00:00 

Well, hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 224, "Compassion and Curiosity." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Alright. Hello there, my friends. How are you doing today? I am so glad to be with you. So, just for frame of reference, I have a friend who occasionally asked me when I'm going to stop recording these in my closet and I will let you know that today is the day. So, I'm glad to be sitting in my office at a desk rather than in my closet on the floor and I'm hoping that the sound quality works well for us today. Alright. Let's go ahead and jump in then. 

00:53 

Today, we are talking about compassion and curiosity. And so I want to talk about these two collaborative concepts that can change your relationship with yourself and with those you love, for whom you want to have relationships with. So, often when I'm coaching my clients on their own self-growth or on tools that they can implement to impact their relationships in positive ways, I will go to compassion and curiosity. These two ideas or concepts, when properly applied, just may change the course of your path. And here's why: they are, in essence, the opposite of shame and judgment; two things that will not only keep us stuck, but also just feel really bad. 

01:43 

So let's dig in, shall we? Alright. So, a word in direct opposition to compassion is shame and shame is defined by Brené Brown as, "the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. Something we've experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection." So, in essence, shame is believing that there is something wrong with us as a person, not just that there is something wrong with our behaviors. And here's why shame is so detrimental: it shuts us down. We start to see ourselves as not worthy of consideration by ourselves or by others. And when we move into the space of believing ourselves to be less-than in consideration to those around us, we lose a lot of motivation and insight in how to move forward. Sometimes I will use the phrase "spinning in shame," which refers to the concept that once we start implementing shame as a tactic against ourselves, it can be really hard to break out of it. Like, you know that spinning ride at the fair or at an amusement park where you stand on the outside of the circle and it just goes around and when you're spinning, you can't even lift your head off of the wall because of the centrifugal force, right? You can't even move your head. We're stuck. And that's kind of what shame feels like to me. Like we get stuck in this force. The shame that we feel begets more shame, which begets more and then more shame. And it sucks us in and shuts us down. When we are heaping shame on ourselves, we also shut down the safe space that we need to be able to move forward. 

03:45 

If I know that when I see a flaw or a fault in myself, that I'm going to turn on myself and beat myself up with shame, my primitive brain is going to resist seeing my flaws and my faults. If we've not created a safe space within ourselves, why would our brains want to go to such a painful place? So I want you to imagine a three or a four year old who spills their milk at dinner. And the parent gets angry and says, "oh my gosh, you're so clumsy. Why can't you pay closer attention? You've got to watch what you're doing. You're so stupid. You just are not doing this right. Come on. You can do better than this," think of what that child is going to be going through inside of themselves. They're going to be feeling shame. They're going to be feeling that hot flood of shame that comes up and shuts them down. So let's say that the next night, they're going to be a little bit nervous about the milk and they spill the milk again. And again, the parent turns on them and says, "oh my gosh, can't you be more careful? Why are you so clumsy? I can't believe you did this again. You're such an idiot. Come on. Let's pay closer attention." Again that child is going to start spinning in more and more shame. Let's say day three comes and that poor child spills another glass of milk. Probably before the parent can even start into their rant, the child is going to jump off their chair, run to their room, hide in the closet. The child shuts down emotionally and physically because it's not safe to make mistakes. 

05:35 

 But what if the first day that that child spilled a glass of milk, the parent was like, "whoops, that was a mistake. That's okay. Let's get it cleaned up." And that was it. And that was done. They cleaned up the milk, poured some more milk and dinner went on. First of all, chances that that child's gonna spill milk the second night go down because the anxiety is not so hard. But let's say that they do spill another glass of milk. And the parent again says, "whoa, oh sweetheart, that's so frustrating. I'm so sorry. Let me help you clean that up." You know, and the parent moves into this space. When day three or day four of spilling the milk comes, the child is most more likely to respond with, "whoops, spilled my milk. It's a mistake. Let's clean it up." They create a space where it is safe to make mistakes. And our brains do the same thing when we create a space where it's not safe to make mistakes. So compassion counters shame. Compassion creates a loving space that makes room for mistakes to exist without beating ourselves up. 

06:47 

Because, of course, we're going to make mistakes. Of course we will say or do things occasionally that will hurt other people or that are selfish or that are insensitive. That's part of our human experience. We can learn to respond with compassion rather than shame. And this is when we create that safe space for growth. Compassion means we're loving and supportive even in the event of falling short. Compassion means we allow room for learning and misunderstanding. Compassion means that we accept, and even embrace, our humaneness, that we don't expect ourselves to be perfect or even near perfect. Compassion means that we recognize, that although our actions may not always align with who we really want to be, that it doesn't mean that we're not worthy, good or acceptable. Compassion means that we are always loved by ourselves, that we give ourselves the space we need to learn and to grow without shame. So compassion is the first place to go. 

07:58 

And compassion is the precursor to the second part of this equation, which is having curiosity with ourselves. It is really hard to move into curiosity if we don't first have compassion. And I'm learning in the work that I do with clients and with myself that curiosity is queen. It is an oft-neglected trait that is vital to our relationships, including the relationship with ourselves. And here's why: curiosity leads to greater understanding. And greater understanding leads to greater love. When we choose to be curious with ourselves, we will come to understand things about ourselves that we've previously been unaware of. When we can step out of self-judgment and instead step into curiosity, we offer ourselves grace and space to be human. We seek to understand the framework of our thoughts, our beliefs and our ideas, rather than automatically heaping on judgment and shame. Judgment is almost always accompanied by criticism, and this is an awfully damaging practice. Judgment also shuts us down the way that shame does. We stop seeking to understand because we think we already know all there is to know. We know the reasons, we know the answers. And with ourselves, our brain will often think that the answer is that we are unlovable or unworthy or not valuable. Most of my clients move into that space at some point. We can trace struggles back to those thoughts almost every time. 

09:46 

Self-criticism and self-judgment create a toxic environment within ourselves where we will shut down emotionally, where we will stop looking for solutions and, rather, stay stuck in the spin cycle of our problems. Learning to be curious and ask ourselves tough questions in an effort to dig deeper, to seek awareness and to provide clarity also makes it easier to step into compassion with ourselves. And this is why these two attributes go hand in hand. They work together to provide that safe space for us to discover thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that may surprise us sometimes. But even in that surprise where we go, "what? I think that?" We can be compassionate for the past version of us who thought that thought, that idea, or that that belief was useful. Even if the present version of us sees right through it and recognizes it as not being useful, the capacity to be curious and compassionate toward our past selves is valuable in creating the safe space for our present and future selves to grow and progress. We turn away from shame and judgment and we open up to an amazing venue for love and understanding. Two essential elements for any relationship, including the relationship with our self. 

11:16 

Okay, so now let's look at compassion and curiosity in the context of other relationships in our lives. Every relationship in our life will benefit from an extra dose of compassion and curiosity. So if we use the thought model here, we can understand that our feelings generate our actions. So when we feel compassion for someone, we are more likely to show up with kindness, with patience, seeking to understand their point of view, empathizing with them. And for pretty much everyone I know, this is the kind of person that they really want to be. And in the context of a tough situation in a relationship, all of these behaviors will benefit our interactions with the other person, and curiosity does the same. When I feel curious toward a person and their circumstance, I am more likely to show up asking questions, seeking clarification, really wanting to 

understand where they're coming from. Again, all behaviors that will help to create a safe space for deeper and more  intimate conversation and understanding. When we can learn to incorporate thoughts that create compassion and curiosity, then we're really upping our ability to genuinely show up in the relationally healthy ways that we want to. 

12:33 

So here are some examples of some thoughts that can create compassion or curiosity. "This is a really tough situation for them," "I know they've been working really hard to figure this out," "I know they're doing the best they can," "I want to understand what they're going through," "I want them to know I love and care about them," "I wonder what makes this so hard for them," "Boy, they're really struggling. I want to know how I can best help them right now." Okay, so these are the types of thoughts that will create a genuine feeling of compassion and curiosity. And if we focus on creating these types of thoughts, we will be able to keep out of shaming and judging them. We will be able to step away from the criticism and step into kindness that is soft and inviting. Compassion and curiosity are an amazing combination that has the ability to help us show up the kind of person we really want to be. Our most difficult relationships can be affected in a deep and meaningful way when we choose to move into this space. Compassion and curiosity can absolutely create a safe space for the other person to engage, but there are two things I want you to consider here though. 

14:00 

One, you cannot control the safe space because the other person feeling safe isn't anything that you have control over. Their feeling of safety comes from their thoughts in their head that you are trustworthy, that you're not going to judge them, that you truly do care for them, that you accept them. So what can we do? With regard to the thought model, our actions move into their circumstance line of their model, meaning what we do is something that they experience. It becomes their circumstance. Then they get to have thoughts about their circumstance or our actions that are in their circumstance line. 

14:43 

So, if showing up with compassion and curiosity is new for you in this particular relationship, they may be very suspicious at first. They may not trust your behavior. They may stand back and watch in confusion and maybe even frustration since you've changed the rules of engagement. They may not know what to do. And guess what? That's okay. Okay? We get to keep showing up the way that we want to. Keep putting the actions we really want into their circumstance line. And as you consistently show up the version of yourself you want to be, over time they may begin to see that this compassionate and curious version of you is here to stay. And every time you show up consistent, their brain will start to rethink their engagement with you. And maybe over time, hopefully over time, they will come to trust that you really are compassionate and curious and they will start to think thoughts that will help them feel safe. But guess what? Maybe they won't. Maybe they won't ever trust you or feel safe around you. We can't control whether other people feel safe around us or not. What we can control is us, how we show up and engage. This is our space of control. And remember, we don't show up in that space of compassion and curiosity to try and manipulate their behavior. We show up that way because that is the person we want to be. 

16:16 

And so the second thing that I want you to consider when implementing compassion and curiosity with people that you love: if it's not genuine compassion and curiosity, you're missing the mark. This isn't about faking it till you make it. It isn't about pretending to be someone you're not. This is about really cleaning up who you are, about becoming a person who actually is compassionate and curious, about discovering thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that are keeping you from being this person and then learning compassion and curiosity by practicing it on ourselves first. It's about becoming this version of ourselves that we really want to be. And we don't work on becoming this person because it makes us a more worthy or a more valuable person. We work to become this person because it really is how we want to engage with the world. We want to be a person who experiences life from a space of being a compassionate and curious person. We don't want to just act compassionate and curious. We want to be compassionate and curious. Tell you what, people are smart. People are intuitive. If we are pretending, they will feel it. They will know it. So it is important that we actually do the work to become compassionate and curious. We can't just think that it would be nice if we got there someday. We have to engage in the work of seeing things about ourselves we often don't want to see and then work to get ourselves where we want to be. 

18:01 

Being compassionate and curious will change you, which in turn will change your relationships, whether it be with a spouse or a partner, whether it be with your children or your parents or your siblings or your friends, maybe it's even a stranger you meet at the park. Compassion and curiosity are game changers in how you interact with others and really learning to clean up your thoughts, learning to clean up your love, learning to meet people where they are and drop the expectations that  they should be different than they are, learning to step back from judgment and criticism. This is the space where you are open to greater intimacy. Think of it as cleaning all the junk out of that dump room in your house. We clean out all the crap to make room for a beautiful sofa and chair for a lamp and a great book. We create a warm and an inviting space from a place that previously was virtually inaccessible. This is the work we do. We clean up our space. We clean out our minds and our hearts of the things that are holding us down and holding us back and we create a space capable of providing great satisfaction and fulfillment, a space that can be filled with intimacy and enjoyment. 

19:23 

This is work, my friends, but I promise it is work worth doing. The changes that I have seen in my life through this work are astounding to me. And I do this work because I've seen it work in my life and I want to help you create the changes that you want to see in your life as well. This is my intention with this podcast and this is my intention in being available to be a coach to you to be able to help you because this makes all the difference in how we experience life. We experience at a deeper, more intimate, more connected level when we start implementing these concepts. And knowing that we need to start creating these concepts in our lives, this is the space of growing up in middle age. We don't see it for a long time. But we start hitting middle age and we start to see and that is the brilliant part of growing up in the middle age. 

20:40 

Okay, my friends, if you would like to talk with me about coaching and see if this is a great fit for you, you can go to tanyahale.com and you can go to the "contact me" tab. You can go there and you can set up a free consult where we can talk for 30 minutes about how coaching can help you step in to the kind of person that you really want to be. And if you've not left me a review, that would be fabulous. If you have left me a review, thank you. So kind and I appreciate your support so much of my work here that I do. This helps other people to find it when you leave a review. It only takes a few minutes and I appreciate those of you who have taken the time to do it. I wish you all the best this week, my friend. Compassion and curiosity. Let's step into it this week. Let's see what you can do. Let's see how you can feel better for being more the kind of person that you want to be with yourself and with the people you love the most. Okay, have an awesome week and I'll see you next time. Bye. 

21:45 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.