Permission to Love with Jerry Henderson
"Your relationship with yourself determines every other relationship in your life."
When we create a healthy relationship with ourselves, everything in our lives begins to transform.
Join us each week as we discuss topics such as overcoming shame, letting go of limiting beliefs, dealing with imposter syndrome, finding healthy motivators for achievement, transforming trauma, and learning how to practice self-love and self-acceptance.
The Permission to Love Podcast is dedicated to helping people have healthier relationships with themselves and find the permission to fully love and accept themselves.
About Jerry,
“When I realized I was the source of my own suffering, I realized I could also be the source of my own healing.”
Jerry is a Master Certified Transformational Mindset Coach, author, speaker, and host of The Permission to Love Podcast.
He works with high-achievers to help them create a happier, healthier, and more sustainable life grounded in self-acceptance and self-compassion.
Jerry has helped thousands of people have a healthier relationship with themselves and uncover the limiting beliefs keeping them from the life they so deeply desire and deserve.
He uses a combination of transformational mindset coaching, positive psychology, trauma-informed approaches, IFS, and NLP to remove limiting beliefs and connect with their authentic selves.
Jerry has an undergraduate degree in Political Science, an MBA in global business from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and is currently completing his Master's degree in Psychology at Harvard University.
Before becoming a Transformational Coach, Jerry spent most of his career in Philanthropy, raising over $1 billion USD for not-for-profits. He is a survivor of childhood trauma and now helps individuals learn how to create the lives they want from a place of healthy motivators and remaining mentally, emotionally, physically, relationally, and spiritually healthy.
New episodes of The Permission to Love Podcast come out every Monday.
To learn more about Jerry, find additional resources, or submit a topic or question, check out: www.jerryhenderson.org
You can also connect with Jerry on Instagram: @jerryahenderson
Permission to Love with Jerry Henderson
Is Negative Self-Talk Keeping You Stuck in Fight-or-Flight? Here’s How to Break Free
Have you ever felt like your nervous system is stuck in overdrive, constantly caught in fight-or-flight mode?
In this episode, we explore how self-criticism keeps us in a cycle of stress and anxiety, and how self-compassion can help regulate our nervous system, allowing us to feel safe and at peace.
We look at the science behind self-judgment, its impact on the brain, and why self-compassion is one of the most effective ways to rewire our stress response.
You’ll also learn practical strategies for cultivating self-compassion and shifting from self-criticism to self-support.
If you’ve been feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or trapped in patterns of self-doubt, this episode is for you.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why self-criticism keeps your nervous system in a state of stress
- The neuroscience behind self-compassion and how it rewires your brain
- How self-judgment triggers the fight-or-flight response
- Why your brain perceives self-criticism as an actual threat
- Practical self-compassion exercises to help you calm your nervous system
- How self-compassion increases resilience and emotional stability
Links & Resources:
- 💡 Coaching with Jerry – Book a free 60-minute coaching session: www.jerryhenderson.org
- 🎧 Subscribe & Follow – Never miss an episode!
If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend.
00:00 Introduction – Why self-compassion is crucial for nervous system regulation
01:35 Practicing self-compassion in real time – A personal story
03:23 The connection between inner dialogue and your nervous system
05:17 Understanding the nervous system: Fight-or-flight vs. rest-and-regulate
06:57 How self-criticism activates stress responses in the brain
07:45 The HPA axis: Why stress stays “stuck on”
08:44 Research: How self-judgment increases anxiety and burnout
10:30 The cycle of self-criticism, stress, and unhealthy coping mechanisms
13:17 The “stress waterline” – How inner dialogue raises your stress threshold
15:07 Coaching invitation: How mindset work can help
18:09 Understanding why self-criticism feels “safe” – Trauma and hypervigilance
20:03 Why your brain perceives criticism as a survival strategy
25:30 The neuroscience of self-compassion: How it calms the nervous system
28:45 The link between self-compassion, emotional regulation, and resilience
32:17 Why self-compassion improves decision-making and self-
I am grateful you are here,
Jerry
Setup Your FREE Strategy Call:
Schedule Call
Website:
www.jerryhenderson.org
🔗 Access the course "Learning How to Love Yourself" here:
How is your relationship with yourself going?
Get your free-self assessment guide
Pick up your copy of my book:
Returning: Meditations and Reflections on Self-Love and Healing
Watch On Youtube
Get Your Free Weekly Healing Tips!
Instagram: @jerryahenderson
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jerryahenderson
Your system feels unsafe. If you're not criticizing yourself, your system feels comfortable in feeling uncomfortable. You might say, no man, I don't feel comfortable feeling uncomfortable. Well, I get that. I understand that because I don't either, but yet there is a part of us right that keeps bringing us back to us. So ask yourself the question why do you keep finding yourself back into self-criticism? Why do you keep finding yourself back into that state of fight or flight? Why does it feel like the switch is stuck on? As we talked about earlier, it is stuck on and your system does not feel safe, feeling safe.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Permission to Love podcast. I'm your host, jerry Henderson, and, as always, I am so grateful that you're here today. Today, we're going to be talking about how the way that you treat yourself is connected to feeling like you're in a constant state of fight or flight, and then how self-compassion can actually help regulate your nervous system and bring you out of that feeling of being in fight or flight mode all of the time. Now, I recently did an Instagram post on this topic and it resonated with so many of you that I actually wanted to do a full episode on it to understand the research behind it, understand why all of that is happening, and then how to move you from that space through the practice of self-compassion. Now, in this episode, I am getting to practice what I preach.
Speaker 1:I just spent well over an hour here in the studio recording this episode and was almost done with it, but you know what happened? We realized that my microphone wasn't turned on and so I recorded an entire episode and then now have to start all over doing this. And what happened at first? When I realized that microphone wasn't on and I spent all that time recording this and saying all the things that I thought were pretty smart and realized that none of it was actually recorded, I got flooded with a lot of emotions and I had to step back and I had to just give myself compassion not get into a space of self-judgment and frustration and realize that I want the best version of me to show up and allow self-compassion to regulate my system, get me back here behind this microphone and get this episode recorded for you, the listener. And isn't that interesting how life shows up to give us the opportunity to put into practice what we're sharing with others. So here we are, and I know that this is going to be a powerful episode for you today. Now, before we continue on, if you've not yet had a chance to subscribe or to follow this podcast, I want to encourage you to take a moment to do that, because that's going to keep you updated when new episodes come out. Now the other thing is, if you've not yet had a chance to share this with somebody, I want to ask you to do that. That would mean the world to me, and it will continue to grow, this community of where we're learning how to have a healthy relationship with ourselves by giving ourselves the permission to love ourselves, by practicing self-compassion, etc. So, if you know of somebody who could benefit from the content of this podcast and this episode, share it with somebody, because if it's making a difference in your life, it'll make a difference in their life as well. All right.
Speaker 1:So let's get back into this. You know, many people don't realize just how much that inner dialogue that they have in their mind is affecting their nervous system. And now, while we're focusing today on the inner dialogue that we have towards ourself, around self-criticism and shame, etc. It also connects and relates to ruminating about the past, catastrophizing about the future. I mean. Think about it. When you're thinking about somebody who said something to you and all of a sudden you get all of those emotions that are happening and all of the chemicals that are being released as you think about what they said, what you should have said to them, and then what you're going to say to them when you see them. All of that is tweaking out your nervous system. So that inner dialogue whether it's self-criticism, shame, or you're thinking about all the things that happened that you wished hadn't happened or you wish did happen, or you're fearing the future all of that's having a big toll. We're going to talk about that today and we're going to talk about how self-compassion can help you. Even in the space of thinking about what somebody else did that you wish that they wouldn't have done, self-compassion is a powerful process in helping you relax in that space as well. So if you're constantly criticizing yourself, constantly shaming, judging yourself, your body is going to stay in a state of stress and survival. But here's the good news If you have the ability to do that to yourself in the direction of stress and survival, you can also do that for yourself in the space of relaxation, calm and safety. There is a way out of that cycle of feeling like you're in a constant state of fight or flight, or that low hum of anxiety. There is a way out of it, and one of the ways is through the practice of self-compassion.
Speaker 1:So let's start this episode by taking a look at our nervous system again, reviewing some of that. So our autonomic nervous system has two branches. It has the sympathetic nervous system, which triggers our fight, flight or freeze response, and then we also have the parasympathetic nervous system which promotes rest and regulation. Now, our amygdala, the brain's threat detector. It activates that sympathetic nervous system when danger is perceived. I want to focus in on that word perceived because your brain doesn't actually differentiate between external threats and internal threats, or things like internal self-criticism or replaying a past mistake or fearing the future. Your brain is seeing it as if it's all happening in the now. I mean, think about it Once again, using an example of if you made a mistake in the past and you start to relive it in your mind, you start to get the pit in your gut, don't you? You start to experience the flood of all of those emotions, don't you? You start to feel unsafe and you start to beat yourself up. You see, all of that is your brain going. Wait, this is happening again. We're reliving it again. I need to prepare myself. I don't feel safe, and so let's kick into the stress response, let's get into fight or flight, because we need to be on guard. And who are we on guard against? We're on guard against ourselves. So let's talk about the neuroscience behind why our brains don't see a difference between internal and external threats.
Speaker 1:The research shows that self-criticism will activate the same neural pathways as those external threats. What's happening is it's triggering the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Lots of words, we're going to refer to it as the HPA axis, and so what's happening when that system gets activated is it's increasing cortisol production. Now here's the interesting thing about the AP axis it gets triggered, it releases cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone and that stress hormone is preparing us for danger. Now, if we're in there beating ourselves up all the time, that HPA axis stays active and it's releasing a steady flow of cortisol into our system.
Speaker 1:Now the interesting thing about the HPA axis is it's designed to be a closed loop. What do I mean? It's designed to perceive threat, release cortisol and enough cortisol that, once the threat has passed, that cortisol goes back up to the HPA axis system and shuts it off, but when we're living in a state of chronic stress, we're not getting that system shut off. The system is producing low levels of cortisol in our system, but never enough to shut the system back off. So when I say your system is stuck in a state of fight or flight flight or that system is like turned on, it actually literally is your HPA axis is not getting shut off. The switch is stuck in the on mode, and part of what self-compassion is going to do is it's going to help turn that switch back off. It's going to allow your nervous system the permission to relax.
Speaker 1:Now another study done by Long et al in 2010, using fMRI scans, found that harsh self-judgment increases activity in the amygdala and reinforces the fear and stress responses, and I find this absolutely fascinating that, biologically, our bodies perceive criticism, self-judgment and shame as a threat towards ourselves, and so it's not just even a psychological threat, that psychological threat of us reliving the shame, beating ourselves up, all the things that we do to ourselves. Our bodies are interpreting that as not being safe. It sees you beating yourself up as a threat, and so it turns on all of your threat response systems, and so no wonder you feel like you're in a constant state of fight or flight, no wonder you have that low hum of anxiety that lives with you all the time, and then the smallest thing sets it off, and we're going to talk about why that happens here in just a little bit. But no wonder, right, even your body understands that you treating yourself that way isn't good for you, sees it as a threat, wants to help you respond to it. Okay, so, when you feel all that anxiety and the pit in the gut about the way that you talk to yourself, that's your body's signals to you that it's not good for you. All that anxiety is a loving response to you to get your attention to go. We don't want this. This isn't good for us, and let's stop doing this to ourselves. And one of the ways you can stop doing it and I'll keep saying this over and over is through the practice of self-compassion.
Speaker 1:So if we look at all this research and I just quoted a couple of things what it's telling us is, if you're constantly telling yourself that you're no good, that you're dumb, that you're never going to be good enough, and you're doing all this stuff to yourself. Your nervous system is going to stay on high alert, keeping you stuck in a cycle of stress and doubt and then keeping you in fight or flight, and then all of that has some real consequences to it, as we discussed, it's going to keep increased levels of cortisol in our system. That's going to lead to anxiety, fatigue and inflammation. It's going to cause us to have an overactive amygdala, which makes us hypervigilant, hyper alert to perceived threats. It's going to cause us to have difficulty relaxing and regulating our emotions, and it's going to lead to behaviors that we engage in to try to escape ourselves. Things like drinking or using substances or scrolling for hours and hours or seeking out relationships as a way to soothe ourselves. All of those things are a way for us to try to escape ourselves because we're living with an abuser ourselves. All those things that we're using to try to self-soothe are often connected to the way that we're treating ourselves. All those things that we're using to try to self-soothe are often connected to the way that we're treating ourselves.
Speaker 1:So I hope you can see that, if you're often feeling tense or exhausted and easily triggered by the smallest of stressors, your inner dialogue might be playing a bigger role than you think it is, and this is often the reason for many people that their stress waterline is so high, and that's one of the things that we look at when I'm working with people in coaching is examining their overall stress waterline. Does it feel like it's at their neck and the smallest thing throws it up over their head and they feel overwhelmed and they're confused as to why. When their kiddo does something that it just triggers them, sets them off and they react in ways that they don't want to react. Or when their partner says the slightest thing or gives them the look you know, the look that we all know that our partner has that they can give us and how that then floods us with emotions and we respond in ways that we don't want to respond. Or something small happens at the grocery store or in traffic. Or we're trying to do something and we get so frustrated with ourselves that we can't execute on something and we start to just beat ourselves up for it, or we're getting frustrated and we're throwing the papers across the room, whatever it is that's happening, and then you're wondering to yourself why in the world are the smallest things setting me off? Why am I allowing myself to get so bent out of shape? Why am I carrying this constant agitation? Listen, a big part of it.
Speaker 1:If you're a person who deals with a lot of inner criticism and you treat yourself poorly, your waterline of stress is really high. Why? Because you're in there stressing yourself out. You're triggering all the things that we talked about earlier. Right, your brain's releasing cortisol to defend itself against you. Your amygdala is really active because it's in hypervigilance, and so of course, that's adding to a higher waterline of stress for you. And practicing self-compassion is going to help bring down your overall stress, because you're not going to be at war with yourself. You're not going to have that additional stress layered on work stress, family stress, life stress, finance stress or whatever those things are. When you practice self-compassion, you're draining out some of that stress because you're at ease with yourself, you're making you a safe space for yourself, you're allowing yourself to begin to relax more and it's increasing your resilience levels. Why? Because you have more margin now to handle stress from other things, and that's exactly what practicing self-compassion is going to do. It's gonna take that waterline of stress from your neck. It's gonna take it down, maybe down to your chest, maybe down to your waist, wherever, and then you're going to find yourself with more energy to deal with things, because how much energy does it take to be in there beating yourself up all the time, to be fighting against yourself? I mean that's a lot of energy. That's a lot of stress that's having an impact on your nervous system, and when you reduce that, you're going to have more energy, you're going to have more capacity to deal with other things in your life.
Speaker 1:I want to take a moment before we go on with the rest of this podcast episode and I want to ask you a question. Do you currently feel stuck? Are you feeling trapped in self-doubt, low self-esteem? Maybe you've lost your confidence? Maybe you're burning out, or you already have burned out because of the pressure to be somebody that you're not? Are you wrestling with that relentless inner critic? Are you dealing with imposter syndrome? Are you struggling with other limiting beliefs and do you feel like you have a limited mindset? Well, if you do struggle with those things, you're not alone.
Speaker 1:So many of us carry those limiting beliefs that keep us playing small, that keep the life that we want just outside of our reach, and we stay stuck in self-sabotaging patterns even though we know we're meant for more. The research is so clear on this that we can change our mindsets. We can move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. We don't have to stay stuck. Your brain has the capacity to rewire itself and there are some simple strategies that you can use to change your mindset, to move you from all of those negative and limiting beliefs to empowering and life-giving beliefs. And when we do that, we totally transform our lives.
Speaker 1:And that's exactly why I created the coaching program that I have. It's designed to help you break free from those patterns. It's designed to help you connect with yourself, to begin to believe in yourself, to heal the relationship that you have with yourself, so that you can start creating the life and the relationships that you want to have. And here's the great thing about coaching the research shows that 80% of people who get involved in coaching report increased self-confidence, and over 70% of those individuals saw improvements in their work performance, their relationships, their self-esteem in their work performance, their relationships, their self-esteem, their communication skills, etc. Coaching is one of the best investments that you can make in yourself. Now, during the program, we'd work one-on-one together to help you identify those limiting beliefs and those patterns and then begin to rewire those beliefs into something that's actually serving you. During the program, we'll also work on building real confidence, building resilience, learning the principles of what creates a happy life, and we'll work on putting a plan together for the goals that you have, but doing it in a way that's grounded in self-compassion and that won't cause you to burn out. So if you'd like to connect with me and learn more, you can set up a free, no obligation one-on-one coaching call where we can get to know each other and see if working together is the right fit. If you're ready to take that step, go to my website at jerryhendersonorg or you can simply see the show notes in this episode. I'm looking forward to connecting with you and learning more about you Now.
Speaker 1:One more thing I want to address and I think it's really important to address before we get into talking about self-compassion as a way to help relax us and get us out of fight or flight is to help you understand that there's nothing wrong with you if you're up there beating yourself up, judging yourself. There's nothing wrong with you if you're up there beating yourself up, judging yourself. There's nothing wrong with you if you're stuck in a constant state of anxiety and fight or flight all the time. I know it can feel that way, right that nobody else understands it. You feel uniquely broken and why can't you heal that space in your life? Can I just encourage you for a moment that that has been serving you and self-compassion is going to help. You see how it has been serving you Because if you experienced trauma or if you were in a toxic relationship, you needed to be in fight or flight.
Speaker 1:You might have needed to be telling yourself that there was something wrong with you. You might have needed to be hypercritical of yourself and judging why, so that you could figure out how to fix yourself so that you'd stop experiencing the pain. We've talked about this in other episodes, particularly in the one where we talked about that. There's nothing wrong with you and I'd encourage you, if you haven't yet, go listen to that episode because it can be really helpful in this space. Here's the truth. If you needed that in survival mode and you got wired to do that, you're going to continue to want to do it and your system feels unsafe.
Speaker 1:If you're not criticizing yourself, your system feels comfortable in feeling uncomfortable. You might say, no, man, I don't feel comfortable feeling uncomfortable. Well, I get that. I understand that because I don't either. But yet there is a part of us right that I understand that, because I don't either. But yet there is a part of us right that keeps bringing us back to us. So ask yourself the question why do you keep finding yourself back into self-criticism? Why do you keep finding yourself back into that state of fight or flight? Why does it feel like the switch is stuck on right, as we talked about earlier? It is stuck on and your system does not feel safe.
Speaker 1:Feeling safe Because in the past, if you allowed yourself to feel safe, you weren't hypervigilant. Something bad happened and your brain connected feeling safe or not being hypervigilant as being unsafe. And so now, even if the threat is gone, the relationship's gone, the abuser's gone or whatever that was causing you to experience the trauma that you experienced, even if that's gone, your brain still doesn't feel safe, not being in hypervigilant mode. And so self-criticism, self-judgment, shame are ways that your brain is using to keep you in a state of hypervigilance so that you can feel safe, so that you can be on guard, so that your system has access to the cortisol, the adrenaline, all of the things that it needs in order to protect itself. Because, remember, all of those stress hormones are your body's preparation to protect itself. Because, remember, all of those stress hormones are your body's preparation to protect itself. And there's a part of you that feels like you need access to those things because you never know when something is going to go wrong. And if you always feel like the shoe's going to drop, guess what that served you at one point, because the shoe always did drop. And now you're always anticipating the shoe to drop. And part of what's helping you keep in that hypervigilant mode is the way that you're talking to yourself, is the way that you're treating yourself. And so if you can make a shift right now in this episode and say to yourself it's not that I just beat myself up because there's something wrong with me or something bad about me, I deserve it. No, it is a way that your brain has learned to keep you in a state of fight or flight because you've had to live that way and you developed as a coping mechanism and now your body doesn't feel safe not having that. So it uses that method to keep you in that anxious state and it's simply trying to keep you safe. And the practice of self-compassion. What that can do. As you use it over time and you practice it is you will become your own safe space, your own safe place. You will be able to use self-compassion as a way to regulate your nervous system, to allow yourself to know that everything's okay. Why? Because you're there with you, being kind to yourself, loving towards yourself, and that's a really important part of feeling safe. All right, now that we've laid, I think, a pretty good foundation about how all of that internal conflict can keep us stuck in fight or flight, let's start talking about how self-compassion can help us rewire our nervous system, get us out of that fight or flight and help us develop greater levels of resilience and balance in our life. So what's the science behind self-compassion and the nervous system? Well, research shows us that self-compassion activates the ventral vagal complex and that's a part of the parasympathetic nervous system that's responsible for feelings of safety and connection, as we talked about earlier, the ability to relax and regulate, and when this part of us is activated, it helps regulate our heart rate, it lowers those stress hormones and it helps shift the body into a more balanced state. Now the other thing that happens when our parasympathetic nervous system is active is. It reduces activity in the amygdala and it also, at the same time, is strengthening our access to our prefrontal cortex and our insula, and those are the regions that are responsible or are involved in our emotional regulation, decision-making and self-awareness. Now here's something I want to point out right, your amygdala is your friend. We often see it as our enemy, but we need that thing right, because when we get into a moment of true physical danger, our brains need that quick activation. It needs access to all those stress hormones to prepare us for that danger. And one of the ways that it does that is it hijacks that PFC or that prefrontal cortex, because when we have a threat, we don't need to be sitting around reasoning Okay, how big is the bear? Is it really a bear? And I wonder if that's a friendly bear. We don't need that in that moment. What we need is quick action and the amygdala helps us do that. In that moment, what we need is quick action and the amygdala helps us do that. Now the challenge is when the amygdala is overly active and it just kind of stays on, it's blunting our PFC, that prefrontal cortex, our ability to reason, our ability to regulate, our ability to make decisions, our ability to have self-awareness is blunted, and so what happens is our ability to see things clearly when we're in a constant state of fight or flight isn't really working well in that state. And this is why it's often hard for people to see that they're worthy of love, to see that they're just a human being who made a mistake, to see that self-judgment, self-criticism isn't going to serve them. And it's not just because you don't want to see it. It's actually that that part of your brain has been blunted. The chemicals that your stress system are releasing are actually blunting that part of your ability to reason. So, for example, if you've ever responded in a way that you didn't really want to respond in, and then later, when you're more emotionally regulated, you can look back on it and go, wow, I way overreacted, you see it more clearly, right? Why? Because in the moment when you overreacted, as a way to stay safe, because when we yell or we get aggressive or we become volatile or we do things that are these reactions, they are ways that we're trying to stay safe, and so when that's happening, all of that system is activated to try to keep you safe. You're not thinking straight, and then later, when you're in a state that's more calm, you're able to look back at it and go, wow, I wish I wouldn't have responded that way. I can see that maybe they didn't mean it the way that I took it, or maybe I just didn't get a good night's sleep and that's why I'm on edge. And so what's happening in that context is the amygdala is relaxing, the PFC is coming back online and you can reason and see things more clearly. Now one of the challenges, as I said before, if you're stuck in that state, your reasoning part is blunted, so you don't have as much access to things like the ability to cognitively reframe something. So, instead of seeing yourself as a loser because you didn't do well on an exam or you didn't do well on a presentation, if you're in a constant fight or flight space, you're going to spiral down, because the part of your brain that allows you to put that in context, to be able to say well, just because I did bad in a presentation or I didn't do the best that I wanted to do in that presentation, doesn't mean that I'm getting fired next week, doesn't mean all these bad things about me. It just simply means the presentation didn't go the way that I wanted it to and see that's your ability to have perspective, to reframe it and then begin to pull yourself out of that spiral. But when your amygdala is hypervigilant, it's going to keep that part of yourself that has the ability to reason and think that through clearly blunted. So I want you to see that just because you're struggling to see things in the way that you think you should be able to see them, and just because you don't have the ability to emotionally regulate the way that you'd want to, and that your decision making isn't as clear as you'd like it to be, it's not because there's something wrong with you. It's because you're in a constant state of fight or flight. Your amygdala's active and it's doing what it's supposed to do, blunting that part of your brain that has the ability to do all of those processes. And once the amygdala starts to relax through practices like self-compassion, you're going to find you're able to see things differently. You're able to see yourself differently. You're able to see the beautiful parts of yourself, not just the bad parts of yourself. Right, because if you're in a state that has taught you that you need to see what's wrong with you so that you can fix yourself, so that you don't get hurt. Once that part starts to relax, you'll actually now begin to have access to see the part of yourself that's beautiful, that's worthy, that's loving, that's kind. And in some ways, having that PFC blunted is keeping you safe and, in some ways, not seeing all of those good things about you is keeping you safe. But when you start to feel more safe in your own presence, you'll begin to access those parts of yourself. Now, the other thing that's also going to start happening when you start to shift is it's going to increase your resilience. As we talked about earlier, the waterline of stress goes down. It's also going to increase your ability to trust yourself, because, think about it and I hear this a lot in coaching I don't trust myself, I don't trust my decisions and I just kind of, overall, do not trust myself. Why would you trust yourself if you're in there beating the hell out of yourself all the time? I mean, would you trust anybody else who would treat you the way that you're treating yourself? Probably not right. And so when we start to practice self-compassion, it opens us up to ourselves. We begin to hear the needs that we actually have. We begin to see that we're somebody who we can lean on, without self-judgment, without criticism, and it actually opens up our heart to begin to trust ourselves. So if you're struggling with self-trust, I'm going to give you the advice that I give many of my clients Start with self-compassion, because self-compassion will change the energy that you have towards yourself. I mean, think about it. This is why many people stay in analysis paralysis, because it's not so much that they're afraid of making a wrong choice. They're often afraid of the way that they're going to treat themselves as a result of making a choice that they don't feel like was a good choice. They're going to overthink the choice. They're going to keep second-guessing their decisions because they're waiting for that part of them to jump in and say well, that was a stupid decision. Why did you do that? You always make dumb decisions. Well, no wonder you wouldn't trust yourself if your system is constantly anticipating and ass-whooping from yourself. So switching to self-compassion will allow your system to relax towards yourself and will allow you to begin to trust yourself. Now, another thing the research shows is that when we begin to practice self-compassion, we're going to be able to have more emotional stability, because we're going to feel safer inside, and where there's safety, there is emotional stability. Now further research has been done that shows that self-compassion helps reduce the activation of that HPA axis that we talked about earlier and that's going to allow you, like I said, to be able to access higher brain functions like creative thinking, problem solving and connection with other people, because if we don't feel safe, it's really hard to make connection, because connection is done in a space of safety. Self-compassion is also going to help your ability to be adaptable and it's also going to allow you to access and release feel-good chemicals like oxytocin and endorphins, which are going to promote relaxation and resilience. So all the research on this is really clear that when we stop speaking to ourselves harshly, we start speaking to ourselves with kindness, validating our emotions, forgiving ourselves, offering ourselves understanding. It's going to start sending signals of safety to your nervous system and by doing that on a regular basis, you're gonna be training your brain to respond to stress with a greater level of resilience kindness rather than criticism. You're gonna be creating neural pathways that make it easier for you to navigate the difficulties of life without spiraling into self-judgment. You're gonna begin to treat yourself in a way that you really want to treat yourself, and I know that you want to treat yourself better. I mean, you're listening to this podcast. I know that you want to be more loving towards yourself and self-compassion is going to allow you to access that. And by practicing self-compassion, you're going to be training your brain how to respond to stress, how to respond to mistakes, how to respond to that rumination that you're doing and that criticism that's happening in yourself. You're going to be training yourself to begin to be more kind to yourself. You're actually going to be creating neural pathways that your brain now has access to. That it'll be easier for it to go to. That allow you to not only be kinder to yourself but navigate the difficulties and challenges of life without spiraling into stress, without spiraling into self-judgment. I hope you can see how clear it is in the research that when we're critical towards ourselves, when we're at war with ourselves, we're beating ourselves up like that. We are keeping ourselves in a state of fight or flight right. And once again, for many of us we don't ever make that connection. We just wonder what's wrong with us and we go. I don't know how to change it. One of the first places you can change it is by changing that internal dialogue and one of the ways that you change that internal dialogue is by practicing self-compassion. And as you do that, you are training your brain to recognize that you're safe and that you have support from within, from yourself, and once again you are becoming your own safe space. And with all of that, and understanding how self-compassion works in our nervous system and why it's so important and why it's so crucial for us to be able to feel safe in our own presence, let's talk about practical ways for you to practice self-compassion. Well, number one move into the observer mode and notice your self-talk without judgment. That's why I talked earlier about how negative self-talk is often trying to serve you. If you can see it in that way, you'll stop judging it. And when we stop judging ourselves for having negative self-talk, it allows us to actually start to heal it. So, as a practice, start paying attention to how you speak to yourself and then ask yourself that fundamental question would you say those things to a close friend? And if not, then change what you're saying. You might be thinking well, it's not that easy. Well, just because it's not easy doesn't mean that it's not possible. Right? You have momentum in a certain direction of speaking to yourself negatively. That's all that is, it's momentum in a certain direction. It's training, training that you develop to keep yourself safe. And so now, yes, it's going to take work to shift you towards loving language towards yourself, but you deserve that. And two months from now, six months from now, a year from now, you can either be better at the way that you treat yourself and have a more regulated nervous system, or you can stay in the same place that you're at right now, and a lot of that's going to depend on your ability to practice self-compassion, and one of the keys of practicing self-compassion is becoming aware of when we're not practicing it. So I want to encourage you start noticing your self-talk. How are you speaking to yourself? Would you say those things to a close friend? And, if not, begin to replace it with more loving words towards yourself. Tell yourself you're doing the best that you can. Now the other thing you can do is use physical gestures or physical touch to send signals to yourself of comfort and safety. This can be as simple as placing a hand on your heart when you're telling yourself that you're okay, that you're doing your best and that's enough, or placing your hand on your heart when you're feeling stressed or you're not feeling safe. The research shows that that physical touch of you towards yourself can actually send signals to your nervous system that you're okay Now. The other thing you can do is give yourself a gentle hug, place your arms around yourself, tell yourself that you love yourself, that you're going to be okay and, if it's helpful, add some gentle patting to your shoulders as you're doing it. That's showing your nervous system that you're okay in this moment, and the other thing it's doing is it's allowing you to send love towards yourself. It's really hard to be judgmental towards ourselves when we're hugging ourselves, when we're soothing ourselves with physical touch. It disrupts that act towards yourself because it helps slow your system down and in doing so, it's activating your parasympathetic nervous system and it's helping shift your system out of fight or flight mode. And so the next time you find yourself wanting to be critical, wanting to be harsh towards yourself, take a moment, take some deep breaths and shift your focus away from the story, away from the words, and focus it on your breath. And that shift away of your awareness from those stories, from that negativity, towards just simply observing your breath sends a signal to your system that you're okay, because now you're taking the energy away from what's activating that fight or flight system and all the chemicals that are being released, and it's placing your attention on the thing that's going to activate your rest and safety system and it's sending signals to your system You're okay. And it's sending signals to your system that are okay, we can relax. And I'm shifting away from beating myself up into an action that is self-compassionate and loving. Now, another thing that you can do to help strengthen self-compassion in your life so that you have access to it, is writing a self-compassionate letter towards yourself. When I say access to it, one of the challenges for many people is they try to practice self-compassion when crisis shows up, when they're in their spiraling, and here's what I want to encourage you on Self-compassion is a muscle. It is a skill that needs to be developed and we want to be practicing it in a space where we feel calmer, where we feel safer, because we're developing a muscle and we're beginning to ingrain it in our system so that we can have access to it when we start to be harsh towards ourself, when we start to be critical towards ourselves. And writing yourself a self-compassion letter is very powerful because we're engaging multiple parts of our systems when we write things out, we're using our brain, we're using that internal voice, we're using our hands, we're seeing it with our eyes. So all of that is helping relax us, engage us and connect with the practice of self-compassion beyond just thinking about it, and the research shows that writing things out provides a safe place for us to process our thoughts and our emotions. So I want to encourage you to take some time to write a letter, as if you were writing it to a dear friend who is going through the same struggles that you're going through, and direct those words towards yourself. Write out words of compassion towards yourself, and if you struggle with this, it's okay. We all struggle with things when we first start doing them. Everything, when it feels new, has some challenge and struggle to it, and that's okay. It doesn't mean that it's not true for you just because you can't access it right now, just because it doesn't feel comfortable right now. Okay, let's stop associating something that feels uncomfortable as something that's not true. More often than not, it's just that your nervous system isn't used to it, and one of the challenges and sad things for many of us is that love and compassion and safety don't feel comfortable to us, and we have to learn how to make them feel comfortable to us, and we have to learn how to make them feel comfortable, and one of the things that can be really effective in helping you get comfortable with self-compassion is writing a self-compassionate letter towards yourself. So this week, I want to encourage you to do it. This week, try one of those things that I shared with you Put them in practice, because if we're going to make change, we have to take action, and if you want to get out of that fight or flight that's being caused by the way that you're treating yourself, take action this week. Take action right now on practicing self-compassion towards yourself and, as you do it, be patient with yourself. Keep at it. Remember, you've got a lot of momentum in one direction and now we're trying to make shifts and start to turn the boat into a different direction, and that's going to take time. And that's okay, because, listen, let's get our eyes off of trying to change ourselves overnight and start thinking about what's 1% improvement? What's 5% improvement? Am I starting to talk to myself more kindly? Am I having less negative self-talk? Am I speaking to myself, to myself more kindly? Am I having less negative self-talk? Am I speaking to myself more often with compassion. If so, you're making progress. Even if it's just once a week, you're doing it where you weren't doing it before. That's progress. Celebrate that, because in celebrating it, you're reinforcing to your system that that's what you want for yourself. All the research supports that. As you do this on a regular basis with patients, you're going to lower your stress baseline, you're going to increase your resilience and you're going to cultivate a greater sense of safety and peace in your life. Now, if you'd like some support on your journey of self-compassion, I want to invite you to connect with me by setting up a free 60-minute coaching call. It's a no-obligation call. It's just time for us to connect and see if working together is the right fit. So, if you need support in your journey, do a self-compassion act and get the support that you need. Well, thank you so much for taking your time to be here today and once again, I just want to say how grateful I am for you, how thankful I am that you're part of this community, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life and a part of your journey. And finally, let me remind you, as I always do, that you are worthy of your own love.
