Fierce Self-Compassion with Dr Kristin Neff: Part Two

0:02 A listener production. This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Doun. I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher and of course, author of the Crappita Happy books. In this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent people who are experts in their field and who have something of value to share that will help you feel less crappy and more happy. Today, I am bringing you my second of two conversations with doctor Christin Neff. Kristin Neff is an Associate professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas and she is a world leading pioneer in the area of self compassion research. Last week, we chatted about all things self compassion, including her research, the benefits of self compassion, the scale that she developed to measure it, which you can find at her website, and how she has applied this in her own life. I asked doctor Nef if she would come back and have a second conversation with me, specifically on the topic of Fierce self Compassion, because that is the title of her most recent book, and I was really intrigued to understand the difference between Fierce self compassion and kind of regular self compassion. In this conversation, she explains to me how she was motivated to write this book upon learning that a person she had long respected and supported turned out to be a sexual predator. She describes how important and

1:36 how necessary these self compassion practices can be when we are standing up for what's right, setting boundaries, and fighting for justice. Just as self compassion can be tender, it's not just tender. It can also be very, very fierce, and sometimes that's what we need. So, without further ado, here is my second conversation with doctor christin nef christ Nev, Thank you so much for making the time to come back for a part two on the Crapit a Happy Podcast. Oh sure, can't we talk more about fierce self compassion? It's my favorite topic these days. I bet it is. I bet it is. And I do want to say a special thank you because I know that it is the evening time where you are, and you have made a special effort to come on late at night when the rest of us are winding down for the night.

2:23 So I'm so grateful. So we will not take up a lot of your time today, but I do really want to get onto this topic of fierce self compassion, which of course is the title of your latest book. The first thing I did want to say, though, just to recap quickly on something you mentioned last week, Kristen, because so many people on this topic of self compassion say to me, I have no problem being compassionate with other people. I really have a problem being compassionate towards myself. Correct me if I'm wrong. But what you said last week was when we see other people suffering, it doesn't trigger our own fight or flight response, yes, but our own suffering and struggle does.

3:06 And this is the key difference. So this is a really solid explanation for why other people's compassion we can be friendly and compassionate and kind and loving because it doesn't trigger the same threat response in us. Yes, and us all why sometimes we aren't the most compassionate to those who are nearest anddurest, like our children and our spouses, because oftentimes, you know, it's it threatens us as well. When sometimes it doesn't, but sometimes it does. We feel threatened when they fail, you know, or something's happening with them, We feel threatened. And so when we feel threatened, we tend to react differently. We tend to respond with this fight or flight as opposed to the tendem befriend response.

3:49 Yeah, and if anybody is listening who didn't hear our last conversation, I would encourage you to go back and listen. But I did want to reiterate that because it is such a common It is just I hear you probably all the time too, no doubt, but that's what I hear from people all of the time. Why can I be compassion to other people but not me? So I thought that was really just worth touching on again. But let's talk about fierce self compassion. So you have been in this self compassion space for as we discussed, a couple of decades now, loads of research, loads of talking about it, speaking about it, sharing about it. These programs you can do about self compassion. Where did this idea of fierce self compassion come from? For you? Well, So, in the Buddhist tradition, there is this thing called fierce compassion. It's that term is used for compassion. For instance, it raises up to protect against injustice.

4:44 It's kind of a counter to the idea that compassion is always about acceptance or complacency. Actually not at all, because if compassion is the consumer with alliviating suffering, sometimes we need to be quite fierce. Maybe you can go to war if we have to to protect people, right, I mean, you know how it manifests really just depends on what needs to be done to alleviate suffering. And it struck me that people didn't realize that there's also fierce self compassion. Right. In other words, when people hear the word self compassion, they just think being gentle, giving yourself a break, going easy on yourself. But in fact, sometimes that's not kind to yourself. Sometimes maybe you need to make a change, Maybe you need to, you know, eat better, Maybe you need to exercise war, maybe you need to change your job, maybe you need maybe someone's crossing your boundaries and you need to protect yourself or someone's treating you unfairly. I mean, for instance, I see the Me Too movement or the Black Lives Matter movements as self compassion movements. But they're but they're fearce self compassion.

5:49 They're drawing a long line in the sand to say no, you cannot do this, it's not okay. That's a way of caring for yourself. And so I like the term because it does out the fact that there are two sides of self compassion. And most people that think self compassion is going to make them weak, it's going to make them complacent, it's going to make them, you know, just sit around on their cushion all day, is not at all the case. So this is why I wanted to highlight this side of compassion. It's really interesting. I like that you mentioned that Buddhist approach as well, because I think a lot of people do perceive that that whole notion of acceptance and equanimity as being very passive, you know, kind of tolerant of everything, and that's not the case.

6:37 No, it's not the case. Right. We can't accept injustice. We need to accept the fact that injustice is occurring. Right. So that's where people get confused. It's acceptance of the present moment. And the present moment is you're crossing my boundary. You know, you're threatening me, you're treating me in fairly. It's not acceptance of that, it's acceptance of the fact that it is occurring. I love that distinction and our response to that, our response to that is often it's not okay. But here's the thing when it's compassion, instead of saying it's not okay and you're bad compassion. The heart's open, so it's not okay. But we're all human beings.

7:20 So as I stand up for myself, I'm not going to dehumanize you, right, I'm gonna I'm gonna see everyone here as human beings worthy of compassion and kindness and respect at the same time that I draw my line in the sand. And by the way, it's a little tricky to do, but that's that's the goal. That's the intention, to draw our line in the sand firmly, but with kindness. And that's why I talk in the in the book, I talk my book of fear, self compassion. I use the metaphor of Yin and Young, So Yin is more of the gentle, tender energy, and young is more of the feerceful, action oriented energy. And I like Yin and young because people understand it. It has to be in balance.

8:01 We need both and in fact, you know, when they're out of balance, that's kind of a definition of ill health. Yes, and yet here's the kicker. We raise boys to be fierce and not tender. We raise girls to be tender and not fierce in In other words, we bake ill health into gender role socialization by not allowing every person to have both sides of themselves easily accessible and well developed. So a lot of the book that's why I wrote the book for women. I did write the book for a woman, not because men don't need fear of self compassion, but just because their block is more to the tender self compassion, whereas for women the block is more to the fear self compassion. So the way you approach it has to be a little different.

8:46 The core elements of self compassion don't change the mindfulness, self kindness, common humanity. But what you're highlighting is a distinction in the intention with which we bring these qualities. Would that be fair to say, well, it's really how they express right. But for instance kindness, When kindness is aimed at feeling, Let's say you feel really inadequate, or you feel you know shame, or you feel like you know bad about something you've done, Kindness may be very gentle and soothing, loving you know it's okay, You're okay, just as you are really maybe all about tender acceptance, but you know, I if, for instance, you just did something really harmful to yourself or others. You know, you're okay, that's still there. But we don't want to tenderly accept the behavior if it's harmful, or we don't want to tenderly accept a situation if it's harmful. So we always need both. We tenderly accept ourselves, but we might have to fiercely protect against a danger or ourselves if we're you know, maybe we're addicted or we were you know, we're we're doing something that's really unhealthy. We don't want to accept the behavior. We want to change it, but we change it with encouragement as opposed to harshness and criticism. Right, So it's really so I've got this whole three by four table, and how these three components manifest you know, and I won't go through them all, but basically it can look it can be the difference between loving, connected

10:16 presence and brave empowered clarity. Those are both manifestations of kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, but they look different depending on what type of suffering they're trying to alleviate. Yeah, okay, and I think that's really important. And and I loved your table. By the way, I've got the book, and I really appreciated those. That's the two sign of a nerd. The nerds love the table. You must be a nerd at heart. It makes it so clear that how these different qualities present in a different situation. Yeah, and I go, oh, I get that. Yeah, I can get that. I can get on board with that. Thing I guess is that we talked last week and you mentioned about self care, self compassion, and self care almost being like a loving parent to ourselves. And no, you have to eat your vegetables because that's good for you, and you have to do your exit. You know, it's not letting yourself off the hook. And I love that you bring in that.

11:19 With this fear self compassion, it's, you know, something all of us mothers can relate to. It's that mama bear, that very fiercely protective instinct. So when we're standing up for ourselves, it's that kind of fierceness. Exactly we feel naturally for our children. We just also have to give ourselves permission to use it with ourselves and alsold toward others who might be again crossing our boundaries or treating us and fairly. So this is the action oriented side of self compassion. The fear side is where the power comes from. This is what helps us to speak up right, to say something or to do something which we need at the same time that we have the tender acceptances. It's both always.

12:03 This is obviously not a new thing, right, You've been in this space for a long time, And so wasn't you mentioned before Me Too and Black Lives Matter? Was it those kinds of really big social movements that really prompted you to write this book at this time? Well, certainly the Me Too movement prompted me to write this book right now for a woman and just in general. I mean there's been a big, might say, a movement in a contemplative practice people who do mindfulness and compassion to say, you know, it's not enough for personal wellbeing. It's not enough for us to sit on our cushion and be happy. There's a lot of injustice in the world that we need to take action, social action to try to alleviate suffering, and fierce compassion is one of the ways that's dealt with. So that was in the background, But for me personally, like the real spur to it was I had a really horrible situation that I write about in my book with someone who I'd trusted and supported and you know, really tried to help. I gave my credentials, I really supported the organization who turned out to be a sex predator, to put it bluntly, was kind of a harassing woman of using women. And it was while I was picking that apart and trying to like shut them down and just going through the trauma of it all, that I realized one of the things that I mean, of course, the blame was one hundred percent on the perpetrator, of course, But on the other hand,

13:35 what are some of the things that allowed it to go on for so long with no one's saying anything. And you can ask the same about Harvey Weinstein or Andro Cuomo or any of these people. It's because gender role socialization comes into play. Women are taught we shouldn't speak up, you know, that's just the way men are that we should kind of swoop it under the rug. And also especially especially when someone like this person or in an autism center, or Harvey Weinstein he was a brilliant director, or Andrew Cuomo was a great governor. When people are doing good in the world, women are like, oh, well, if I say something, Gosh, I don't want to harm anyone. And you know, we're so socialized to be tender, and sometimes we're cut off from our own anger. And even after it unfolded, some of the women who were affected, like it took them a while to get angry. They had a hard time getting in touch with their anger.

14:28 I had had no hard time. I'm very in touch with my young, fierceness. But a lot of people did. And I realized that one of the socialization practices that developed to keep us in our place, which is subordinate, basically, is by repressing her fear side, repressing her anger, for you know, the glass ceiling. One of the reasons the glass ceiling still exists is people don't like powerful, competent women. They actually the studies that show if you describe two people one name Mary, one name James, and they're both powerful and competent, they love James, but they don't like Mary, I know, you know, and that's that's a problem. And so this is this really I was kind of spurred to write this book for my sisters just to say, hey, we can't go along with this anymore if we want changes in the world. And boy, the world needs some change.

15:23 We're gonna have to fully embrace our fierce mama bear side and stop apologizing for it. Yeah, and yes, there may be some people that like us a little bit less. Oh well, you know, either that or we're just going to keep with the status quo. The status quo isn't working for us anymore, clearly. Yeah, that's key, isn't There may be some people, There may be some people who are going to like us a little bit less. And you know what, that's okay because we saw condition. Yeah, we can like ourselves. We have that self compassion and just recognizing that condition that we all have just ingrained in us, that being liked and to be nice. It's the most important thing.

16:09 And by the way, we do need to. You know, we obviously want to get along with people, and we don't want to be mean and we don't want to be rude. And I probably sometimes fall off the other side. I'm like really direct, and you know, sometimes I need to soften it a little bit. It's funny because this balance. Women are socialized not to be fierce, but as individuals like me, I need a little help on the tender side sometimes, especially if I'm really passionate about something. But nonetheless, Yeah, for whatever reason, I didn't get that socialization message. Maybe because my mother, she's quite fierce. I didn't get that message that to be worthy I had to be nice and sweet and accommodating. But a lot of women have and I do think it's the reason that's been in play is to help keep us in our place. Yeah, it's kind of a political book as well as a psychology.

17:00 It's for me, they're really mixed. That's my favorite kind of book. Really, I'm a here for it. I am here for it. But also I wanted to touch on the reason also I think this is so important is because it's not just about being liked. There is a real fear if you belong to a group that has been oppressed, abused, violated, it's scary to speak up and to set boundaries and to push back. And so how does that fear of self compassion help us to manage that very real sort of anxiety? Right? And by the way, it's not that we have none that we can ignore that. You know, if you don't have enough, if you don't have power, or you're marginalized, or you're in a tenuous position, sometimes you can't speak up the way you would like to. And one thing the research shows helps is that if you combine the fierceness with the tenderness, like maybe you do speak up, but then combine it with something like kind of more traditionally kind and nurturing, then it kind of helps people feel more comfortable. So that's one way we can do it.

18:08 But a lot of what to anger. For instance, I write a lot about anger in my book. One of the useful functions of anger is it suppresses the fear response. Right, So in a way, one of the reasons sometimes we're too fearful to speak up is because we aren't angry. Yeah, and if we allow ourselves to get angry, one of the things it does is it does repress the fear response. No. Again, you know, this is all complicated, and we don't want to like yell at people, and we don't want to be mean and all those things. Yes, yes, yes, but yet the basic energies of fierceness and tenderness, we need to be able to welcome them and honor them and not be so affrightened of them, and see that it can be harnessed for the good and That's what I try to help people do in my book is how to welcome your anger, how to welcome your fierceness, and really importantly, how to harness it for good for yourself and others. I think that's the key is in it.

19:03 I think when you can bring people around to this idea that there's nothing necessarily selfish about this, because I think this is the other big fear of women, particularly, Oh, I'm just being selfish and I should be thinking of other people. And you know that's that distinction too, between kind of being assertive and being aggressive, isn't it. It's not like I'm trying to overpower somebody. I'm just trying to hold my own, you know, in equal value with somebody else's position. Yeah. Yeah, it's not dominating people. In fact. So I have some research that shows self compassionate people when their needs conflict with those of others. They don't subordinate, but they don't like save my way or the highway either. They really try to compromise and make sure everyone's needs are met. Yeah, and that's really what we're aiming for, is balance.

19:51 I hope that you're enjoying this conversation and realizing the benefits of positivity in your own life. If you are enjoying the show, please be sure to like subscribe so that you get notified when you apsdrop and head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and reviewing. For anybody listening. Kind of, I guess, what are the kinds of scenarios or situations that really call for this more fierce approach to self compassion. I mean, I think you've outlined a lot in your book. Can you just kind of give us some ideas? Yeah, well, certainly anytime. So there's three different forms of fear of self compassion. One is aimed protection, so really being aware is anywhere if someone crossing your boundaries in an inappropriate way. You know, that could be like a sexual innuendo or worse right, or can maybe you have relatives who's pushing their political views on you, you know, being able to say, hey, I'm sorry, I don't want to hear it. You know, I don't want to hear it, Thank you very much, I don't want to hear it, right, but firmly like buying the line in the sand, So that might be one place that comes in. I'm also providing for yourself, especially for women. We all we're taught to say yes. People don't like us when we say no.

21:13 People value us for being self sacrificing. So being able to say, you know, I'd love to help, but I can't. I'm sorry, I got you know, I have another commitment, right, you know, I just don't have time, really not feeling guilty about it. Again. Yes, we do what we can, so we don't care about other people's needs, but really feeling that we need to honor our own needs. We need to give it time and energy. Otherwise we're going to be drained and depleted and not be helpful to anyone. So providing for own needs, say no when we have to. And then the third one is really motivating change. So when we when we want to make a change, we need sometimes we need that fierce mama bear energy to say, hey, you got to stop this. This isn't good for you.

21:58 You know, maybe I don't know. You're a sugar addict or something like that, and you eat so much sugar and it's giving you diabetes, are harming in your health. Yes, we accept ourselves. It doesn't mean that you are any less valuable or lovable or you know, perfect in terms of your quality worth as a person. But the behavior is harmful and sometimes you need to kind of stand up and say, hey, this has got to stop, this is harming me, right, and use that fierce energy to motivate a change, just like a mother would again, hopeful, hopefully a mother would. We know that authoritative parenting is most effective, not authoritarian, which is like domineering, but not like indulgent either. We're just like, oh yeah, whatever, authoritative, loving, warm, kind, but firm, clear boundaries and the same with ourselves.

22:48 Yeah, I think everybody can kind of relate to that. It's what we all, I hope, aspire to as parents. So it really is just turning that back and using those same principles with how we relate to ourselves and other people. Yes, exactly so. And the parenting metaphor is such a good one, you know, gentle mother and fierce mama bear. But if you want to use authoritative parenting, you can also use that one. But self compassion really is with almost reparenting ourselves, especially maybe if our parents didn't treat us the way we would have ideally liked. What it means is we can turn to ourselves to get a lot of our needs met. Not all of them, of course, we need other people, but it helps us not be so dependent on other people's approval or the people meeting our needs exactly as we want them met. You know, it really gives us resources to meet a lot of our own needs, just like an ideal parent would meet the needs of their child.

23:45 Yeah, it feels like this whole self compassion thing. It's really it's like the antidote too almost everything, you know, setting boundaries and feeling guilty. That's okay, sauce isn't even better? It is like, why do you think I've devoted my life to it? So, I mean, what amazes me is that people don't do it more often because it doesn't make everything better. It helps so much, you know, and it's really not that difficult or complicated. It's about giving ourselves permission. And like I say, it's not difficult or complicated, but like I said, it does go against some biological tendencies. So you know, our tendency is to freak out and go in the fight or flight, so we have to deal with that.

24:30 But once we realize that it's actually not that difficult to be kind and supportive to yourself feels pretty good as a matter of fact. Yeah, and like you said, I think last week, like really, just in that moment of being a it can be as simple as not easy, but as simple as just catching yourself in that moment and realizing what you're doing to yourself and just yes, pausing and choosing something different. Choosing some more supportive. Yeah. When people do really struggle with this, and you know, for different reasons, people trauma, backgrounds, you know, all sorts of things that have gone on in people's lives, and they find this especially difficult and uncomfortable. Our default is always to go to self criticism. Is it possible to shift our default so that we become it becomes much more natural and easy to go to self compassion as almost a first stop.

25:30 Absolutely, it develops with practice, right, just like any habit, it develops with practice. So yeah, the research shows that if you practice self compassion, which may look different for different people. Some people it's just every time they feel badly about themselves, I remember to say what they would say to a good friend instead of criticizing themselves. Other people do meditation, other people do like journaling, exercises. Really, it doesn't matter how you practice, our research shows, but it does matter that you and the more you practice, the more habitual it comes. I mean, we know the brain is plastic, right, we can't actually lay down new neural pathways, that's the good news. So it can become a habit that persists over time.

26:13 I think that's a really important and encouraging point to make, because another thing that I have heard it for, you know, as a psychologist for years is when people get really identified with their habits that I'm just a warrior, now, I'm just a this, or I you know, it's like this is who I am and there's no changing that. And I think it gives people so much hope and encouragement to be able to say, well, no, just because you've had this habit for all of this time doesn't mean that you can't change that. Just like any other habit, you just need to practice just like you said. That's right, and so it does become easier. But also the nice thing about self compassion is that if your instinct, let's say, you do see something mean to yourself, right, and so that just comes up again and that old habit, then you can give compassion to that ouch that hurt.

27:06 You know, Hey, I'm sorry, you know what I mean. So compassion can hold anything, So you can you know, you can have compassion for the fact that you have this belief that you can't change, right, So you can have compassion for anything, any painful experience that arises, including the pain of feeling like you're stuck and can't change. And then once you do that, it kind of starts to loosen up that grip and that stuckness and you give compassion to the stuckkness. It really is amazingly powerful. It's just a mind shift toward whatever we're thinking in the moment, and it changes things. Say Christa, we've talked a lot about fears self compassion and the way that we can use it to speak up against injustice in whatever context we might find ourselves in.

27:55 You've mentioned sexual harassment, it could be workplace issues. You know, I've have a lot of women in my audience deal with bias in their workplace. What happens when you've done what you can, You've you've employed all of the fear self compassion, you've set the boundaries, you've spoken up, but in the environment around you, nothing changes, and this happens a lot, you know, like you can't change the environment or the institution or the society that you live in. So what do we do then? Yeah, well, so first of all, you know, it's important to point out that fear. Self compassion is an ingredient that people in a system have it, especially those who are being oppressed. But we need to change the systems, right.

28:39 It can't just be that we change ourselves personally and that's enough. We actually need to try to change systems at the system level. Now that's very complicated and it's not something that you know, I have any expertise on how to do, but it's very clear that it has to be more than just changed at the individual level. It has to be change at the system level. Now, again, I do think that especially some of the anger that's aimed at social injustice can like get you to organize, get you to you know, vote, get you to try to influence the system. But it's really important that we try to change the system and the individual and ourselves as individuals at the same time. But here's the nice thing about self compassion is that there are limits we can't you know, we may be motivated to make change, but at the end of the day, change isn't almost possible.

29:35 There may there may be sometimes there at least what seems like insurmountable barriers. And that's where we have the tender self compassion to fall back on. In other words, we do the best we can. We try our hardest, you know, we do what we can. We vote, we organize whatever, we try to speak up for ourselves. But at the end of the day, we have this tender self compassion of acceptance to help hold the pain of the fat that sometimes things are not good, you know. Sometimes you know not sometimes injustice does still occur. Yeah, and we need both and others. We need to do everything we can to fight against injustice at the same time that we need to accept that this is the way things are in the present moment and give ourselves kindness and support and healing for the pain of that.

30:26 Because life is imperfect. It's not it's not like you sprinkle self compassion on things and wow, everything becomes perfect, you know what. It doesn't quite work that way. It becomes more manageable, but it doesn't become perfect. The pain and the imperfection and the and the suffering is still there, unfortunately, but that's the way, that's the way life seems to work. So it is very much like you say, this integrated approach. It's it's it's being able to call on both the yin and the yang, Yes as as necessary, acceptance. And change, yes as needed, you know, depending on whatever whatever form of suffering you're holding in the moment. And you don't want to get too attached to outcome either.

31:12 So with all of these things from from this perspective, right, we do what we can, but then we have to accept that we don't. We aren't in control. And we know that for a fact that we aren't in control, and the belief that we are in control causes a lot of suffering. So we do what we can, and we can certainly do more with that fierce Mama Bear energy, but ultimately we aren't in control, and that's where we need the acceptance, acceptance, and change. It's really this paradox is at the heart of really most philosophical systems. I love it. I think it's life changing. It's potentially literally life changing for people. Considering what people are, the struggles that people are experiencing. This can just make such a world of difference to people's experience.

31:57 You know, I thought I found it life changing first, and a lot of people do, and so it's certainly worth trying. Yeah, for people who are a little skeptical, give it a try, see what happens. I'm so grateful to you, Kristen, and thank you for writing the second book, Fear Self Compassion. I'm still halfway through it. I've already got my sticky notes and bookmarks all through it, my table, my four x three table bookmarked. Yes you like yes. And in terms of how other people can listening can find out more about you your work about self compassion, how they can start to learn it, cultivate it, apply it.

32:43 Where can they go? Right? So, the best place to start is if you google self compassion, you'll find my website self compassion dot org. I mean, I have a page on there specifically for Fear of self compassion. And I have lots of practices, so it's not just an idea. There are practices as exercises you can do to build these fierce self compassion muscles. And I also have a lot of other practices as well, So that's really the best place to start. And then also you'll see a link to the Center for Mindful Self Compassion on my page. That's really the training arm of what I do, and you can sign up for training, you can sign up for workshops. There's a lot online these days, so you actually can practice it through the guidance of skilled teachers. And I teach some workshops that are myself as well.

33:31 So yay, and so for somebody like me Kristen so as a psychologist, I have psychologists also listening to the podcast, and also just clearly the general public for somebody like me who wants to use more self compassion in my practice with clients. Do you have training for therapists and coaches? We do. We have a self compassion and Psychotherapy training program that's specifically designed for therapists who want to bring self compassion into the work, you know, regardless of what therapy modality they use. We also have a book called Teaching the Mindful of Self Compassion Program that has chapters on there for therapists people who want to know the pedagogy of how to teach self compassion to others. Amazing, So you can also find a link to that on my website.

34:19 Thank you so much, and. So we've got all the beasts cover do you do? I'm there. Thank you so much for your time again, and thank you for the work that you do. I'm a fan and I appreciate you so much. Oh thanks Cas, it's really been lovely. Thanks for having me on again. Kristen's book Fierce Self Compassion is now available in all bookstores, as well as her original book, just called Self Compassion. You can find out all about her work at her website www dot self dashcompassion dot org. For more information about me, my website is castdone dot com. Connect with me on Instagram, cast Done underscore XO or Facebook CA dot xo. And as always, if you enjoy this show, please do share it with your friends, take a moment to give us a five star rating or a review so that it can be heard by more listeners, because I think we can all agree that right now what the world needs is a little less crappy and more happy.

35:17 Thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you on the next episode of Crappy to Happy. Listener