion Focus Therapy, because I’m curious about, you know, strategies for overcoming these different self-criticizing thoughts and self-talk and that sort of thing. So, you and your colleagues have completed an extensive amount of research on shame. The results from your trials demonstrate Compassion Focus Therapy, can reduce shame, self-criticism, worry, and rumination, and that in certain settings, it improves depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health conditions. And that I noticed, which I thought was really fascinating. Because I love to understand the implementation of these different modalities, in group settings, it was the most was most helpful for reducing, if I correct if I’m wrong, wrong. And reducing body weight, and shame. And also, your most recent research was done with Dr. Lisa McLean, yourself, and Dr. Matthew Bane, battling with female survivors of child sexual abuse. And that group setting showed that it reduced symptoms of PTSD and other things depression, anxiety, stress, and that self-criticizing and shame kind of inadequacy, feeling.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes.

LAUREN: And it was always in the group. Those were the group settings that it seems, could be a part of that change mechanism, maybe, but also the competencies that you’re teaching around self-compassion and compassion for others receiving it and getting it right. 

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s right. There it is. There’s been a lot of sort of good process work and CFT or research, really understanding the relationships between different variables and, and you sort of mentioned what we sometimes think of as the unholy trinity, which would be self-criticism, worry, and rumination you know, those three particularly painful and difficult aspects of, of cognitive style and, yeah, related to things like depression and anxiety and other things. And just the process around the way that for example, compassion or self-compassion, can moderate those sorts of relationships and so, more recently, we have got a lot of different places, but ourselves as well at UQ have started To try to run trials around that and to sort of see, can we use Compassion Focus Therapy? Can we cultivate compassion across the three flows in a way that can be helpful in different sorts of presenting problems? You mentioned that three flows, and it’s worth sort of stopping there actually, because, yeah, compassion for others, receiving compassion from others. And self-compassion, you know, that’s what we’re really trying to cultivate in compassion, focus therapy, and oddly enough, you know, compassion for others, has a two fold benefit, you know, if when we’re compassionate towards others, that’s obviously, you know, helpful for the other person, hopefully, but also it can be of benefit to ourselves as well. And that’s cool, that’s good. That’s okay. It doesn’t have to be selfless or necessarily, but compassion for others has a twofold benefit, receiving compassion from others. Now, this is the one that’s sometimes trickiest actually, you know, and for, for therapists, like, like us, you know, that we often balk at that too, you know, being open to receiving compassion, but that seems to be a very important flow, for helping with depression and anxiety, and so on. And then, of course, self-compassion and being able to kind of treat ourselves with wisdom and, and care and kindness, and, and so on. But the three main studies that I’ve been involved with two have been published. And the other third is not quite out there yet, but one was with Alicia Carter and James Comey and others, looking at body weight, and shame. And so that was a group program using CFT to help people cultivate compassion across the three flows to then work with, with their, their feelings of shame. With Lisa McLean, that was her Ph.D., actually, and she did an amazing job with this, but But working with adult female survivors of childhood sexual abuse, the amazing thing there was the CFT intervention helped with reducing shame, which is sort of is designed to do like that’s really a key target in CFT. But as you said, it also helped in reducing PTSD symptoms, which was very interesting, because maybe for some people CFT might be an update, we might not have to go into that hole, a rather difficult and challenging exposure-based sort of approach to, to PTSD. And then the third one was actually with veterans and their spouses, helping with shame and PTSD, for military veterans, who, of course, you know, that was kind of cool, because when they first hear self-compassion, they’re like, ah, you know, I don’t want any of that self-pitying or whatever, you know, like, but actually, as we talked about, and explored that they really came on board with the idea of compassion and self-compassion, and also with their partners, and, and so on. And so, you know, that led to some very useful improvements as well. So safety can be done individually, of course, but yes, we’ve been running these group programs as well.

LAUREN: Great. So I know our listeners would be curious as to how kind of compassion focus therapy works, maybe some, like small steps that they can take if they’re experiencing a lot of shame and self-criticism I can think of, for example.

KENDRA: Yeah, so for me, so I teach at a Pilates studio. And I’ve noticed, it’s interesting how clients speak about their bodies, and how that can have an impact on their overall movement, and their motivation. So if they happen to be very self-critical and speak negatively about themselves, it really has a negative impact overall on their movements.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, that’s fascinating. I’ve actually just started doing regular pilates.

LAUREN: There you go, how is that? Is it going well?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Oh, yes. I love it. It’s, and not least because yes, I think this is really relevant to what we’re talking about, you know because just the recognition that shame is a kind of it’s in the threat system. It’s to do with threat system activation, especially around social threats. And so, the threat system is a lot about sympathetic nervous system activation. It’s where we’re up-regulating the body. Exactly. So There’s a lot of body elements too, you know, kind of how we experience something like shame. And so yes, in CFT, really the first step, you know, and I sort of like to say it, as, you know, always bring it back to the body, you know, that’s, that’s kind of the first step really and CFT is to, is to sort of try and activate a parasympathetic nervous system strengthen vagal tone. Yeah, and, you know, using certain body-based practices to do so I think there’s a real synergy between something like CFT and practices like Pilates or yoga or other sorts of approaches to sort of bodywork. But, you know, in CFT, certainly, where we often begin with soothing rhythm breathing, just certain practices to use the breath will actually often help people to sort of shift their posture as well. And their facial expression, create a sort of an upright but relaxed posture of a warm, friendly facial expression. Yes, sometimes people giggle.

LAUREN: I was looking at my face thinking, is this woman-friendly? Oftentimes, like, Jose and I have, like resting bitch face a lot, and I’m staring off.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Exactly, though, I, I have that sort of resting face as well. People often say to me, are you okay? And I’m like, yeah, I’m great. Yeah, so it’s sort of, in a way, it’s funny, but in a way, it’s quite powerful. And, you know, there’s been through your work that, you know, to shift the body to shift the facial expression, and then to change even the inner voice tones. And that’s, you know, self-criticism is interesting because sometimes we can say the words that are kind of maybe even technically encouraging, but the voice tone is what makes this so painful. We try to shift the voice tone a little bit, and we sort of really practice that. And then we bring in the soothing rhythm breathing, you know, trying to slow down the breath, especially the out-breath, using the out-breath to slow down the heart rate, let go of tension is is the body, activate the parasympathetic nervous system, and so on. So, but that would be the kind of like, a bit of a first step. And it’s not learning these strategies to be like Valium or something, you know, sometimes people hope that you know, they’ll, they’ll learn the soothing rhythm breathing, and then if they get anxious one day, they’ll try soothing rhythm breathing. But actually, what we really try to encourage is, is the practice of it, and using this on a sort of a bit of a regular basis, you know, just because what we’re actually doing is trying to strengthen the vagal tone, and you know, it’s more akin to sort of, you know, getting in doing some exercise, getting in the gym or whatever, in preparation for your big hike up the mountain, rather than something like, you know, a kind of medication to take away the feeling at the moment. So, but yeah, that wouldn’t be the first step. Any thoughts there?

LAUREN: Well, I don’t know. I was just making a note about that. So it’s strengthening the vagal tone, which sounds like that’s really like getting your body on your nervous system kind of centered and settled. And you’re doing that through the breathwork and that sort of thing. And then after that, is that when the like, the thoughts around being more self-compassionate to yourself come up?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Well, the next step really is to cultivate a certain feeling of safeness. And so often we’ll move then into imagery work, actually, so we might do certain Safe Place imagery, for example, or calm place imagery, we might invite people to imagine a place where they feel safe or calm, or peaceful or comfortable, and really using because the imagery is an interesting one. You know, I’ve actually, I’ve got a trip planned to a conference later in the year, which is exciting. Coming over to America.

LAUREN: Where are you going?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Chicago. I have been to Chicago and this is actually a motivational interviewing conference but this is like October and already I lie down in bed at night and boom, I’m thinking of planes and you know, engines bursting into flame and wings falling off and what it would be like to plummet to the because I have a fear a bit of a fear of flying.

LAUREN: Sounds like you have a fear of flying.

DR. STAN STEINDL: So all of that imagery does activate the threat system, you know, the mind is a powerful thing and but the reverse is also true. Like if we can create imagery of safeness and calmness and so on, that can translate into, you know, sort of activating perhaps the soothing system of the brain, where we can start to feel that sense of warmth and safeness as well. So, the imagery would be kind of the next bit.

KENDRA: Can I interject here? Because I find that really fascinating. In pilates, what we do when we learn through the program as teachers, is to use imagery cues, you know, the indirect and direct imagery cues and to create. It helps to actually create the sense of, I suppose, what you want the body to do, and how you want it to react. So some people might react to, you know, imagery cues about food, or, you know, melted chocolate, and it’s fascinating to me how people can react to that if I’m explaining a particular movement, or if I’m wanting to encourage a particular movement in their body if I use these imagery cues, and again, this is something that we learn as student teachers coming through is the positive impact that can have on movement.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, that’s really a fascinating kind of example of the back and forth between sort of imagery in the body. Yeah. And you’re right, if we, if we think of a lemon, I mean, it just happened to me, I just thought of a lemon. And then you kind of, you know, you sort of have to swallow or whatever is a very powerful kind of connection there. And we can like you’re using it in a very constructive way. And we do a similar thing in CFT, I think, which is to use the power of imagery to help create certain feelings of safeness.

KENDRA: Interesting.

LAUREN: Yeah, that definitely makes sense.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Again, using imagery, but also the body-based practices as well to start to cultivate a sense of both compassionate other and imagined ideal compassionate other who might have certain words of wisdom or, or compassion that they might offer. And then we start to cultivate a sense of compassion itself, which is how it might be for us to shift into that body and brain pattern, of compassion. And as we, as we go from there, then we might bring our compassionate self, to those more difficult aspects of the self like self-criticism and shame.

LAUREN: So I just think about this, like right now and our day-to-day lives, we know so many people who are kind of going through this experience of either they own a small business, and you know, they’re experiencing a little bit of a low or they’re doing the job searching thing because a lot of people are in that process of job searching. And when something doesn’t land, so maybe they don’t hear back from someone that they applied for a job with, or they hear back and they don’t get the job. And I mean, this is happening, you know, regularly, if somebody’s applying for jobs, they’re probably applying for 10 or 15 jobs. And when that happens, I just think about this, the shame and the self-criticism that comes up. And that makes that process of job searching or for like small business owners or for women in business, when you’re like not landing projects or clients are a bit a little bit difficult to work with. Then if you get those thoughts around, I’m failing, I can’t do this. Everything’s so hard. Like maybe I should just give this point. There are all kinds of there’s shame and kind of self-criticism, thoughts that come up. And it’s easy, I think, at that time for people to slip into old coping mechanisms and know you do some work on addiction. I imagine that that’s when those coping mechanisms that aren’t useful, kind of come into play, because that’s kind of a self-soothing agent that’s been learned across time. So I’m just interested in like, when you get to that phase, what are some questions? Are there small activities or quick questions you can ask yourself, or do or imagine maybe there’s some imagery work? I didn’t realize imagery was such a big part of this, which I love, visualization and imagery, so I didn’t know if there’s something that you would recommend for somebody in a, in a bind, they’re like in that situation, they’re trying to look for a quick strategy.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah I know, it’s tough times, isn’t it really, and you can sort of sense the threat system activation in amongst all of that, you know that there’s just this heightened sense of threat at the moment, whether it be kind of globally. And all sorts of kind of crazy stuff seems to have happened lately. But also just Yeah, locally, or personally, you know, the sort of the threat system activation. And this is where we start to think about the critical self. So, in CFT, were very, what once we have a sense of, of compassion, and what it is, and the body-based practices and the imagery practices, and we even start to embody a little bit, our compassionate self, then we start to think, Okay, what, let’s explore this critical self, there’s this sort of another part of ourselves that, as you say, is, you know, can really talk in rather harsh and mean, actually, vicious, viciously, sometimes interesting, because sometimes, you might ask, I might ask a person I’m working with, you know, what, what is the critical self sound like, and often they’ll feel reluctant to even say, you know because the critical self can be so vicious, you know, in terms of, and so I suppose we, the first thing that I think is really interesting too, to sort of contemplate for people is, you know, there are different forms of self-criticism. First of all, you know, the, there’s the self-improving kind of constructive self-criticism, so that that does exist, you know, that that kind of aspect of the self where we’re able to reflect on things and, you know, work out what went well, but maybe what didn’t go so well, and how to improve on that, you know, the professional golfer, you know, she doesn’t just think about all the great shots she did that day, but rather, she stopped some things on my short game or something. I’m actually not a golfer. But anyway, my short game.

KENDRA: My husband is, and I know he’ll be able to relate to this.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, exactly. You know, so so, you know, the idea is, you might go and go into the Practice sand trappy thing, and, you know, hit 1000 shots, you know, to practice that, that bit of the game. So that’s cool. We want that we want to be able to do a job interview and reflect. Okay, that’s interesting. I didn’t answer that question. So well, I might just sort of prepare that one a little bit differently. But then another form of self-criticism is kind of what you’ve been referring to this, this much more self-attacking, self-hating, shame-based self-criticism. And, you know, that’s a different thing that’s all about, you know, kind of this much more global negative self-statements, and so, disentangling the different forms, and then stopping and thinking, what do I sort of believe to be the function of my self-criticism? Because a lot of people will feel that, oh, well, you know, my self-criticism is there to motivate me, or it keeps me on track, or it stops me from getting lazy, or, or helps me to achieve, you know, my standards and so on. And sometimes, you know, people have said to me, Well, you know, well, if I, if I criticize myself first, then that protects me from the criticism of others or something like that, you know, so we can, we can sometimes do a sort of a deeper dive into what I really believe the functions of self-criticism to be? And is that actually how it works? You know, is that the function that is performed? You know, like, what is the critical self really say, how does it say it, you know, like, what’s the tone there? The inner voice tone that we were talking about before, you know, how does this critical self really feel about me? Or, or, you know, what does it really want to do to me? And so sometimes when you disentangle all that, and we have certain set pieces, I guess, in CFT, little exercises are things that we might use to really explore the functions of self-criticism. And when we, when we really look at it often, you know, the critical self has the opposite effect. You know, it’s demotivating. It makes us feel small, it makes us feel hopeless. We want to understand what the person believes the function is, and then we want to understand what the function really is right? But then we also want to Understand, what actually is the motive of the critical self, because often, the motive of the critical self is to be helpful. It’s just that it does it in this very misguided, and perhaps, you know, ineffective way. And so ultimately, the idea is to bring compassion to the critical self, not so much to try to get rid of the critical self or push it away or, and that is to sort of referred to it earlier today as kind of the, you know, bully or something like that. And sometimes we actually like to really soften the way we approach our critical self, you know, that we don’t necessarily want to put it down because that would be the critical self-being critical of the critical self.

LAUREN: Yeah, that makes sense. So you want to speak to it, like a friend, or?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, well, like a, like a sort of a, you know, a part of ourselves that, you know, probably has an evolved motive, that at the heart of it wants to be helpful, but is just being a bit led astray. By threat system, you know, it, you know, you know, when we’re in threat system, activation, and I remember one time I got home one night, there was, not Bruno who’s outside the window, but a previous dog. And I think he must have been barking possums or something like that. And anyway, he was, he was like, he was literally caught in a tree, where, you know, kind of caught in the bow a tree, and he was kind of exhausted. And he’d obviously been there for a while it was terrible. And my threat system just went, bang, you know, like I was activated, that running around and kind of chaos, and I went and got a sore. And I started cutting the tree, trying to cut the tree. And my, my neighbor wandered over and he was like, way, way, way, way. And he just lifted his feet out of the tree and put him on the ground. And it was this, it was this amazing kind of lesson that when we’re in our threat system, you know, it’s very difficult to think straight. And that’s where the critical self is, you know, the critical self is threat system activated and, and wants to be helpful, but isn’t thinking straight about how you know, they, they might do it. And a clinical psychologist in the UK called Debra Lee has a lovely saying, which is something like a calm mind thinks differently. And that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to bring compassion to the critical self, so that we can create a sense of calm, a sense of sacredness, but still with an eye on self improvement, you know, the Compassionate self, doesn’t say, oh, no, forget about those job interviews, just go and curl up under a blankie and watch Netflix and eat ice cream, you know that? That’s not what the compassionate self says. I mean, maybe it’s good to that sometimes to the compassion itself will say, Okay, let’s just sort of let soften things that suit the body. Let’s create a sense of calm now what can we learn from this experience? What could we do best that will be helpful, you know, what might we focus on? To see if we can improve a little bit so that next time, you know, we’ll feel like we’re sort of doing just that little bit better? So the compassion itself still has aspirations still wants us to do well but comes across with calmness, safeness, encouragement, helpfulness, and work.

LAUREN: Sounds like the compassionate self is also letting your body know that it’s okay to like to relax, to take a moment to take time, however much time is needed to kind of come back from whatever that experience is to get calm. And then to kind of approach that the questioning the internal dialogue and the function of that key. Like, what is that self-criticism trying to tell you and what can you learn from it? I think that makes sense to me. And I wonder too, like, what a question that you can ask yourself be if I was not once you get calm so I think that’s like you said like the key is getting to that calm state and then maybe asking yourself, like, if I wasn’t this emotional about this and distressed or needing to find a job right now, how would I look at this situation? And I think that’s one way you can come at it to also potentially get the learning and to say I would look at It’s as this is my like, only my fifth interview, I’m still applying for 10 other jobs, and maybe this isn’t there, the right place for me right now. But there are other places that I can apply or not, this is just one hiccup in this contract, and we all make mistakes. So this is a great learning opportunity kind of thing, right?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, no, it’s, it’s absolutely all of that. I mean, we sort of, this is why, you know, that’s why I say always bring it back to the body, because that’s where we start, you know, to try to create that sense of calm, and then we use imagery to, to really try to connect with our compassionate self. But then the next piece is the embodiment, you know, how can we embody the compassionate self? And actually, you know, it’s almost like, yeah, so okay, given all of this, and from the perspective of my Compassionate self, how can I think about this differently? You know, what can I take away from this? Where might the learning be? What can I do next? What is it that I really need right now? What is it that would be most helpful for me? Because a compassionate voice is a helpful voice? It’s about trying to find what might be helpful, a really nice phrase for compassion really, is, may I be helpful, rather than harmful to myself and others? You know, that’s, that’s the nub of it really? And so yes, exactly. Like you’re saying, with compassion, we embody the compassion itself. And then we approach this life difficulty that we’re facing, with, from the point of view of, you know, trying to be helpful.

LAUREN: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, calm, the imagery and the embodiment. And that’s kind of the three phases of that I definitely think that that’s something that we should put in the show notes as something for our listeners to kind of be able to remember and reflect back on. We’re getting to the end of the podcast. And we have a question that we like to ask our guests right at the end of the episode. But before we do that, do you have any questions that you wanted to ask us?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes. Well, I guess I mean, what are your thoughts in your own work, in terms of how people might respond to the idea of compassionate self or self-compassion? Because this is also interesting in terms of, you know, the different reactions people have to those, those words, even or those concepts? Do you have any hunch there about how people might react to that?

LAUREN: To the phrasing of compassionate self or self-compassion? I wonder, I mean, this is just me throwing out like ideas. I mean, I wonder if people don’t understand what that means completely. Without an example, they might just, I don’t know if they would have any, like, resistance to compassion. But actually, I did see a research article of yours recently. So you would probably have a better idea of this. I guess. It’s something I hadn’t thought of as being an issue. Because when I think of compassion, I think, you know, kindness, we’re gonna be kind to ourselves or others on so can you tell me what you found?

KENDRA: Now, I’m really intrigued to know.

DR.STAN STEINDL: You saw behind my dastardly question. I think it’s, I don’t think it’s useful just for people to know and be reassured that sometimes there can be little blocks that arise, you know, little, little fears or blocks or resistances that can arise to compassion, and that’s okay. You know, sometimes people might worry that if I’m compassionate towards others, then you know, others will take advantage of me or they might worry if I open myself up to receiving compassion from others, that others will judge me or see me as weak. Or they might worry that you know, like, if I’m being self-compassionate, doesn’t that mean that I’m just being self-indulgent, all that sort of thing. So I just thought it would be nice to sort of give a little nod to the fact that this is part of it, too. You know, that at first glance, we all sort of think oh, yeah, compassion sounds like a lovely idea. But as soon as you start to really get into it, there can be these little fears, blocks, and resistances. And, and so yeah, I just was curious, I guess, you know, the person who’s really kind of looking for a new job and trying to do well and succeed and so on. They might balk at the idea of self-compassion, worrying, that you know, it’s gonna put me off my game or something like that. And so yeah, what do you think?

KENDRA:  I just think automatically, I mean, a lot of the clients that come in quite a few of them have higher roles within organizations. And so I would be interested to ask that question for them in particular because I feel as if they would have more resistance. And I’m saying this generally, but more resistance, just given their roles within organizations or businesses that may be at the executive level.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes, exactly. And at certain levels of the organization, or even for lots of us, there can be other aspects of motivation, like the competitive motivation, or that feeling that need to compete or that sense that, you know, kind of, I’m working with a lawyer at the moment, who has the sort of, he feels most threat from the people, you know, in the office next door, and his, you know, the clients are one thing and the opposing lawyers are another thing, but it’s actually the lawyer next door because they’re vying for positions, you know.

LAUREN: To trust, it’s almost like when trust is eroding or eroded, then it’s maybe more difficult for somebody to get into that sense of compassion for another person because they’re worried about they’re protecting as he said, there may be a threat to that system.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yeah, that’s it. And so. So yeah, it is a nice question to just ask, because if you’re sort of starting to think about compassion, or self-compassion, talking to your clients, or sort of considering it yourselves, you know, it’s just nice to think what might be some of the blocks there for me, and how might I kind of address a little bit of that too, and to work towards my compassionate self?

LAUREN: Yeah. Okay. I really liked that suggestion. Well, let you know what we find. Okay, so are you ready for our question? What are three things that are bringing you joy right now, in your present life?

DR. STAN STEINDL: This one I did slightly think about actually, and I think we alerted to the first one a little while ago like I’m gonna, I’ll be leaving this conversation, you know, bouncy, joyful, and I really feel a great privilege to meet you both. And so you know, connecting with others I think is one of the things that brings me joy. It’s been such a hard couple of years because one of the things that’s taken a massive hit during the pandemic is that social connection and social safeness, you know, all of a sudden, with the pandemic, others have become the threat. You know, you walk down the road, and you kind of just feel like you just want to not get within sneezing distance, you know, or whatever it might be. And so, to connection, connecting with others, I think is the first thing. The second thing is a bit weird, but one of the things that’s bringing me joy right at the moment is staying healthy. I’ve been managing to do squats and push-ups twice a day. I’ve started Pilates. I’m drinking water at a sort of positive level. I’m doing daily meditation. I have started this meditation daily on Insight Timer, which is Jack Kornfield. And Tara Brach. And so I do that kind of every evening. I’ve been taking the dog for a walk on a consistent basis. And I’m reading a book. I don’t always achieve all of that, I must admit, but right at the moment.

LAUREN: You’re doing a lot then that brings you joy.

DR. STAN STEINDL: And so then, of course, the last thing is yeah, just thinking, talking, researching teaching compassion. Yeah, that brings me joy as well.

KENDRA: Looking after your mind and your body, I like it.

LAUREN: And your spirit with meditation.

KENDRA: That’s right. That’s right. So, Stan, I noticed you have a compassionate mind training course starting in July. Can you tell us more about the course and where our audience can find more information if they have any questions on compassion focus, excuse me, Compassion Focused training or research?

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes, so actually, thanks. That’s a good point that we have a compassionate mind training course coming up. It’s an eight-week course, two and a half hours a week, and presented online. It’s actually at 6 pm Australian time on a Thursday so that is a little bit awkward for people in America just from a timezone point of view. We have had people come, but they’re getting out but sort of very, very early in the morning to do so.

KENDRA: Lovely time differences.

DR. STAN STEINDL: Yes, I’m actually thinking about doing a sort of a different time of the day to potentially sort of getting to work with some American-type, continent people. And so if anyone is interested though, they could emails CMT, at psychology consultants.com.au. So that would be one thing. But if people are really interested in compassion, focus therapy or training, and so on, definitely check out the compassionate mind Foundation, which is a that’s sort of like the central body. Paul Gilbert established the compassionate mind Foundation. And they have lots of great opportunities for introductory training and advanced training and, and training on CFT working with special topics and, and things like that.

LAUREN: Great, okay, we’re gonna put all of this in the show notes so that people can find you and can get in touch if they’re interested in that course. And Stan, thank you so much for joining us today and teaching us how to be more compassionate towards ourselves. And for our listeners, please feel free to send through any questions you have for Kendra or myself on Instagram or to Stan, he mentioned his email if you’re interested in that online course. And you’ll find all this contact information in the show notes.