TODAY'S GUEST: Dr. Christopher Germer, sexologist, self-compassion expert

I'm extremely happy to welcome Dr. Christopher Germer to Hard Conversations!

Chris Germer, PhD is a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School. He co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program with Kristin Neff in 2010 and MSC has since been taught to over 100,000 people worldwide. They co-authored two books on MSC, The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook and Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program. Chris spends most of his time lecturing and leading workshops around the world on mindfulness and self-compassion. He is also the author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion; he co-edited two influential volumes on therapy, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy, and Wisdom and Compassion in Psychotherapy; and he maintains a small private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts, USA.

• WEBSITE:

  https://chrisgermer.com/

• https://self-compassion.org

• Books:

• The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion

YOU'LL LEARN

• How self-compassion can improve your erections

• How self-compassion can help with anxiety

• The detriments of sexual shame

• Practical tips you can try at home

• Different techniques to employ regarding being more mindful during sex

• How to spot detrimental self-critical thoughts

• Insights on sexuality

• And more!

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING to my male sexuality and sex therapy podcast!

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About the Show

Introducing Hard Conversations, a podcast about male sexuality, and all things erectile, from the latest natural erectile dysfunction treatment to the best ed medical treatment. Therapist Tim Norton expands the conversation about male sexuality, adds context to why we struggle as a society to have hard conversations and breaks down how in a sex-positive environment there really is no room for taboos, judgment, or shame when it comes to penises.

YOUR online sex therapy and couple’s therapy HOST:

Tim Norton is a sex positive sex therapist working in private practice. He offers online therapy, online sex therapy, online sex coaching, and therapy and coaching for somatic symptom disorder.

Tim obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California. Tim is a proud member of American Association of Sex Counselors, Educators, and Therapists (AASECT), the Los Angeles Sexological Association, and works part-time with the Pain Psychology Center in Beverly Hills.

Hard Conversations Podcast Transcript

Tim Norton: Hello, and welcome to hard conversation. Christopher Germer,. PhD is a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard medical school. He is a co-developer of the mindful self-compassion program, which has been taught to over 100,000 people around the globe and author of the mindful path to self-compassion and coauthor of teaching, the mindful self-compassion program and the mindful self-compassion workbook.

He is also a co-editor of the books, mindfulness and psychotherapy and wisdom and compassion in psychotherapy. Dr. Grimmer is a founding [00:01:00] faculty member of the Institute for meditation and psychotherapy, as well as the center for mindfulness and compassion, Cambridge health Alliance, Harvard medical school.

Hey teaches and leads workshops internationally on mindfulness and compassion and has a private practice in Arlington, Massachusetts, specializing in mindfulness and compassion based psychotherapy. Hello, Chris, and welcome to hard conversations. Thank you, 

Chris Germer: Tim. I'm really happy to be here. 

Tim Norton: Okay, great. I'm really excited to have you on the show.

 you know, in, in, in the therapy land, we, we nerd out to certain people and, you know, I don't know in the industry or whatever you want to call it. And,  You know, you're, you're really popular and self-compassion at least among my colleagues, at least along loss among Los Angeles therapists self-compassion is something that I feel like I'm talking about on a daily basis and trying to teach to a lot of people.

And it's a really valuable tool I'd say. And it's really counter-intuitive [00:02:00] to a lot of American or Western ideals, or maybe 

Chris Germer: you. Well said. 

Tim Norton: So a lot of clients I don't take to it immediately and I'm especially some of my more perfectionistic high achieving and go get them clients. And so I, I was hoping to just hear it directly from the expert himself.

And, and how do you feel that, or what's the. Best way for a person to just take that message in that this is a valuable tool. When they grew up in a culture, that's more of a, you know, work as hard as you can for 90 hours a week and get ahead and drive yourself until you collapse. And you can sleep when you're dead is, you know, there's a common effort.

Chris Germer: Yeah. So,  a lot of people actually throughout the whole world have a kind of a cringe reaction to the term. Self-compassion. But just about [00:03:00] nobody.   doesn't like the experience of self-compassion in the same way when somebody is being genuinely kind to us and just the right way, we don't usually be resistant.

We're just grateful, you know? And so a general,  informal definition of self-compassion is,  Giving yourself the same kindness and understanding as you would give to a dear friend. So when we're struggling, when we're stressed, when we fail, if we feel inadequate, which we often have little, you know, little pings up throughout the day,  to have a general self compassionate attitude,  really allows us to,  But it allows us to recover and be more resilient.

 but there are a few main myths about self-compassion,  [00:04:00] as people understand it,  the first myth is that it is like self pity and self pity kind of means, you know, that you're just kind of wrapped up in yourself. You can see beyond yourself. But the research shows actually that,  people who are highly self-compassionate or even just kind of self-compassionate,  are actually, they ruminate less, they're less self-absorbed they ruminate less and they are more able to see their struggles from a healthy perspective than people who are low in self-compassion.

So there's a very clear difference between self pity and self-compassion, what's interesting is there are actually five myths, main myths about self-compassion and we call them myths because the research shows, you know, precisely the opposite. Another big one [00:05:00] for men is a motivation. You know, you were talking about perfectionism that it'll kind of,  make a person feel like they'll lose their edge or something.

And. What's interesting about self-compassion is that actually people who are high in self-compassion are,  their, their standards are just as high. Like they have high standards just like anyone else.  but,  they, they're more motivated to achieve those standards. They're actually more able to,  see and admit when things go wrong and they're more motivated to correct what might've gone wrong.

And. To work hard toward achieving their goals. So self-compassionate, people are not less motivated. They're actually more motivated, but what's interesting is why they're motivated and that's because we can motivate ourselves with criticism or we can motivate ourselves with,  [00:06:00] encouragement. So most people on this call might've at some point had somebody.

Who is, who is kind of who they might've had a coach or somebody who feels like a coach or a wellwisher. And, you know, that's a person who motivates us to,  achieve our best.  but they do it with kindness. They don't understanding, they don't do it by saying, you know, what's the matter with you, you, you know, You're an idiot.

You know, what made you even think that you could do this kind of thing? Basically, they don't talk to us the way we talk to ourselves difficulty when things go wrong. So self-compassion is actually a new voice, a new motivating voice, a voice based on cars. 

Tim Norton: Okay. Yeah, I really liked how you started that.

Talking about rumination.  as we've discussed in it, as you're aware, this is a show that generally talks about erectile [00:07:00] issues and there's a tendency for guys to ruminate when they are not getting cooperation from an erection is, is how we say it.  and they'll really get in their heads. And, you know, what did I do wrong?

And what does this say about me? And I'm a failure. I'm a bad husband. I'm not a good man. And so what you're saying is that someone who is going to show more self compassion toward themselves is going to do that less. 

Chris Germer: Yes, definitely. And, and,  and there are other aspects to self-compassion that would surely help when somebody is having erectile difficulties.

Another core component of self-compassion is that people feel less isolated and alone. They feel more connected with the rest of humanity. So in other words, a guy might self-compassion that guy might be more likely to say, you know, Hey, I'm a guy, you know, this is [00:08:00] what happens for men when we're distracted or when we're anxious or whatever it may be, you know, or if it's organic difficulty like bros, post prostate, or something, to be able to say, you know, this, unfortunately it goes with the territory sometimes.

So the idea is,   when we feel,  alone,  then our suffering increases when we ruminate our suffering increases. And when we criticize ourselves, our suffering increases. And what's interesting to him is that those three points that I just made are precisely the opposite of the scientific definition of self-compassion.

So another, instead of rumination, we have mindfulness or kind of a spacious awareness instead of a sense of isolation. We have a sense of common humanity or I'm not alone. And instead of self criticism, we have [00:09:00] self-kindness and the other thing, and I think this goes right to the heart of,  people struggling with erections is,  those three experiences of self criticism, isolation and rumination are precisely what happens when people feel the emotion of shame.

Hmm. Shame and, and if nothing else, self-compassion, isn't antidote to shame. And there are many interesting ways that that works. I could, we could have that conversation as well, but,  you know, maybe there's something else which we should be discussing beforehand. 

Tim Norton: Hmm. Oh, let's, let's go with that.  because shame does come up so much, like this is, I was reading, this is what you do. When you have podcasts about erectile issues. I was reading the history of,  we call that impotence until not very long ago. [00:10:00] And there were records of, Greeks and Egyptians in their texts, worrying about this and writing about this and coming up with, with,  herbal remedies for ED.

This is something that the men have struggled with for a very long time. So, yeah, to say that it's a source of shame is, is historical 

Chris Germer: and humans have been dealing with shame since a long time. It's a, you know, part of the whole,  garden of story, right. As soon as. As soon as we have a sense of a separate self.

In other words, there's like me and you, and I'm no longer at one with everything in the garden. As soon as we have a sense of separate self, then we start to worry. Am I okay? But what's, but to get to the, to shame in particular, it's, it's really interesting to look at shame through the eyes of self compassion through the eyes of compassion.

Because when we do that, we. We learn a few things. So just let me say, first of all, that shame [00:11:00] is a really interesting emotion. It's a, it's a social emotion. It means I am imagining what you are imagining about me and it's not good. That's, that's what shame is. And it also,   boils down to the. It's an attack on the self, you know, get the difference between guilt and shame is guilt means I did something wrong.

Shame means something's wrong with me, you know? And that's what happens when people have erectile dysfunction. You know, I personally, yeah, I have this, you know, a number of times in my life and each time it kind of. Attack myself, you know, like what's the matter with be like, when I, at the last time it happened, I might've been 55 years old and it meant to be all my God, I'm getting old.

I can't perform anymore and so forth. But what it was was a doubt about myself, but, but not just doubt about myself, the thought [00:12:00] that there is something, this is the cool thing from a compassion point of view.  shame is the, is the fear that there is something about me that will render me unlovable. And every one of us is born with a wish to be loved when a child is born, the child has to, has to basically basic requirements.

One is to breathe and the second is to get somebody to love the child because otherwise the child cancer and we go through our whole lives. Wishing to be loved, you know, and, but, and also afraid that there's something wrong with us. That's going to render us on level. And when, when, when,  when a man, you know, particularly would like somebody to love them, you know, in the sexual area and so forth, and it doesn't work, then they think, Oh my God, I'm now on lovable.

You know? And because sexuality and intimacy and love is so co-mingled,  [00:13:00] generally speaking in our culture, So what self-compassion does, if it's really quite amazing is that,  self-compassion gives us a sense of self-worth first of all, not,  necessarily from what other people think about us, but rather from our capacity to be kind to ourselves, when things go wrong, self-compassion takes us out of that social approval cycle, which is so.

  pernicious in life because we can't get everybody to like us and we're definitely gonna, you know, fail, but when things go wrong in our lives, do we have an inner voice that can support us and lift us up? As we hope our lover would do or friend would do when we find that things aren't working the way we'd want it to.

So,  self-compassion takes us out of that spectator ring thing. And puts [00:14:00] and makes us feel good about ourselves through sheer inner kindness. Hmm. So that's the, that's the foundation of it. This is, this is why self-compassion is a wonderful antidote to shame. And one last thing is that,  when people have erectile issues,  it, it, it is also,  you know, in the general category of social anxiety, but more specifically performance, anxiety and performance anxiety has this kind of vicious cycle.

Like you worry about it. And then you worry about worrying and go tonight. So how do you break that cycle? How do you get out of, you might say a cycle of fear and the way to do that is to change your physiology from a fear state to a care state. And that's precisely what self-compassion to self-compassion moves us out of fear into care by, by doing the thing, [00:15:00] which ultimately we need the most, which is to care for it.

Tim Norton: All right. I think. If people could just take in that last of five minutes segment, that that would really, that really sums it up. That really, I feel, I, I really do appreciate your words there. So let's, let's delve into a little bit of it. Let's start with this inner voice.  So guy comes in,  third session and Annie hears your podcasts.

And he says something along the lines of, of course I've been rendered unlovable. My penis doesn't work. You know, I have so much shame. Can you, can you respond to that or teach some of the phrases or the, the lexicon of that inner voice and what he could start saying to himself? 

Chris Germer: Yes. Yes. Thank you. That's excellent.

So, as I mentioned, the three [00:16:00] components of self-compassion, particularly as articulated by Kristin Neff, who started all the research on this in 2003 are number one, mindfulness. And that means to know what we're feeling when we're feeling it, especially to be able to say,  this is painful. Rather than ruminating and getting into how I'm going to fix this and how I suck as a human being or as a man or whatever, to be able to simply say out, this is painful.

You know, I was really looking forward to this night and it didn't work hard. That's part one, part two is, and it's part of being a man. It doesn't always work when you're a guy, you know, women can kind of fake it. You know, guys have a harder time. They could just say, and this is part of being a man. You know, sometimes it just doesn't work and [00:17:00] I'm not alone.

You know, this is part of the experience, you know, and in particular, when I'm anxious or whatever, you know, it's even less likely to work. So that's part two, which is common humanity. So number one, Oh, this is a bummer. Number two, you know what. I'm not the only person that has happened to. And when we really internalize that, we can even say to our lover, you know, it, you know, it didn't work this time, but you know, let's give it a go again a little bit later, you know, let's see, maybe it'll work next time.

And even if it doesn't work next time, you're still a man, this is still normal. And eventually it'll probably fins on your situation, you know, but this is, this is, this is tough.  It's it's part of being a man. And then part three is actually to have an inner voice,  that we can talk to ourselves. And this is, this is the cool thing too, to ask ourselves, what would I say to a deer, a friend [00:18:00] right now who just called me up or said, I'd like to have a cup of coffee with you because I couldn't tell you what happened to me last night.

I feel so ashamed. If, if a friend. Called us up or asked to see us. And we had just like a minute or two to spend with that person. And, and heart-to-heart say something to that person. What would we say to a dear friend who just experienced the same frustration and whatever those words are. And they could be words like,  dude, you know, You're you're a good man.

You know, this kind of thing happens to us, you know? And, and besides, you know, you know, you think that so-and-so is not going to love you because it is, well, you know what, if you look at the history, you know, you're the best thing that's ever happened to her, you know, [00:19:00] or you know, any, any kind of conversation, but mostly to connect.

With a wounded heart of a friend, and then to turn to oneself. And, you know, just to say, you know, as you might say to a friend, I love you, man. I know you're going to get through this. This is temporary. I've been through this to say that to yourself. Imagine you can say to yourself, you know, it didn't work this time.

Part of being man. I love you. Anyway. You're you're a great guy. This isn't the end of the world. You know, your body knows what to do. It's done this before. Just give it a chance we can do this, but for now, let's just let it rest, you know, some kind of internal conversation that is fundamentally compassionate and supportive rather than the usual.

Hm. 

Tim Norton: Hm. Very well said. It's when that process, though, that [00:20:00] switching from. Being there for a friend to then turning it back towards yourself. I find so many people struggle with that. Like they can go in and I liked how you, in the beginning, you said, this is how you would behave with a dear friend. I hear a lot of people say, this is how they would treat a stranger or they'd be so much kinder to a, a waiter or someone, a bus driver.

And. How. Okay. So why is it so hard for people to be kind to 

Chris Germer: themselves? So I, you know, you're making a really great point, Tim,  because we also find we're not particularly kind to our family or to our children. So the key is actually perspective. In other words, actually the Dalai Lama once said, it's, it's really easy to be compassionate toward others.

Because they're not you.

[00:21:00] What it, what it means is that we're really close to ourselves and we're really close to her, you know, family or our children or something. And when we're really close, we just react. We don't have the space to remain calm and to be kind. Hmm, so that's perspective, but we can also make perspective. And this is why mindfulness is the foundation of self-compassion practice because mindfulness is, is spacious awareness.

Mindfulness is, you know, like I said before, knowing when you're experiencing, while you're experiencing it, if we can step back and to sit and say, you know, this really hurts, you know, and actually feel in our body, you know, that maybe our heart's beating or maybe we feel. Heartbroken in that moment, if we can actually feel that in the moment, our, we actually our sense of self separates a little bit from it, and we get perspective.

And in [00:22:00] that space, we can, we can say to ourselves, and I'm not alone. This is part of being a man. And we can be kind to where we have the possibility of new non-automatic language. When we have a mindful space when we are mindfully aware of what what's been going. Hmm. 

Tim Norton: So for the listeners, what might that moment look like?

So the guy let's say it's the next day, he's on the way to work. He's sitting in traffic, listening to this podcast and. He had a rough night and then the erectile issues wasn't working and he's beating himself up. And so now he's like, all right, what were the things I had to do again? I had to be mindful.

And so [00:23:00] what does, what does that actually mean? 

Chris Germer:  well, it usually means what I had described, which means that just the, kind of,  the courage to. Feel,  sad about it. And, and w when we do that, we're actually not caving. We're actually not going to, it's not going to increase the likelihood that the same thing happens again.

It's going to decrease the likelihood it happens when we can say that I, you know, I feel. Really frustrated and sad about this. This kind of breaks my heart. This was a hot day. You know, it was like such an odd date that I was like all turned inside out around it. Four.

This is, this is really disappointing to me. So that's actually to, you know, kind of the main thing, but let me say something else. There, there is a quintessential [00:24:00] self-compassion question. And the question is, what do I eat? What do I need? And when our heart is broken, because you know, we've suffered, we failed, we feel inadequate in some way, but our heart is broken.

Then we can ask ourselves, what do I need? And there are a few, you know, usually we're not able to answer that precisely so we can ask sort of more specific questions like right now, what do I need to feel safe again? What do I need to feel safe? So maybe I need to hear from my lover that. You know, I'm still loved or maybe I need, can you think of some other things that a guy might need to feel safe, Tim, 

Tim Norton: he might need to feel like, yeah, like she's not gonna leave him.

 that there's not something physiologically wrong with him.  that,  Yeah. Like [00:25:00] what you're talking about earlier. Feelings of self-worth. 

Chris Germer: So those things, you know, maybe someone needs to remind it, mind you. You're a good person. Maybe you need to go to the doctor if you're, if that'll keep you from obsessing, maybe you need to check with your.

Partner a, you know, this is not a big deal for me. Maybe you need to hear that, you know? Okay. So that's safety, but there are other things, what do I need? What do I need to comfort myself? Okay. So I'm like, Oh, maybe I need, maybe I need to hang out with a friend and share it with a friend. You know, what do I need to soothe myself physically?

You know, say if I'm, you know, we'll kind of. Tense about this. Maybe I need to go for a run. Maybe I need to swim. Maybe I need to lift weights, maybe, you know, whatever it may be, what do I need to do? Comfort myself, sued myself also, what do I need to validate myself? That means what do I really need to [00:26:00] know that maybe I don't know now that you know, Is true for me.

And one of those things might be, you know, dude, this has actually happened to you before. It wasn't a deal breaker in that relationship. Why would it be in this? And besides if it is, do you really want to be with this person, you know, kind of thing. So comforting, certainly validating, but then there also,  so that's what we call the inside of things.

The being with part, but compassion also has a young side or an action side, and that is what do I need to protect myself. Okay. So for example, it's possible that this person,  that a person where the rectangle issues actually trying to be intimate with stuff, buddy, who scared him, maybe it was actually a bad relationship or maybe, you know, he's.

[00:27:00] Interrelationship. And this other thing will like really wreck his life. And there's a part of him. That's just freaked out about it and it doesn't work. So then to protect myself would be not to do this. Maybe, maybe your body is smarter than my head. And it's just saying, I'm not going to go there. So that's protecting or providing, providing for ourselves means, you know, Maybe I was trying to make love in the morning and I'm really sleepy in the morning and, you know, Henry just didn't wake up, you know, or, or maybe in the evening, you know, or maybe I drank too much or something, you know, so provide for ourselves means to,   attend to what it is that we need in order to be relaxed and happy in a sexual context, you know, that's providing, and then motivating, motivating, as [00:28:00] I said, is motivating with encouragement rather than criticism.

And so,  surely after it doesn't work out, I know this personally because, you know, as I said, it's happened to me, I'm also a guy,   most of the thoughts in my head are like, Compulsive, you know, like, Oh, what'd, you need to do as quickly as possible. Try it again, you know, before it gets in your head and, and, you know, but that, that's kind of a tense voice, you know, it's kind of,  Chris, you know, get back on the horse and ride fast as possible or you're screwed, you know?

 what would it be to have a,  kind compassionate voice that says, Whoa, dude, you know, Like, let's just settle down a minute. Let's just ask ourselves, you know,  you know, a few, you know, fundamental questions. Like, do you really believe that for all band all the time it works, you [00:29:00] know, you know what.

Why don't you just like, make sure the next time that you're in the right place. And frankly, that you trust this person a little more, that you're feeling happier in your own skin. And so quick. In other words, you can do this, you have done this before. It will happen again. I know, but let's just take a look at it, figure out how to make it work for you.

So this is motivating ourselves with encouragement rather than. You know, compulsive and real and self-critical, so these are answering the question. What do I need? This is really important question to ask after a moment of, you know, quote unquote, you know, failure. And frankly, I think often when people have erectile issues, it's, it's not failure, it's body wisdom, and it's giving us an opportunity to learn 

Tim Norton: something.

Yeah, no, that's again, very, really excellent points. I want to go back to the, you named a couple of [00:30:00] emotions and you talked about,  you talked about fear and, and you talked about, you said this hurts, right? And I find that. A lot of guys, as simple as those sound,  really struggled to identify that in themselves.

And, and that point about mindfulness. I, I always try to guide people mindfully toward recognizing those emotions. Cause a lot of guys out there want to. Have this idea of themselves that nothing can hurt them. And, and they, they don't really need to be afraid of anything and vulnerable. Right. And so, again, he's driving to work and had a bad night, that mindful moment of fear and, and, and hurt.

I think gets skipped over a lot. So, and, and, you know, like straight [00:31:00] to the action straight to the like, okay, now how do I fix this? 

Chris Germer: Fix it. Right. That's that's, that's like the traditional male imperative, you know, six stuff. But so we can fix everything. No, we can't. Especially when it comes to the body, the body has a wisdom of it, so right.

It will not take orders. Barked out well, will not take orders that are being barked out to us. We'll take orders from the inside when there's a sense of safety and comfort. And.  happiness. 

Tim Norton: Totally. So I'm wondering if you, if you have come across this or just ever broken it down to its nuts and bolts of how do I even recognize fear in myself?

Like I've never been afraid of anything. Yeah, 

Chris Germer: yeah. Yeah. So how do I recognize for you? I think this is, this is really [00:32:00] key. The area of, you know, a rectanglish is because,  it's not helpful to be. Afraid, but also it's especially not helpful to be afraid of being afraid. So what we want to do is to just be able to will to hold one, number one, that I'm afraid, number two, that I'm afraid of being afraid, but then actually change the channel and change the channel by being kind to ourselves, you know, but an answer to the question, like how do I know when I'm afraid?

I think this is really close to a lot of the.  kind of traditional ways of working with erectile issues, which is to help people to get in tune with their bodies, you know, to know when they're afraid. And so we can feel fear in various ways. We can feel, for example, if our finger tips are invoiced or cool, we can,  sense [00:33:00] when our thoughts are racing when we're kind of spectators rather than in our bodies in.

You know, the engaged in the actions that we're doing.  and,  you know, our, our hearts could raise our blood pressure, go up, we'd get headaches. You know, I was once really, really nervous on a date. Then I got like a splitting headache and I almost vomited it dinner. And needless to say that particular evening didn't go well.

And from a erectile point of view, because I was in a state of. You know, extreme stress. Yeah. Anyhow. So I think it's just really helpful to know that fear in general,  we need to know fear when it's happening, but we also don't want to get like afraid of fear because that's called panic. And that is also part of.

You know, the, the [00:34:00] cycle that can occur, but the cycle is not a problem in and of itself. What it is, is an opportunity. It is an invitation to change the channel. It's an invitation. And this is, I think if, if anything, if I can share any message about self-compassion,  on your podcast, in the most essential message, I think is that,  What we're, what we're doing with self-compassion is being kind to ourselves simply because it's not working.

In other words, I'm afraid. So assuming I'm afraid of being afraid. So assuming this is called human physiology. And can we in this whole conundrum in this, in this, you know, kind of. A whole fixed, can we be kind to ourselves simply because this [00:35:00] is so and what people usually do at least initially to him when they learn self-compassion is they think, Oh, cool.

You know, I have a new strategy. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to knock this problem out.  with the slick new strategy called the self-compassion. And so then they throw, they, they think they can throw self-compassion at the anxiety or at the fear of fear or,  you know, their penis or something. And it just doesn't work.

So we have a saying, and this is, this is the most essential thing. And that is when we suffer. We practice self-compassion. Not to make things better, but simply because we feel bad simply because we feel bad. So can I love myself? Can I be kind to myself? Can I be supportive of myself? Because my penis isn't working, [00:36:00] can I just be kind to myself because this situation really sucks.

And I feel miserable and I have so much self doubt and I have so much worry and my heart is broken and I can't imagine how this is ever going to work. Can we love ourselves because of that? Can we be kind to ourselves and supportive of ourselves, be a good coach to as well because of that, rather than using self-compassion to manipulate ourselves into some other new physiological condition that we think is going to make it all built better.

This is absolutely essential. Hm 

Tim Norton: Hmm. Thank you so much. There's a real advocacy. Coming from you there that's,  you know, you're obviously very passionate about your work, but it, it sounds like you're helping people stand up for themselves. 

Chris Germer: Yes, indeed. And, and, and, and for their humanity, you know, [00:37:00] we're not standing up for some crazy image of what it means to be a man.

We're standing up to the man that we're standing up for the man that I am. Hmm. Know, you know, in other words, masculinity is not something out there. It's the way I am. If you want to know what masculinity is, you get 12, 20 male identified people in the room and that's it. So, so we're not, we're not comparing ourselves to some crazy notion of what it means to be a man we're actually giving ourselves permission to be more fully human.

This is, this is ultimately what makes the mind work, makes the body work and brings our life satisfaction. And it's a, it's a good thing that the penis doesn't always work because often it shouldn't work. And so if [00:38:00] we kind of try to. Make things happen. You know, we, we got to trust the body. We got to trust our humanity.

We got to trust our minds and we got to love ourselves when things don't work and then we can live happily. And truly, 

Tim Norton: no, there's so much there. Let's start with. So when the guy, when you're helping somebody stand up for themselves, I'm thinking about the guy in this situation and who, or what. He's standing up too, and all the messages from, you know, both at the macro level and in the bedroom, you know, the messages from porn, the messages from the media,  and messages in movies.

 but then the message from the partner,  which sometimes isn't is also not compassionate. Maybe, maybe, you know, you alluded to that earlier. Sometimes it's really hard to be kind to the people closest to us. [00:39:00] And so how does that 

Chris Germer: go when we have a partner who had, who's not understanding. Yeah. Yeah. So first of all, it's important to kind of take a look at that.

One is,  one point is that often once partner feels the same shame. Like, like what's the matter with me. I'm not attractive enough. I'm not. You know, sexy enough. I'm I, I, don't my technique. Isn't right. You know, I have failed you, you know, what's the matter with me. So then we have two people in two corners of the bedroom, both like engulfed in shame.

So,  you know, some, if one person, if one person, when we're in shame, we actually can't see beyond ourselves. So one of those two people needs to get out of their shame and actually be able to be self-compassionate, which means to say, you [00:40:00] know, didn't work for us tonight, did it. And it's kind of disappointing, I guess that's part of all relationships and, you know, even starting relationships and, you know, maybe find a way of being kind to each other.

That's like fundamentally self-compassionate, but,  it is possible sometimes that,  That the other person just doesn't have it in them to be compassionate when things don't work for a guy. And that is a take-home message that you really want to get, because you don't want to be with somebody who's like that.

You don't want to be with somebody who's going to react to your frustration. Attacking. It is sort of, the message is, you know, like that's a message from God in your head, find somebody who's kinder. [00:41:00] You know, when you think about like, what is a really good partner or person we like to spend time with, it's a kind heart, you know, I mean, we like sexiness.

We like brains. We like, you know, hell we like. Money. We like, you know, you know, anything, we liked so many external things, but at the end of the day, when we lay our head down on a pillow, what does it feel like to be with somebody else? Does does your heart rest and can your heart rest? If you're with a person who is not kind.

And the answer is no. So if, if, if we have a partner who's, who's harsh and critical. If a man has a, in my view, as a partner who was harsh and critical, when things don't work for him, that is an important message to take home 

Tim Norton: because he's [00:42:00] presumably. Going to be in that, that fierce state or she's, there's always a criticism around the corner.

And then it, it taps into the fear you mentioned earlier that he won't be loved. 

Chris Germer: Yes. And if the woman or the man, whoever the partner is, doesn't allow us to be human, then it's not going to go well, Because we are human 

Tim Norton: very well said because, and so if you're, if this is happening on your fourth or fifth date, it's, it's one thing.

Yeah. Okay. Let's move on to the next person and, you know, find a compassionate person, but let's say these issues,  Start to happen 10, 15 years into a marriage.  you're not going to just leave.  but it is that when you [00:43:00] know, how do you deal with that? Like, you're teaching yourself this level of self-compassion.

Now what about teaching a partner? How to be compassionate toward 

Chris Germer: you?  that's not worth trying.

You don't want,  Jack Kornfeld used to say, it's better to be a Buddha than a Buddhist. You know, you don't really want to have any kind of missionary zeal about, you know, other people. If, if we find that self-compassion is really good for us, then the best way to teach somebody self compassion is to be compassionate toward them.

And maybe they will. So in other words, to embody self-compassion and to relate in a compassionate way, And that combination is pretty persuasive to just about anybody, but the idea of like, Oh, I think my partners should practice self-compassion meditation, or they should stop criticizing [00:44:00] themselves and they should start doing this.

And therefore they should listen to Chris girlfriends or, or Kristin Neff's website. And that's just really annoying, you know? So,  you know, if somebody, if you have buy-in that, you know, that. And people can see actually that self-compassion is not more work. It's actually less work self-compassion is not a struggle.

It's it's a relief. It's a relief. Any moment of self-compassion is a relief. And when our partners can see the transformation in us, because we are being more compassionate with ourselves, they're going to want something, you know, but if we think, Oh, this person is, you know, Hurting themselves or hurting me and they, they need a little more self-compassion, we're just adding insult to injury.

And I really recommend people don't do any, all the energy that we would invest in somebody else [00:45:00] changing to become more self compassionate. We should just do a little U-turn and invest that energy in ourselves so that we more fully, deeply,  Lou. So compassionately, which means little bit more mindful lives, more self-aware life, kinder life, and also a life that's less separate or lonely, a more, a sense of more connected, 

Tim Norton: really like how you, you state that it is lead by example.

Right. And, 

Chris Germer: and as a therapist, you know, it's a little different, you know, as a therapist, You, you might say, Whoa, you know, this, you know, self-compassion is a really core factor in emotional wellbeing. It is across the board consistently associated with psychological wellbeing and,  with reductions in anxiety, stress, depression, perfectionism, shame of all things like this.

It is, [00:46:00] it is a remarkable, powerful,  Human resource. And when we learned self-compassionate, it's very efficient because it affects so many aspects of our psychological and physical function, even even improved,   immune system function,  So it's a really good thing to learn. So as a therapist, you know, so, but he comes with it in with anxiety or depression or they're self-harming, or they are really defensive in relationship and you want them just to chill out a little bit and you think, wow, that person could use some self-compassion.

Usually when we say, okay, well, what do you really need to do a little self-compassion, you know, they walk, they come in and feeling anxious or depressed and they work out, walk out anxious, depressed, and deficient and so professional. So that's when we have this idea, like as a therapist, we really need to back up a little bit [00:47:00] and we need to say, okay, okay, what I'm going to do?

Is to really connect with this person. I'm going to feel this person in my own direct experience. I'm going to make sure that this person knows that I know how they feel. I'm going to offer this person kindness, and also my highest wisdom and explore the options. And inevitably the person will reveal that they actually do want to be more self-compassionate.

But my recommendation to counselors is. See, if you can teach self-compassion without ever mentioning the term, which means can you be mindful with the person? And this also goes for like in couples, you know, can you be mindful with your partner? Or with your client, can you feel your partner or your client as yourself?

In other words, a sense of common humanity and emotional resonance. And can you be tend to [00:48:00] speak compassionately? Can you be compassionate with this person as you might with a different, and when we do that, they get the message they'll want what you have. And, you know, and it's so much easier. It's not a struggle.

Tim Norton: Yeah. Really, really valuable advice. Thank you. Huh. You know, you were mentioning briefly at the beginning of that. You, you said that,  self-compassion is a great.  indicator across the board of, you know, lowered anxiety and a couple of different things. Is there research on this? Is that what you were alluding to have there been,  studies on, on self-compassion 

Chris Germer: yeah, sure thing.

So,  so Kristin Neff started the field really in 2003, when she published her,  scale, the,  self-compassion scale. [00:49:00] And now as the, at the end of 2019, there are about 2000 articles in the peer reviewed academic literature, which have the word self-compassion and the title, probably another thousand articles that are about self-compassion and, and,  yeah, I mean, across the board, we find that.

Self-compassion is this,   actually there's a, there's a psychologist at Duke university, Mark Leary, who says that the research is boring because self-compassion is associated with just about every minute measure of emotional wellbeing that we have. Hmm. So for example, life satisfaction, happiness, gratitude, self-confidence optimism, wisdom, curiosity, conscientiousness, [00:50:00] creativity, autonomy, relatedness hope, emotional intelligence perspective taking, and it's also a soda associated with.

 reductions, as I mentioned, bangs across the board,  Tim cross the board just about always when you increase self-compassion you have a decrease in anxiety, decrease in depression, decrease in stress, and also research decreases in perfectionism, self criticism, rumination, and so forth. And it's also good for the body enhanced immune system, fewer self-reported health,  symptoms.

And people be treat themselves better. You know, when they're self compassionate, they eat more balanced meals, they exercise more regularly, they drink less alcohol, they get enough sleep.  and,  yeah, so, and also in clinical conditions, we find that,  that,  [00:51:00] increases in self-compassion or kind of a common factor when, when psychotherapy works, for example, Hm.

 but one thing is important to know is that,  there are many ways to learn. Self-compassion for example, if you own a dog, you're more like if you get a dog you're more likely to become self compassionate people who practice yoga more likely to become self become. Self-compassionate going, as I said, just going to therapy.

If it's a successful therapy, you will probably become more self-compassionate if you're compassionate, too. If you increase your compassion to others, you're more likely to become self compassion. If you practice mindfulness, you're likely to become more self compassionate. So there are many pathways.

Anyways, the, the program that Kristin Neff and I developed is probably the most well-known one it's been taught to about a hundred thousand people around the world by over 2000 teachers.  [00:52:00] and it's sort of carefully scaffolded per eight weeks. Two and a half hour per session training program. And so that's one way of learning.

Self-compassion sort of a structured way, but you don't need to do it that way. There are always other ways that can be done. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. Wait. I liked, I always liked the non therapy options for people, dogs, and yoga and mindfulness practice and things like that. Because of course we can make and learn these skills from other places.

And I'm a lucky few of us grow up with it, but I'm not, not that many. Yeah. 

Chris Germer: And even, even when we have had, you know, really less than childhood with what we call secure attachment and so forth. It's still, we're still hardwired,  Tim to,  criticize ourselves when things go wrong. It's actually part of the physiology of the threat state.

When the threat is internal, we attack [00:53:00] ourselves, we ruminate and we isolate ourselves, you know, just as we would, when we're threatened from the outside, we might attack somebody else or try to get away, you know?  Or freeze. So I think it's part of human physiology, no matter how blessed that our childhood may have been.

So all of us really,  could stand a little. Self-compassion it's a practice where we'll never, we'll never be, as long as we have a human body, we will never be like really great at it. But every moment that we're practicing, self-compassion it w it's a released. 

Tim Norton: And that's a really good point to take in, I think because yeah, the perfectionist is going to be bummed that they're not great at self compassion, but we're saying you're, you're hard wired for it.

So it's going to happen. You are going to be hard on yourself. Yeah. 

Chris Germer: But [00:54:00] there's also the paradox, Tim, which is. When we beat up on ourselves for not being great at self-compassion, we then can be kind to ourselves because we're beating up on ourselves because we're not great at self-compassionate in that act of kindness.

We are in fact self-compassionate so the cool thing about this is you can be self-compassionate in the present moment with anything. And, and frankly, even just the wish to be kind to ourselves, for example, say somebody has frustrating experience with an erection. You know, they may not be like, you know, a 10 on one to 10 in terms of how self-compassionate they are, but they can have the wish to be compassionate with themselves when things don't work out.

And that itself is compassionate. It's very, it's actually very easy, especially in the beginning, [00:55:00] we just. We just formulate the wish. 

Tim Norton: Another excellent point. Well, it's, it's been, it's been close to an hour. Are there,  it, was there anything that,  you wanted to add to this. General conversation about, erectile issues and self-compassion, I mean, you've made some really amazing points and takeaways and bullet points and things that 

Chris Germer: we really covered it all actually way more than I expected, but this key point of when we're, when things don't go right for us, we practice not as a kind of a manipulation to fix it, but rather out of.

Simple kindness because things didn't go wrong there. The metaphor tip is if you have a child that has the flu and it's a five day flu, you're really nice to the child on day one and day two, not to drive the flu away, but because your heart goes out to the child. [00:56:00] And so similarly, if things don't.  work in one, having sex or something is, is not,  this is, this is not ultimately a problem which needs to be fixed.

It is a disappointment which requires compassion. We can just be kind to ourselves because it didn't work. And the amazing thing is, is that when we do that, our nervous system shifts from a threat state. So when carrier, state, and lo and behold things are very likely to just take a normal evolution for the better, but again, We're not doing this to make it happen normal and leading the better with just loving ourselves when things go wrong.

And we know how to do this out of principle, just out of principle, just like, just like you would love a child who is struggling. We can love ourselves. And when we do it, The body says, thank you. And we'll follow. We'll start to [00:57:00] cooperate. 

Tim Norton: All right, Chris. Well, thank you so much. What's  what do you have on, on tap for you?

You you're very busy guy. You've got a lot going on. What? What's what's the future of Chris grimmer these days? 

Chris Germer: Oh, thanks for asking. Yeah, so,  I spend most of my time supporting teachers of the mindful self-compassion training program and so forth.  but.  I'm currently writing a book,  for Guilford press on shame through the eyes of compassion.

It's a whole new,  you might say approach to shame, a positive approach to shame. And,   so I'm doing that. And,  I spent a lot of my time kind of supporting people who are making adaptations of. Self,  self self-compassion training. And so for example,   I think it would be really amazing if somebody would,  [00:58:00] adapt, you know, the mindful self-compassion program, even a shorter version for everyone, Tyler shoes.

Oh, 

Tim Norton: I mean, this is, that's a 

Chris Germer: great idea. I knew this will go, we'd go right to the heart of the matter, because it's a,  it's a performance.  issue when there, when there aren't,  you know, organic causes, but even if there are organic causes for goodness sakes, that's when we need a lot of compassion as well.

This is totally no, but my sense is is that,  it would really get to the heart of the matter with direct dealerships. And this is why Tim, I was so delighted that you invited me to do this because it seems to me that,  when shame is involved, When erectile issues are either functional or organic, it is the, and a sense of self.

Is that under assault? This is precisely. The [00:59:00] ground that self-compassion gets a lot of traction, but, 

Tim Norton: Hmm. Well then you will be hearing from me about that. Let's, let's talk more about how to make that happen. Absolutely. That's a great idea. And I can't wait for your book on shame of all the people out there.

I want it to be writing about shame. That's that's going to be a very welcome addition to literature and,  And, and very needed. So thanks again, Chris.  this was a great talk and,  keep, keep doing what you're doing or your work is really important. 

Chris Germer: I'm so honored to be able to speak. And I I'm delighted that you're doing this work.

I wish when I had some of these difficulties. I could have, there was the internet and I could have listened to you. That would have been such a relief. 

Tim Norton: Yeah. Well, thanks for saying that. Okay. Well, thank you.

Chris Germer: Thanks 

Shout outs to the sex positive community, including sex educators, sex therapists, sex coaches, and other fellow sex, podcasters, sex surrogates, academics, sexual health, medical community, sex [01:01:00] workers, the tantric community, and everybody else involved. With having hard conversations. Bye-bye .