Neuroscience Nuggets #4: The Science Of Self-Compassion

I like to know what I’m having for lunch before I land at the office. 

The reason is that I have a short window between clients and that time is precious. 

On this particular Tuesday morning, my plan was to pick up a salad at my favorite neighborhood spot on my walk over to work. 

I already knew that the Thai noodle salad I had in mind would pair well with the mushroom soup leftover from yesterday’s lunch. (By the way, am I the only person,  who does this, dream up lunch plans at 9am?)

Anyhow, as I walked by my favorite spot I saw someone sitting outside I wanted to avoid. He's close with someone I no longer have any contact with. I didn't want any potential awkwardness, so I picked up my pace and let my adored salad fade into the distance. 
 

I continued on, undeterred, and my eyes lit up as I remembered another great spot for salads. But when I got to that bakery I discovered a barren display case where the salads usually reside. It was too early. My plans were foiled once again!

Arriving salad-less to my office I heard myself saying “Zeva! Why you were so weak? You should have been more brave and got what you wanted! Now you need to go out again! You don’t have time for that!”

I could feel my throat tensing up, and feelings of weakness, inadequacy, and not-enough-ness coursing through my body. 

And then I remembered this neuroscience nugget I wanted to share with you: negative self-talk is the worst possible thing you can do to yourself.  It is toxic as all hell. 

Scientific evidence shows that speaking to ourselves harshly, judging ourselves negatively, being unforgiving whenever we feel we like we’ve made a mistake, does exactly the opposite of what we think that kind of self-policing will do. 

Harsh self-criticism doesn’t motivate us. It does just the reverse: it convinces us there’s something wrong with us, that we’re flawed, weak, less valuable and less worthy than other people. 

Those beliefs lead to emotions like shame and guilt. Since those feelings feel like crap, we'll resort to anything to numb ourselves from them. Like giving into whatever immediate, mood-repairing, instant gratification we can find (more social media browsing, more Netflix, more snacks, more procrastination, more negative speak). It’s a very slippery slope. 

When our mindset tells us that we are broken and weak it makes it hard to tap into our willpower, our strength, our convictions, our purpose. By repeating those beliefs over and over and over, we just reinforce our sense of brokenness and weakness. 

So how do we change that pattern? 

When we shift the question around and ask ourselves "How can I make it easier to tap into my willpower, my strength, my motivation and my sense of purpose?" the answer becomes clear: 

It’s not through criticism and self-judgement, but through self-compassion and encouragement. 

Basically by speaking to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend. 

So if my best friend told me her salad story, I’d say something like:

“Listen, darling, you wanted to avoid a complex conversation. You wanted to preserve your energy for more important things. You protected yourself from a body budget energy withdrawal. Getting out of the office to grab something will be good for you. You’ll get some fresh air and a change of scenery. And who knows, maybe you’ll even use this story in one of your neuroscience nuggets newsletters.” 

PS. There are some amazing resources and references to the science of self-compassion so if you’re interested in going further you can start here with this wonderful TedX talk by self-compassion expert Dr. Kristen Neff. Her website also has a self-compassion test you can take with exercises to help increase your self-compassion self-talk. 

PPS. Another self-compassion mentor of mine is Tara Brach, who wrote an exceptional book all about it called Radical Compassion. 

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

5 must-listen podcast interviews that rocked my 2020

In 2020, the world came to me through the podcast portal. I was already a podcast fan, but starting in March during the first lockdown in France I slowly and steadily began racking up the "edutainment" to a solid 100/hrs per month. 

When I look through my archive of listened-to shows, I fly back in time to the exact moment my brain shifted a belief, gave me a new perspective on the future, or shined a mega-light on a part of reality I was trying to avoid.  

I don't know if that happens with everyone (maybe it happens with you, but there's just something about listening to podcasts that stamps ideas into my mind. 

So in honor of this wild year of discoveries and learnings, here is my list of the five most thought-shaping podcast interviews of the year (including a self-promo plug). 

April 20, 2020: "The Daily" The Next Year (or Two) of the Pandemic 

Michael Barbaro of the "The Daily" podcast was my "most-listened-to" person of the year. I just love this guy. He has this way of paraphrasing his guests' answers, offering their words back to them in concise little packages, that reminds me a lot of coaching. He's got a fantastic ear for detail that he uses to help his listeners grasp complex concepts by breaking them down into digestible bites, even when he's interviewing experts about some hard-to-swallow subjects, like basically everything he reported on this year! Of all of the episodes Barbaro did in 2020, my "favorite," was with the science and health reporter for The New York Times, Donald G. McNeil Jr. Back in April, McNeil gave a pretty bleak, but ultimately realistic portrait of our lives with Covid-19 for the next couple of years and introduced the concept of the "hammer and the dance." When I heard the episode, I was like, "Ok, this thing isn't going away for a while and we're going to have to learn to live with it."

June 30, 2020: "Unlocking Us" Brené Brown with Ibram X. Kendi on How to Be an Antiracist

Brené Brown's warm Texan drawl and one-of-a-kind laugh are hard to resist, but it's the way she questions her guests through the prism of her extensive research on shame, courage and vulnerability that makes her podcast "On Becoming" my go-to destination for knee-slapping HOLY SHIT conversations. Of all of the fantastic episodes she did last year, the most memorable and transformative for me was her interview with professor Ibram X. Kendi, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist. After listening to their conversation in which Brown applied her shame lens to Kendi's teaching, I had a dozen uncomfortable aha-moments which led me to order his book and devour it over the next few weeks. Honestly, this conversation is gold. 

September 14, 2020: "The Happiness Lab" Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: Aristotle

"The Happiness Lab" is a fantastic podcast hosted by Yale professor Dr Laurie Santos, creator of the most successful course in the school's history: The Science of Well-Being. In this show she invites experts from different fields to debunk common myths about what makes us happy and offer alternative ways to achieving that esteemed state. This episode totally blew my mind because she invited her friend and colleague, Yale professor Tamar Gendler, an expert on Ancient Greece, to talk about Aristotle's amazing, and totally relevant well-being concepts from two thousand years ago. She opens with this kick-ass statement: "The idea that the most interesting answer to the question you're trying to ask would be given by someone living on earth with you right now is a real mistake. Sometimes the most interesting answer is something that someone gave two thousand years ago, or on a completely different continent, or in a completely different context." 

November 18, 2020: The Stories that Empower Us: A Conversation with Tara Brach and Elizabeth Lesser, Author of “Cassandra Speaks”

Tara Brach is a mentor to me even though she doesn't know it. Her book Radical Acceptance completely changed the way that I think about uncomfortable emotions and our resistance to them. I recommend her book to literally every person I coach and listen to her podcast, which is mostly live talks and meditations, regularly. That's why it was such a treat to hear her switch things up and interview one of her peers, co-founder of the Omega institute and author, Elizabeth Lesser. The conversation between these two brilliant women was so playful and insightful and you could tell they each adore one another. The two discussed Lesser's new book called Cassandra Speaks, which looks into how myths and popular stories have shaped the way we perceive women, even though they've mostly been written by men! Lesser advocates for women to redefine those roles and perceptions by writing and sharing their stories more. After listening to this episode, I immediately ordered her book and then decided to begin a series of interviews on Instagram with my clients so that they can share their transformation journeys, projects and epiphanies with others.


December 23, 2020: "The New Paris Podcast" On changes and transformations with Zeva Bellel

What an honor to wrap up a year of intense podcast listening by being featured on one of my absolutely favorite shows: "The New Paris Podcast" by Lindsey Tramuta. Lindsey and I met years ago when I was blogging about hidden Parisian addresses and she was just starting out as a travel and culture writer in Paris. She now has two fantastic books about Paris under her belt, The New Paris and The New Parisienne: The Women & Ideas Shaping Paris, as well as a brilliant podcast with an eclectic line-up of Paris-based guests. I was delighted to be invited onto her show to discuss my own journey coming to Paris, the chaotic early days of my career in France, the twists and turns that lead me to coaching, and French and American cultural differences in regards to career transformation.

If you have any podcast episodes that completely rocked your world in 2020 send me the links.

Sending you lots of love.

xxx
Zeva


PS.When you have a good 40-minutes free, I'd love for you to check in and listen to my conversation with Lindsey Tramuta on her podcast"The New Paris"and let me know what comes up for you.

PPS. Thanks for being on the other side of this screen this year. I'll see you next week with an announcement about a fun vision board workshop I'm co-hosting in January. Until then, have a fantastic holiday!

Breathing off the ledge

In March (aka pre-Coronavirus times) when kids went to school and we walked sidewalks freely, I picked up my youngest at school, saw his droopy eyes, and knew immediately he wasn’t well. 

“Mama, je suis malade,” he said. 

I pressed my hands to his warm forehand and a wave of terror washed over me. "Could it be the virus?"

Later that evening he woke up crying, the fever had gone up. We gave hime a Doliprane, and let him crawl into our bed.


My husband and I debated whether we should called 15, the emergency number here to report potential coronavirus cases. 

We decided to do it. While my husband waited on the phone, I got under the covers next to my son, watching his face as he breathed heavily. 

Five minutes went by, then eight minutes, eleven minutes…

All of the sudden, I noticed that my body was starting to shake all over, my jaw was chattering and my teeth clanking loudly. 

My husband looked at me, puzzled, what was going on?

“I don’t know, I can’t stop shivering," I said. "What if I’m sick too, what if we’re all getting sick?”

That thought. That thought. That evil, terrifying  thought. 

Despite the growing panic in my body, I felt deep down that the doomsday thoughts in my head were likely causing all of the shivering. 

So I closed my eyes, put my hands over my chest and took several long, deep breaths while we waited in silence for the operator to answer the call.

In the dead silence of the room my focus was on each and every breath, the rising and falling of my chest, the warmth and softness of my body under my hands.  By the time the operator answered (after a 20 minute wait!) my body was relaxed, my jaw had stopped chattering and I was back to my usual self. 

My husband described my son’s symptoms and the doctor on the line reassured him that it was likely a bad cold that would turn around in 24 hours. 

You can imagine the relief we both felt. 

Since that evening, things around the world have become more and more surreal and scary, but that moment where I was able to breath my way off the ledge of fear has become my anchor. 

I knew that breath work and meditation were important for relieving stress and settling the mind. I’ve dabbled in meditation occasionally. I’ve done several months of daily mediation in the past. And I suggest to all of my clients that they start a mediation practice if they don't have one already. 

But I am practicing what I preach now more than every because I can see first hand how my sanity, strength and serenity depends on it.

There are millions of things you can be doing right now to help you stay well during this surreal time. 

I’m not here to preach to you, friend, I don’t want to add to the pressure out there to "succeed at quarantining.”  

But I'm going to preach to you anyway: if you’re not mediating daily, now may be the best time to give it a try.  Even 10 minutes a day. Just a moment to connect to your breath, and try to free up some space in your brain. 

There are loads of places to do that now, and for free, here are some of my favorites:

Instagram Live:
Lili Barbery does a 50 minute daily mediation at 18h CET that’s great for the whole family. (French)
Sylvie Chayette does a very soothing meditation morning mediation at 8h30 CET. (French)  
 

Online Communities:
My absolute favorite home yoga instructor, Yoga with Adriene, has a fabulous collection of mediations. 
The fantastic wellness community, Commune, has created a free 21-day Yoga and Mediation Studio.
 

Live Streaming:
Mindfulness expert and all around soothing sage, Tara Brach, is doing live streams of her weekly meditations and even has a half-day mediation retreat guide that you can follow to create your own immersive mediation studio:

It goes without saying that I'm here for you and am sending you lots of love and healthy vibes right now. 

Big hugs to you. 

Zeva

PS. There's no right or wrong way to do this quarantine thing. Listen to your gut, take care of yourself, do what feels right and be kind to yourself. For me, that includes meditating, baking, dancing, reading cookbooks and trying not to control what I can't control. 

PPS. If you want to chat, I've got some discovery slots open. 

PPPS. I’ve created a free worksheet called Reinvent Your New Normal that helps you makes sense of all of the thoughts and feelings that have come up during confinement . You can get it sent to your inbox by clicking here.