Dare to Rewire Your Brain for Self-Compassion | Weiyang Xie

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm a psychologist working in college counseling. I work with clients with mental health issues. So in that sense, I'm considered a mental health expert by many. However, when I first came to the U.S. as an international student ten years ago, I was facing my own self-doubt and various adjustment issues. I wasn't ready to face all different norms and rules and expectations. I felt lost. My confidence was shaken. I was struggling with anxiety issues. These issues were carried over to my professional life. I remember my neck voice was so loud at the time. It sounded like this. You're not competent. You're going to screw this up. Your clients are going to hate you. You better quit now. I remember the first client I saw was someone with anxiety issues. Ironically enough, I was sitting in my therapist's chair, feeling overwhelmed by my own anxiety. My face was as red as a tomato can go. My heart was pumping fast. My hands were sweating. I was this close to running away from that therapist's chair and from my own anxiety. And the only reason I didn't do it, honestly, was because I knew I would get busted by my training supervisor who was watching me in the next room. I felt I was trapped in my anxiety. I could not reach my potential. I wanted to know how this had happened. I started to look closely into it. I found, interestingly, it is something that actually many of us share. A universal and common human condition. The predominant component of it is shame. The negative self-perception and self-criticism we bring onto ourselves with or without self-awareness. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve to have that. I'm less of who I want to be. I'm not likable. I'm going to die alone. I'm stupid and dumb. You see, shame is more than just the self-criticism. Shame is the underlying drive to it and the root to many emotions we experience. Fear, sadness, frustration, anger, jealousy. Shame is also the underlying drive to many emotional and behavioral problems we experience. Low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, suicide thoughts, addiction, violence, and racism. Shame is different from guilt. While guilt is how we feel about what we do. For example, I have done something wrong. Shame is how we feel about ourselves. I'm stupid and dumb. While guilt can sometimes drive us to do the right things, shame is almost always self-destructive and debilitating. In fact, shame has now become such an epidemic in our lives. Many of us are probably familiar with this voice now and then. We constantly beat ourselves up for not being smart enough, not doing enough, not making enough contributions to our friends, our team, and our community. When we finally make it to all of these goals, if we really can, we start to struggle with not taking care of ourselves enough, not attending to our relationships and families. It seems wherever we go, we are followed by this voice. We listen to it. We constantly feel the need to do more and more, better and better. Where's the animal in this process? We get stressed out and overwhelmed. When neurobiological psychologists dig into this underlying mechanism of this phenomenon, they find shame and self-criticism can reduce our prefrontal cortex's capacity to sustain attention and inhibit our impulsive behaviors. The impact of this is very similar to the effect of sleep deprivation. Imagine how you would be feeling if you are sleep deprived. Some of us are probably familiar with that right now, right? The neurobiological pathway resulting from a shaming environment can further create a mental model predisposing us to perceive this world with despair and anxiety and therefore leading to various mental health issues. So if you want to debilitate yourself, just shame yourself. If you want to debilitate others, just shame them. Imagine my eagerness to get out of my shame after I realized what it had been doing to my life. I embarked on this journey of de-shaming in the past 10 years. I tried various tactics to get rid of my shame. I hid it from others. I pretended it didn't exist. I played along, avoiding triggers. Well, none of this worked, as you can imagine. And then I beat myself up, but not being able to beat my shame, and it turned out to be this perfect cycle of self-blaming and shaming. Sounds a little familiar, right? So how has shame become such a persistent and prevalent issue in our life? It's time for us to look at our brain and understand how our self-talk is formed. Every thinking pattern can be associated with a certain neural pathway. Neurons that fire together, wire together. Think of your brain as a giant electric network made of millions of electric circuits. Every time a thought passes, it lights up a certain neural pathway. The more you think this way, the more strengthened this neural pathway becomes. Gradually, it becomes a habitual way of thinking, regardless of whether or not the thought itself is rational. So if you say, I'm so stupid, you inadvertently light up a neural pathway that reinforces a shaming pattern. And this neural pathway will likely be lightened up again next time when you are in a similar situation. I did it again. I must be stupid. Soon enough, you will start to speak a shaming language. Very fluently, or even on autopilot. Psychologists call this automatic thought. So you will start living in a shaming world filled with emotional distress and negativity. Sounds very depressing, right? So how can we save ourselves from such destiny? Good news about our human brain is its plasticity. Meaning neurons can rewire, neural pathways can be reconstructed. So let's say, if you tell yourself, I'm stupid, my boss hit me, I'm a loser. Pay closer attention to what you tell yourself and put intentional effort into challenging this shaming pattern. Start compassionate self-talk. You will start to generate new neural connections and neural pathways. This has been hard on me. It is difficult not to be able to be understood by others. I feel invalidated. I feel hurt. The more you engage in this thinking pattern, the stronger the new neural connections will become. Gradually, the old neural connections will fade away. And you will start to speak compassionate self-talk to replace the old habitual way of thinking. Research has revealed that being compassionate to yourself can increase your emotional resilience and your psychological well-being. Here's how this works. People who are more compassionate to themselves are better at coping with negative emotions and less likely to ruminate on their negative thoughts, and therefore having a lower level of depression and anxiety. Being compassionate to yourself can also reduce your stress hormone cortisol and increase your heart rate variability, which indicates people are more relaxed, calmer, and safer. They are more open and flexible to respond to changes in their life. So, you must be wondering right now, how can I practice this compassionate self-talk? Okay, here's the start. Are you ready? Let's say goodbye to all the old grammar. I am negative. I'm not enough. I don't deserve this. I'm less of who I want to be. I'm stupid. I'm dumb. I can go on and on, but you have heard me say enough of that. Keep a mental journal throughout your day and count how many of those sentences you actually say to yourself. You will be surprised. Start to challenge those automatic thoughts. Am I 100% sure those thoughts are true, or am I just saying this out of habit? If you're not 100% sure, give only 1% doubt. Question them. Don't let them pass. Stop being harsh on yourself. I can't do this. I shouldn't have done that. You mean well. You mean to motivate yourself. However, this talk can only impact your self-esteem negatively. So, how about we try a different set of thoughts? I will. I would like. I hope. I would like to do this. Let's practice compassionate acceptance of being imperfect and therefore being human. It's inevitable to make mistakes and reach our limits. Having flaws simply means you're normal, right? Here's where you're supposed to say yes, even if you don't think it applies to you personally. So, I have a confession to make. I was pretty stressed out and anxious at one point when I was preparing for this talk. You know those what-ifs, not-enough ways. What if you forget what you're going to say? What if you drag this too long to keep you on stage? In a kind way. So I keep doing more and more. I want this to be better and better. I want this to be perfect. And then I say, wait a moment. You are giving a talk about being imperfect while you're striving for being perfect? How is that going to work? Of course you're stressed out. So I ask myself, okay, what can I do? I start to backpedal in my thoughts. Okay, not too late yet. Scratch what I said. Scratch those what-ifs. Imagine there's a neural pathway that actually gets unwired here. There's a new one coming here. What can my compassionate brain tell me? It is okay. You will make mistakes. Expect it and be okay. You will feel emotions. Fix your feelings. You don't want to be a robot. Well, I actually felt more relieved. Still a little bit nervous, but more relieved after giving myself a break. I probably saved myself from a potential panic attack. Let's cultivate an open and curious mindset instead of a closed and judgmental mindset. How many times have you heard yourself say this? What's wrong with me? I can't get this right. How about we try this? I wonder why I'm having this challenge right now. It's an interesting puzzle to solve. If you have trouble accessing your compassionate self-talk, here's a trick to it. Ask yourself, what would you say to your family or your friends or who you care about when you see them suffering or struggling? Give the loving kindness you give to them, yourself. We certainly don't need a double standard in our relationship, right? This is a shortcut to access your compassionate neural pathway. This is a process that takes ongoing practice and repetition. This is like learning a new language to many of us. We wouldn't know how to speak a new language just by simply acknowledging it exists, right? We need ongoing practice. Let's start to pay attention to what you tell yourself. Because whatever you are saying to yourself, you are listening.