Season 2, Episode 3: Cultivating Self-Compassion
For a lot of people, the idea of practicing self-compassion can be challenging. Many of us were brought up seeking external validation and believing in the words of other people more than our own experiences. This can make it hard to ignore our inner critic and reframe our thoughts to be more compassionate.
On this episode of Living Fully, host Katherine Hurtig talks with registered social worker Anna Hemens about self-compassion and how it affects our mental health. They explore different strategies for cultivating self-compassion, overcoming societal influences, reframing your thoughts, and showing yourself kindness.
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Katherine Hurtig
Welcome to Living Fully, a podcast dedicated to enhancing your mental well-being. Each episode explores valuable insights and practical strategies to help you lead a more fulfilling life. I'm your host, Katherine Hurtig.
In this episode, I talk with social worker Anna Hemens about self-compassion. Anna explains why self-compassion is so important for our mental health and gives some simple tips for how to be more compassionate to ourselves even when we make mistakes.
Katherine Hurtig
Ok so today I am here with Anna Hemens and we are going to talk about self-compassion and the different aspects of that and how it relates to our mental health. Thank you for being here with me, Anna.
Anna Hemens
Oh, it's my pleasure. This is one of my favorite areas to talk about. So thank you for asking me to be here
Katherine Hurtig
Excellent. Well, let's get right into it. Can we talk about, can we define self-compassion? What is it?
Anna Hemens
Self-compassion. You can break it down into different definitions, but the most basic one is it's being warm and understanding to ourselves, allowing ourselves to be human, accepting ourselves for who we are.
Katherine Hurtig
Ok, so with knowing that, how does that tie into our overall mental well-being and our mental health?
Anna Hemens
I think it's huge, Katherine, many of us are self-critical, we have that voice in our head that's always looking for things that we do wrong and mistakes. Self-compassion I see It's like the antidote to self-criticism that when we can, learn the different techniques and we can change the narrative that we have in our minds about ourselves.
Katherine Hurtig
Of course, Yeah I've worked a lot with self-compassion in my own kind of…
Anna Hemens
Me too.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, mental health and counselling. I don't like the word journey. It's been huge. So as a mental health counsellor, how do you introduce that concept of self-compassion to your clients?
Anna Hemens
It comes up almost naturally in sessions when that kind of self-criticism pops up, I help them to just reframe it and think differently. I like to sometimes show a bit of an image around what self-compassion is and highlight the different parts to it because there's self-compassion in terms of accepting ourselves and that part of giving our warmth and understanding to who we are and allowing ourselves to be human. But then the other part is also what action do we take to help to take care of ourselves? And that's actually really hard.
Katherine Hurtig
Right
Anna Hemens
How do I take care of myself? That means I've gotta make decisions for myself. That means I've got to recognize what's healthy for me in my life and what's not healthy for me in my life. I've gotta figure out steps I can take forward for my benefit.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. And that taking care of ourselves, it's not just getting a good night's sleep. And, eating a healthy meal. It can be, like you said, making decisions, and sometimes those are hard and it’s not always comfortable, but in the long run better for us.
Anna Hemens
Absolutely.
Katherine Hurtig
So what role does self-compassion, how do you integrate it into your work with clients?
Anna Hemens
I think I integrate into my work with clients, sometimes formally by talking about what self-compassion is and sometimes just in conversation of being able to highlight certain activities or highlight certain parts. For example boundaries. How often do we talk about boundaries in therapy? That word must come out of my mouth about 20 times a day. Boundaries is self-compassion. Sometimes it flows into my work. It's not necessarily something set.
Katherine Hurtig
It's not like a conscious choice.
Anna Hemens
Yeah, I think that's because how much I believe in self compassion, how much I practice self-compassion, it naturally just flows into my work.
Katherine Hurtig
Right, you'd mentioned working with clients and kind of building an image. Now do you mean that literally? Creating a diagram of the parts of self-compassion?
Anna Hemens
It's an image that I use from a particular source that shows us an image that helps us show the different parts, but we can absolutely draw that out for the client if necessary.
Katherine Hurtig
Ok, what does that look like?
Anna Hemens
So a common way of seeing self-compassion is that it has these two different parts. The first part is this tender piece about accepting ourselves, being kind to ourselves, you know, supporting ourselves, that's half of it and the other half is how can we be fierce for ourselves,
Katherine Hurtig
Fierce?
Anna Hemens
Fierce.
Katherine Hurtig
Ok.
Anna Hemens
Yeah. So how can we stand up and protect ourselves? How can we push ourselves? To kind of get where we want to be, where it's healthy for us to be right. And so there's an image that that kind of shows that and that I share with people. And then we break down about what does that look like in your life. So how do we practice being tender to ourselves, what do we do differently and what is it about being fierce that you need to do? Is it drawing boundaries? Is it recognizing what you need and how can you access that? How can you recognize and then give yourself what you need and how can you motivate yourself to push forward and change?
Katherine Hurtig
This makes me think of one of my experiences. I literally had a therapy session last night and we were talking about boundaries and assertiveness, and that made me think of that term you used fierceness and you're right. Working on that from what you're saying, it sounds like that's an aspect of self-compassion, like standing up for myself. And in situations where I feel I wasn't respected or something like that.
Anna Hemens
Yes, because the purpose of a boundary is to protect you. The boundary is not there for anybody else. The boundary is there for you. So it's self-compassion. It's like I'm taking action to protect myself by drawing this boundary that if somebody says this or somebody does this here's what I do to protect and take care of me.
Katherine Hurtig
Right. So I think in counselling and conversations around mental health, the word self is attached to a lot of different terms. Self-love and self-awareness. How does self-compassion, how does it differ from something like self-esteem?
Anna Hemens
With self-esteem, that's us thinking about where we want to be. It's like who we think that we should be. And this can be really helpful to encourage us and to try and to push and experience new events and to build up confidence. Self-esteem is really important. But we're aiming to be different than we are. Self-compassion is accepting who we are right now without any judgment. And taking action to take care of ourselves and then take the steps to grow. But at the same time, we're accepting who we are. So it's not like who I am is not good enough. I've got to get to this place. I've got to push. I've got to do this. It's like, no, this is where I'm at, this is the person who I am right now with strengths and weaknesses. This is who I am right now, ok, and I'm gonna push myself to learn and grow, but I'm accepting at the same time. So it's a very slight difference. But that's to me, that's all the difference is. It's not about who we think we should be, but who we are.
Katherine Hurtig
Right. Yeah. And I bet that comes up a lot with clients, whether they're dealing with depression or anxiety, and those kinds of intrusive thoughts.
Anna Hemens
Yeah, and I think this is like a theme in our society, too. Is that trying to change who we are, right and trying to think this is the person who I should be, that word should drive me nuts. I should do this. I should do that. I should do this. I should do that. Instead of sometimes being able to see who we are, accept it and love it. For the mistakes, as well as the successes. Because that's what makes them human. And I think sometimes we almost want to be like machines. Let's do everything perfect. Let's do everything great. I want to be different than I am. Let's accept who we are right now of being human.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, especially I notice in North American culture, there's always that push to change ourselves. It's the constant always wanting to be better and improve and on its own that doesn't sound like a bad thing, but we're ok. We don't always have to be striving for the next thing. I see that a lot when it comes to work and careers there's this mentality that you should always be striving to climb the next rung of the ladder or something. But, whatever role you're playing is still important if that makes sense.
Anna Hemens
That makes sense. I think what happens is we see where we should be and we end up sacrificing ourselves and our mental health to get to where we think we should be and self-compassion is about understanding where we're at. It's about recognizing how we're feeling and what's happening inside of us. And it's not saying ohh you don't change and you don't move forward, but it's recognizing in keeping with what's right for you, what's healthy for you.
Katherine Hurtig
And we see that so much in media and definitely social media that it's like you should always be wanting something different, to look a different way, to have a different relationship or a relationship period to have a different life. When I think we should probably be striving just to love the life we're living.
Anna Hemens
Yeah, you know how hard that is because that's the opposite to always told and think about things like body image. It's the same there as being, like, I shouldn't be this way. I should be a different way. I should push myself instead of giving compassion and love to our bodies of being able to recognize, like, thank you my hearts are beating every day. Thank you for the strength that you have to get out of bed every day. Thank you for the strength you have to walk with me to the sea. It's giving that gratitude and that love instead of that kind of criticism and that self-compassion.
Katherine Hurtig
I could go on for hours about that idea. About body image. I think it's ridiculous, the message is that all people, but women in particular. It feels so arbitrary sometimes the way your eyebrows are shaped actually isn't ideal. And you should be doing you know XYZ to change that. This is mad.
Anna Hemens
It is and the impact social media has on that. I think maybe this is something we should talk about in a future podcast because I think we could talk about this for a really long time. And trying to shift that perception and that view which we get from childhood, from our peers, from the images that we see, the movies that we see. I'm 40 and when I look back at the movies that I grew up watching, everybody has the perfect body. Everybody, you think about Arnold Schwarzenegger or something like that. That’s the male perception, kind of muscular, very fit, and that was the image that was given to me with movies that I watched growing up. That's a good topic, but I think it might-
Katherine Hurtig
I know, yeah a bit of a detour.
Anna Hemens
But a relevant one. Self-compassion isn't not about changing. I think it's about adding something different and it's about accepting all of us, bodies, our lives, all of those different pieces and giving that love and that compassion.
Katherine Hurtig
So this is author is Kristen Neff?
Anna Hemens
Kristin Neff.
Katherine Hurtig
Is she a psychologist?
Anna Hemens
Yep. So self-compassion has been around like if you think about like different religions and pieces like that self-compassion has been around for a very, very long time. But Kristin, really brought it into kind of an easier way to conceptualize and use and linking it with our current lifestyles.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, I liked how it was broken down into three parts. The kindness to ourselves and the aspect of common humanity.
Anna Hemens
That's a big one, yeah. So that's three different parts that Kristen Neff defines. Self-compassion as the first part is mindfulness. So that's really knowing what's happening in ourselves. For example, somebody says something and you're uncomfortable. It makes you feel uncomfortable. It's recognizing that it's feeling like, oh, this is making me uncomfortable. Then that can help to guide. OK, what's the reason for that? So being mindful about ourselves and in our internal environment. As being kind to ourselves that we've talked about and the third part is this common humanity and what that means for me is about normalizing being human. We're not alone, and I say this a lot and I've probably said it like three or four times already since you've been talking about being human and allowing ourselves to be human, we mess up sometimes we say things that we don't mean because we're tired, or we're hungry. And sometimes, we fall over, we break things. All different kinds of pieces. For human beings, and that's the beauty. We are the complex, loving creatures. But we're not perfect.
Katherine Hurtig
Right.
Anna Hemens
Right. And so that's how I see the common humanities.
Katherine Hurtig
In my own experiences, that idea has been really significant. I'm really conscious of my words, because after listening back to these and like, look at all these filler words that I say.
Anna Hemens
Self-compassion.
Katherine Hurtig
It's true. Yeah. Thank you.
Anna Hemens
Because it doesn't sound that way because it doesn't sound that way to me. It just sounds like a natural conversation.
Katherine Hurtig
Self-compassion.
Anna Hemens
Self-compassion.
Katherine Hurtig
What was I saying? In my own experiences, that common humanity concept has been really significant because when you are struggling with depression and anxiety I think a lot of people and myself included feel very alone from that experience. And that couldn't be further from the truth. Those feelings are very common. Knowing that it makes the experience a bit easier.
Anna Hemens
Yeah, absolutely. And also for times when recognizing if something's really hard. I'm trying a specific example and I can't think of one, when you're going through a really hard time, being able to recognize that, that's how other people would find it too. It's just tough for you. This would be tough for, there's a lot to my clients beating themselves up about, finding something difficult. And I'm like, well, of course it's difficult. You've got this, this, this, this going on in your life like this is really hard, and so that's that normalizing and the same with depression. You do feel alone with both depression and anxiety, but it's recognizing no, you're not. Other people go through this too. And that's not to minimize your experience, but it's to say other people go through this too.
Katherine Hurtig
So we've kind of talked about how self-compassion connects when it comes to depression and anxiety. Are there other kind of mental health concerns or other reasons that people come to you for counselling where self-compassion can help?
Anna Hemens
I think it helps in every- I see everybody about anything and I would say self-compassion fits everywhere. You're coming because it's difficult for you to make a decision at the moment in your life, self-compassion fits in there. You're coming because you're having a hard time, body image, self-compassion, fits in there. You're feeling worried, anxious, self-compassion fits there. I don't think there's anywhere where self-compassion doesn't fit.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, that makes sense. it's not like, oh, in this situation, it's not a good idea to be kind to yourself. When you're working with clients how do you suggest building that skill or introducing the idea of self-compassion, if it's something that they're not familiar with or haven't really haven't really tried before?
Anna Hemens
So first I would talk about how hard self-compassion is because it's the opposite to how many of us have lived for a long time. Most of us have that bully in our heads has that part of us is always looking for mistakes.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. When it's that conditioned it's really hard to change that thought pattern. Those behaviors.
Anna Hemens
Yeah, I've had some people that have said to me well, I know I've never really been given any understanding and love in my life, so how do I give that to myself? It can be a really hard piece to introduce. So when we're talking it sounds quite simple and quite easy, but everything else, when you start putting it in, it's tough. It helps 100%, but it's a different way than we're used to. So I normalize that common humanity. I normalize that. In terms of how to use self-compassion in our lives. One way I think is about being your own supportive coach. Now there are supportive coaches, there are not supportive coaches. If I can give you a little bit of a sports metaphor here. I don't know much about hockey, so I apologize if any of this is incorrect.
Katherine Hurtig
I don't either.
Anna Hemens
Ok. From what I remember from social media last year, there were two different hockey teams that had two very different style of coaches. One had a coach that basically picked on them, on the team's errors and their mistakes and nothing was ever good enough for this coach. What happened to that team? They tanked. Another team had a coach who was the opposite. Was like they're amazing, they're fantastic and we didn't say these words. It was really focusing on their strengths. What happened? They ended up being in the playoffs and that wasn't what people had expected from that team. I'm not saying it's completely down to the coaching, but that made me think about two different types of coaches that we have. Some look at the failures and some look at the strengths, the ones that look at our strengths are the ones that get the best results. How self-compassion can be our own supportive coach, like ohh yeah, I know this is hard, this is tough, but that's Ok. Tomorrow's another day. I know this is hard. This is tough. But you can do it. I believe in you. Being able to give that kind of encouragement. I know it seems almost weird and unfamiliar, but how natural this can actually become. That we start to speak in that way in a different way to ourselves to have our own back. Quite often people say that about the value of having a relationship where somebody has your back. How can you have your own back? How can you be your own supportive coach? A common strategy is what would you say to a friend saying that to yourself? I think I'd probably say that a number of clients every week about what would you say to your child if you had a child? What would you say to your child? What would you say to your friend? How can you say that to yourself? Sometimes I get surprised looks. How can you say that? How different is that to what you would normally say to yourself?
Katherine Hurtig
It's probably a bit awkward to start thinking and, quote unquote, speaking to ourselves that way. How do you get over that hump?
Anna Hemens
I think you would anyway. I think you already do, like I get talking out loud to yourself, maybe. I do that. I think there's a conversation that's happening in our minds quite often. We're bringing it more forward and seeing it. I think how do we do it? We do it through practice. So be it at the end of the day, when you're journaling about something that's been really hard for you that day, then you practice self-compassion. In the moment when you start to practice, that mindfulness of being aware of what's happening for you, how do you then support yourself? This is really scary right now. It's dedicated techniques that you can do but I think a part of it is being able to recognize the difference in how you react to yourself.
Katherine Hurtig
I had a counsellor once give this really great metaphor or analogy about making these kinds of changes. They talked about when you go sledding on a snowy hill. You go back up the hill and you go down again and the sled makes a track. It's a lot easier to go down that same track over and over. When we want to change the way we think or behave, initially it's like taking the sled on that untouched snow that doesn't have the track in it yet. The first few times it might be a little bumpy, a little uncomfortable, but the more you do it, the more that's ingrained and the easier it gets.
Anna Hemens
I love that. That's true anatomically as well, biologically as well. Our brains are neuroplastic. What does that mean? That they change and we can focus and build our brains in different ways. So because we've been focusing one way you can change that. I find that really empowering
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, me too. I love that.
Anna Hemens
We don't have to be fixed in a certain way. When in these times we don't feel we have any power and you can change your brain, you really can. Even though it's uncomfortable, as you said, it's untouched snow to begin with. The more that we do it, the other benefit again, back to biology is it actually activates our caregiving system in our brain and releases oxytocin, the love feeling. Biologically that link between brain and body, how we actually get a response from treating ourselves kindly.
Katherine Hurtig
In your experience, when someone starts practicing self-compassion and builds that into their life, does that translate into the relationship with other people? Does it improve relationships or are people kinder to others?
Anna Hemens
I wouldn't say because every single client who I see is an individual, and every case is different. When we practice self-compassion it can change our relationships in different ways depending upon the nature of their relationships. The big part that it changes is our relationship with ourselves. Relationships with others, if we can learn to draw the boundaries to recognize what's healthy for us and what's not healthy for us in relationships, that leads to healthier, more supportive relationships.
Katherine Hurtig
Right, I remember a few episodes back you were on talking about healthy boundaries that made me think of that.
Anna Hemens
That’s why I volunteer for that self-compassion. You see it spreads out. It's all connected.
Katherine Hurtig
So we kind of touched on this before, I'm interested in your thoughts. I don't want to say that these ideas are a dichotomy or against each other. We live in a world with high expectations and pressures, we talked about the idea of improvement and change and growth. How do we strike a balance between having self-compassion and acceptance but also striving to be better?
Anna Hemens
And that's a really important question, Katherine. I think how we strike that balance is by connecting with ourselves and the impact that the way that we are living our lives has on us. For example, with expectations, if our expectations are unrealistic. I know way above what is actually healthy for us, and yet we keep pushing and pushing and pushing ourselves. What does that lead to? Self-criticism. Exhaustion and anxiety. Whereas if we can set expectations that are understanding of our humanity, they're like, OK, this is where I'd like to be, it's very different. That's what the balance is. It's about recognizing the impact that the way that you're living is having upon you and your mental health and looking at ways in which you can change that in keeping with self-compassion. I'm trying to think of a specific example. I'm not very good at specific examples I would say.
Katherine Hurtig
You are good at the metaphors, though I remember your one went about the garden and the boundaries.
Anna Hemens
I also think about that idea of pushing ourselves and where do we find the happy medium of self-compassion? It comes down to that idea of who we think we should be versus who we want to be. This is one of my key thoughts in my mind is should, turn it into want. I should do this. I want to do this. It changes how we perceive it. This should is the expectation, the want, well, that's listening to me and that's listening to actually what I want in my life and how I therefore approach it is different.
Katherine Hurtig
How do you work with clients? How do you tell them how to build a practice of self-compassion? Are there any little tips and tricks that our audience can start using?
Anna Hemens
One of the first ways is that idea about mindfulness and us learning about ourselves and what's happening for us as people is actually starting checking in. That's what I call it. I call it a daily check in of almost like throughout the day when you have your morning coffee, when you have your lunch or your food at lunch time, any breaks you have during the day. Literally take like 10, 20 seconds and just say to yourself, how am I doing? It's really interesting. When you do that, it's like oh I'm hungry. Haven't eaten for the past five or six hours, or I'm feeling really sad right now. I wonder why that is or I'm exhausted. Ohh, maybe then I should make a change to what I've got planned for the afternoon. If we check in with ourselves, that can help us to then make decisions based with self-compassion looking at what we need and what's happening for us. That's how we spend our lives focused on other people and things outside of us, so learning and it's just literally 10 or 20 seconds. Just as I've demonstrated there, it takes just checking in. How am I doing? Asking yourself that and listening to the answer and that might help you think about changes that you can make throughout the day.
Katherine Hurtig
What I've heard about mindfulness is really sitting with and accepting whatever feeling you're experiencing and these examples that you brought up in that check in like, oh, I'm feeling a bit sad. Let's take that for an example. It's not a nice feeling to go through. I don't know. I struggle with that idea of sitting with that emotion and not resisting it. How do we do that?
Anna Hemens
There's no nice. There's not, like, good or bad emotions. It's a perception that we've put on them, that there are these positives and these negatives. It's like, no, this is what's here. It's not good. It's not bad. What do I need? I'm feeling sad right now. That sucks.
Katherine Hurtig
I like that mindset just recognizing it and what’s that telling you? What do you need?
Anna Hemens
That takes us away from being human. That common humanity in that moment to not experience all of being human. Like. Oh, no, no. You can only feel happy. You can feel the happy emotions. You're human. A dog gets sad, a dog gets happy. What they do! This is part of living, and part of us tries to not truly live. I work with kids, I'll say sad it’s not bad. Show your experience, acknowledge your experience with no judgment.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, those feelings might not always be enjoyable, but it is part of that human experience. You're not going through it all if you don't feel all of it. Sad is not bad.
Anna Hemens
Sad is not bad! The other piece in terms of strategies for people, something that sits with me is about how often in our lives we rely upon, or we like validation from other people. External validation. Somebody else telling you, oh, you did great at that. How that helps us, it's almost like we believe the words of other people more than our own experience.
Katherine Hurtig
When you say it out loud, it sounds silly. But yeah, I'm so guilty.
Anna Hemens
We all are! In terms of a strategy or something, it's almost like how can you give yourself the internal validation? So how can you say these things to yourself instead of needing to hear them from somebody else?
Katherine Hurtig
Right.
Anna Hemens
Right. So how can you say that was tough, you did good. Something that self-compassion helps us to do is to continue to face some uncomfortable moments. Here's an example: I give a presentation at work and that self-critical part of me is looking for what I did wrong, I mumbled. I didn't say things clearly. I said the words wrong. I wasn't stood up straight. How likely am I to feel comfortable doing it again?
Katherine Hurtig
Not likely.
Anna Hemens
Whereas I can say, that was really tough. That was really hard. But look, you did it. You got through the whole thing and maybe there were a couple of pieces that you did that were not as good as others, but you still got through the entire thing. I'm proud of you. How likely are you to do it again?
Katherine Hurtig
It's much more likely.
Anna Hemens
That's the difference of how we can change the way that we see them.
Katherine Hurtig
Anna, can you talk about any societal factors that might play a role or influence the way we perceive and practice self-compassion?
Anna Hemens
Absolutely. One of the ones that stands out the most to me is this idea that self-compassion is selfish and I do hear this from my clients like that can be the way that it can be perceived and selfish to me is lacking consideration for other people, not having regard for other people. Does accepting yourself and taking care of your needs mean that you have no regard for other people? It's not like an either or an or.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, exactly.
Anna Hemens
It's an and. It's being able to say you're really important in my life. I really care about you, and I need to do this. It's for my own well-being. It's not an either or an or. It's an and. I think that's really important.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah, taking care of yourself and what you need doesn't mean you're not going to take care of your kids, take care of your friends.
Anna Hemens
Yeah, it doesn't mean that you don't value other people. Doesn't mean you don't have regard for other people. It's the same as, a thing that said, if self-care is selfish, if being assertive is aggressive, if being confident is arrogance, then your comfort zone is not a good indicator. What that means is that we sometimes think, no, I can't be assertive because it's aggressive. Or I can't be confident because that just means that I'm arrogant or self-care is selfish. Really? Your comfort zone, the idea of what we're familiar with isn't necessarily a good indicator. It's the same here with self-compassion, self-compassion is selfish. No. I feel that's a really important message that self-compassion is the opposite of selfish.
Katherine Hurtig
Completely, yeah, thinking about that common humanity aspect of it, how can an individual encourage a culture of self-compassion, whether that's in their families or workplaces or communities?
Anna Hemens
I think a part of that is almost like role modeling self-compassion. When you see that somebody, your daughter comes home from school and her grades are not perfect and she's upset, then you can be able to validate that to help her to accept, ok, yeah this I can I can see that you're upset about getting these results but you tried your best. Congratulations. Thank you for bringing these results to me and congratulations on trying so hard.
Katherine Hurtig
Those messages are probably super important when it comes to younger children.
Anna Hemens
Yeah! Instead of having these expectations that as children, we learn to meet and that continues into our adulthood, it's congratulating them. It's pointing out the positives, not pointing out the negatives, treating themselves like that supportive kind of coach. I would say that goes into other relationships too. Your husband unloads the dishwasher and you acknowledge that and you say thank you so much for doing that. It's not quite self-compassion, it's almost that idea of acknowledging the positives in somebody and helping them to feel good about themselves.
Katherine Hurtig
Well, yeah, and it can start with something little like that.
Anna Hemens
Yeah! It's modeling that understanding and that acceptance to them, so when they're feeling critical about themselves, how can you show them a different way?
Katherine Hurtig
At least I unloaded the dishwasher. I could see that being really applicable in workplaces as well, like a leader kind of model, self-compassion. In that team setting compassion probably leads to better results.
Anna Hemens
Yeah! In terms of a leader, part of that is also acknowledging their experience. If a leader is able to say this is tough, getting these sales targets this month. I know this is really hard, actually acknowledging that. It’s like that common humanity. Acknowledging that this is hard or acknowledging their own experience of being like, I found this incredibly tough for us today. Acknowledging their own experience.
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. As we wrap up, are there any key takeaways or pieces of advice we'd like to offer our listeners about self-compassion?
Anna Hemens
Being your own supportive coach. Treating yourself the way that you would treat somebody else and learning how we can take care of ourselves.
Katherine Hurtig
Thank you, Anna. Thanks for this great chat.
Anna Hemens
Thank you.
Katherine Hurtig
You've been listening to Living Fully, a Calgary Counselling Centre podcast. Thank you for tuning in.
This episode was produced by Luiza Campos, and by me, Katherine Hurtig. A special thanks to Anna Hemens.
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