The Everyday Awesome Project
The Everyday Awesome Podcast is your mega dose of multivitamins for building your mental muscles, physical body and an empowered life. Your hosts Polly and Sam are on your dream team; lifelong coaches in business, health & fitness and human potential. They are on fire to ignite change in the lives they touch.
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The Everyday Awesome Project
101-Self Compassion Master Class
What if the real performance edge isn’t tougher discipline, but kind and honest self-talk? Today Coaches Polly & Sam unlock the trap of chasing self-esteem—endless comparison, outcome obsession, and that hollow ego rush that fades the moment you swap it for unshakable self-worth. Drawing on some of Kristen Neff’s Self Compassion research, we share a simple, field-tested framework that turns self worth development into liberation without lowering standards: common humanity to normalize our imperfection, and self-kindness to create the safety needed for honest feedback and empowering action.
You’ll hear how childhood survival strategies—be perfect, be quiet, be agreeable—become adult habits that drain energy, bloat calendars, and keep goals stuck. We unpack why harsh coaching and militant self-criticism look strong but quietly erode resilience, creativity, and risk-taking. Then we model what compassionate rigor sounds like in real life: set the target, tell the truth about the miss, protect your worth, and adjust the plan. Expect clear examples, a few laughs, and practical moves you can try today—like micro-boundaries, decommitting without guilt, and reframing the inner critic as a well-meaning but outdated safety officer.
By the end, you’ll have language and tools to meet mistakes without identity collapse, take braver swings because failure no longer threatens your value, and design environments—teams, friends, coaches—that reinforce shared humanity over posturing. If you’re ready to trade perfection for progress and pressure for presence, press play. If it resonates, subscribe, share this with a friend who needs gentler grit, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.
-Coach Sam & Coach Polly xoxo
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Hey, superstars. Welcome back. Polly here. Sam Pruitt in the house, too. What's up, beautiful humans?
Samantha Pruitts:Oh, let's get down and dirty into the topic of self-compassion today, huh? Okay. First, I just have to say this masterclass on self-compassion is because Polly is in her own masterclass on self-compassion right now. Yes, I think you are. I know. Well, I had done a whole series. So, like a little backstory on this. I had done a whole series in my eating disorder recovery program development days. I was creating this like extra bonus about, you know, self-esteem and self-worth and self-confidence and all those selves, right? And I got into the land of self-love. 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. And I think I'm on the path back to compassion, right? Uh, self-compassion as a component of that. 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. Kids need self-esteem, right? And actually, when you do the science, you know, you look at the background on it, um, they need self-worth. They need to know the foundation of their self-worth is unshakable, right? It's unbreakable and unshakable. They're human, they have worth and inherent worth just as it is. 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? So self-esteem is good or bad.
Polly Mertens:Totally.
Samantha Pruitts:It's comparison-based. It's like, how do I compare with some either standard, norm, somebody I'm like judging myself against or what have you. Not not healthy long term. So self-esteem, I would just be like, it's something that arises and the mind creates, but it's not the focus. And so in that journey of learning all of those, I just really appreciate it. 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. She's got TED Talks out there. I've seen interviews from her. She's the master on it. She's a like a nice woo-woo zen person, I think. Also, like you, my dear.
Polly Mertens:Oh, I'm not woo-woo. That's you.
Samantha Pruitts:Wow. The Zen Buddhist over there who's not. I'm I am more into the metaphysical woo-woo. You're right. Um, but it's mindfulness is her jam, right? Which you're definitely into. Definitely.
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. Can you imagine studying one thing for like 15 years? I'm like, oh damn, that girl has woman has some focus.
Samantha Pruitts:Well, that's like Renee Brown in Shame. Stacy Sims for Jam. Stacey Sims in Hormones for Females and Performance. Yeah, like that is that it. And you and I were having a little meetup after this about our future. And you guys stay tuned because programs are coming. Samantha is cooking some stuff up. I'm cooking some stuff up. We can't wait for 2026 to be you know bringing that to you guys. And you are just all about, you know, you're all about the health and the well-being of the body. 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.
Polly Mertens:I do not have that attention span. 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. And that to me leads to toxic behaviors, right? 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. Yeah. So I'm not into that. 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? So as a society, we wouldn't want to do that. But it also sets us up for you know being afraid to fail, not being willing to take risks. Like it's a setup, dude. Self-esteem is a freaking setup.
Samantha Pruitts:It is, it's a trap. It's a trap, it's a trap, right? So the foundation of self-esteem is comparison, performance-based, and external success. Those are like the the those are usually the three things that's going on. I know. And hello, what I'm sorry, what is our world out there, you know, bringing more of to us is more of those narcissism. That's what. 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. 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. So in that in comparison, yeah. 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. Like it allow it doesn't allow us to see our own shining light and beauty. It's like I'm only how good I am as I measure up against, you know, something else. So, but you know, self-compassion. 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. We're not going to go too deep into each of those, but know that there is a distinction. 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. Shame is identifying with what you've done. I am bad. Like, like me cutting somebody off in traffic, oh, I'm a horrible person. I should, you know, or I hurt that person's feelings, I'm horrible, you know. What's wrong with me? Right?
Polly Mertens:So and shame it into your identity rather than it being an action that you did. Yes, I failed.
Samantha Pruitts:I'm a beautiful soul and I hurt someone's feelings. I'm I'm and I did something wrong. I I need to go repair that relationship, that thing, take that back, whatever, right? Um, but I still at my core have worth, value, believe in myself. There's nothing inherently wrong with me. It's when we identify with that. And that's the trap, you know. 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. You know, I can understand whether it's all sorts of addiction and you hide it, right? You feel like you're lying to the people around you, right? And then you just feel like this liar and you turn into like, I'm a liar, right? Like, I'm a bad human being, right? 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. Keeps you in the loop. But that's for another episode. So, but I do find I am in some behavior, some mental patterns. 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. Now we're talking about self-compassion, because I've been doing a really good job over here. 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. And just my ability to get it out there and have it exist and enough people to come and know about it. I set a goal of 500 and I'm so far away from it. And my mind's just been like, you know, chiseling away at that inner worth, if you will. And so in the come alive, so we're in the second round of come alive called Come Alive Trailblazer. 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. Yeah, like maple syrup.
Polly Mertens:Pour some sugar on me in the name of love. Do you remember that song?
Samantha Pruitts:I do, I do. I think you just had that in the newsletter too. Like, oh yeah, yeah, you just put that on there. So self-compassion is a verb, if you ask me. Okay, so self-compassion is acts of kindness or words of kindness, treating yourself kindly with love, right?
Polly Mertens:Being but I'm with you. It's takes action, it does, it's not just words. So I love that you call it a verb. Sorry to interrupt.
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah, no, no, exactly, exactly. So it's a verb, it's acts of kindness, words of kindness, you know, just as if so self-compassion, compassion. 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. Like, how would you describe that? What is compassion?
Polly Mertens:It's interesting that it's compassion, right? And so, how did this word even come about into the English? Okay, gotta go look that up. Because everybody, especially in the Buddhist philosophy and teachings, but just in the general world of humanity, we are humans. Last time I checked, right? But even every living being, like, we can think about how we would treat another. How would we treat another? 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. Like, if you think about how you treat another living being, you absolutely know what compassion is. Yeah, it's innate in the human species, in the living species, to act from a place of compassion.
Samantha Pruitts:A healthy person understands compassion easily.
Polly Mertens:Like it's almost like they're born with it. Oh no, we are. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So we're born with it and then we're taught out of it. It's you know, taught, we're taught away from it by societal bizarre, you know, things that are going on. But if the human is born with it and it's an innate, you know, operating system or part of our operating system, right? 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. But why is it so difficult for us to do it like this? Hey Sam, what's up?
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. So in the 70s or 80s, there was a gymnast called Nadia Komenicci, I think. And she got the first 10 in gymnastics way back when, right? And she was trained by that Polish or Russian coach, right? Um, forget his name. 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. And so from the outside, looking in, as you often see in stories, right? Looks amazing, looks amazing, right? And then later on you find like he they were so straight, just like this militant, right? The the mindset that was coming out. 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. Like war. Yeah, you know, that whole era and genre of mindset was discipline, right? 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. So I look at that story of Nadia Community. And the work that that coach did with her was just discipline, you know, just hardcore. 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? You know, like, like, get in line, is actually diminishing to the soul. It uh it creates underperformance. It doesn't create better performance, like peak performance, right? Like, you know, she did great, whatever. 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? You did great, awesome. Like that lifts people up to want to be their best self. That is actually more. 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. 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. Right.
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. 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? 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. We're not saying to placate and pretend that's not a reality. 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. You know what I mean? Like we're not saying that. We're saying realistic conversations, right? So, but acknowledging, hey, I see that that performance isn't what you had hoped for. I'm here to support you. How do you feel about that? And then how can we come up with a way for you to get better performance, right? So it's having an honest conversation, but a loving, compassionate, and resourceful. You're resourcing that person, or I'm resourcing myself if I'm talking to myself. Yeah, and about how to have rigor of right.
Samantha Pruitts:We still have to meet these metrics. We still want exactly performance. We still want to climb Mount Whitney. 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. All is, you know. Yeah, exactly. 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. I was like, oh my gosh, I see this in my life right now. So I'm sure you have some stories and I have some too. So um, the inner critic, right? So, like what we what what were some of this shame and this criticism, this self-criticism, right? 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? 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. And so this inner critic that is created that we we actually programmed it, if you will. So we've got this inner critic inside of us, and it's a protection mechanism. 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. What that means in your past, I love this. Just the whole like take this in. In your past, being perfect, quiet, or agreeable, agreeable was a survival strategy. I mean, who can't raise your hand and say, Yeah, I probably did one or all three of those, you know?
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. 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. Anyway, read them again.
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. It wasn't necessarily that our parents gave us here's the perfect playbook, right? But through their withholding of love, issuing of punishment, you know, like strat their strategy to get us conditional love. Exactly. Their strategy of conditioning love towards us, withholding it, taught us. We s we we learn to navigate how do I receive love in this environment? How do I receive belonging in this family unit or whatever community that I'm in, right? So the three, I was like, oh my god. So being perfect, being quiet, like just like whatever you want, you know, or agreeable. That one, okay, Samantha, that is like so you know, I'm in this team management leadership with landmark. Okay, so it's so funny that this like with when this I read this, I was like, pretty much doing that last week. 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. Yeah, you've done hundreds. It's okay to say that. I've done a lot, yeah. Is that environment that they create is like a mini environment of your life. If you're paying attention, like it took me a while to go that, you know, get this. Like I would be in one of those after a while. I was like, oh, I get it. What's going on in here? I'm either going to transform it here or it's going to show up in my life, right? 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. 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? 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. It was like communication was just fire. I was like, oh, this was great. 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. So I was like this one, you know. So I had like four people, five people on my team, four core members. Um, one was so in like I had so much else going on. Yeah, he had so much else going on. 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. And then we would just do it over. I was like, you know, it doesn't really fly to just like having not not have integrity that often. It's like suddenly it just isn't there, you know. So that was going on. And then this other one, I so wanted to be agreeable with him. You know, he was he was new on the team, having lots of his own breakdowns, right? And I just felt deep compassion for him. I was like, oh, he's having a rough go at it. Okay. 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. I was just like, oh, and so all this stuff started falling back on me, right? And things weren't happening because I couldn't do it all. And I was like, wow, I wanted to be so agreeable that I was ineffective in my role. And so as we're as I read this, I went, oh man, that whole agreeable thing, I gotta give that up. So I'm really like in this masterclass of discovering, you know, and I was beating myself up for it in the beginning. I was like, oh man, I'm like, I'm not being good at communication, I'm not being a good leader. 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. And it's not wrong, it's just how's that working for you, Polly?
Polly Mertens:How's that working?
Samantha Pruitts:You know?
Polly Mertens:Yeah. 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. And you might have found those same environments over and over. So it solidified. It's like that that path that you, you know, that neurosceptive. Yeah, exactly. You had those things in your messaging, in your core belief system, ingrained in you, those stories or whatever. 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? Because you're like, hey, this is working. This is working. Oh, yeah. This is working. This feels like it's working. I gotta figure it out. 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. Here it comes, here it comes. 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. Yeah. So we're not saying this to cast judgment, we're saying this is really normal, right? But we're here today to deliver another opportunity to do it differently.
Samantha Pruitts:Polly's in the master class. So here's what I'm present to. 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? 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. So um, I'm gonna put my hands behind my head, right? So my hands are behind my head, and that's where beliefs and strategies can exist because they're blind to us. Like we can't see them behind our head. Like I'm looking out into the world and it's running the show from behind the scenes, if you will. That's in the subconscious. Like you said, it gets ingrained and patterned, right? And so I'm moving my hands in front of me now so I can see it, right? So I've taken those things. So my being aware of this, excuse me, fucking agreeableness as a strategy, a survival strategy. Now it's out in front of me, and I can do something with it. 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. And I realized, and I was like noticing last night, I gave that talk to Tyler's group, right? 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. And I was like, wow, it's when we so want to do something for other people that we sacrifice something for ourselves. We sacrifice our well-being, we sacrifice like our time, we sacrifice something, right? 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? And so I really get you're, you know, overwhelmed is overcommitted, I think is one thing that we're noticing. 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. Right.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, because we've still attached our self-esteem to doing those acts. Right? We're still trying to produce or perform or contribute or whatever, whatever. Measure all the things, people, right? Look a certain way, be a certain way, blah, blah, blah. All of that, right? 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. Almost a waste of time. I'm not saying we don't contribute. You and I obviously believe in contributing, of course. 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? And you see that a lot online now. People that are the experts and the best in everything and whatever. 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. And not her. She's consistent as hell, by the way, freaking legend. She just keeps delivering the bombs, right? 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. It is impossible for them to be, right? 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.
Samantha Pruitts:It's like, no, I'm sorry. I've been studying that.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, there's this posturing and vibe going on. Like, I don't want to walk in the around in the world like that. It's freaking exhausting, and I have no desire to be compared to anybody. Dude, I am radically imperfect and perfectly imperfect. Like, cool with it. All the messy, crazy stuff. You know, I'm having a bad hair day. I don't care. 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.
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. So um, you're not messy, you're an emotional being in a messy world.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, hell yeah. Right?
Samantha Pruitts:Say it again, say it again. Yes, yes. You're not messy, you're an emotional being in a messy world.
Polly Mertens:That's it. Dude, and it's such a messy world.
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah, it's there's a yeah, yeah. Okay, so here's I love this. 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? So if we're practicing that as like a way of being to succeed, trained by this inner critic, right? Which is the conditioning that we've done. So the critic is trying to maintain this old system and it's using shame to enforce compliance, right? So here's the kicker. Your inner critic is not a fact checker, it's a safety officer. And it's operating with outdated rules. You can think it for its intention, but just dismiss it. Like break it. 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? And then I could see like how much more I was taking on and all these responsibilities and like being ineffective. I was like, hold up, hold up, right? Now it's out in front of me. 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. So it's like, whew, gotta dissolve that. 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. And you're not here to do all that. You're not here to measure up, you're not here to, you know, chase these things, whatever. So yeah, I just thought those were so good. So good. So with Kristen Neff's work, and we'll come back to a couple. So she talks about three things. Things as like a practice. So, how do you create space when this voice, right? Like we've all I'm you don't seem to have a very loud one. And I have months that I'll go without this noise. You know, I think when I go up against a big goal and I'm not like hitting it, hitting it, right? Then the inner critic shows up. 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. And if it's not happening, it's like, dang. So she says three steps. First is to become mindful, aware. Right. And you and I say, how you're how you feel, right, is more important, right? And so it's noticing the state of your body, noticing mindfully, like, how am I feeling, right? And so she says, notice mindfully. This is a moment of suffering. Like I'm like, I'm in suffering now. I'm causing myself some suffering because of the thoughts that I'm having. Not my thoughts, but I'm having these thoughts. These thoughts have arisen. Acknowledge the pain. And then she says, create a sense of common humanity. At that moment, go out and notice. Do other people, you know, sometimes not hit their goal? 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? Or yeah.
Polly Mertens:Okay. Do other people have gray hair? Do other people, you know, whatever their dishuffled life is. Have poop poopy bellies or gray hair. Yeah, exactly. Have the mennow belly that I have right now? Yes, they have it. Check us out. Check all of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of our people.
Samantha Pruitts:Totally. Call them in humanity. Go, oh, I'm not alone. This is what it means to be human. I exactly normalize it. I think um, you know, the the alcoholics anonymous AA type um groups, they often say, like, reach out to your sponsor, right? Because they remind you of that common humanity. Like you have your core people, you have your coach, whatever, that can like be like, yeah, you're not a mess. You're not broken. There's not something fundamentally wrong with you. You did that thing, you didn't do that thing, you whatever, right? You have gray hairs, you have a poop.
Polly Mertens:Like, can I just add? 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. Yeah, nothing else will be tolerated except for that shared humanity and compassion. 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. Leave. Toxic.
Samantha Pruitts:Not healthy environment, absolutely. 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. So, first up, be mindful. Notice you're causing some suffering because of your thoughts. Notice the common humanity in it. Like, okay, I did I did that thing. I sent that typo. Damn, you know, I sent that email out with a typo. Okay, or the wrong date, or the wrong Zoom link. Whole I'm a horrible person, you know.
Polly Mertens:Like it happened. Penny Penny, the sky is falling. And I would just add my little piece of this, which is it's fucking hilarious. Whatever just happened and all the insanity of it, it have a good sense of humor. Okay, go ahead.
Samantha Pruitts:Well, I think so. Let's just say this. So, this is the Samantha technique. I love it. So she would say, So be mindful, notice a common humanity, and then self-kindness. So may I be kind to myself in this moment. Offer yourself, gentle comfort, or just some support, like a hot, like, you know what? It's all right. You know what? Move on, right? You would say, look at this. Oh, that's hilarious, right? Either what, well, however you want to look at it, like state change is what you're doing, right? 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? No, pity party, nope, be damned. Like, find the hilarity in it, find the compassion in it, right? So I love it. 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. Um, again, it's through loving encouragement that we're seeing in studies and reinforcing this. 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? 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.
Polly Mertens:Who's sending me a medal for all those? Oh, sorry.
Samantha Pruitts:I'm just gonna have to like put that on. And people look at resilience, they're like, oh yeah, it's that tough and great. Well, studies show that individuals high in self-compassion actually demonstrate greater levels of resilience. Greater levels of because they are less afraid of failing. You mentioned that, right? Exactly. It's like when you know you will be met with kindness instead of criticism, you're more likely to take the risk. You're more likely to put yourself out there, you're more likely to step into something that you hadn't attempted before, right? 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?
Polly Mertens:And this stops so many people from living their damn lives, for pursuing dreams, creative, business, financial relationship, whatever. So many people, this is what stops them in their tracks. Imagine if humans just didn't have that capability of falling into that trap. The amount of genius that would be born from that. Damn, we're missing out on stuff.
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah, so I think it, you know, one of the things when we talk about masterclasses is it's life school. We've talked about that, right? 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? Your mind is creating some chatter and stepping outside of that and giving yourself that those acts of kindness, right? Those, um, one of the things she said is, you know, how would you feel if you were empathetic towards somebody else? And like, what would you do? 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. It's like, no, we would comfort them, we would step in, we would support them, right? We would do our best to uplift them, help them see the common humanity and things. And so this, these acts of self-compassion, to be doing it to ourselves, the greatest gift we can. Exactly. Yeah. So that is the path of unbreakable self-worth, right? So self-esteem is fickle, it has no foundation. 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?
Polly Mertens:No, no. Welcome to Earth School, baby.
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah. Inherent self-worth, unshakable self-worth. That's the foundation. And self-kindness is coming back to that self-worth, coming back, bringing us back to that inherent self-worth. 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. Okay, next. Oops. Next. Exactly. Exactly. So, well, I I just really needed a dose of this. And so actually, in my group, we're doing a week of self-compassion. A week of self-compassion.
Polly Mertens:Yes, girl. Okay, I love that.
Samantha Pruitts:Had it on my phone. I had it. It's like, where can we put it as reminders and just the practice of it, the practice of it? And I'm already feeling better, you know, in that.
Polly Mertens:So I'm gonna assign a life of self-compassion. You assigned a week, I'm assigning a life to whoever's listening to this right now.
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah, yeah.
Polly Mertens:What else do you want to be doing?
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah, and we can fall back, you know. Like I'm usually quite good at it. And like I said, these moments when I get up to big goal, you know, something that's just like a really lofty thing. Um, and I I create that gap or I notice the gap and the the lack of measuring up. And it's like, I'm still after it. I mean, I'm doing things that I'm totally right, right? You think? Yeah. So I love it. I love it. This was good. Yeah, and we just want to say, so Miss Samantha, you guys sent her some love this week. She is off to have a procedure next week. Take care of that back of hers that's been just not well. And so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Love and light.
Polly Mertens:Lots of lessons, lots of learnings.
Samantha Pruitts:Yeah, love and light to you, my dear. So I hope you guys got something out of this. 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. Can you remind yourself? Can you set something on your phone? Can you, you know, act of self-compassion, um, and see how it changed things, see what shifts for you.
Polly Mertens:Yeah. Yeah, and I would add, um, as part of homework assignment, is to understand what you started at the at the gate, right? 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. You don't need it anymore. Let it go. Look at it for what it was, you know. Maybe it kept you alive, maybe it served you at some point. That's totally fine. Let it go.
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? Where where am I experiencing some form of suffering, being ineffective, breakdown, some overwhelm, overcommitted, whatever. I'm like, oh, in those areas, I was able to find these ways of being. So take a look at your own life and see, are these showing up somewhere? Did you develop one of these and maybe something comparable? You know, maybe it doesn't sound exactly like those. And it's it's got you locked in because you think it's working for you, but it's actually creating more suffering. It's causing you more pain, more grief, more overload, more overwhelm, more isolation, something, right? And what can you do to shift that, right? 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. Exactly. Yeah. It's like it's gonna probably be one of those. And guess what? It's time to not be so liked.
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. People think they're actually gonna feel bad. But when you actually like leave the room and get away from whatever that situation or dynamic was, I'm sorry, so sorry. Feel amazing because you feel it in your being, in every cell of your being. You actually feel like, damn, I just took care of myself. You get your power, yes, it's good.
Samantha Pruitts:It's a false sense of security, security, being belonging, all right. But the freedom is in being yourself, not being fucking agreeable, not being quiet. It's like, no, I have something to say here. Self-express, self-expression, communicating your truth, your no, your hard no. Um, I've been doing a lot of that right now with uh decommitting to things. And I'm like, like uh last night, somebody sent me something that was relatively small. So my action list for like from yesterday carried over today was like ginormous. 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. He sent me something last night, like, hey, can you just do and it was like it would probably take me like two minutes. 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. And so I said, I love you and no.
Polly Mertens:Nope.
Samantha Pruitts:Yep, yeah.
Polly Mertens:I was like, nope, love you, mean it.
Samantha Pruitts:Bye. Exactly. So de-commit, de, you know, get those things back to them. So all right, all right. Let's wrap this party up, babe.
Polly Mertens:You want to remind them of as you and I mean hello, hello. What did we just say? But I have a fan coming out of my head. That's fun. How your life feels is more important than how it looks. Yeah, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
