122: Self-Compassion for Parents

In this episode, Dr. Susan Pollak helps us to apply mindfulness skills to our relationships with our children so we can parent in line with our values, rather than just reacting when our children push our buttons. You'll learn:

• What's the point of mindfulness, and does it matter if we bring our full attention and presence to diaper changes?
• Why we're so hard on ourselves, even when we always try to be kind to others
• Some concrete tools to use when you interact with your children TODAY in those moments when it seems like everything is falling apart.

Dr. Pollak is a psychologist in private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a long-time student of meditation and yoga who has been integrating the practices of meditation into psychotherapy since the 1980s. Dr. Pollak is cofounder and teacher at the Center for mindfulness and Compassion at Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance, and has just stepped down as President of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, a position which she held since 2010. She also writes regularly for Psychology today on the topic of integrating mindfulness into daily life.   Book mentioned in the episode:

Self-Compassion for Parents: Nurture Your Child by Caring for Yourself (Affiliate link).

Other episodes related to this topic: Parental Burn-Out No Self, No Problem Helping children to develop compassion Patriarchy is perpetuated through parenting Mindfulness tools with Mindful Mama Hunter Clarke-Fields   Some key points from the interview: (04:08) Many of us, present company included, we're not raised to be kind to ourselves. (10:47) Mindful self-compassion acknowledges that we need to start with mindfulness. (I've been teaching this course for over a decade, and I've seen that) a lot of people just can't start with compassion because it's foreign for most of us to treat ourselves kindly. (53:59) Allow yourself to rest for a moment feeling that you have distance from the storm, some space from the turbulence to recognize that you are not the storm. (paraphrased) (59:03) It's such a common misconception about mindfulness that you have to sit still and not think about anything. And, you know, people are relieved to know that [mindfulness] is not about stopping our thoughts. It's really about finding a different relationship with our thoughts. [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen 00:03 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. We all want our children to lead fulfilling lives, but it can be so hard to keep up with the latest scientific research on child development and figure out whether and how to incorporate it into our own approach to parenting. Here at Your Parenting Mojo, I do the work for you by critically examining strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting. If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released and get a FREE Guide to 7 Parenting Myths That We Can Safely Leave Behind, seven fewer things to worry about, subscribe to the show at YourParentingMojo.com. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us. Jen 01:00 Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. In this episode, we're going to draw threads together from across a number of recent episodes. Most obviously it picks up on our interview with Dr. Moira Mikolajczak where we discuss parental burnout. After that episode concluded Dr. Mikolajczak and I emailed a bit about tools that could potentially help parents, and the primary one that she found useful was the idea of self-compassion. And that's what we're going to discuss today. This topic also picks up on our conversation with Dr. Chris Niebauer about the stories that our left brain tells us by giving us some concrete strategies on how to do that. And it builds on a conversation we had about three years ago with Dr. Brendan Ozawa-de Silva on the topic of compassion. We also touch on issues related to patriarchy and go deeper into some of the mindfulness tools that Hunter Clark-Fields shared with us recently. Jen 01:50 And here to do all of this with us is Dr. Susan Pollak, who is a psychologist in private practice in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a longtime student of meditation and yoga and has been integrating the practices of meditation into psychotherapy since the 1980s. Dr. Pollack is cofounder and teacher at the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, and has just stepped down as President of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy, a position that she held since 2010. She also writes regularly for Psychology Today on the topic of integrating mindfulness into daily life. Welcome, Dr. Pollack. Dr. Pollak 02:24 Thanks, Jen. It's a pleasure to be with you. Jen 02:28 So, we're going to talk a lot about your book. Because it's on the topic of Self-Compassion for Parents. And one thing that I really liked as I was reading through your book, is the idea that it isn't a manual for self-compassion. It doesn't teach you step by step what self-compassion is, and then how to apply it. I loved what Dr. Chris Germer said in your foreword and he said, I'm going to quote, "The book connects with the direct experience of parenting through detailed examples, personal anecdotes, and elegant exercises to transform parenting struggles through the tools of mindfulness and self-compassion." So that said, we're definitely going to be digging into some more of those things for as we go today, but I'm wondering if we could start by having you help us to understand what is compassion. And from there, what is self-compassion, and also this idea of mindful self-compassion that I know is really important to your work? Dr. Pollak 03:21 Okay, and let me first just respond to your kind words, because my feeling is, there's no recipe for parenting. And I know you're a parent. I am a parent of two kids. And as of just a week ago, a grandmother, Jen 03:39 Congratulations! Dr. Pollak 03:40 Thanks! So, I think it's really important for your listeners to, to realize that one size doesn't fit all. Jen 03:49 Yeah. Dr. Pollak 03:50 You know, I'm not going to be able to give you a recipe for how to be the perfect, compassionate, mindful parent, you know, you have to figure out what works for you, and what works for your kids. Jen 04:07 Yeah. [caption id="attachment_6394" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Many of us, present company included, we're not raised to be kind to ourselves.[/caption] Dr. Pollak 04:08 So that said, let me jump into just some really workable definitions. And let me tell you, I really don't like psychological jargon. So, let me speak in English. So, one way to understand compassion is to really look at the root of the word, which is Latin, and it means to suffer with. Okay, so that's kind of theoretical, what it means in real life, is to really see somebody and to connect with their pain, or the difficulty they're having. So self-compassion, and this is a pretty radical concept, is learning to be kind to yourself. Again, it's that simple. So many of us, present company included, we're not raised to be kind to ourselves. So, it can feel weird, awkward, foreign, like "What? Be kind to myself? No, no, I have to push myself. I have to drive myself. What are you talking about?" So, for me, that concept of being kind to myself felt foreign. And, again, an easy way to think about it is, when you're having a hard time, think about what you say to yourself. And I don't know if your inner language is like my inner language, but to be very self-disclosing. I used to say, "Oh, Susan, that was stupid." Or "Oh, Susan, you're an idiot." or "Oh, how could you have said that?" You know, "You've really blew that." So, it was this constant soundtrack of criticizing myself. Dr. Pollak 05:56 But think also, what you might say, if a friend told you that for someone you really cared about that she had done, or he had done something similar to what you did. And you probably wouldn't say to your friend, "Oh, John, that was so stupid. I can't imagine you said that. How could you have done that? What were you thinking? What is wrong with you? You are such a loser?" Well, I mean if you said that to a friend, you probably wouldn't have many friends. Okay, so we, we do know how to respond kindly. You would probably say, "Look, John, you know, you're human, we all screw up, you know, everyone is a parent..."...