• Why it’s our human nature to become attached to mindfulness and compassion practices that we’ve used to feel safe or alleviate our pain – and how that can lead to disappointment or feeling worse instead. (1:27) 


• The importance of holding your practices lightly – what that means and how doing so can make them even more useful and effective. (2:19) 


• How mindfulness and compassion are a lot like a screwdriver! (2:41)


• Michelle’s experience of being in agonizing pain on a camping trip in the middle of nowhere, her harrowing transport to the hospital, and the trauma response she had in the midst of an ER overflowing with patients but short on staff. (3:24)


• Why practicing self-compassion was surprisingly a firm “no” for her in that moment – and why it wasn’t the medicine she needed. (6:39)


• The practice Michelle used instead of self-compassion to carry her through (which you can use, too) – and how self-compassionate it actually turned out to be. (6:47)


• How gratitude helped her know she was okay, even when she wasn’t okay. (8:28)


• How the three components of self-compassion, as defined by Dr. Kristin Neff, were actually present in the practice she chose, even though she wasn’t directing compassion toward herself. (9:45)


• The importance of practice in building your own toolbox, and how you can trust yourself to find just the right tool when you need it. (11:25)


• An exciting announcement about Michelle’s new book, Compassion for Couples, and where you can find it. (12:27)

Hi Everyone,  I’m Michelle Becker and you are listening to the Well Connected Relationships podcast.  In today’s episode we will be exploring how to find the right medicine at the right time when it comes to mindfulness and compassion.

These days there is a lot of information about mindfulness and self-compassion.  And there are a lot of claims about how it cures whatever ails us.  I’ve been around long enough to know that not every practice and not every approach is for everyone, or for every situation.  Mindfulness and compassion- for self and other- can be very helpful.  And, it’s not unusual to fall in love with the practices once you’ve tried them. They can be so effective.  And then some other stressor hits and the go-to practice we’ve carefully cultivated doesn’t actually “work”.  We don’t get the desired results. Or worse, it makes things worse rather than better. That can be confusing and disheartening.

One thing that helps is to hold the practices lightly.  What do I mean by that?  Well, as humans we tend to be more comfortable with certainty than uncertainty.  So we make these… we might say rules… for lack of a better description.  For example, “When I feel stressed I put my hand on my heart and practice the self-compassion break, and that always helps”.  It is comforting and reassuring to lock into a belief like this.  The trouble is that this doesn’t allow for the complexity of life. It’s too simplistic. And it is aimed at having some control over the situation and our experience- some way of avoiding or getting rid of our problems, and when it turns out we can’t control the situation or our experience we end up feeling worse rather than better.  Not only do we still have the original pain, but now we have an added layer of frustration and disappointment that our strategy has failed.

When we hold the practices lightly, we don’t fall into the temptation of forming fixed views like believing that, for example, “My hand on heart and self-compassion break will always help”.  And we also don’t throw out the tools thinking they’ve failed us and they don’t work.  Instead we gather a toolbox of various tools.  Things we can reach for when we need them.  We don’t try to fix everything with a screwdriver because it is our favorite tool.  Instead we can reassure ourselves that we have many tools in the toolbox and when we see the nature of the problem, we will likely have a tool to help us meet this current problem.  There is confidence, and there is also humility. There is room for not knowing and for the understanding that not everything will be successful every time, or be helpful right away. There is flexibility, acceptance of the truth of this moment- like it or not-, an attitude of curiosity- what might be helpful now?-, and a willingness to learn, rather than an assumption that we already know.

Maybe it would be helpful for me to give an example here.  My husband and I were in a campground in the desert, far from medical help and without cell service.  It was the middle of the night and I rolled over onto my left side.  As soon as I did the pain began.  Within a minute or two it was excruciating.  Truly the worst pain I’d ever had.  Yep, it easily beat out childbirth and that was no picnic for me.  I knew I needed help.  The thing was that I was in so much pain that even the slightest movement, the slightest motion in our camper van was excruciating.  My husband wanted to drive me to the nearest emergency room, and rightly so- which was about an hour away.  I knew I couldn’t tolerate the drive yet.  Luckily my mindfulness practice kicked in. I was able to stay present, moment to moment and flex with what was arising. I knew he was right and I needed to go to the ER, and I also knew that I had to stabilize to be able to tolerate the trip.  It took some time, but eventually I was able to let him know that if he drove really slowly- to minimize the bumps- we could head to the ER.  Mindfulness, the ability to stay present in the moment, moment to moment, without going into the future or the past, to acknowledge my situation and the reality that I needed the ER, without falling into rumination about how bad it was, was really helpful.  I could notice when a window in the pain opened up just enough that I could tolerate the drive.  

It’s a bit of a long story, but eventually I found myself in the ER.  I had a rather large kidney stone stuck in my ureter and I needed surgery.  The ER was full of patients. Actually it was over full.  Luckily they were able to find a bed for me to lie on, but there was no spot to put me, so I was up against a wall in the hall right in the middle of things, my head right below another person’s feet.  We were lined up against the wall, gurney to gurney.  And while there was an overflow of patients, there was a shortage of staff.  This is not a good situation for anyone.  Still, as soon as I was brought into the actual ER from the waiting room, a very compassionate nurse tended to me.  “What do you need?”, she asked.  “Pain relief”, I said.  Within minutes she’d given me morphine and soon the pain was relieved.  Exhausted from the ordeal I was able to sleep a bit.  When I woke up, I was still in the middle of the ER, the physical pain was managed, but I was in a trauma response.  I’d had enough past medical experiences in which I wasn’t safe- and had been injured by those who were supposed to care for me- that my physiology was on red alert and I was flooded with anxiety.  

The thing is that I was aware of what was happening. I was aware that I was in the midst of a trauma response. Again, that’s mindfulness.  So I was able to pause and get curious. I found myself saying, “Okay Michelle, you’ve got lots tools in your toolbox, what do you need here?  What would be helpful?”. I put my hand on my heart and that helped a little bit. Then I asked myself if there was a self-compassion practice that would be helpful. The answer was NO!  I knew it wasn’t right for me just then. What I needed was Metta or loving-kindness practice.  Even though we call it loving-kindness practice, when we wish for the alleviation of suffering this practice also includes compassion.

I looked around me at the staff, overwhelmed and overburdened, and I silently wished for them, “May you have ease, My you be safe, May you know you are valued”.  For the prisoner who rolled by with his guard I wished, “May you be healthy,-or as healthy as you can be, May you have peace, May you be at ease, May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering”.  For the patient in a room somewhere who was screaming seemingly endlessly that she didn’t want to be there and demanding she be released I wished, “May you know peace, may you feel safe, may you be free from suffering”. For the people trying to calm her down I wished, “May you be peaceful, May you know love, May you have ease”. For the patient whose gurney was behind mine I wished, “May you be free from suffering, May you be as healthy as you can be, May you be safe and cared for, May you know love”.  And so it went for me.  Kind and compassionate wishes flowing outward for those around me who were suffering.  And with each wish my heart opened, my body softened, and the anxiety I was experiencing was replaced with warmth and compassion.  It didn’t take long before I was bathed in love and it felt good.  I was smiling.  Compassion for others was just what I needed. That and gratitude.  I was so grateful for having a bed to lay in. For having a nurse that could tend to me.  For having medication to ease my pain, and a good surgeon to remove the stone.  I had everything I needed. I was okay, even when I wasn’t.

Some of you may be wondering why self-compassion practice was a strong NO for me, especially since I practice and teach self-compassion and generally find it very helpful.  It was a NO for me because I was already so very vulnerable and continuing to focus on my own pain, even to offer myself compassion, would have made me feel worse rather than better.  In that moment I needed compassion, to be sure, but I needed it in a way that would feel safe and help to stabilize me. Focusing on those around me and offering them compassion, was a way to open to compassion without opening to more of my own pain.  Something that would have been too much in the moment.  

The interesting thing in all of this is that even though I was practicing compassion for others rather than practicing self-compassion, by doing so I was giving myself exactly what I needed and that was actually also self-compassion.  Self-compassion has three components, as defined by researcher and self-compassion expert, Kristin Neff. 

The first is mindfulness.  I think of it as opening to the truth of the situation in a balanced way. I wasn’t pushing it away or denying it, but I also wasn’t narrowing my focus and ruminating on how difficult it was- thereby falling into a pit of despair.  

The second component is common humanity.  Understanding our situation in the context of our shared experience of being human.  Being in pain, being ill is actually a part of life.  No one escapes without some degree of pain and illness in life.  Noticing the suffering of those around me meant I wasn’t alone.  

The third component is kindness. Kindness is much more helpful than self-judgment or self-criticism.  That usually just shuts us down.  Kindness provided the safety and warmth I needed to safely open. Although I was directing the kindness and compassion outward toward others, the side effect was that I was moving from a state of trauma and its related anxiety to a state of compassion with its related experience of being safe, connected and content.  I moved from the threat/defense system to the care system.

All three of these components were present and helpful.  But the path toward what I needed was to direct it toward others rather than directly to myself.  That’s just one example of how holding it lightly with curiosity and flexibility can help us find the right medicine in the right dose, at the right time.

Mindfulness and compassion are really helpful, even if every practice doesn’t help every time.  The more we practice, the more tools we have in our toolbox, the easier it is to know which tool will be helpful in which situation, and the more effective the tools become.  Wishing kind and compassionate wishes for others was so effective for me in part because it is a well-traveled road for me and my heart opens easily now when I practice Metta.  

As you practice, trust that you too are building tools for your toolbox.  They’ll be there when you need them.  Hold them lightly.  And when difficulties arise, please take a moment and ask yourself which of your many tools might be helpful in this particular situation.  Let go of what has worked before, or what someone else says “should” help.  Trust yourself and see what arises.  It’s the best path I know to finding the right medicine, in the right dose, at the right time.

In my book, Compassion for Couples, I take a deeper dive into how mindfulness, compassion and self-compassion can be helpful, how to cultivate them, and how to know which to use when.  You can find it wherever you like to purchase books, or through my publisher, Guilford Press.

Wishing each of you good health and a full toolbox.

Extro:  That’s all for today’s Well Connected Relationships podcast.  Thanks for being here.  If you’d like to get our notes on the highlights of this episode, along with a simple practice you can use to cultivate kindness and compassion, be sure to join our Well Connected Relationships community on the Wise Compassion website, wisecompassion.com.  I’ve got more in store for you.  So be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a thing.