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101: Self-Compassion: Be Kinder to Yourself Without Lowering Your Standards · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:46
  Polly Mertens: Hey, superstars.
• 0:47
  Polly Mertens: Welcome back.
• 0:47
  Polly Mertens: Polly here.
• 0:48
  Polly Mertens: Sam Pruitt in the house, too.
• 0:50
  Polly Mertens: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, let's get down and dirty into the topic of self-compassion today, huh?
• 0:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay.
• 0:59
  Samantha Pruitts: First, I just have to say this masterclass on self-compassion is because Polly is in her own masterclass on self-compassion right now.
• 1:07
  Samantha Pruitts: Yes, I think you are.
• 1:09
  Samantha Pruitts: I know.
• 1:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I had done a whole series.
• 1:13
  Samantha Pruitts: So, like a little backstory on this.
• 1:14
  Samantha Pruitts: I had done a whole series in my eating disorder recovery program development days.
• 1:20
  Samantha Pruitts: I was creating this like extra bonus about, you know, self-esteem and self-worth and self-confidence and all those selves, right?
• 1:28
  Samantha Pruitts: And I got into the land of self-love.
• 1:30
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, because that was like my whole message in eating disorder recovery days, is like self-love is the path, you know, like find your path to loving yourself.
• 1:37
  Samantha Pruitts: And I think I'm on the path back to compassion, right?
• 1:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Uh, self-compassion as a component of that.
• 1:44
  Samantha Pruitts: And what I've discovered, you know, one of the things I was sharing with you the other day is like a lot of um uh when parents and teachers look at helping kids develop and, you know, be their best selves, if you will, they often say the word self-esteem.
• 2:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Kids need self-esteem, right?
• 2:01
  Samantha Pruitts: And actually, when you do the science, you know, you look at the background on it, um, they need self-worth.
• 2:07
  Samantha Pruitts: They need to know the foundation of their self-worth is unshakable, right?
• 2:12
  Samantha Pruitts: It's unbreakable and unshakable.
• 2:14
  Samantha Pruitts: They're human, they have worth and inherent worth just as it is.
• 2:17
  Samantha Pruitts: Self-esteem is flighty, it's fickle, it's based on your achievements, the outcomes, like, uh, you know, you do this thing, or you're good if you do that, and you're a failure if you don't, right?
• 2:27
  Samantha Pruitts: So self-esteem is good or bad.
• 2:30
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 2:30
  Samantha Pruitts: It's comparison-based.
• 2:32
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, how do I compare with some either standard, norm, somebody I'm like judging myself against or what have you.
• 2:40
  Samantha Pruitts: Not not healthy long term.
• 2:42
  Samantha Pruitts: So self-esteem, I would just be like, it's something that arises and the mind creates, but it's not the focus.
• 2:49
  Samantha Pruitts: And so in that journey of learning all of those, I just really appreciate it.
• 2:55
  Samantha Pruitts: And we're going to talk some about one of the most advanced women in this field of study who's been doing this the longest, Kristen Neff, N-E-F-F.
• 3:02
  Samantha Pruitts: She's got TED Talks out there.
• 3:04
  Samantha Pruitts: I've seen interviews from her.
• 3:06
  Samantha Pruitts: She's the master on it.
• 3:07
  Samantha Pruitts: She's a like a nice woo-woo zen person, I think.
• 3:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Also, like you, my dear.
• 3:13
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I'm not woo-woo.
• 3:14
  Polly Mertens: That's you.
• 3:15
  Samantha Pruitts: Wow.
• 3:15
  Samantha Pruitts: The Zen Buddhist over there who's not.
• 3:18
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm I am more into the metaphysical woo-woo.
• 3:20
  Samantha Pruitts: You're right.
• 3:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, but it's mindfulness is her jam, right?
• 3:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Which you're definitely into.
• 3:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Definitely.
• 3:27
  Polly Mertens: So what I thought was interesting about her when you brought her up, um, and I've looked at her stuff before in other contexts or whatever, is she's been studying this for like 15 years.
• 3:36
  Polly Mertens: Can you imagine studying one thing for like 15 years?
• 3:39
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, oh damn, that girl has woman has some focus.
• 3:44
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, that's like Renee Brown in Shame.
• 3:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Stacy Sims for Jam.
• 3:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Stacey Sims in Hormones for Females and Performance.
• 3:51
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, like that is that it.
• 3:53
  Samantha Pruitts: And you and I were having a little meetup after this about our future.
• 3:57
  Samantha Pruitts: And you guys stay tuned because programs are coming.
• 3:59
  Samantha Pruitts: Samantha is cooking some stuff up.
• 4:01
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm cooking some stuff up.
• 4:03
  Samantha Pruitts: We can't wait for 2026 to be you know bringing that to you guys.
• 4:07
  Samantha Pruitts: And you are just all about, you know, you're all about the health and the well-being of the body.
• 4:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, you have been too in a serious study of well-being and yeah, I don't focus on one thing for 15 years, though.
• 4:20
  Polly Mertens: I do not have that attention span.
• 4:21
  Polly Mertens: But if you think about self-compassion, so one thing I want to just add to that conversation about self-esteem is how I perceive it to be a problematic terminology or even concept, construct really, is that to gain self-esteem, you know, there's got to be somebody who's better than somebody else.
• 4:47
  Polly Mertens: And that to me leads to toxic behaviors, right?
• 4:51
  Polly Mertens: So it leads to sexism, racism, all the isms is that, you know, I am better than or they are better than, and that whole way of like seeing yourself in the world.
• 5:03
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 5:03
  Polly Mertens: So I'm not into that.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: I'm definitely not into those unhealthy concepts that really place us in um, well, you do see bad behaviors around all of that, right?
• 5:14
  Polly Mertens: So as a society, we wouldn't want to do that.
• 5:16
  Polly Mertens: But it also sets us up for you know being afraid to fail, not being willing to take risks.
• 5:22
  Polly Mertens: Like it's a setup, dude.
• 5:24
  Polly Mertens: Self-esteem is a freaking setup.
• 5:26
  Samantha Pruitts: It is, it's a trap.
• 5:27
  Samantha Pruitts: It's a trap, it's a trap, right?
• 5:29
  Samantha Pruitts: So the foundation of self-esteem is comparison, performance-based, and external success.
• 5:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Those are like the the those are usually the three things that's going on.
• 5:40
  Samantha Pruitts: I know.
• 5:40
  Samantha Pruitts: And hello, what I'm sorry, what is our world out there, you know, bringing more of to us is more of those narcissism.
• 5:47
  Samantha Pruitts: That's what.
• 5:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, it's more selling it like, you know, it's just, you know, in a in a culture that went from villages and families and communities to consumers.
• 5:59
  Samantha Pruitts: We went from communities to citizens, you know, where that we're in the state model, and then now we're in consumers, which is in just how, you know, looking better, buying more things, having more things, whatnot.
• 6:13
  Samantha Pruitts: So in that in comparison, yeah.
• 6:16
  Samantha Pruitts: So in that design and, you know, keeping up with whatever the next thing is, the latest thing, you know, wherever that trend goes, um, it's it's it erodes at the core of how we see ourselves.
• 6:29
  Samantha Pruitts: Like it allow it doesn't allow us to see our own shining light and beauty.
• 6:33
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like I'm only how good I am as I measure up against, you know, something else.
• 6:39
  Samantha Pruitts: So, but you know, self-compassion.
• 6:42
  Samantha Pruitts: So, in the work of Brene Brown, if you've ever studied her work, she says, you know, if you put um connection, you know, if you shine a spotlight and create connection and you bring shame out, you know, so there's guilt and shame.
• 6:57
  Samantha Pruitts: We're not going to go too deep into each of those, but know that there is a distinction.
• 7:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Guilt is, I did something bad, I did something wrong, I hurt somebody's feelings, I made a mistake, I whatever, cut somebody off in traffic, whatever, I made a mistake.
• 7:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Shame is identifying with what you've done.
• 7:14
  Samantha Pruitts: I am bad.
• 7:15
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, like me cutting somebody off in traffic, oh, I'm a horrible person.
• 7:20
  Samantha Pruitts: I should, you know, or I hurt that person's feelings, I'm horrible, you know.
• 7:25
  Samantha Pruitts: What's wrong with me?
• 7:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Right?
• 7:27
  Polly Mertens: So and shame it into your identity rather than it being an action that you did.
• 7:32
  Polly Mertens: Yes, I failed.
• 7:35
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm a beautiful soul and I hurt someone's feelings.
• 7:38
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm I'm and I did something wrong.
• 7:40
  Samantha Pruitts: I I need to go repair that relationship, that thing, take that back, whatever, right?
• 7:45
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, but I still at my core have worth, value, believe in myself.
• 7:50
  Samantha Pruitts: There's nothing inherently wrong with me.
• 7:51
  Samantha Pruitts: It's when we identify with that.
• 7:53
  Samantha Pruitts: And that's the trap, you know.
• 7:55
  Samantha Pruitts: I can definitely justify how my life turned into this eating disordered addiction where I identified with the shame of hiding out all of this behavior.
• 8:05
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, I can understand whether it's all sorts of addiction and you hide it, right?
• 8:11
  Samantha Pruitts: You feel like you're lying to the people around you, right?
• 8:14
  Samantha Pruitts: And then you just feel like this liar and you turn into like, I'm a liar, right?
• 8:18
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, I'm a bad human being, right?
• 8:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, and then that just, you know, kind of sends you down that shame spiral and it can go just keeps you in the loop.
• 8:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Keeps you in the loop.
• 8:27
  Samantha Pruitts: But that's for another episode.
• 8:30
  Samantha Pruitts: So, but I do find I am in some behavior, some mental patterns.
• 8:34
  Samantha Pruitts: So why we're doing this topic, uh, you know, it's like everything that goes through, you know, you're talking about pain a couple weeks ago.
• 8:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Now we're talking about self-compassion, because I've been doing a really good job over here.
• 8:46
  Samantha Pruitts: My mind has been doing a really good job of beating me up over here because I've got some, you know, um, big goals, some big things that I want to create and manifest in terms of like getting my work out into the world, you know, this program that I launched and I'm offering in December, and I was like, oh, I want to have like so many people there because it's gonna be amazing and transform lives and all this stuff.
• 9:07
  Samantha Pruitts: And just my ability to get it out there and have it exist and enough people to come and know about it.
• 9:14
  Samantha Pruitts: I set a goal of 500 and I'm so far away from it.
• 9:17
  Samantha Pruitts: And my mind's just been like, you know, chiseling away at that inner worth, if you will.
• 9:23
  Samantha Pruitts: And so in the come alive, so we're in the second round of come alive called Come Alive Trailblazer.
• 9:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, I just was realizing where I was at in my journey and what I was seeing in the women that were in the group as well, is we gotta we gotta throw some self-compassion on, you know, like pour some love on this group, including the the you know, the leader here as well.
• 9:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, like maple syrup.
• 9:49
  Polly Mertens: Pour some sugar on me in the name of love.
• 9:53
  Polly Mertens: Do you remember that song?
• 9:54
  Samantha Pruitts: I do, I do.
• 9:56
  Samantha Pruitts: I think you just had that in the newsletter too.
• 9:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, oh yeah, yeah, you just put that on there.
• 10:00
  Samantha Pruitts: So self-compassion is a verb, if you ask me.
• 10:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, so self-compassion is acts of kindness or words of kindness, treating yourself kindly with love, right?
• 10:16
  Polly Mertens: Being but I'm with you.
• 10:18
  Polly Mertens: It's takes action, it does, it's not just words.
• 10:21
  Polly Mertens: So I love that you call it a verb.
• 10:22
  Polly Mertens: Sorry to interrupt.
• 10:23
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, no, no, exactly, exactly.
• 10:25
  Samantha Pruitts: So it's a verb, it's acts of kindness, words of kindness, you know, just as if so self-compassion, compassion.
• 10:33
  Samantha Pruitts: If I said, hey Samantha, um, give me a definition of compassion, like you, you know, you have compassion for another human being, you have compassion for your brother, you have compassion for somebody who's going through tough times or something like that, or they did something wrong, you know, and they feel bad, you know.
• 10:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, how would you describe that?
• 10:50
  Samantha Pruitts: What is compassion?
• 10:51
  Polly Mertens: It's interesting that it's compassion, right?
• 10:55
  Polly Mertens: And so, how did this word even come about into the English?
• 11:00
  Polly Mertens: Okay, gotta go look that up.
• 11:03
  Polly Mertens: Because everybody, especially in the Buddhist philosophy and teachings, but just in the general world of humanity, we are humans.
• 11:14
  Polly Mertens: Last time I checked, right?
• 11:15
  Polly Mertens: But even every living being, like, we can think about how we would treat another.
• 11:21
  Polly Mertens: How would we treat another?
• 11:23
  Polly Mertens: Irrelevant if it's like a loved one or a perfect stranger, you know, the barista or the animal who's trotting on down the street, seems to be, you know, left by their owner or escaped or whatever.
• 11:33
  Polly Mertens: Like, if you think about how you treat another living being, you absolutely know what compassion is.
• 11:37
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's innate in the human species, in the living species, to act from a place of compassion.
• 11:46
  Samantha Pruitts: A healthy person understands compassion easily.
• 11:50
  Polly Mertens: Like it's almost like they're born with it.
• 11:51
  Polly Mertens: Oh no, we are.
• 11:52
  Polly Mertens: Oh, yeah.
• 11:52
  Polly Mertens: Absolutely.
• 11:53
  Polly Mertens: So we're born with it and then we're taught out of it.
• 11:58
  Polly Mertens: It's you know, taught, we're taught away from it by societal bizarre, you know, things that are going on.
• 12:05
  Polly Mertens: But if the human is born with it and it's an innate, you know, operating system or part of our operating system, right?
• 12:12
  Polly Mertens: Then we can very easily think about how we would look to treat another who was in pain, in need, whatever, fill in the blank.
• 12:22
  Polly Mertens: But why is it so difficult for us to do it like this?
• 12:26
  Polly Mertens: Hey Sam, what's up?
• 12:28
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, so what happens is so, you know, in studying this, and here here's a like a weird story that reminds me of how this evolves or how how I discovered this is okay, so this we're gonna show our age here.
• 12:43
  Samantha Pruitts: So in the 70s or 80s, there was a gymnast called Nadia Komenicci, I think.
• 12:48
  Samantha Pruitts: And she got the first 10 in gymnastics way back when, right?
• 12:52
  Samantha Pruitts: And she was trained by that Polish or Russian coach, right?
• 12:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, forget his name.
• 12:59
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, and you know, if you go back and study, you know, like during during the rise of that, it was like, wow, amazing, you know, uh athleticism and you know, all this stuff.
• 13:09
  Samantha Pruitts: And so from the outside, looking in, as you often see in stories, right?
• 13:12
  Samantha Pruitts: Looks amazing, looks amazing, right?
• 13:15
  Samantha Pruitts: And then later on you find like he they were so straight, just like this militant, right?
• 13:20
  Samantha Pruitts: The the mindset that was coming out.
• 13:22
  Samantha Pruitts: And I think it was an evolution of the culture of let's call it um the tough times in like post-Holocaust, you know, um famine days, things like that.
• 13:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Like war.
• 13:36
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, you know, that whole era and genre of mindset was discipline, right?
• 13:43
  Samantha Pruitts: Like discipline to get people in line, if you will, whether it was in Russia, you know, with like, you know, getting into communism, stuff like that.
• 13:50
  Samantha Pruitts: So I look at that story of Nadia Community.
• 13:52
  Samantha Pruitts: And the work that that coach did with her was just discipline, you know, just hardcore.
• 13:58
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, like, you know, and what science has found, what performance athletics has found now, is that harsh, kind of abusive discipline, you know, beating someone up when they do, like, what's wrong with you?
• 14:13
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, like, like, get in line, is actually diminishing to the soul.
• 14:17
  Samantha Pruitts: It uh it creates underperformance.
• 14:19
  Samantha Pruitts: It doesn't create better performance, like peak performance, right?
• 14:23
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, you know, she did great, whatever.
• 14:25
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, but science actually tells us that um uh what do you call it, celebrating, like honoring them and and acknowledging them and appreciate like good job, right?
• 14:39
  Samantha Pruitts: You did great, awesome.
• 14:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Like that lifts people up to want to be their best self.
• 14:44
  Samantha Pruitts: That is actually more.
• 14:46
  Samantha Pruitts: So I think some of this, um I don't know if some of this, so that's like the the model is what we used to believe was be tough on yourself, be harsh, you know, you know, crippling discipline, if you will.
• 14:59
  Samantha Pruitts: And now, you know, science tells us that it's actually more valuable to be positive words of affirmation, you know, tender with yourself, you know, give yourself inspiration and hope and encouragement, not discipline yourself or doing a bad job.
• 15:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 15:14
  Polly Mertens: And I would just add to that, like there's also that element um now in the science around how we give feedback.
• 15:22
  Polly Mertens: So not just to the self or to the individual, like if it's an athlete coach dynamic or a parent child or whatever the thing is, right?
• 15:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like, you know, recognize if there's a failure or if there is a not quite meeting the goal, the target, whatever it is.
• 15:40
  Polly Mertens: We're not saying to placate and pretend that's not a reality.
• 15:44
  Polly Mertens: Oh, yeah, you are running up and down the soccer field and cannot score a goal, you know, year after year after year, but you should definitely stay in soccer.
• 15:53
  Polly Mertens: You know what I mean?
• 15:53
  Polly Mertens: Like we're not saying that.
• 15:55
  Polly Mertens: We're saying realistic conversations, right?
• 15:57
  Polly Mertens: So, but acknowledging, hey, I see that that performance isn't what you had hoped for.
• 16:04
  Polly Mertens: I'm here to support you.
• 16:06
  Polly Mertens: How do you feel about that?
• 16:07
  Polly Mertens: And then how can we come up with a way for you to get better performance, right?
• 16:11
  Polly Mertens: So it's having an honest conversation, but a loving, compassionate, and resourceful.
• 16:18
  Polly Mertens: You're resourcing that person, or I'm resourcing myself if I'm talking to myself.
• 16:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and about how to have rigor of right.
• 16:27
  Samantha Pruitts: We still have to meet these metrics.
• 16:29
  Samantha Pruitts: We still want exactly performance.
• 16:32
  Samantha Pruitts: We still want to climb Mount Whitney.
• 16:33
  Samantha Pruitts: It's not like, oh, you know, it's like, yeah, put some rigor in there, structure, if you will, but it's laced inside of a world of compassion, well-being.
• 16:44
  Samantha Pruitts: All is, you know.
• 16:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, exactly.
• 16:48
  Samantha Pruitts: So what I want to point to here um as we get started is um, so some of this work with Kristen Neff, um, I'm just gonna read a couple of things because I I read this the other night.
• 16:59
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, oh my gosh, I see this in my life right now.
• 17:02
  Samantha Pruitts: So I'm sure you have some stories and I have some too.
• 17:05
  Samantha Pruitts: So um, the inner critic, right?
• 17:07
  Samantha Pruitts: So, like what we what what were some of this shame and this criticism, this self-criticism, right?
• 17:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Because what we're talking about is self-compassion, is because all of this stuff that's the upset, the not thinking we're good enough, whatever, is happening inside, right?
• 17:23
  Samantha Pruitts: Very sometimes it's coming from outside, depending on your environment, but often it's just manifest and created inside from conditioned patterns, things that I call them, you know, success strategies that we made up as children to survive.
• 17:37
  Samantha Pruitts: And so this inner critic that is created that we we actually programmed it, if you will.
• 17:45
  Samantha Pruitts: So we've got this inner critic inside of us, and it's a protection mechanism.
• 17:48
  Samantha Pruitts: So here's what I love is the inner critic is the voice of the past self attempting to protect you from a perceived threat.
• 17:58
  Samantha Pruitts: What that means in your past, I love this.
• 18:01
  Samantha Pruitts: Just the whole like take this in.
• 18:03
  Samantha Pruitts: In your past, being perfect, quiet, or agreeable, agreeable was a survival strategy.
• 18:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, who can't raise your hand and say, Yeah, I probably did one or all three of those, you know?
• 18:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, especially I mean, again, not to date us, but like generationally, unfortunately, my grandparents, my parents, you can might relate to this based on our age, like there was a certain way for kids to be okay, very clearly.
• 18:38
  Polly Mertens: And what those three things you might have to read them again, I'm pretty sure was in the book that they all received before we were born.
• 18:45
  Polly Mertens: Anyway, read them again.
• 18:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, and so what it is is the child and us made up a way of being to survive the environment that we were presented with.
• 18:55
  Samantha Pruitts: It wasn't necessarily that our parents gave us here's the perfect playbook, right?
• 19:00
  Samantha Pruitts: But through their withholding of love, issuing of punishment, you know, like strat their strategy to get us conditional love.
• 19:09
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 19:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Their strategy of conditioning love towards us, withholding it, taught us.
• 19:16
  Samantha Pruitts: We s we we learn to navigate how do I receive love in this environment?
• 19:21
  Samantha Pruitts: How do I receive belonging in this family unit or whatever community that I'm in, right?
• 19:26
  Samantha Pruitts: So the three, I was like, oh my god.
• 19:29
  Samantha Pruitts: So being perfect, being quiet, like just like whatever you want, you know, or agreeable.
• 19:38
  Samantha Pruitts: That one, okay, Samantha, that is like so you know, I'm in this team management leadership with landmark.
• 19:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, so it's so funny that this like with when this I read this, I was like, pretty much doing that last week.
• 19:53
  Samantha Pruitts: Like I was, I was having so you know, in this team management leadership program, it's a year-long program, and there's all sorts of um projects that we're creating, you know, and I have it that, okay, and one of my philosophies or the things that I've observed in all of my decades and hundreds or dozens of personal transformation, weekends, workshops, boot camps, week-long things, retreats, whatever it is.
• 20:18
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, you've done hundreds.
• 20:19
  Samantha Pruitts: It's okay to say that.
• 20:19
  Samantha Pruitts: I've done a lot, yeah.
• 20:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Is that environment that they create is like a mini environment of your life.
• 20:27
  Samantha Pruitts: If you're paying attention, like it took me a while to go that, you know, get this.
• 20:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Like I would be in one of those after a while.
• 20:32
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, oh, I get it.
• 20:34
  Samantha Pruitts: What's going on in here?
• 20:35
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm either going to transform it here or it's going to show up in my life, right?
• 20:39
  Samantha Pruitts: And so inside of this year-long program, so we do these things that look like projects and you know, we have goals and whatever.
• 20:49
  Samantha Pruitts: And I'm like, oh, I'm starting to understand that, you know, it's not necessarily this goal or that goal, but they're experiencing opportunities to create transformation and self-awareness, right?
• 20:59
  Samantha Pruitts: So I have a team that I was uh leading inside of this program, and two people on my team were just like crushing it.
• 21:07
  Samantha Pruitts: It was like communication was just fire.
• 21:09
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, oh, this was great.
• 21:10
  Samantha Pruitts: And then two people were, you know, like which, you know, those that that old thing was like, one of these kids is doing his own thing, you know.
• 21:18
  Samantha Pruitts: So I was like this one, you know.
• 21:21
  Samantha Pruitts: So I had like four people, five people on my team, four core members.
• 21:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, one was so in like I had so much else going on.
• 21:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, he had so much else going on.
• 21:32
  Samantha Pruitts: He would like kind of like pop in and like do one percent of like the things that I asked him to do and and like make it up, you know, and he'd be like, he's out, I'm out of integrity, I'm sorry, I'm cleaning this up, whatever.
• 21:42
  Samantha Pruitts: And then we would just do it over.
• 21:43
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, you know, it doesn't really fly to just like having not not have integrity that often.
• 21:49
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like suddenly it just isn't there, you know.
• 21:51
  Samantha Pruitts: So that was going on.
• 21:52
  Samantha Pruitts: And then this other one, I so wanted to be agreeable with him.
• 21:58
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, he was he was new on the team, having lots of his own breakdowns, right?
• 22:02
  Samantha Pruitts: And I just felt deep compassion for him.
• 22:04
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, oh, he's having a rough go at it.
• 22:06
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay.
• 22:07
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I won't like add to his burden by quote demanding things of him or asking, you know, like leading him toughly, if you will.
• 22:16
  Samantha Pruitts: I was just like, oh, and so all this stuff started falling back on me, right?
• 22:19
  Samantha Pruitts: And things weren't happening because I couldn't do it all.
• 22:22
  Samantha Pruitts: And I was like, wow, I wanted to be so agreeable that I was ineffective in my role.
• 22:30
  Samantha Pruitts: And so as we're as I read this, I went, oh man, that whole agreeable thing, I gotta give that up.
• 22:36
  Samantha Pruitts: So I'm really like in this masterclass of discovering, you know, and I was beating myself up for it in the beginning.
• 22:43
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, oh man, I'm like, I'm not being good at communication, I'm not being a good leader.
• 22:47
  Samantha Pruitts: And then I was like, Oh, I see, I have this way of being that is come from my childhood to be agreeable, you know.
• 22:57
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's not wrong, it's just how's that working for you, Polly?
• 23:00
  Polly Mertens: How's that working?
• 23:01
  Samantha Pruitts: You know?
• 23:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 23:02
  Polly Mertens: And what can happen frequently called life, is that you have that you on whatever level that came along as you developed into the human, you know, the young adult and whatever, maybe you went to school, whatever you your education was.
• 23:18
  Polly Mertens: And you might have found those same environments over and over.
• 23:23
  Polly Mertens: So it solidified.
• 23:24
  Polly Mertens: It's like that that path that you, you know, that neurosceptive.
• 23:29
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:30
  Polly Mertens: You had those things in your messaging, in your core belief system, ingrained in you, those stories or whatever.
• 23:36
  Polly Mertens: And then you went to school and then you found the exact same thing, and then you double down on it, double down on it, double down it, right?
• 23:42
  Polly Mertens: Because you're like, hey, this is working.
• 23:43
  Polly Mertens: This is working.
• 23:44
  Polly Mertens: Oh, yeah.
• 23:45
  Polly Mertens: This is working.
• 23:45
  Polly Mertens: This feels like it's working.
• 23:46
  Polly Mertens: I gotta figure it out.
• 23:47
  Polly Mertens: Okay, and then you go out into the world and you get jobs and you work in environments, and you're like, and more of it, and more of it.
• 23:53
  Polly Mertens: Here it comes, here it comes.
• 23:54
  Polly Mertens: And we do work with people who are young professionals or professionals in whatever way, business, whatever, and you see all those patterns and behaviors showing up in 40, 50, 60-year-old professionals at very high levels.
• 24:09
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 24:09
  Polly Mertens: So we're not saying this to cast judgment, we're saying this is really normal, right?
• 24:15
  Polly Mertens: But we're here today to deliver another opportunity to do it differently.
• 24:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Polly's in the master class.
• 24:22
  Samantha Pruitts: So here's what I'm present to.
• 24:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Just as you were saying that, thank you for saying, you know, um, we go through and we think these strategies are working for us, right?
• 24:30
  Samantha Pruitts: And oftentimes, and you can't see me if you're listening to this, so I'm gonna try and describe it with words, but if you're watching the video, you'll follow along.
• 24:37
  Samantha Pruitts: So um, I'm gonna put my hands behind my head, right?
• 24:40
  Samantha Pruitts: So my hands are behind my head, and that's where beliefs and strategies can exist because they're blind to us.
• 24:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Like we can't see them behind our head.
• 24:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Like I'm looking out into the world and it's running the show from behind the scenes, if you will.
• 24:54
  Samantha Pruitts: That's in the subconscious.
• 24:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Like you said, it gets ingrained and patterned, right?
• 24:58
  Samantha Pruitts: And so I'm moving my hands in front of me now so I can see it, right?
• 25:02
  Samantha Pruitts: So I've taken those things.
• 25:03
  Samantha Pruitts: So my being aware of this, excuse me, fucking agreeableness as a strategy, a survival strategy.
• 25:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Now it's out in front of me, and I can do something with it.
• 25:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I can go, wow, agreeable is a way of being that I created to survive in the world, be liked, get further, whatever you want to call it.
• 25:23
  Samantha Pruitts: And I realized, and I was like noticing last night, I gave that talk to Tyler's group, right?
• 25:29
  Samantha Pruitts: And there was, you know, the overcommitted, the overpromised, the people pleasing and stuff, agreeable, maybe is a flavor of that, you might call it.
• 25:38
  Samantha Pruitts: And I was like, wow, it's when we so want to do something for other people that we sacrifice something for ourselves.
• 25:45
  Samantha Pruitts: We sacrifice our well-being, we sacrifice like our time, we sacrifice something, right?
• 25:51
  Samantha Pruitts: In service of, we think, you know, it has a lacing of, oh, I'm doing it for the good of the all or the others or something like that, at the at the cost of myself, right?
• 26:02
  Samantha Pruitts: And so I really get you're, you know, overwhelmed is overcommitted, I think is one thing that we're noticing.
• 26:09
  Samantha Pruitts: And then what's causing the overcommitted or the you know, or doing for others, or not, you know, getting enough support is this underlying, I want to be agreeable, I want to be liked, I don't want to rock the boat, I don't want to whatever be perfect, be seen as quiet.
• 26:28
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 26:29
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, because we've still attached our self-esteem to doing those acts.
• 26:35
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 26:36
  Polly Mertens: We're still trying to produce or perform or contribute or whatever, whatever.
• 26:43
  Polly Mertens: Measure all the things, people, right?
• 26:46
  Polly Mertens: Look a certain way, be a certain way, blah, blah, blah.
• 26:49
  Polly Mertens: All of that, right?
• 26:50
  Polly Mertens: If we could let go of that and know that we are valuable just by the fact that we exist, okay, before delivering anything out external to the world, and be really deep in that knowing, then those other things become really unnecessary.
• 27:13
  Polly Mertens: Almost a waste of time.
• 27:14
  Polly Mertens: I'm not saying we don't contribute.
• 27:15
  Polly Mertens: You and I obviously believe in contributing, of course.
• 27:19
  Polly Mertens: But if we don't feel that way about ourselves and our own actions, then I don't know what we're delivering to the world, right?
• 27:27
  Polly Mertens: And you see that a lot online now.
• 27:29
  Polly Mertens: People that are the experts and the best in everything and whatever.
• 27:33
  Polly Mertens: I've been binge watching Stacey Sims videos because I'm in her menopause point 2.0 course right now, and I'm a super fan of hers, but like it's it's ridiculous the amount of content.
• 27:44
  Polly Mertens: And not her.
• 27:45
  Polly Mertens: She's consistent as hell, by the way, freaking legend.
• 27:48
  Polly Mertens: She just keeps delivering the bombs, right?
• 27:50
  Polly Mertens: But the people who are interviewing her and how they're like positioning themselves as the expert, they're not the freaking expert in the subject matter.
• 27:58
  Polly Mertens: It is impossible for them to be, right?
• 28:00
  Polly Mertens: It'd be like someone going up against Christian Def and being like, I'm the expert in self-compassion as you're interviewing the expert in self-compassion.
• 28:08
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, no, I'm sorry.
• 28:09
  Samantha Pruitts: I've been studying that.
• 28:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, there's this posturing and vibe going on.
• 28:13
  Polly Mertens: Like, I don't want to walk in the around in the world like that.
• 28:15
  Polly Mertens: It's freaking exhausting, and I have no desire to be compared to anybody.
• 28:21
  Polly Mertens: Dude, I am radically imperfect and perfectly imperfect.
• 28:27
  Polly Mertens: Like, cool with it.
• 28:29
  Polly Mertens: All the messy, crazy stuff.
• 28:30
  Polly Mertens: You know, I'm having a bad hair day.
• 28:32
  Polly Mertens: I don't care.
• 28:33
  Polly Mertens: I can't do my roots right now because I'm in like there's so many things, and I'm just not attached to how people might perceive that.
• 28:41
  Samantha Pruitts: I love, I just want to drop this quote, and then I want to say some more things in this class about the inner critic.
• 28:46
  Samantha Pruitts: So um, you're not messy, you're an emotional being in a messy world.
• 28:52
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, hell yeah.
• 28:53
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 28:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Say it again, say it again.
• 28:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Yes, yes.
• 28:56
  Samantha Pruitts: You're not messy, you're an emotional being in a messy world.
• 29:01
  Polly Mertens: That's it.
• 29:01
  Polly Mertens: Dude, and it's such a messy world.
• 29:04
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, it's there's a yeah, yeah.
• 29:06
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, so here's I love this.
• 29:07
  Samantha Pruitts: So we're talking about this inner critic, and it's the voice of your past self based on these success strategies, being quiet, agreeable, and perfect, right?
• 29:14
  Samantha Pruitts: So if we're practicing that as like a way of being to succeed, trained by this inner critic, right?
• 29:20
  Samantha Pruitts: Which is the conditioning that we've done.
• 29:22
  Samantha Pruitts: So the critic is trying to maintain this old system and it's using shame to enforce compliance, right?
• 29:29
  Samantha Pruitts: So here's the kicker.
• 29:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Your inner critic is not a fact checker, it's a safety officer.
• 29:35
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's operating with outdated rules.
• 29:37
  Samantha Pruitts: You can think it for its intention, but just dismiss it.
• 29:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Like break it.
• 29:43
  Samantha Pruitts: So, like, like I said, when I when the hands were behind my head and I couldn't see what was going on, I was just had this way of being that I thought was working in the world, right?
• 29:51
  Samantha Pruitts: And then I could see like how much more I was taking on and all these responsibilities and like being ineffective.
• 29:56
  Samantha Pruitts: I was like, hold up, hold up, right?
• 29:59
  Samantha Pruitts: Now it's out in front of me.
• 30:01
  Samantha Pruitts: I can see being agreeable, being liked, being quiet, being perfect is causing me burden, you know, like overwhelm, overcommitting, all these sorts of things.
• 30:10
  Samantha Pruitts: So it's like, whew, gotta dissolve that.
• 30:12
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah, just breaking up, knowing that your inner critic is get working to get you to survive, to belong, to fit in, whatever it is.
• 30:23
  Samantha Pruitts: And you're not here to do all that.
• 30:25
  Samantha Pruitts: You're not here to measure up, you're not here to, you know, chase these things, whatever.
• 30:28
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah, I just thought those were so good.
• 30:32
  Samantha Pruitts: So good.
• 30:33
  Samantha Pruitts: So with Kristen Neff's work, and we'll come back to a couple.
• 30:36
  Samantha Pruitts: So she talks about three things.
• 30:38
  Samantha Pruitts: Things as like a practice.
• 30:40
  Samantha Pruitts: So, how do you create space when this voice, right?
• 30:44
  Samantha Pruitts: Like we've all I'm you don't seem to have a very loud one.
• 30:47
  Samantha Pruitts: And I have months that I'll go without this noise.
• 30:51
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, I think when I go up against a big goal and I'm not like hitting it, hitting it, right?
• 30:56
  Samantha Pruitts: Then the inner critic shows up.
• 30:57
  Samantha Pruitts: But oftentimes I have a very loving voice inside my head, like a very like, I'm amazing, you know, but goal setting and goal achievement.
• 31:05
  Samantha Pruitts: And if it's not happening, it's like, dang.
• 31:08
  Samantha Pruitts: So she says three steps.
• 31:11
  Samantha Pruitts: First is to become mindful, aware.
• 31:15
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 31:15
  Samantha Pruitts: And you and I say, how you're how you feel, right, is more important, right?
• 31:19
  Samantha Pruitts: And so it's noticing the state of your body, noticing mindfully, like, how am I feeling, right?
• 31:25
  Samantha Pruitts: And so she says, notice mindfully.
• 31:27
  Samantha Pruitts: This is a moment of suffering.
• 31:29
  Samantha Pruitts: Like I'm like, I'm in suffering now.
• 31:31
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm causing myself some suffering because of the thoughts that I'm having.
• 31:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Not my thoughts, but I'm having these thoughts.
• 31:37
  Samantha Pruitts: These thoughts have arisen.
• 31:38
  Samantha Pruitts: Acknowledge the pain.
• 31:40
  Samantha Pruitts: And then she says, create a sense of common humanity.
• 31:43
  Samantha Pruitts: At that moment, go out and notice.
• 31:45
  Samantha Pruitts: Do other people, you know, sometimes not hit their goal?
• 31:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Do other people like, you know, not return a phone call or like forget something or make a mistake on a paper or send an email with a typo in it?
• 31:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Or yeah.
• 31:59
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 31:59
  Polly Mertens: Do other people have gray hair?
• 32:01
  Polly Mertens: Do other people, you know, whatever their dishuffled life is.
• 32:04
  Polly Mertens: Have poop poopy bellies or gray hair.
• 32:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 32:07
  Polly Mertens: Have the mennow belly that I have right now?
• 32:10
  Polly Mertens: Yes, they have it.
• 32:12
  Polly Mertens: Check us out.
• 32:13
  Polly Mertens: Check all of us.
• 32:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:15
  Polly Mertens: All of our people.
• 32:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Totally.
• 32:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Call them in humanity.
• 32:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Go, oh, I'm not alone.
• 32:24
  Samantha Pruitts: This is what it means to be human.
• 32:26
  Samantha Pruitts: I exactly normalize it.
• 32:27
  Samantha Pruitts: I think um, you know, the the alcoholics anonymous AA type um groups, they often say, like, reach out to your sponsor, right?
• 32:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Because they remind you of that common humanity.
• 32:37
  Samantha Pruitts: Like you have your core people, you have your coach, whatever, that can like be like, yeah, you're not a mess.
• 32:43
  Samantha Pruitts: You're not broken.
• 32:44
  Samantha Pruitts: There's not something fundamentally wrong with you.
• 32:46
  Samantha Pruitts: You did that thing, you didn't do that thing, you whatever, right?
• 32:49
  Samantha Pruitts: You have gray hairs, you have a poop.
• 32:51
  Polly Mertens: Like, can I just add?
• 32:53
  Polly Mertens: And that's why it's so critical to find those environments or your teammates like you and I are, or circles, or coaches where that is the energy in the culture.
• 33:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, nothing else will be tolerated except for that shared humanity and compassion.
• 33:10
  Polly Mertens: Again, if you're bumping up against that same negative voice of comparison and self-esteem chasing from a coach, a coworker, a family unit, a circle, uh, whatever, toxic.
• 33:24
  Polly Mertens: Leave.
• 33:24
  Polly Mertens: Toxic.
• 33:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Not healthy environment, absolutely.
• 33:28
  Samantha Pruitts: So the third one, which shows you the environment that you want to be in, and you can do this as much with yourself or with a coach, or you know, so if you can do these three by yourself with yourself, because you're the one that's carrying you around and all these thoughts all the time.
• 33:40
  Samantha Pruitts: So, first up, be mindful.
• 33:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Notice you're causing some suffering because of your thoughts.
• 33:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Notice the common humanity in it.
• 33:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, okay, I did I did that thing.
• 33:49
  Samantha Pruitts: I sent that typo.
• 33:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Damn, you know, I sent that email out with a typo.
• 33:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, or the wrong date, or the wrong Zoom link.
• 33:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Whole I'm a horrible person, you know.
• 33:57
  Polly Mertens: Like it happened.
• 33:58
  Polly Mertens: Penny Penny, the sky is falling.
• 34:00
  Polly Mertens: And I would just add my little piece of this, which is it's fucking hilarious.
• 34:04
  Polly Mertens: Whatever just happened and all the insanity of it, it have a good sense of humor.
• 34:08
  Polly Mertens: Okay, go ahead.
• 34:09
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I think so.
• 34:09
  Samantha Pruitts: Let's just say this.
• 34:10
  Samantha Pruitts: So, this is the Samantha technique.
• 34:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I love it.
• 34:13
  Samantha Pruitts: So she would say, So be mindful, notice a common humanity, and then self-kindness.
• 34:17
  Samantha Pruitts: So may I be kind to myself in this moment.
• 34:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Offer yourself, gentle comfort, or just some support, like a hot, like, you know what?
• 34:24
  Samantha Pruitts: It's all right.
• 34:25
  Samantha Pruitts: You know what?
• 34:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Move on, right?
• 34:27
  Samantha Pruitts: You would say, look at this.
• 34:28
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, that's hilarious, right?
• 34:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Either what, well, however you want to look at it, like state change is what you're doing, right?
• 34:33
  Samantha Pruitts: This is a state change from woe is me that sends you down a little shit spiral and the shame spiral that is like, how long you want to stay down there?
• 34:41
  Samantha Pruitts: No, pity party, nope, be damned.
• 34:44
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, find the hilarity in it, find the compassion in it, right?
• 34:47
  Samantha Pruitts: So I love it.
• 34:48
  Samantha Pruitts: So, and where I want to go with this too, because you know, I was I was bringing up that story of Nadia Komenichi with um, you know, some people look at superstars, whatever dimension you want to be in, whether it's musicians that are, you know, peak of their fame, athletes that are rising, superstars in business or whatever.
• 35:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, again, it's through loving encouragement that we're seeing in studies and reinforcing this.
• 35:15
  Samantha Pruitts: So you and I out in the world, you know, you've got your medals on your wall, I've got my medals on my wall, right?
• 35:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Of all these like really tough things we've been through from ultra races, you doing hundreds and hundreds of miles and multiple days and all these amazing feats and starting businesses and you know, starting businesses, failing businesses, growing businesses, losing weight, all this stuff.
• 35:37
  Polly Mertens: Who's sending me a medal for all those?
• 35:38
  Polly Mertens: Oh, sorry.
• 35:40
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm just gonna have to like put that on.
• 35:42
  Samantha Pruitts: And people look at resilience, they're like, oh yeah, it's that tough and great.
• 35:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, studies show that individuals high in self-compassion actually demonstrate greater levels of resilience.
• 35:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Greater levels of because they are less afraid of failing.
• 35:58
  Samantha Pruitts: You mentioned that, right?
• 36:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 36:01
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like when you know you will be met with kindness instead of criticism, you're more likely to take the risk.
• 36:07
  Samantha Pruitts: You're more likely to put yourself out there, you're more likely to step into something that you hadn't attempted before, right?
• 36:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Instead of this bubble of comfort, like, oh, I don't want to put my neck out there because there's this hatchet that'll cut it off, right?
• 36:21
  Polly Mertens: And this stops so many people from living their damn lives, for pursuing dreams, creative, business, financial relationship, whatever.
• 36:32
  Polly Mertens: So many people, this is what stops them in their tracks.
• 36:36
  Polly Mertens: Imagine if humans just didn't have that capability of falling into that trap.
• 36:44
  Polly Mertens: The amount of genius that would be born from that.
• 36:48
  Polly Mertens: Damn, we're missing out on stuff.
• 36:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, so I think it, you know, one of the things when we talk about masterclasses is it's life school.
• 36:59
  Samantha Pruitts: We've talked about that, right?
• 37:01
  Samantha Pruitts: Like this is just ongoing self-discovery, ongoing noticing moments of being perfect, moments of being quiet, moments of being agreeable, are withholding you from they're they're causing you some forms of suffering, right?
• 37:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Your mind is creating some chatter and stepping outside of that and giving yourself that those acts of kindness, right?
• 37:21
  Samantha Pruitts: Those, um, one of the things she said is, you know, how would you feel if you were empathetic towards somebody else?
• 37:26
  Samantha Pruitts: And like, what would you do?
• 37:27
  Samantha Pruitts: Like if somebody was having a hard day, you wouldn't just let them suffer over it, or like, oh yeah, we'll just let them sit in the corner and cry that out.
• 37:34
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, no, we would comfort them, we would step in, we would support them, right?
• 37:40
  Samantha Pruitts: We would do our best to uplift them, help them see the common humanity and things.
• 37:44
  Samantha Pruitts: And so this, these acts of self-compassion, to be doing it to ourselves, the greatest gift we can.
• 37:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 37:51
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 37:51
  Samantha Pruitts: So that is the path of unbreakable self-worth, right?
• 37:54
  Samantha Pruitts: So self-esteem is fickle, it has no foundation.
• 37:57
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like here one day, no, nope, gotta go to the next level, gotta go to the next level, gotta go to the next level, chasing an endless, you know, upward spiral, up-leveling, we can't ever hope to measure up to, right?
• 38:09
  Polly Mertens: No, no.
• 38:10
  Polly Mertens: Welcome to Earth School, baby.
• 38:12
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 38:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Inherent self-worth, unshakable self-worth.
• 38:17
  Samantha Pruitts: That's the foundation.
• 38:18
  Samantha Pruitts: And self-kindness is coming back to that self-worth, coming back, bringing us back to that inherent self-worth.
• 38:24
  Samantha Pruitts: That's like you did a bad thing, you did it, you made an error, you sent a typo, you sent the wrong link, you weren't kind in that moment.
• 38:31
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, next.
• 38:33
  Samantha Pruitts: Oops.
• 38:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Next.
• 38:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 38:36
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 38:37
  Samantha Pruitts: So, well, I I just really needed a dose of this.
• 38:41
  Samantha Pruitts: And so actually, in my group, we're doing a week of self-compassion.
• 38:44
  Samantha Pruitts: A week of self-compassion.
• 38:46
  Polly Mertens: Yes, girl.
• 38:47
  Polly Mertens: Okay, I love that.
• 38:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Had it on my phone.
• 38:50
  Samantha Pruitts: I had it.
• 38:50
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, where can we put it as reminders and just the practice of it, the practice of it?
• 38:55
  Samantha Pruitts: And I'm already feeling better, you know, in that.
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: So I'm gonna assign a life of self-compassion.
• 39:00
  Polly Mertens: You assigned a week, I'm assigning a life to whoever's listening to this right now.
• 39:04
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:05
  Polly Mertens: What else do you want to be doing?
• 39:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, and we can fall back, you know.
• 39:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Like I'm usually quite good at it.
• 39:12
  Samantha Pruitts: And like I said, these moments when I get up to big goal, you know, something that's just like a really lofty thing.
• 39:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, and I I create that gap or I notice the gap and the the lack of measuring up.
• 39:23
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's like, I'm still after it.
• 39:25
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, I'm doing things that I'm totally right, right?
• 39:29
  Samantha Pruitts: You think?
• 39:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 39:31
  Samantha Pruitts: So I love it.
• 39:33
  Samantha Pruitts: I love it.
• 39:34
  Samantha Pruitts: This was good.
• 39:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, and we just want to say, so Miss Samantha, you guys sent her some love this week.
• 39:39
  Samantha Pruitts: She is off to have a procedure next week.
• 39:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Take care of that back of hers that's been just not well.
• 39:46
  Samantha Pruitts: And so, yeah.
• 39:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Love and light.
• 39:49
  Polly Mertens: Lots of lessons, lots of learnings.
• 39:51
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, love and light to you, my dear.
• 39:53
  Samantha Pruitts: So I hope you guys got something out of this.
• 39:55
  Samantha Pruitts: And if you did, what is like asking yourself, what is one thing this week or what's an area of your life that you have been beating yourself up in, and you can start to bring compassion to it.
• 40:07
  Samantha Pruitts: Can you remind yourself?
• 40:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Can you set something on your phone?
• 40:09
  Samantha Pruitts: Can you, you know, act of self-compassion, um, and see how it changed things, see what shifts for you.
• 40:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 40:16
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I would add, um, as part of homework assignment, is to understand what you started at the at the gate, right?
• 40:24
  Polly Mertens: Was this came from a survival technique from way, way back in your evolution as a child, trying to just survive in whatever the circumstances were, and it's no longer serving you.
• 40:40
  Polly Mertens: You don't need it anymore.
• 40:42
  Polly Mertens: Let it go.
• 40:43
  Polly Mertens: Look at it for what it was, you know.
• 40:45
  Polly Mertens: Maybe it kept you alive, maybe it served you at some point.
• 40:47
  Polly Mertens: That's totally fine.
• 40:49
  Polly Mertens: Let it go.
• 40:50
  Samantha Pruitts: I think the thing that I got when I read that about being perfect, agreeable, or quiet, it allowed me to look at like I just stepped back and I went, where am I being these?
• 41:03
  Samantha Pruitts: Where where am I experiencing some form of suffering, being ineffective, breakdown, some overwhelm, overcommitted, whatever.
• 41:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm like, oh, in those areas, I was able to find these ways of being.
• 41:17
  Samantha Pruitts: So take a look at your own life and see, are these showing up somewhere?
• 41:22
  Samantha Pruitts: Did you develop one of these and maybe something comparable?
• 41:26
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, maybe it doesn't sound exactly like those.
• 41:28
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's it's got you locked in because you think it's working for you, but it's actually creating more suffering.
• 41:35
  Samantha Pruitts: It's causing you more pain, more grief, more overload, more overwhelm, more isolation, something, right?
• 41:42
  Samantha Pruitts: And what can you do to shift that, right?
• 41:46
  Samantha Pruitts: To stand up for yourself, to speak out, to speak your truth with compassion, to be your word, to say no, to decommit, to risk looking bad, sounding bad to someone.
• 41:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 42:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 42:00
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like it's gonna probably be one of those.
• 42:02
  Samantha Pruitts: And guess what?
• 42:03
  Samantha Pruitts: It's time to not be so liked.
• 42:05
  Polly Mertens: It's time to be it's amazing when you do that in whatever you know the dynamic or the environment is, how damn good it feels.
• 42:15
  Polly Mertens: People think they're actually gonna feel bad.
• 42:18
  Polly Mertens: But when you actually like leave the room and get away from whatever that situation or dynamic was, I'm sorry, so sorry.
• 42:25
  Polly Mertens: Feel amazing because you feel it in your being, in every cell of your being.
• 42:32
  Polly Mertens: You actually feel like, damn, I just took care of myself.
• 42:36
  Polly Mertens: You get your power, yes, it's good.
• 42:39
  Samantha Pruitts: It's a false sense of security, security, being belonging, all right.
• 42:46
  Samantha Pruitts: But the freedom is in being yourself, not being fucking agreeable, not being quiet.
• 42:52
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, no, I have something to say here.
• 42:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Self-express, self-expression, communicating your truth, your no, your hard no.
• 43:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, I've been doing a lot of that right now with uh decommitting to things.
• 43:04
  Samantha Pruitts: And I'm like, like uh last night, somebody sent me something that was relatively small.
• 43:09
  Samantha Pruitts: So my action list for like from yesterday carried over today was like ginormous.
• 43:14
  Samantha Pruitts: And this this person who last week I was saying, you know, I had some breakdowns because I was being so agreeable and just allowing, you know, to supporting more of him, and then I was ineffective in the things that I was up to.
• 43:25
  Samantha Pruitts: He sent me something last night, like, hey, can you just do and it was like it would probably take me like two minutes.
• 43:29
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm like, there's another thing I would do for you that would take me from being up to what I'm up to.
• 43:35
  Samantha Pruitts: And so I said, I love you and no.
• 43:38
  Polly Mertens: Nope.
• 43:39
  Samantha Pruitts: Yep, yeah.
• 43:40
  Polly Mertens: I was like, nope, love you, mean it.
• 43:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Bye.
• 43:42
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 43:44
  Samantha Pruitts: So de-commit, de, you know, get those things back to them.
• 43:48
  Samantha Pruitts: So all right, all right.
• 43:50
  Samantha Pruitts: Let's wrap this party up, babe.
• 43:52
  Polly Mertens: You want to remind them of as you and I mean hello, hello.
• 43:56
  Polly Mertens: What did we just say?
• 43:58
  Polly Mertens: But I have a fan coming out of my head.
• 43:59
  Polly Mertens: That's fun.
• 44:00
  Polly Mertens: How your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 44:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.