How To Show Up For Yourself

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2024

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We explore the science behind how self-compassionate touch can help us feel better about ourselves.

Link to transcript: https://tinyurl.com/4nm5827f

Summary: Brittany Luce, host of NPR's "It's Been A Minute," shares her experience with self-compassionate touch. She did it for 20 seconds, almost daily. to quiet her inner critic and foster self-compassion, especially during moments of stress or self-judgment.

Researcher Eli Susman also shares the fascinating science behind this practice, and how despite being short and sweet —it may still be an effective way to cultivate self compassion -- especially if you find ways to make it a habit.

How To Do This Self-Compassionate Touch Practice:
Take a moment to try these different touches and see which feels most supportive to you. Whenever you feel stressed or upset, or just need some extra support, use this compassionate touch to remind yourself that you’re here for you. Research shows the practice works best when practiced regularly.

Duration: 20 seconds, practiced daily or as often as you can.

Find a comfortable space. Sit or stand somewhere you feel relaxed and at ease. Try out these micro practices while thinking kind words to yourself, as though you were comforting a dear friend in distress.

1. Touch Your Heart: Place both hands gently over the center of your chest, one on top of the other. Apply just enough pressure to feel connected, but not uncomfortable. Focus on the warmth of your touch.

2. Feel Your Strength: If it feels right, make a gentle fist with your left hand, symbolizing strength, and place it over your heart. Rest your right hand on top of the fist to combine the feeling of strength and love.

3. Cradle Your Face: Gently cup each of your cheeks with your hands, holding your face as you would a loved one in distress. Let the touch be soft and caring.

4. Support Your Core: Place both hands over your solar plexus, just below your ribcage, and imagine you're holding and supporting your core. This can be particularly comforting if you're feeling fear or deep emotions.

5. Give Yourself a Hug: Cross your arms, resting each hand on the opposite shoulder. Gently squeeze yourself, adjusting the pressure to feel comforting but not overwhelming.

Guest: Brittany Luse is an award-winning journalist, cultural critic. and host of the NPR podcast “It's Been a Minute.”

Learn more about Luse: https://tinyurl.com/3bjt6v7m
Follow Luse on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bmluse
Listen to the NPR podcast "It's Been A Minute": https://tinyurl.com/3uek8ey8

Guest: Eli Susman is a researcher and Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology at UC Berkeley
Read Eli Susman's study on self-compassionate touch: https://tinyurl.com/2uh783z8

Related Science of Happiness episodes:

Related Happiness Break mediations:

What to do When you're Struggling, With Spring Washam

Transcript

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0:14.7	The past few weeks has been travel. I've gone out of town. I have come back home. I had my parents in town. So like I was sleeping on my couch with my husband on a section. My parents were in my bedroom. I mean, I've had all sorts of feelings come up in the past couple of weeks,
0:20.9	like, I don't know, am I I cleaning enough am I helping my husband
0:24.3	enough around the house he's doing a lot to like make my parents feel really
0:26.9	comfortable have I done that enough did I did I do a good enough job at this
0:31.7	panel that I was on.
0:34.0	I just had a lot of big questions swirling around in my head.
0:37.0	So I have had plenty of opportunities
0:39.7	to, I guess, feel the kind of guilt that for me has been a big barrier to self-compassion.
0:46.0	It's very easy for me to take any stressful situation in my life and turn that into an opportunity to guilt myself into why I didn't do something better.
0:57.0	And then it goes to like, oh, I mess this thing up to I'm a failure and you know, on so forth. I think I can have a better
1:04.2	relationship with myself around compassion. I feel a lot of responsibility to
1:08.8	get things right to do things perfectly. Perfection's not real. But somehow I've brought that spirit of
1:15.4	perfectionism upon myself when all I need to do is really show up and be
1:19.9	curious. I don't have to show up perfectly in order to be competent. I think we're allner. We've all heard about being kind to ourselves, but have you ever tried self-compassionate touch? New research shows that something
1:45.6	as simple as placing a gentle hand on your heart while focusing on warmth and care for yourself
1:51.9	can make you feel more self-compassionate in that moment.
1:55.0	Our guest this week, Brittany Loose, is an award-winning journalist and cultural critic.
2:00.0	She's also the host of the NPR Podcast. It's been a minute.
2:04.0	She's been looking for a way to ground herself amid a hectic season of travel and work
2:10.0	and be a little kinder to herself in the process.
2:13.0	So for our show, for just 20 seconds or so a day, Brittany practiced self-compassionate touch,
2:19.0	doing things like placing your hands on her heart or giving yourself a hug. Later, we hear from researcher
	...

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