Kristin Neff & Caverly Morgan: Self-Compassion as a Lifeboat

Kristin Neff: Every moment of self-compassion is a moment of being awake at some level. Every moment of self-compassion is a moment of letting go of our identification with that small, separate, limited, inadequate self and moving into something bigger, more connected, and more heartful…full of love.​

Tami Simon: Welcome friends to this special episode of Insights at the Edge, where we’re gonna be exploring deepening our self-compassion. I’m here with two women who have dedicated a large portion of their professional life to exploring this topic and who teach together on deepening self-compassion.

I’m here with Kristin Neff and Caverly Morgan. Let me tell you a little bit more about them. 20 years ago. Kristin Neff was the first researcher to empirically examine and measure self-compassion. She’s an associate professor in the educational psychology department at the University of Texas at Austin.

She’s the author of the books Self-Compassion and a book called Fierce Self-Compassion, How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive. She’s joined by Caverly Morgan, who after eight years as a zen monk, discovered something unexpected. Nothing was missing. The freedom she’d been searching for was already here.

Caverly Morgan is a teacher of Awakening and the author of the Heart of Who We Are, and a kid’s book about mindfulness. She’s also the founder of the Nonprofit Peace in Schools, which brings mindfulness training to public high schools in the United States, and Caverly has a gift for pioneering ways that communities can awaken collectively.

I’m so happy to be with both of you talking about a topic that is dearly important to me and I think to many insights at the edge. Listeners welcome.

Caverly Morgan: Tami, thank you so much.

Kristin Neff: to be here. Yeah.

Caverly Morgan: such an

Tami Simon: Here at the beginning, let’s give the origin story, how the two of you came to know each other and decide to teach together on this topic. 

Kristin Neff: Should I start?

Caverly Morgan: Sure, sure. Because Kristin, you’ll probably leave out the fan girl part of the story. I can always insert that.

Kristin Neff: Oh yeah, that’s right. Well, apparently we met. Okay. You start,

Caverly Morgan: Okay, so I’ll start. So, I…Kristin does not remember that the first time we met we were at a Bridging Hearts Bridging Mind conference. I was there to, um, represent Peace in Schools, which was a budding nonprofit at that time. And I was so impressed by Kristin’s presentation. And so I was one of the many people in line afterwards to say, oh, you need to know about Peace in Schools.

Oh my gosh, your research. It’s incredible. Uh, and, uh, so fast forward after that, uh, that was sort of our, that was our first meeting, but we, we consider our official first meeting a bit later. So, Kristin, back to you.

Kristin Neff: Yeah. So, uh, so about four or five years ago I started getting interested in, um, a type of meditation, which is generally known as, you know, non-dual meditation, which is what Cavalli teaches. And, uh, she was at this retreat, she wasn’t teaching, she was there, um, as a student. Uh, and um, the teacher had said, you gotta meet Caverly.

You two have so much in common. And when we met, you know, you’ve ever had that feeling, it’s like sisters separated at birth. We had so much in common, both in terms of our personality, I think we’re both founders. She founded Peace and Schools. I founded the self-compassion research, or both have a lot of fierceness. Uh, but what we really bonded over, I have to be honest, was, I’m not gonna say who was teaching the retreat, but there were some, uh, unconsciously sexist comments made and I. Being me, you know, raised my hand and said, what about this thing is, it wasn’t that sexist? And everyone was like, what are you talking about?

No one even noticed that it was sexist and Caverly came up to me and said, sister, you’re totally right. It was really unacceptable. And we started bonding over realizing how in a lot of these settings, uh, issues of sexism, first of all, they aren’t even noticed, let alone are they addressed explicitly. Um, and

so

Tami Simon: So I, so I have to ask, I have to ask a couple clarifying questions right here at the start. I know I’m interrupting the narrative, but what, just give us a sense of the sexist comment.

Kristin Neff: Well, it wasn’t actually a sexist comment as much as, um, a, a film was shown with a lot of sexism in it, and it wasn’t commented on. So maybe I should say it wasn’t a sexist comment, but the fact that this teacher said, this is my favorite film, and the film was. Full of sexist tropes and stereotypes, and it wasn’t even commented on. And so I raised my hand and said, didn’t you notice all the sexism in that film? And it’s like, no, actually I didn’t. It’s an old film. And so I should, to be clear, it was the lack of commenting on sexism. But for me, as a woman, my teacher shows this film and it’s full of sexism and it’s not commented on, I felt belittled as a woman, you know, that, that this teacher who was supposed to be about awakening wasn’t even awake to all the sexist messages shown in that film that he, he showed.

And that was really, um, I think the, where we really bonded, where I knew this is a sister, because she, she taught, started talking about her work and how she was actually looking, combining waking up with waking up to things like sexism and racism, et cetera. you wanna add anything to that

Caverly Morgan: You know, I think I’ll just add, um, Kristin and I, you know, the depth and degree to which we connect over our passions, and I agree that there’s a certain fierceness to how we, um, are committed to what we’re committed to in the world. I only wanna tweak slightly, I, I don’t recall saying it’s unacceptable.

I didn’t, I didn’t actually feel that it was

unacceptable that it was, that it was shown. But I, I wanna underline is that I, I do agree with you so often. Especially in spiritual settings, not bringing attention to collective conditioning that creates suffering. And I did resonate with your recognition that that was skimmed over.

We, we both recognized is something that, could be valuable within a spiritual community to acknowledge collective conditioning that isn’t very different than personal conditioning. That creates suffering. Yeah.

Tami Simon: Okay. And then to try to define a couple terms. ’cause I wanna bring everybody with us on our conversation when some people hear. Non dual meditation, they glaze over. I even noticed part of me, and I’ve, you know, I’ve interviewed a lot of non-dual teachers and I offer a definition of what non-dual meditation is.

I noticed there’s something about that phrase that just creates a strange glaze quality. So can you define it in an easy, accessible way?

Kristin Neff: I’m gonna hand on that, that one to Caverly…

Caverly Morgan: I, I, I love, I, I love talking about Kristin and her work and, and I love hearing how Kristin acknowledges me. I, I confess, I actually don’t usually use that phrase, um, non-dual meditation teacher and Tami, it’s for the reason you mentioned, um, of a dear mentor of mine recently pointed out the problematic nature of. Even the phrase non-dual, it’s pointing to something you’re not. And I was being encouraged to bring a lot of attention to what I am. So I’ve been playing and Kristin and I have a shared love of language. So we both will, we’ll get into this, this is part of our shared work together is, allowing people to, uh, through support, get in touch with language that resonates for them.

And so this mentor of mine was encouraging me to lean more fully into words like wholeness, the unity of being. And so it’s a bit clunky to say I teach meditations that support people in accessing the recognition of their inherent wholeness and unity of being. So I understand why non-dual is a nice way to point to the types of meditations that take us directly.

To an, an experience of who we authentically are, and I know that’s where Kristin and I really bond is we have a love of this direct access and, and again, we’ll get into how self-compassion plays a role in this direct access of being.

Kristin Neff: And for me, I would say what really Drew draws me is the idea that we aren’t separate from the universe. We aren’t separate from the whole, right? That we are an expression of the whole. And for me, that’s really what drew me in and that’s related and we’ll talk about to my self-compassion work as well.

Caverly Morgan: I’ll just say one more thing, especially for those who have been hearing this phrase, non-dual meditation. What does that mean? My eyes kind of glaze over. Um, a, a simple way to talk about it in this moment might be, it’s a type of meditation in which we’re consciously allowing object relationship to collapse or dissolve.

So just put simply, often in meditation practice, I’m showing up. I feel as though I’m focusing my attention on something, and there’s this subtle distinction there that leads one, to experience the sense of separation that Kristin just pointed to. in a non-dual meditation, we’re consciously allowing that to dissolve so that we can rest in the wholeness of being.

Tami Simon: So what I hear here at the start is that part of your bond. As two women who are going to speak out for justice and for their not being unconscious acts of harm happening in a meditation space because of an overly transcendent approach that says subject object has disappeared. And we’re not gonna pay attention to these comments or biases that are actually creating suffering.

We’re gonna lift them up. And I think I share that. Intent and ferocity. And what’s interesting to me about this special episode on deepening self-compassion is how all three of us are exploring topics that really matter, that really matter to our heart, and are willing to come forward with our questions.

And my understanding is that part of your meeting involved, and Kristin, correct me if I’m wrong here, but you wanting to go deeper into this question about the self in self-compassion, and I’m bringing this forward because I think sometimes when people teach or their researchers or their big shots or whatever, and you are a big shot in the field of self-compassion.

I mean, you developed the scale and the measurement in an entire training program on giving people the skills of self-compassion. It’s a thing, it’s a vulnerable thing to say. And I have this actual question about the self that’s.

Kristin Neff: Yeah.

Tami Simon: out these skills, but yet you led in your relationship with ca with this questioning mind. So I wonder if we can go into that.

Kristin Neff: Yeah. And, and, and I have to say also Tami, what was so wonderful is being a student again, because I was teaching so much and I was teaching workshops and leading workshops and, you know, which includes leading meditation. But just going back to a student, going back to beginner’s spine was just so valuable to me.

And, and realizing that idea of waking up, I’d always wanted, I always heard about waking up. I always wanted to wake up. for me, this was a way of, you know, again, it’s carefully, she says it so much more eloquently than me, but waking up to our true nature, which is not separate from the whole and kind of, um. Yeah, not, not so much. So there’s from, here’s what drew me and see if this ties into what you’re talking about, conditioning. There’s the contents of our experience, which is what we’re feeling and observing and experiencing, and then there’s the awareness of what’s happening. And in meditation cir in mindfulness circles, it’s usually just kind of like a almost observing awareness, but with compassion.

It’s a loving awareness. And I was really interested in just basically the nature. Of when we are experiencing the contents of our mind, that we can also not, instead of also realize that this is an expression of loving awareness manifesting itself as these thoughts and emotions. If, if that makes sense. so where, when it comes to conditioning, what I noticed is in these, I also have to say, Tami, I’m gonna say if, if you are a single woman and you wanna pick up men, go to a non-dual meditation retreat. It’s crazy. If you’re a man, single man, you wanna pick up woman, go to a self-compassion workshop. The gender differences, like 70% men in non-dual meditation retreat, 70% women in self-compassion retreats. So there’s also, you know, you know me, I’m very interested in gender roles. There’s also something gendered going on here where. You know, when it’s taken it from a philosophical level just kind of up in your head, which is maybe more traditionally masculine. I don’t wanna like stereotype anyone, but more traditional and masculine, gender role socialization. People bypass the stuff, the emotions, the thoughts. And it’s like, no, I’m just awareness. I am not, I’m not the thoughts on my emotions. from a compassionate point of view, it’s like these thoughts and emotions hurt. They’re suffering. We need to bring love and kindness to them. Right? And so that’s part of, um, I suppose for me, what, what, what drew me into being able to experience this at a deeper level and do you wanna add on to this?

Caverly, I feel like I may be missing something. Caverly knows me better, better than almost anyone else. She could probably finish my sentences for me.

Caverly Morgan: Well, I will say it’s part of the joy of working together is, um, this, this, the intimacy. And one of the things that Kristin and I also bonded over was being able to model a different way of teaching than we had experienced. Um, but I, I, I, Kristin, I have nothing to add to, to what you shared. I, I appreciate hearing you speak about, um, your experience.

Thank you.

Tami Simon: Now you said something that I think is important, Kristin, which is several things as well as the dating advice…

Kristin Neff: Oh yeah, by the way, I’m sorry I, there was so much that, see, see, that’s a great idea. So that, uh, conditioning of heterosexism,

Caverly Morgan: It’s true.

Kristin Neff: Of our conditioning is unconscious. What popped in my head was that, was that thought conditioned by my culture.

Caverly Morgan: Yeah.

Kristin Neff: a beautiful example of seeing it and honoring it and owning it and saying, wow, you…

Caverly Morgan: Look how it slips in these assumptions we make. Mm-hmm.

Kristin Neff: these assumptions of heterosexism and, um, and yeah, and I can, I can kind of feel the, the pain of that instead of being defensive. Because I didn’t choose to have that unconscious conditioning that rose up. That’s that. And it really was a heterosexist statement. It was kind of funny, but it was also a heterosexist statement. Instead of like judging myself for it, I can just, you know, this is this part of what’s unfolding. I can have compassion for that.

Of course, we all are a product of how we’ve been conditioned. If we’ve been loving awareness to this with compassion as opposed to blame and shame, that’s really what we’re after. So that was actually a real time, um, example of how we can use self-compassion and this understanding of, you know, that we are awareness unfolding and what arises is the product of our conditioning, and we can bring compassion to that as well as just observation in a way that’s transformative. You know?

Tami Simon: Which, which brings me to one of my many questions about deepening self-compassion, which is place, this transcendent place. It can just be witnessing or it can be a loving. So one of my questions is how in both of your experiences has this loving nature of observation been discovered?

Because I think one of the things, and I’ll just to say is that I don’t think it’s an add-on. I think it’s intrinsic in awareness, but that it’s not always something that people are in touch with. So I’m curious to know how you both became more in touch with the loving nature of awareness.

Kristin Neff: Do you want to respond to that first? Caverly?

Caverly Morgan: Sure. Sure. At the monastery where I trained, my teacher used to refer to awareness as conscious, compassionate awareness. And I used to wonder why these, why so many words? just awareness? And I understand now something experientially that I only un understood intellectually as a monk, and that is that. Awareness only seems like a cold, neutral witness. If we’re accessing awareness through a place that’s not embodied, through an experience that is not embodied. So perhaps an intellectual understanding of awareness. My teacher, when I was trained to facilitate retreats that we called Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you retreats.

There’s nothing wrong with you, was the title of the retreat. was trained as a facilitator to recognize we would do role plays in which people experienced negative self-talk, and I was trained as a facilitator to be able to recognize that it was more important to have the retreatment move into the position of being the one, offering the reassurances to the part that had experienced all that negative self-talk than it was to simply receive the reassurances. And I’m able to see now that it’s because. Self-compassion as a practice is like a lifeboat. And this is one of the things I’ve loved about what Kristin has so masterfully done with her work. I remember the first time we were teaching together and I had that image of, it’s like a boat that takes us out of our conditioning. that when we step into the role, when we embody conscious, compassionate awareness, we’re, we’re able to offer loving reassurances to the part of us that’s suffering, including the part of us that assumed we were separate, including to this felt sense of separate self that we’ve, um, suffered on behalf of. So it’s not a neutral, uh, place. It’s a, it’s when when we directly experience it, we realize that there is a, That, that, uh, the word love in my experience could be interchangeable with the word awareness, just depending on the circumstance in the moment I’m in, regarding which, which word I would reach for.

Kristin Neff: Uh, and for, for me, it’s, it’s almost like a, a two part process. At first, it’s very useful to realize I am not the same. I’m not identical or identified with the thoughts or emotions or sensations I’m having. And so sometimes when you make that separation, it just feels a little bit more like awareness.

I’m not what’s happening. I am aware of what’s happening and that’s useful. But, but when it’s not integrated, it can, it can feel a little bit cold or neutral. But when this awareness turned towards, turns towards what’s happening and when, what’s happening is, is suffering, it just naturally like it, you know, this is my own experience.

It feels like a mother holding her crying child, right? When you embody this loving awareness, you are turning toward what’s happening as opposed to just saying, oh, I’m not, what’s happening? And I think, and again, I don’t know, um, I, I, I was just on a, a non-dual meditation retreat three weeks ago, and the teacher kept on talking about awareness.

Awareness. And I said. we say loving awareness? And I cannot tell you how many people came up to me and said That made so much difference. And it’s because I think awareness is, is a little bit disconnected, a little disembodied the way Caverly said. But loving awareness is when we are both what’s happening and the awareness of what, what’s happening.

If we were the awareness and not what was, what, what was happening, we’d be separate. That’s why they call it non-duality, not two. Right? We, it is not the same, but it’s not separate either. And that connectedness, you know, you know. Tell me my three components of self-compassion, which have worked out pretty well. The warmth, the kindness, the mindful awareness, and that common humanity, which really points to more than just humanity, you know, connection with the entire universe. That’s really what we’re tapping into when we’re waking up. that’s also the exact way, way that I define what self-compassion is. So it’s, we’re going to the same place, we’re realizing the same truth. That’s probably better. Better language.

Tami Simon: When I think of you as raising your hand in these meditation retreats, I think God did they really let her back into the next retreat. I mean,

Caverly Morgan: She is a troublemaker. Tami, you can feel it. You can feel it.

Kristin Neff: Every retreat I raise my hand because there’s usually something that like one, one person said, oh yeah, loving awareness comes at, at the very last stage. And I said, Why doesn’t it come in earlier? And he actually said, well, maybe you just aren’t there yet. And I almost left. know, you, you know, you encounter, I think there’s a lot of unconsciousness among some teachers, especially those who’ve been socialized to just think that they’re right and this, this way of doing things is the right way. And there’s sometimes a lack of questioning. I think that comes from privilege and power that. some ways, being a woman, or of course we have privilege from being white, but from being a woman, you kind of, you realize is that necessarily true? Should we be questioning these, um, orthodoxies? Um, and so I think that’s part of what Caverly and I bring to this, aren’t a lot of women in this space. I’m telling you

Tami Simon: And I wanna, I wanna underscore, uh, a question, which is, it sounds like what you’re saying, and I wanna see if I have this right, is that when we’re working at a more intellectual or mental level, there’s this sense of. Pure observation, but that when we enter an embodied space, and specifically I would say the space of the heart,

Kristin Neff: Yes.

Tami Simon: a heart space, then this observational quality becomes loving or conscious, compassionate awareness.

And that you’re saying from a gendered perspective that more often women are starting, and I’m saying these are generalizations, which always make me nervous about any gendered statement, but that women have this embodied heart-based way of being one with all that is, and that has this loving quality there potentially right from the jump, right from the start, right at the beginning.

It’s a loving kind of embrace of everything, even the suffering parts that feel separate.

Kristin Neff: Yeah. And, and just wanna clarify here, we aren’t talking about biological sex, we’re talking about gender role socialization. We aren’t even talking about gender identity. It’s how we were raised, what things we were allowed to feel or what things were bullied out of us, right? And I think that’s part of what’s playing here.

And I, I talked about this in my book, fear, Self-Compassion, is that sometimes we’re socialized to feel uncomfortable with certain things. And I think that’s why general socialization, which, which and I, which ly calls our conditioning, all those factors, all those biases that kind of get, that operate unconsciously are filtering our experience. And what Caverly and I are very dedicated to is looking at those filters, uh, how are they operating, how are they potentially limiting us? Uh, and so it’s, it is beautiful how all these threads come together. When we’re we bring this idea of loving awareness to, I can really, are you comfortable with me saying the practice of waking up?

Caverly Morgan: Sure. Tami. Um, uh, as you’re hearing, Kristin and I have this ongoing love of, of, um, language and, and we, there is something to be said about how what we’re describing is also a non-practice. It’s not something that we have to work really hard and get better. But what I wanna, is your, is your thought complete?

’cause I had something I’d like to say, but I don’t wanna cut you off. So, uh, I do think, Tami, I’m in total agreement about the framing and as an interviewer, you’re so good at zooming out and, and seeing like, okay, what’s the, how can I, how can I, um, put in a nutshell what we’re really talking about here. the only thing I’d like to contribute is that something that, correct me if I’m wrong, Tami, but I think the three of us have a lot of care around the both. And so all three of us have direct experiences that there is no gender. Three of us have direct experiences that we are not our bodies.

Kristin Neff: yeah,

Caverly Morgan: We live on this relative plane which. As Kristin just was referring back to, we have this collective conditioning makes it such that our relative are different. And one of the things that I think is important about acknowledging this is ultimately what we’re talking about, we’re just tossing names towards the nameless, know, uh, loving giving.

The word love is, is simply bringing a word to what actually is wordless. and.

Kristin Neff: Mm

Caverly Morgan: I think there’s value in, as we bring words to the word list, in recognizing how we’re impacted by the words we choose. So many people throughout my years of leading meditation retreats will tell me they’ve been training for years and years and years and had that sort of the farthest they went practice.

Again, I’m intentionally making this sound like a line, and it’s not of course, but their felt experience was the farther I went in practice, the more entrenched I got in identifying as the witness of my experience, and there was a. Coolness to it. There was a neutrality to it. I can’t say that I actually had increased compassion for the different parts of me who suffered.

I can’t say that I, um, watched my childhood trauma begin to, be healed through this practice. I just sort of hovered above my experience and that was only able to be named once they had a different experience, which is why Kristin and I, I think, have such a passion around these self-compassion practices because when we become that, which can see these, say, difficult experiences from our childhood the seat, from the seat of love with a capital L. Then real healing can occur. That which is perceived itself as harmed and broken and separate, can be rightfully ushered into the home of being in which what’s experienced is that we were never broken, and that in fact we are unbreakable. to just say those things from a non embodied place is a type of bypassing. I would never say to someone who had a really hard childhood, you know, you’re actually just unbroken in that moment. That person feels

Kristin Neff: Yeah.

Caverly Morgan: What is the lifeboat?

Kristin Neff: Hmm.

Caverly Morgan: To, to bring them home. It’s, it’s, it’s self-compassion. It’s what Kristin’s work has been so dedicated to. It’s, it’s what, um, in peace in schools has been the most profound aspect of our curriculum.

Teenagers being able to recognize I can apply unconditionally loving reassurances as a practice, I can, I can offer these reassurances to the part of me who’s suffering, and I can usher them to the home of being and into, as you said, Tami, into the heart.

Tami Simon: I, I wanna make sure that there’s a connecting link here that’s more explicit because I think in many people’s experience they can. Rest back in a kind of loving awareness at different moments during their day. But then something happens and there’s a sense of, I feel horrible about this. I’m upset. I made a mistake.

I said the wrong thing. Whatever. Something. And these two aspects of their experience don’t connect. That sense of being the loving awareness and the suffering self feel like they’re in separate screens. There isn’t any cord can, there’s no lifeboat really. They’re just separate channels. How do you both make that connection and how can you help people make that connection?

Kristin Neff: Well, so Tami, that that is what self-compassion is. Precisely. Self-compassion is that lifeboat. And so more and more over the years, I’ve really been seeing self-compassion, not just as a series of practices, it’s not just being kind to yourself and remembering you are only human. It actually is, is a perspective shift. So normally when that you make that mistake or that thought comes up, or you feel inadequate, or there’s that stressful moment, we get absorbed in the thoughts. And the feelings and the difficult sensations and we’re, we just, we, we get really locked into a sense of separate self. And that self feels small.

It feels inadequate, it feels sometimes hopeless, right? Fatally flawed. And the moment you give compassion, you’re actually, you know the word self-compassion. The self is the one that suffers that feeling of separation, inadequacy not good enough. When you move into compassion, you are no longer identifying with a separate self.

You are the one who gives compassion. So when you, when you’re in a state of compassion, first of all, you’ve taken a step away from identifying with the suffering limited self you’ve moved into and ca and I love to play with this on, on our retreats, we have people come up with their own names for it. It might be loving awareness.

It might be your soul, it might be your, you know, your big self. It might be, you know, your higher self. People have different terms for it. And it’s interesting, everyone has a sense of what we’re pointing to, even if they use very different terms for it. you embody compassion, then you then you’re no longer just that small, limited separate self. But here’s the thing. You are aiming, your focus is still on the pain. That’s why it’s self-compassion and not just like going into loving awareness. You are, you are aiming it toward the pain, the the words you’re saying, like, I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way. How can I help? I care about you, you know it’s gonna be okay.

I will not abandon you. All these reassurances we give from the respective of compassion mean we aren’t, we aren’t leaving behind suffering small self, or we’re both, we are both loving awareness and the suffering self at the same time. And so what’s amazing is every moment, I would say every moment, it’s gonna mean an extreme statement, but I’m gonna say it, every moment of self-compassion is a moment of being awake at some level. Every moment of self-compassion is a moment of letting go of our identification with that small, separate, limited, inadequate self and moving into something bigger, more connected, and more heartful full of full of love.

Caverly Morgan: Something that I appreciate about the work that Kristin and I have been doing together is this, uh, this support that we provide for recognizing that this movement that Kristin’s referring to can be a chosen. It’s very empowering for people to recognize I’ll derail myself here and just insert something that feels important.

When I first came to self-compassion practices, I can say that I felt like a small sense of separate self practicing, offering self-compassion to another part of me that was hurting. I think the, the, the place that is exciting about what Kristin and I have been creating together is. That there are pathways for someone, not only to practice something that helps a part of them that might be suffering, but Kristin and I have felt quite aligned around recognizing that through these practices we can remember who we really are versus staying identified with some other aspect of the personality that’s simply showering.

Another aspect of the personality with compassion. And Kristin, I think that’s why what you’re saying is so important. It’s that it, and this is the lifeboat piece. We, we become the recognition that there are no separate parts, or as Dick Short says, you know, there are no bad parts. You know, everything…

Kristin Neff: Yeah.

Caverly Morgan: …welcomed in experience and conscious, compassionate awareness or loving awareness or big self. Um. knows this is this. So we’re resting into that knowing in an embodied way.

Tami Simon: Okay. Lemme see if I can ask you to clarify Caly and Kristin, because I think that many people, when they learn the skills of self-compassion and, and Kristin, in the way that you and Dr. Chris Germer describe them in your mindful self-compassion training as a set of skills, do have the experience of there being this loving part of themself and the suffering part of themself.

And the loving part is practicing the skills on the suffering part, but they’re not connecting. Dissolving into the source of compassion. It’s not a waking up moment, but it is a really good bandaid for a painful experience. So how do you both teach people to make it and inquire into it as an awakening?

Experience?

Kristin Neff: yeah. Which is so, and it, and it is true, Tami. So I was a little, I was a little mischievous when I

Tami Simon: Experience? I know you’re mischievous. That’s okay.

Kristin Neff: a moment of waking up. It’s one step there. But this is what Kalina and I have been teaching these retreats called, you know, finding the source of compassion where you could, when this is what’s so beautiful when we combine more. Maybe classic self-compassion skills training with really looking deeply at where is this love and compassion coming from, you know? And, and so when, when they’re being helped, especially with, you know, Caverly’s teaching helped to embody the loving, connected presence, which by the way, it is a way to describe the three components of self-compassion, loving, connected presence. That loving, connected presence isn’t limited. It’s not separate. It’s actually, it’s not so much. Learning a new skills that is just, you know, expressing its true nature. and so here’s the thing. You don’t have to go this route. You can practice self-compassion. It just fine without even thinking about any of this.

And it still works. It still helps, it still helps to reduce your suffering, you can go farther. You can actually use it as a, a lifeboat, so to speak, to something much bigger, much deeper, much more profound it can really be a way of understanding your true nature, who we really are. Um, if, if you’re interested.

If you aren’t, you don’t have to be, but I think a lot of people are. I mean, that this is what’s really. Surprised me about working with carefully. We’ve had people come to our retreats who’d never even been on a meditation retreat before. They just wanted self-compassion training, and they have incredibly profound experiences because I think everyone has those moments in life where they do connect with something bigger. You know, whether it’s when they see their child for the first time, or they’re on the top of a mountain out in nature, you know, again, everyone has their own language for it, so we’re just kind of helping them connect the dots. That that’s actually what you’re doing. You’re tapping into, well, it’s, Dick Shores would say yourself with a capital S. Right. So it’s, it’s, it’s less exotic than I thought it would be necessarily. People understand they have some experience of this that they can, um, connect to.

Tami Simon: Well, I think this is the moment where we’re gonna take people into an experience because it’s one thing to hear us talk about it, but we need to do it. We need to actually taste the meal. And so Caverly, I wonder, not a long meditation, but you’re gifted at getting right to it quickly

Kristin Neff: Yes.

Tami Simon: …person who experiences some loving part of them sending love to some suffering part of them, but is not in a quote unquote awake, loving, conscious presence. They’re not there. They’re in these two parts. Can you help us? Can you help us take this discovery further?

Caverly Morgan: Yeah. So in other words, Tami, um, the, you recognize your suffering and it feels really hard to access this sort of vastness of our being. Um, it feels

Tami Simon: Yeah,

Caverly Morgan: the, the, the vastness of I Am or true nature or Big S self. So, um, kind of what do we do in those moments?

Tami Simon: yeah. Take us into an experience of that to have the, what Kristin has stated so strongly that a moment of deep self-compassion is a waking up moment.

Caverly Morgan: Okay, beautiful. So wanna invite our listeners to pause and begin by feeling feet, whether you’re feeling your feet on the floor or. Your cross-legged. Let the soles of your feet be the point in which you can experience some connection with the earth, with the grounding of a planet that holds us and isn’t separate from us.

We could maybe even say, loves us. We are not separate from nature. We are nature. Take a moment to feel yourself connecting to the earth and potentially as the earth part of whole. And then let your breath nourish you. take three of the longest and deepest and exhalations you’ve taken yet today, and for a moment just out of play. Imagine that your breath loved you. We so rarely pause to enjoy the breath. Just enjoy breath that If your mind is saying, how could the breath love me?

Just recognize it’s sustaining you the way a mother sustains a child. So feel this loving breath. Move in and out of your body. And then friends, take a moment to see any part of you that might be struggling or full of angst, strain, suffering in any way in this moment. Just see them having whatever experience they’re having, and then bring loving, gentle attention to the lens you are looking through. Is there any self-talk like they shouldn’t be having their ex, that experience or what’s wrong with them, or they should get over it. Just notice who am I identified with right now? Am I the judge? Am I identified with some version of the inner critic? Or in a sense, what’s my position now in this moment? Can you bring non-judgmental loving inquiry to this position? What is this? Position, is it solid? Is it fixed? Does it have edges? Is it just a bunch of thought forms in this very moment? Rather than to stand in, I am this position. Ask, what is all this arising in? So all these thought forms, all these emotions, whatever stance might be present. Let yourself feel the way in which it’s not separate from the loving breath of being. Give yourself permission to soften into the ease of being. Take a stance as presence itself. It’s a stance, less stance. You don’t have to fix any part of you. Nobody needs to get better or evolve, or change or even heal. Let yourself rest in the. Perfection of being that experiences the perfection of what arises, even the perfection of conditioned processes that veil the vastness of being you are whole. And now if it’s alive for you, playfully take on the role of the compassionate mentor and look to see from this stance list stance of presence, is there anything you’d wanna say or offer to any part of you been suffering or struggling? Maybe it’s something as simple I see you, but we’ll close this brief meditation out with the opportunity to look to see whether there’s any phrase or reassurance, unconditionally loving reassurance that you wanna take with you, that you can apply as a practice in your life the next time this part of you who’s suffering is up. Maybe it’s, I love you. Maybe it’s you’re not alone, and we’ll close out with this opportunity to offer that in this moment to whoever and to whatever needs to hear it. Thank you.

Tami Simon: Thank you Caverly, and thanks everybody for taking that journey with us. I’m very moved by the phrase that you’ve both referenced, which is compassion as a lifeboat. And there’s a question that comes up for me in that, which is I’ve found in my own experience that sometimes I need another person to help me get on the boat.

Like I just can’t get on the boat by myself. I try, but I’m not, somehow I’m not going. And, you know, I’ve been to plenty of. Uh, meditation retreats, and I know how to meditate. And Kristin, I’ve studied the skills that you teach and I can even recount for you what they are. But then there are these moments in my life when I need another human being.

I just need a friend, a mentor, a person to say, let me give you a hand. Let me get on the, I’m gonna get on the lifeboat with you. And I wonder if you can talk about that. ’cause I notice I feel fortunate that I’ve had a lot of people reach their hands out to me and say, I’m here for you. I’ll help you get on the boat.

But sometimes I feel like, really, Tami, after all these years, you still need that. But I do actually, I do.

Kristin Neff: Yeah. Well, so I mean these practices, it, it’s kind of ironic because self-compassion in some, from one in one point of view, it’s instead of just me giving compassion to others or others giving compassion to me, I’m giving compassion to myself. So it can seem as if you don’t need anyone else. Right. But of course it helps so much to have that relational stance because compassion is by its nature, relational. And if I put my little scientist hat on for a moment, it’s because it evolved that way, right? The feelings of compassion and care as as, as embodied beings, as human beings, as mammals, the feelings of compassion evolve so that we take care of our family members and close in-group members. So our nervous system is actually designed by evolution have a compassion arise relationally. So, I mean, so what we’re saying here, it, it’s, it’s not like the only way it can arise. And that’s important because sometimes at three in the morning that other person isn’t there, and we don’t wanna be totally dependent on another physical human being, but our nervous system really responds so much more easily when we have that contact with someone else in a relational way. Absolutely. We don’t wanna deny that or minimize that.

Tami Simon: Appreciate hearing you say that and the biological, uh, roots of it, because of course, part of what I am moved by is your friendship, the friendship that the two of you have, and also Caverly, I’m reflecting on a moment. You and I had the chance to have dinner together not that long ago, and I was sharing with you something about, uh, uh, some suffering part of me.

And you leaned in at the dinner table and your eyes welled up with tears as you were listening to me. And in many ways, that was the greatest gift of the dinner was I felt how much you felt, what I was saying.

And I was like, oh my God, that that in and of itself got me on the lifeboat because I could see it in your eyes.

And I’m emphasizing this because I think it’s something that we can offer each other. This kind of loving, compassionate, knowing presence, which is that hand into the lifeboat to each other.

Caverly Morgan: Tami, it’s one of my greatest passions in this moment, as I’m sure you have heard. Thich Nhat Hanh’s phrase, “The next Buddha may be a sangha.” And one of the reasons in my own work, I’ve been focusing a lot on what I’ve been referring to as relational dharma. Not that I coined the phrase, but I do, um, there is a specific way I’ve been leaning into it that has to do with freedom together. And I believe that relationship is not only a valuable place for practice, but in this moment in time, a critical place for practice. How can we not only recognize that there, that we’re all one, but honor the appearances of separation in which we are relating to each other? So ultimately, I love that, um, phrase, you know, love is the collapse of. Of relationship because in the collapse of relationship, we feel our shared being. And Tami, in my experience, that’s what’s happening in those moments. I did not feel separate from you. I was you. were me. And it’s true. Kristin and I easily can drop into this shared recognition together because we share a love of shared being. And to be in spaces where we can create fields in which others are welcome into a direct experience of shared being is what collective awakening is all about. So I am a big fan of retreats that are relational in nature. There are time there, there’s space for silence, but there’s also space for intimacy, space for exercises that are guided in which we’re really seeing each other and also experiencing that there is no other.

So I appreciate you underscoring the value of this in this time, and I think, as Kristin pointed out for us at the beginning, this is part of an approach, which I think goes against a very patriarchal model that suggests that there’s gonna be someone at the front of a room that knows all the answers and will just dish out wisdom. What we’re talking about now is collective wisdom, collective understanding, collective realization, and collective awakening.

Tami Simon: Very important, very well said, very pointed at this time and with that, how can people who are interested in studying with both of you go further? I’d love to hear from each of you what the opportunities are.

Kristin Neff: Uh, so I mean, each of us teach separately, um, and together. So when I teach on my own, I tend to. Be more standard, you know, using more from my, my psychologist lens. I mean, there’s always some of this spirituality built into it, but I don’t get to talk about it as much. But if you just want the basics, kind of the skills building, uh, if you go to self-compassion dot org, i, I teach workshops, and Caverly, she can talk about what she does.

But, so a couple, two or three times a year, we do teach together. We’re teaching, um, at Spirit Rock in, in March. Is it Kely?

Caverly Morgan: Yes, we’re teaching in March there. Mm-hmm.

Kristin Neff: And then in inside LA we’re teaching together a, a weekend where we are bringing this together. It, it’s, I can’t even tell you how, um, satisfying it is for me, Tami. I might talk about some of the concepts and then Caverly Will, will drop people into that space of shared loving awareness.

It’s so beautiful to mix the two. Um, so we are, we are doing that regularly. Yeah.

Caverly Morgan: It’s, it’s true. In our last retreat, we just led a retreat in December at the Whidbey Institute and the, uh, testimonials, the evaluations, all of them have some version of appreciating the, the science portal in that Kristin brings that I am deeply unskilled and have very little experience with. And then just the balance of, of our, our energies.

And, um, so as Kristin said, we, we, we enjoy teaching together. We have several opportunities in 20. 26 to be with us. And then I, um, I’m offering a lot of retreats and practices on my own. And because you mentioned at the beginning, um, Tami, the, my book, the Heart of Who We Are Realizing Freedom Together, which is, as you know through Sounds True, I will be doing a practice collective. Um, I’ve, this will be my third time. Um, the book, uh, has practices that are designed for personal application, but in the book, we, they’re applied collectively. Um, and then, so for me, uh, it’s rewarding to have a third go at moving a collective, um, through the book. Um, and, and if I think this podcast will likely air in February, I’m, I’m told, so if, if the Practice Collective has has just started, it won’t be too late to join. Um, just to say that. So, um, thank you Tami for the opportunity to mention that.

Tami Simon: And I’d like to end on the note. Inviting all of the people who are listening at whatever point in time you’re listening to this, to join this shared heart field right here. Uh, the two of you in your friendship birthed, I think a loving, welcoming field together invited me in. And now in that we’re inviting everyone in who’s listening, the gates are open, the love is here for us to swim in together, and then to bring forth our compassionate mentorship for each other.

So thank you both. I am, uh, great admirers and so happy that you’re teaching together. Thanks, friends. Thanks for being with us.

Kristin Neff: Thanks.

Caverly Morgan: Thank you, Kristin.