Ep. 141 - Interview with Dr. Jordan Quaglia: The Science of We-Care beyond Self-Care
Do we always have to choose between caring for ourselves vs. caring for others? Nope! Dr. Jordan Quaglia, associate professor at Naropa University, introduces us to "We-Care" – a revolutionary approach to caring that blends self-care and caring for others into an integrated practice where they mutually reinforce each other.
Drawing from over a decade of research in mindfulness, compassion, and boundaries, Dr. Quaglia explains how self-care has evolved from a medical term to today's ubiquitous wellness practice, but suggests we're now ready for something more interconnected.
The conversation delves into "care blind spots" – patterns in how we approach care that remain invisible to us. Some people habitually prioritize others at their own expense, while others may emphasize self-care to the point of undermining their social connections.
When discussing boundaries, Dr. Quaglia challenges conventional wisdom. Rather than seeing boundaries merely as expressions of self-care, he reframes them as actions that modify social situations to better align with our needs, values, and goals – while remaining awake to how our boundaries affect others. Healthy boundaries, when rooted in We-Care, balance both protection and connection.
At the end of the conversation, Dr. Quaglia leads us through a "reverse self-compassion" practice that embodies We-Care principles, showing us what Dr. Qualia calls an "undivided heart" – the capacity to hold both self-care and care for others simultaneously.
***If you have a loved one with mental illness and struggle to set boundaries, take care of yourself AND them at the same time, book a call with Dr. Kibby to learn how the KulaMind program can help.
Resources:
Check out Dr. Quaglia's new book hot off the presses: "From Self-Care to WeCare: The New Science of Mindful Boundaries and Caring from an Undivided Heart"
Dr. Quaglia's IG @mindfulboundaries
If you have a loved one with mental or emotional problems, join KulaMind, our community and support platform. In KulaMind, work one on one with Dr. Kibby on learning how to set healthy boundaries, advocate for yourself, and support your loved one. *We only have a few spots left, so apply here if you're interested.
Follow @kulamind on Instagram for science-backed insights on staying sane while loving someone emotionally explosive.
For more info about this podcast, check out: www.alittlehelpforourfriends.com
Follow us on Instagram: @ALittleHelpForOurFriends
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DescriptiJacqueline Trumbull (00:01.156)
Hello, little helpers. Today we have a different kind of topic. It's called We Care, which is a new term for us and we're excited to learn more about it. So we have our guest, Dr. Jordan Quaglia He has spent over a decade researching and teaching on topics like mindfulness, compassion, and boundaries, all things that we like here on this podcast.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (00:01.506)
Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (00:23.406)
He is an associate professor of psychology at Naropa University, where he directs the Cognitive and Effective Science Laboratory and is research director for its Center for Advancement of Contemplative Education. He's also co-developed and regularly teaches an eight-week compassion training curriculum for hundreds of individuals. It's actually something that I should probably learn more about. So we're very happy to have you here. Can you tell us what is We Care?
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (00:48.943)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be on here. And as we spoke about a little bit in advance, just to be in the presence of two people who are also passionate about the social side of mental health. So thank you both for all you're doing to uplift that topic. And I think that's really what We Care is about. My journey to We Care began a long time ago, probably like both of you. think I, back, see I was always passionate about the science of mental health and flourishing.
But it wasn't until I was a client in psychotherapy myself, which helped me sort of overcome panic attacks, actually, when I was an undergraduate in college, that I became more passionate about mental health and mental health care. And then as I stayed in psychotherapy as a client, not only sort of overcoming mental distress in that kind of more severe way, I discovered that psychotherapy could be a vehicle for growing my level of flourishing. And these days at Naropa University, I often talk about
how therapy can even be seen as a kind of contemplative practice. And so we might talk about that or a mindfulness practice. So even, you know, when we're not working on something really specific, like healing from panic disorder or panic attacks or something, there's this potential for therapy to still help us on our journey in life. So anyways, that got me interested in becoming a therapist myself, like you two now do, except I didn't end up going in that direction for reasons that I'll explain.
Basically, at certain point in my training, I was in a master's program in counseling psychology. At a certain point, and this was 15 years ago now, I started to encounter some unexpected challenges of sitting with clients who were in distress. And specifically, I noticed it was really difficult for me to sort of balance my sense of self-attunement with attuning to the other person when they were especially in sort of moments of heightened distress.
And I thought, well, this is the whole job, you know, I'm supposed to be good at this. And there was a lot of discussion at that time around, okay, you need to cultivate healthy boundaries. And I was like, well, how do you actually do that? And, so I, in my sort of confused state, I pivoted my career, totally, in the direction of research. And to be honest, I think to give myself credit, it wasn't just about like kind of getting away from or avoiding becoming a therapist. I also.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (03:15.517)
really enjoyed doing research. had done it in my past and I recognized, I thought that I had a greater potential to sort of offer value. Even to my colleagues at that time, I thought if I can understand this problem that I'm facing and sort of how to cultivate healthy boundaries, what healthy boundaries are, all of that, then maybe I can, you know, find insights that are going to be relevant to therapists more broadly and helping professionals in general and maybe, you know, even everyday kind of life.
And so, yeah, I pivoted my career in that direction. I got a PhD in experimental psychology, and now I direct a lab at Naropa University that's focused on this sort of, well, among other things, it's focused on how do we balance self-care with care for others, which I now think about and write about as, as we care. And so, one way of understanding we care is to kind of look at just how self-care has evolved already in modern society.
The self care has had such a major impact on society. mean, it's kind of wild how popular and ubiquitous this concept has become, especially when you look at it historically, self care evolved initially from being a medical term, right? It was assigned to people like you need to do this kind of, if you're a diabetic, you need to, you know, administer insulin or monitor your blood sugar levels, that kind of self care.
being a kind of cultural touchstone during the civil rights movement and really an act or it was seen as kind of revolution, having revolutionary importance. And then today it's just kept evolving and expanding. know, it was again, sort of evolved to be something that helped address patterns of imbalanced care in, in helping professions, which I think it's still useful in that context. But now it's a sort of go-to wellbeing practice for literally everyone.
Jacqueline Trumbull (04:50.042)
Okay.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (05:03.886)
Hmm.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (05:04.419)
And I started to ask myself, you know, is this the end point in the evolution of self care? Like, have we reached, you know, like peak self care or is there something beyond self care? Like what comes after self care? And so for me, we care is the answer to that. And we care is essentially, you know, it expands upon the idea of self care. So it's not leaving self care behind. And I think it's really important to clarify that at the outset, like
We care is not going to involve compromising the quality or depth of someone's self care. It's actually going to increase it. It's going to invite you into deeper levels of self care and maybe even more self care than you're currently doing. But yeah, in contrast to self care, we care is about caring for a we. And importantly, that we is flexible. So it can encompass, you know, just us on this call, this we that we're experiencing.
It could be like the we of your family, the we of your town or community. But it could also expand beyond that. And so we can talk about how it's possible to kind of expand our sense of we over time. But it's important to maintain the flexibility of we because there's certain moments where we needs to sort of come back down to the level of I'm just looking out for myself so that I can care for others. That's a kind of we care as well. So in essence, we cares about transforming the sense of either or.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (06:24.59)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (06:29.715)
between like either I care for myself or I'm caring for others from a kind of inner conflict or dilemma into a both and practice in which we recognize that our self care can energize and uplift our care for others. And we also see the connection between our care for others, sort of lending meaning and purpose to our self care and a metaphor. don't know if I'm speaking too much, but I'll just say one more thing might be helpful. A metaphor is that I like to use as breathing. So
We can mentally divide the breath into in-breath and out-breath and we can conceptually do that. But the in-breath and out-breath are parts of one interconnected system. And I think that's a good metaphor for We Care in the sense that we can divide care into self-care and care for others. I actually don't think that's such a helpful division and we can get into that. I don't think it's the most important division that we should be making in the concept of care and compassion and so on. But we can do that. We can mentally divide it.
Jacqueline Trumbull (07:10.328)
Ahem.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (07:29.149)
but fundamentally they're parts of one interconnected whole and both self care and care for others are needed to sustain our sense of vitality.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (07:37.87)
And it's so cool to see you, you know, all of your work manifesting to this point. mean, we'll plug your book about We Care. And it's cool because for you, Jacqueline, and people listening, I met Jordan, Dr. Quaglia, when I was Jordan. I mean, I don't even remember if I was a grad, I think it was a grad student. And I remember I was interested in like,
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (07:54.527)
You can call me Jordan, definitely. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (08:02.574)
of relationships and emotion regulation. And I remember looking around for the people doing similar stuff. I came across your name. I think we emailed back and forth. And then I went to the Mind and Life retreat, which is this awesome conference slash mindfulness retreat where we're in this like beautiful monastery with gardens and we're just wandering around and doing walking meditation. I think I sat down.
at breakfast or something with you and chatted with you. And I remember thinking like, wow, this guy has a really nice energy. It's like really calm and warm and inviting, saying cool stuff. And then when I realized who you were, I was like, oh my God. So fast forward and then you were on my dissertation committee. And I just really love how you are one of these people who really recognizes that mental health and relationships.
are a thing, like they matter, right? Like our relationships actually impact our mental health. So I think that really, this is really exciting just in general. I don't wanna say that, like big fan always.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (08:57.759)
You
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (09:08.211)
Thank you. Yeah. And just to say, to the context, you know, I've always, always viewed you as a peer of mine and for the same reason, you know, like I recognize that we both recognize, wow, we're both passionate about similar things here. And yeah, I think I was a grad, I think I was a doctoral student actually when we were at that together. So, and then somehow, yeah, I ended up on your dissertation committee, which was good fun. And you did amazing, of course. So I didn't have to do much labor in that case. That was awesome.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (09:31.096)
Yeah.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (09:37.001)
But yeah, thanks for saying all of that. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (09:37.774)
So fun. So tell us more. So we care like, I'm sure you've probably seen and heard about how we all are talking about self care online and boundaries and all that. And we're going to get into all that. It's just funny how so much of the mental health wellness space talks about like, we got to do more self care, self care, self care, almost like an opposition to, you know, like
burning yourself out by thinking about only about this other person that you care about. So there's really like an either or, but tell us what we care looks like if it's not this like giving everything to someone else versus like giving ourselves a few moments to go to therapy or get a massage or exercise. That's quote, quote self-care. So tell us like what, what we care actually looks like in practice.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (10:29.437)
Yeah, great question. I think, you know, the ubiquity of self care and the way that it's evolved to be pretty much whatever you want it to be is I think something that we all recognize is a little bit of a problem, but we don't quite know how to name it. It's like we understand that most of the time self care is helpful to most people and it's a really valuable part of our mental health journey. And We Care still honors that and is very much wanting to uplift the value of self care. But I think on the whole,
We care, or self care is a kind of incomplete lens for assessing something really more fundamental, which is what's the overall balance or harmony in our self care and care for others in our daily life. And so when you look at actually how self where it came from and how it was initially at least one of its instantiations was that it was to address imbalanced forms of care.
in helping professions, which it's still useful in that context, as I mentioned. We can see that there's this potential for self-care to offer that kind of lens for people to get metacognitive about their care. And I really love that about self-care. Like it's an invitation to reflect on how am I approaching care in my daily life? like, it a balanced approach? And okay, it's imbalanced sometimes, like I'm neglecting my needs as a helping professional.
And that's impacting my clients or my patients or whatever, because I'm not as resource as I could be. So for a helping profession, that kind of lens of self care is probably the one that needs to be applied first because the blind spot, I could talk about care blind spots in my book. The blind spot tends to be neglecting one's own needs as one prioritizes the care of others. However, even for a helping professional, in my opinion, that's an incomplete lens because
Dr. Kibby McMahon (12:00.814)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (12:24.895)
Oftentimes that pattern of being other oriented is a habitual strategy. It evolved or was conditioned in a context, you know, throughout childhood or whatever. And it became a kind of personality structure or a kind of pattern, we can just say a neutral language that maybe supported well-being early on or supported keeping harmony in the family system or that kind of thing. But it's not necessarily a conscious form of being other oriented.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (12:44.27)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (12:54.717)
And so helping professions, I think, get a message that in order to correct this imbalance in your care, you should practice self-care. And like, that's all you need to do. You just practice self-care and now you've got like a kind of balance, you know, in your sense of self-care and care for others. But from a We Care lens, that's an incomplete solution. We need to focus on cultivating more conscious care in all the different ways.
We need to identify the various kinds of blind spots that we might have in our approach to care. And that includes, you know, whatever our preferences with regard to caring, there are people who have a preference toward other oriented care, and there are people that have a preference towards self-caring. Probably not the people listening to this podcast or YouTube, you know, helping professions tend to have a preference toward other oriented care. But we need to cultivate both kinds of care and become more conscious about our relationship to them. And then.
we can't even stop there in my view. We need to go to the level where we're sort of learning to blend self-care and care for others. So to get back to your question, in practice, how this looks is just being awake to the interconnection between your self-care and care for others as you practice it. And that kind of wakefulness serves as a kind of inner compass. And so I like to say that self-
I think the We Care solution isn't like that we toggle back and forth between self care and care for others to achieve balance. That's the kind of current narrative. I think that, you know, if you are too other oriented, then at the end of the day, you practice self care. And so you're still in that either or mindset though, in your relationship to care when you're doing that. What would be better, and this is the We Care approach, is can I learn to hold both self care
and care for others in my heart simultaneously? Like, can I actually deepen my sense of self-care so that it's present even as I'm caring for others? And then vice versa. And if you can hold both of those in your heart at the same time, then it gives rise to what I call a kind of inner compass of care. And this inner compass of care has this kind of natural back and forth to it where we can, you know, emphasize self-care when we need to.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (15:13.437)
without the kind of inner conflict or division that typically accompanies it. So one real practical example of this is a practice in the book that I call reverse self care. And so, think it's got a fun name and, basically reverse self care is that typically when we approach self care, we do so with intentions that are primarily about our own wellbeing. But from a We Care perspective, that's in the either or mindset. Like we're thinking that self care time means just
Dr. Kibby McMahon (15:18.126)
you very much.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (15:43.594)
caring for myself. But if we just zoom out a little bit, we see that that self-care is embedded in the larger context of how we're caring for our family, our loved ones, and our work, whatever our work is in the world. So reverse self-care starts by first identifying a typical self-care activity that you do that's consistently supporting your wellbeing. And then you reflect, who else?
could this self-care time support in my life? Like reasonably, who stands to benefit from me being more resourced, you know, being more in touch with my vitality? And then rather than doing that self-care activity for yourself, you do it for them. So you actually like source from your intention for that other person's wellbeing as you're practicing self-care. Now you don't want to be unnatural about it and lose touch with, you know, like your own needs and your sense of care for yourself.
But a few times during the self-care activity, you try and bring that person to mind. And it's a little bit counterintuitive, but often what people find is when they do that, they find greater motivation to actually deepen their sense of self-care because they realize that they're not just doing this for themselves. They're doing it now for at least two people, maybe for many more people. And so that's a good, I think, practical example of how We Care can be started to integrate in daily life. Yeah.
Jacqueline Trumbull (17:07.354)
And so you see this more as like a mindset shift than a behavioral shift or like a mindset shift that then creates kind of a behavioral change?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (17:08.078)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (17:16.531)
That's right. Yeah. So I really emphasize that every person's version of we care is going to look and feel different. Like I have no idea, you know, when I look from the outside, whether someone's practicing self care or, know, in touch with interconnected care. And so it's really important not to judge someone else, you know, for their decision around what might be their form of we care. And, and also because we're all working with the start and we can talk about this some more different care blind spots.
What we actually need to address and focus on is going to differ from person to person. And, you know, our sort of conscious care practices need to, I think, take into account what our care tendencies and care blind spots and care patterns are. So ultimately, you know, at the end of the day, our version of We Care is going to look very different. But like, just like you said, We Care is not just about changing our internal experience. It starts there, where we're more in touch with this interconnected sense of care. But that
inner compass that I talked about that is really the result of this kind of union of self care and care for others in your heart, what I call an undivided heart gives rise to a direction, you know, a sense of alignment in different social situations where you have maybe a sense of agency that's not just sourcing from your inner self, but that is actually like taking into account the context and
I like to think about how the context is often, you know, like we talk about being context sensitive, but I think for people that are too other oriented, that kind of language can be problematic because you think I'm supposed to sort of be a chameleon and adapt to all of these different situations. So in contrast, I talk about context integrative care. so context integrative is a term I use that's one step beyond being context sensitive.
And the integrative piece is really how do I maintain my sense of goals in the situation and stay awake to them, but still take into account the context and then find like that compass needle pointing in the direction of actions that are going to be ideally mutually beneficial, but at least not harming self or harming others. know, so we care kind of as protecting from those extremes.
Jacqueline Trumbull (19:36.954)
Can we hear these blind spots?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (19:37.208)
Yeah.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (19:39.686)
Blind spots, yeah. So I actually have a resource online that people can take a quiz. called the Care Pathways Quiz. They can find it on my Instagram, which is at mindful boundaries. It's linked there or it's on my website under one of the tabs. Cool. It's definitely an incomplete solution. It's not a scientifically validated assessment tool by any means. And in fact, I think it's really important to mention that my
Jacqueline Trumbull (19:42.052)
Cough
Dr. Kibby McMahon (19:52.462)
We'll put in the show notes too, so you can send us a link and we'll put in the notes.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (20:05.233)
intention in creating the Care Pathways quiz was really for the quiz itself to be a practice. And so my passion and my reason for writing my book, or if you were to ask me like, what do you want people to take away from your book? Which maybe is question that you too would ask me. I really want people to have that more complete lens for themselves to look at their care through.
So rather than just looking through the partial lens of self-care and using that as a barometer for am I balanced in my care or not, I would love for people to look through this more comprehensive lens, which is actually a set of lenses through the We Care approach. And so the Care Pathways quiz is one way of kind of doing that. And it has 35 questions that ask you about different care tendencies or patterns that you engage with.
There are questions about your relationship to self care or care for others or boundaries and things like that. And at the end of it, you get one of seven possible outcomes. And then you can go on the web, my website, and you can read about all the different, seven outcomes and decide for yourself, you know, which one best fits you, if any of them at all, you know, care is so complex, that's any one sort of assessment tool like this would never do. think everything that's needed, to sort of identify your blind spots and so on. But.
As part of the outcome of that, you get a blind spot. What's a possible care blind spot for yourself? So there's the typical blind spots, which is like, you care for others so much that that comes at the expense of yourself. That's probably the most common one among healthy professionals. Then there's also the alternative, the opposing one, where maybe this one's actually kind of interesting to get into with you two.
You know, people who celebrate self care so much that it becomes like, you know, maybe imbalanced in the direction of too much self care. And this was part of my passion in writing We Care is that's actually undermining their wellbeing over time because they're kind of maybe without realizing it, prioritizing self care in a way that's working against our social nature as human beings. And so when we uplift self care too much or we lean into self care too much, it's possible
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (22:19.187)
that we're undermining our own personal wellbeing in that process, right? So that's another possible care blind spot. Then there's something that's called care chameleon, which is like between those two. And this one's really interesting to me. It's like, you know, if our care is driven extrinsically by the environment around us, then we're gonna toggle back and forth between self-care and care for others. And there's this wonderful potential in that for us to recognize the flexibility that we have, like,
Jacqueline Trumbull (22:44.783)
Cough
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (22:48.031)
people that do that naturally, they're really flexible in their approach to care. And they're like right on the edge of what I would call weak care, but unfortunately they're kind of going back and forth toggling, right? Either this or that. And there's a sense of when they're in one mode, they're forgetting the other. And so they're still kind of in that either or mindset in contrast to, you know, holding both in your heart simultaneously and emphasizing one direction or the other.
So those are three possible blind spots. And then the last one I'll mention, there are more, but the last one I'll mention is really provocative and interesting to me personally. This is probably my care blind spot at this point, which it, yeah, yeah. And maybe yours, yours as well. I think I like to think of it as more subtle and nuanced, but I'm not sure it is, you know? And it has to do with preferring both and outcomes. So, you know, like
Dr. Kibby McMahon (23:29.518)
was gonna ask.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (23:45.096)
Sometimes you have to be either or in your approach to care. Sometimes you have to be a little bit of what we would say, know, dualistic. I like to use that term divided, you know, not so divided that we divide ourselves internally, but externally our behavior maybe needs to fiercely emphasize self-care or really strongly prioritize care for others. And, you know, as a result of writing this book and just like my own passion for these topics,
I definitely have this bias in the direction of wanting to find creative solutions that honor both my care for self and others simultaneously. And that's not always the best thing. Sometimes in a given moment, you need to emphasize strongly one or the other. And that when you zoom out over the long term is going to be what's most beneficial for everyone else.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (24:39.618)
So, hmm, that's interesting. I'm wondering, okay, what do you think about this situation from a We Care framework? So, I have this issue with my ex. I know that a lot of people since I've been talking about this, have experienced similar things. Okay, my ex was in a helping profession. He was a doctor and he felt burnt out from
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (24:59.144)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (25:07.576)
being so other oriented that when we got together, he quit his job and just like hanging out, doing a lot of self care. And so he's saying like, I'm so burnt out. I want to focus on me now. I want to focus on my own health. And I'm like, that's awesome. But then after a while, that looked a lot like he was kind of doing his own thing and then not really helping me out or like contributing in other ways. Like he was just like.
Jacqueline Trumbull (25:19.758)
Cough
Dr. Kibby McMahon (25:36.256)
fully into self-care. And so, I don't know, sometimes it is kind of in a couple, sometimes there is like a gender bias where like, at least in my life, I've had friends say like, their dudes are a little bit more into the self-care and then the women are, you know, doing the emotional labor of, you know, taking care of the household and stuff like that. What, what...
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (25:58.1)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (26:01.806)
How would you look at something like that in a We Care sense if you have like, let's say a guy who's burnt out from helping others that he does a lot of self care, but then that puts a lot of burden on the family. So it's like, is it like an equation of like how many people are cared by him smoking weed in my basement? We can say about that. We can say about that Jordan.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (26:15.519)
Yeah, that's a wonderful question.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (26:24.703)
Well, there's complexity. Yeah, I love the question. And yeah, I'm sorry you had to deal with that. It's your ex, so we can talk about it, you know, now, no problem. yeah, I think there's a couple of things to note that highlight the complexity of this whole conversation. One is that we all go through seasons with our care, right? So like, there are times when we really strongly are going to be emphasizing care for others, like, you know,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (26:33.173)
Me too.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (26:54.079)
a new parent, for example, right? So really having to care for kids for years and years, know, maybe decades or something like that, be more other oriented than they might be naturally inclined. And so there is that possibility of these longer term arcs in our life, I think, where we're leaning in one direction or the other in a way that is imbalanced, you know, and to some effect.
So we care isn't about like maintaining that perfect equilibrium of balance across all situations all the time. Sometimes we care is about seeing what season you're in and emphasizing that. And I think that initially it sounds like your ex partner started in that direction. Like, Hey, I'm, I'm burnout. I've reached this point, you know, in the healthcare system, which is totally reasonable and understandable that my output just got unsustainable and I need to take a break. And so.
I think that it was, there was wisdom maybe that initially informed that decision of I'm going to take a break and emphasize self care for a while. But from a We Care perspective, then what occurred maybe was that it became this kind of toggling in that direction. So it's still stuck in the either or mindset where, and this is part of the problem or issue with self care in my opinion, in general, is that it triggers, activates and reinforces an either or mindset about our care.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (28:03.502)
Hmm.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (28:18.547)
which is that we get to do just one at a time. And life is rarely that way. Like if you want to be a skillful human being and you want to genuinely help people, you need to learn to hold both self care and care for others in your heart simultaneously. And it sounds like what happened in that situation is they went so far in the direction of self care that it became what I call a divided mode of care. And all the research on this topic is really interesting. It suggests that when we're in a divided mode of care, that's when the
That's when care undermines our wellbeing. But that happens in either direction. So we could be in either or mindset around our care in the direction of self-care, like you were highlighting, and that's undermining his own wellbeing. At a certain point, it sounds like he was like maybe more depressed than, you know, actually practicing self-care in some sense. He was in, he had lost touch with his sense of vitality. We could put it that way, right? Depressed, maybe not the best term.
And then on the flip side, you know, we can go so far in the direction of caring for others that we're undermining our own wellbeing. So it's at those extremes of divided modes of care that we see the unhealthy aspects of care. And so my advice to somebody that maybe is in that situation of, you know, their burnout and they're maybe shifting into that mode of, of self care for a little while is yes, you can shift into that as an emphasis.
Jacqueline Trumbull (29:14.773)
Ahem.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (29:40.958)
but you really have to stay wakeful to the fact that you're still gonna have to show up for others at times. You're still gonna have to prioritize your social life. And if you don't do that, then you're actually undermining not only those people's wellbeing, but your own wellbeing in the process. You're weakening your social support system, which is gonna be needed again in the future. There's all sorts of deleterious effects, right? Of that kind of divided mode of self-care. And then the same thing, yeah, on the flip side. So weak care is like, how do we stay in that healthy middle?
where we can emphasize without polarizing. So I talk about emphasize, don't polarize your care. And if we can do that, then I would say that, you know, that situation would be transformed. Like he could do all that stuff and still emphasize himself. But when you needed help, he would be there to support you. Or when your family needed him to show up, you know, for this family gathering, he may be reluctantly would do that, but he could do it. And over time, maybe he would see that that's actually supporting his.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:28.814)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (30:40.849)
self-care too. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the question.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:41.098)
Thank you.
Jacqueline Trumbull (30:46.17)
So when we think about boundaries, I mean, I'm guessing boundaries, we're going to talk about how they allow us to maintain a healthy state of mind so that we can.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (30:46.582)
I don't know.
Jacqueline Trumbull (30:59.844)
provide other oriented care in sense. But can you kind of speak to what you think the role of boundaries are here?
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (31:07.335)
Absolutely. Yeah. So boundaries is another one of these really ubiquitous terms. so yeah, it decided in my book, which here I'll hold it up maybe because we haven't done that yet. So this is my book. It's out on May 6th, which I don't know if this podcast will come out before or after that, but from self care to we care, the new science of mindful boundaries and caring from an undivided heart. And I was very fortunate. Daniel Siegel, if you know who that is, very famous author in this space wrote the forward to the book. So
mentioned that too. I'm very grateful to him for that. But yeah, I decided to take on, you know, kind of both of these concepts, self care, really ubiquitous concept, I think needs updating how we think about it and speak about it, but also boundaries. So one of the things that I noticed about over a decade ago, maybe Kibbe, when you and I initially connected or something is boundaries was being used everywhere. Like it was maybe just becoming even more of a buzzword at that time. And it's only continued since. yet,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (32:03.278)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (32:06.723)
Nobody seemed to agree on what they were. Like what are boundaries? How do we define these? And so I sort of set out on a quest, you know, you could say it that way. I think I read about that in my book, but it was true more or less. set out on a quest to understand what healthy boundaries were, like how to cultivate them. What are they? And as I said, it was tied to my own personal journey. Like, could I actually figure out how that I could have as a counselor been able to balance self-attunement and attunement to others?
Jacqueline Trumbull (32:17.303)
you
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (32:35.399)
And maybe, you know, in ways that somebody, if they had had that knowledge, could have taught me at that time. And I might've become a therapist instead of, you know, doing all this research kind of stuff. and so, I'm happy to say that even though it took me a lot longer to get that kind of clarity than I initially expected, I feel like I have a good sense of what boundaries are at this point, scientifically and so on. I'm still working on a few publications on this topic that haven't been peer reviewed yet. So I won't sort of like.
get into all the science at this point. But what I can say is very consistent with what's in my book and with my scientific research on this topic. My view on boundaries is different. It differs because as I started to look at what they actually are, I realized that part of the confusion was we were, one, using the term for many different phenomena. So there's informational boundaries. How much do you divulge in a social situation?
There's social role boundaries, like between a therapist and their client, like not having dual relationships, right? There's self boundaries. So like, where is the edge of myself and where does the other person begin? And that's actually interestingly very up in the field of psychedelics research, you know, that kind of self boundaries or the boundaries of the mind. But what I'm interested in, and I think what you all are maybe mostly focused on is
social boundaries or what I call interpersonal boundaries as a way of distinguishing them, which is a kind of definition we can think of for that generally is actions that we take, deliberate actions that we take to modify social situations or relationships so that they're more aligned with our own needs, values and goals. And so that does a few things by, approaching boundaries in this way.
One, it sort of takes us out of thinking about boundaries as nouns. So I think that it's important, you we talk about boundaries as like limits or expectations that we have, but part of the difficulty of that is that that's like, I think that the subset of boundaries and it's a really healthy and good one. And especially if people are first on their boundaries journey, that kind of language can be really useful if they're in like a, toxic relationship or a really difficult relationship, like
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (34:57.253)
what won't I tolerate from these other people, you know, and getting clear about that in advance as a kind of rule. But the problem is that most of our social life is so varied and diverse that when we calibrate those kind of rules and expectations to the context of our most unhealthy relationships, they don't work well in the context of other relationships. They become sort of too either or again, so too kind of all or nothing or something.
So by broadening and thinking about boundaries as actions, as verbs, I think there's this possibility of kind of fluidly adapting them across diverse relationships and social situations. That's one thing that the definition does. But kind of the bigger insight for me around boundaries is not so much about what boundaries are as what healthy boundaries are. So when I started to kind of investigate that more and interrogate it,
As a researcher, I realized that what I was studying or what I was interested in was actually something much broader. And so I write about, and we care how one day as I was preparing for this compassion training class that we offer here at Naropa, I had this insight about care and compassion and how we're approaching them scientifically that sort of rotated all the other thoughts that I had about this topic. Like it was like, you know, one of those moments that you...
I wish somebody could have like zoomed in on my thoughts in that moment, but it really felt like that, like, whoa, okay. I've actually been looking at this wrong the entire time, not entirely wrong, but all these puzzle pieces that I had gathered over the years to understand what healthy boundaries were, I realized were about something bigger. And that's what led me to write the book, We Care. And so We Care for me is my answer to what it takes to cultivate healthy boundaries from the inside out.
And so this is another kind of difference in my approach to healthy boundaries is that I think that a lot of approaches that, focus on boundaries are like outside in approaches. Like how do I memorize the right thing to say? Or, you know, there's, know, you go online, you'll find so many, Instagram accounts with, know, and it's no problem. think this is great stuff by the way, but with so many scripts that you can download for those difficult conversations for me, as someone who
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (37:22.205)
can't remember in the moment, especially in the heat of the moment, you know what to say and struggles with, you know, words, you know, just in general, like saying the right thing. Those scripts never landed for me. I can never actually adopt them in a way that felt authentic for myself across different social situations. And so I was like, is it possible maybe that we could cultivate healthy boundaries from the inside out in a way that becomes a kind of authentic expression for us personally?
Jacqueline Trumbull (37:24.004)
Peace.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (37:50.194)
and isn't something that it feels like we have to learn from the outside. And so that's really what we cares about is that we can cultivate this kind of care-based intercompass and that care-based intercompass protects us first of all from the extremes. So this is really important. And when we look at kind of the most egregious instances of a collapse of boundaries, they're in those extreme territories. Like when we either completely lose and abandon our own self-care
So, you know, we're caring for others and we abandon our self care and, know, we prioritize their needs and what they're wanting in that moment so much that it's undermining our own wellbeing to do that. That's one way that we lose boundaries and that we have unhealthy boundaries, right? And then that can happen in the other direction as well, where people prioritize themselves so much that they're not able to perspective take.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (38:20.334)
you
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (38:42.923)
and they're not able to sort of have that sense of warmth and affiliative emotion for others that's so critical for actually cultivating social wellbeing. And so if we cultivate strongly self-care and care for others, and there's different practices to do that, self-compassion and compassion for others, and we can get into that a little bit more if we want to, but we really deepen that internal sense of like, I will not lose...
sight of the fact that I need to look out for my own needs and I will not lose sight of the fact that your needs are tied to mine, right? It may not be the needs of the person directly in front of us that we're setting the boundaries with, but the broader system and support system of our life needs us, right? So if we can cultivate those things very strongly, then in the midst of a difficult situation like a conflict, we are much less likely to collapse our care in one direction or the other.
And when we collapse our care in one direction or the other, that's when the real kind of harm happens, in my opinion. You know, either we disrespect the other person or we violate ourselves. And so first, that's the first thing about we care is that it protects us from those sort of most difficult kinds of collapsing of our care. And then, you know, ideally our boundaries can be an expression of care for both ourselves and others in ways that cultivate mutual benefit.
So a lot of the discussion around boundaries is like the boundaries are expressions of our self care. And even the definition I offered earlier kind of leans in that direction. Cause I said that it's about aligning with our own needs, goals, and values. But the truth is our needs, goals, and values are bound up with the needs, goals, and values of those we're surrounded by and those that, you know, our loved ones and our are in our intimate circles and so on. So there's no way to do healthy boundaries without kind of,
Dr. Kibby McMahon (40:14.19)
you
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (40:37.809)
understanding the effects of our behaviors on others. so ideally, We Care helps us to emphasize ourselves, again, emphasize without polarizing. And that I think gives rise to these naturally healthy boundaries. There's one more thing I'll say in this in terms of practical tips and why this works in my opinion, which is that when we cultivate care-based boundaries, when our boundaries are rooted in care fundamentally, or We Care, ideally, in my opinion,
Then the language that we use to express those boundaries is care-based. And when the language we use is care-based, we balance protection and connection when setting our boundaries. So we stay connected to ourselves and maybe the other person, or at least we stay connected to the wider social fabric of our life. And that offers us a kind of strength, inner strength that we wouldn't have if we felt like I'm doing this for me.
This is an act or expression of self-care. Yes, in this moment, you're needing to maybe fiercely emphasize your self-care, but you're doing that in order, I think, most everyone is doing that to protect their energy so that they can care for other people in their life. And when we have that kind of broader perspective, and it may be even that we're doing it to promote deeper connection in the relationship of the person that we're setting boundaries with.
When we have that view of boundaries, then the boundaries we set will be more likely to be well received. There's still going to be social friction and we can talk about the reasons for that, but there's probably going to be less social friction and the boundaries we set are going to deepen both protection and connection over time.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (42:26.51)
That sounds like I'm absorbing what you're saying. if you, let's say a couple of people that we work with in Kula Mind who are like, how would you suggest what this would look like in, let's say, someone who's taking care of a loved one with mental illness or addiction? we're working with a couple of people who are saying, well, I'm getting so overwhelmed because...
we're kind of walking around eggshells with my son or my brother or whoever with addiction. I don't want to upset him because it might, they might relapse. And then also when he does, like I have to take him to the hospital and try to get them into treatment and that I'm like overwhelmed and burnt out. So I want to set my boundaries a little bit better. So there always is this kind of like, you know, like what...
what happens when it comes to someone who's really struggling and we love them, we want to support them? What does a boundary look like? Or how does setting boundaries from We Care's perspective in that sense look like?
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (43:29.151)
Yeah.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (43:33.704)
Yeah, it's a wonderful question. yeah, I think that your question highlights, fortunately, I think we need to keep highlighting this in this discussion, just the complexity of care in our lives. Like for people who are caregivers of someone with addiction or some kind of chronic illness or something like that, care becomes really complex and how to navigate it moment by moment becomes, I think, the task. So
we can kind of globally talk about strategies that they might take to emphasize and prioritize themselves in that situation. But unless they're kind of like on an ongoing basis in touch with that sense of compassion for themselves in that situation, then they might miss out on those small opportunities here and there where the other person's like kind of distracted and at peace and kind of off doing their own thing. And they actually have that moment to kind of slip out and prioritize, you know.
their self care during that time. think for people who are in that situation, one is I think we need to validate the complexity of their situation. Like we need to validate how difficult it is for them to actually maintain the sense of balance and that they are being other oriented. And that is a good thing. Like that.
there's benefits to being other oriented in our life. And even though our society tells us it's all about self care and what you do personally and all that kind of stuff, I think that unfortunately that narrative has sort of gotten away from us a little bit. And we maybe lose sight of the fact that caring for others is a deeply meaningful thing. It's part of almost everyone's journey while they're here on earth. And for many people, I think that it provides
some of the most meaningful moments of their life. But then the question is like, how do I transition that from something that's undermining my wellbeing into something that is kind of, maybe it's not mutually beneficial in the sense that it's equal, but at least I'm not getting harmed in the process, right? So that's, think the discussions kind of transitions from, yeah, that of kind of maintaining equilibrium or finding mutual benefit to not getting harmed.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (45:46.824)
And the practical advice I would say is that from a WeKid perspective, boundaries are social phenomena. And when we get really clear on that, it becomes obvious that there's no way to do it alone. So, you know, to the idea of KulaMind, for example, like we all need support in our boundaries journey, and we need a support system for that. And sometimes it needs to be formal.
forms of support, like a therapist or someone who can help us specifically navigate the complexity of our situation. The reason for that is that I've never met anyone without a care blind spot. Like I've never met someone who doesn't have a blind spot or preference or tendency in one direction or the other. And often they're highly idiosyncratic. Like for me, like one of my care blind spots, a different one is like,
If I'm working on something I'm really passionate about, I'll just like work and work and work and I'll like forget to drink water and like even have my coffee sometimes. And I'm like, my God. so, I think that everyone has their own idiosyncratic care blind spots. And the thing about a blind spot is it's really difficult to see. Right. And so it sounds like these people fortunately have connected to you at this time in such a way that you're able to help them navigate.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (46:48.046)
.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (47:05.759)
with a nuanced approach, finding this balance and gradually cultivating and building in that self-care aspect so that they're not resentful of this other person or so that they don't lose touch with that broader sense of purpose or meaning that they might find if they feel more sustainable care over time. I was gonna say one other thing on this topic.
which in terms of practical tips and advice, I really strongly recommend that everyone finds a kind of high impact, care practice. So what I mean by that is a practice that we can return to in micro moments. Like we can do it in a few moments. Like, okay, I've got a couple minutes right now between meetings, you know, something like that for if it's at work, like I can stretch out and do yoga in this time, right?
Dr. Kibby McMahon (47:39.202)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (47:56.442)
Or like I have an hour this upcoming weekend where I'm not having to care for this loved one who is really struggling with mental illness or something like that. got a full hour. I can go to that yoga class and do a deeper dive into yoga at that time. So yoga in my opinion, and I don't actually practice yoga that frequently, but I think it's a high impact, hair activity, or it has this potential in this way that it's got a number of benefits. One, it can fit into micro moments. You can do it flexibly at home.
You can do it in a class. can also be done solo or social. And I think that's really critical. So actually know someone who was needing to be a caregiver of their mom who had a stroke and they adopted, had to practice yoga previously, but they had kind of lost sight of it. And this process, they were growing resentful of needing to be caring for their mother, you know, during that time. And they remembered
Dr. Kibby McMahon (48:25.454)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (48:50.195)
this yoga practice and they were like, I'll just roll out the mat and do it for a little bit. You know, they were home with their mom and they found, my gosh, I forgot how much this resources me. And they started going to yoga class. They found that there was a yoga class. They, there was somebody else who could care for their mom each weekend for about an hour or whatever. And they actually met their new romantic partner, you know, by going to the yoga class. And so it's like, I think an example of
These gradual shifts in the direction of self-care can kind of snowball over time if we take this mindful approach in ways that ultimately lead to that sense of we care.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (49:29.292)
Hmm. Probably.
Jacqueline Trumbull (49:30.362)
So I think you were mentioned in your book, you made that you noticed a pattern in compassion signs. I wondering if you could talk about that.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (49:42.528)
Thanks, I love talking about this topic because yeah, it's one of my starting points for getting into the We Care topic to begin with. So basically, when I had that insight about compassion a number of years ago before we were going to teach on it, basically the insight was that, wow, we are framing compassion.
which is this quality that's meant to support our social side. It's meant to support our connection needs. We're now reframing it by putting this self dash word in front of it from something that's meant to prioritize our connection needs into something that's supporting our autonomy needs. And so that's really interesting, like from an evolutionary standpoint and other perspectives, you know, there's different frameworks for understanding our basic psychological needs.
Jacqueline Trumbull (50:17.587)
You
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (50:33.737)
But almost all of them sort of converge that we have connection needs and we have autonomy needs and we need to balance those two and our ancestors did as well. But modern life is almost all about autonomy needs. know, we're almost always talking about our autonomy needs and self-care is kind of an artifact of that. And self-compassion is too. And so these qualities that are meant to, compassion is meant to sort of not dissolve, but sort of lessen the sense of difference between my suffering and your suffering.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (50:43.63)
Thank
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (51:04.755)
But now instead of compassion being something about overcoming the sense of distance or gap between self and other, it's now becoming something through self-compassion that's reinforcing my autonomy needs and keeping in some sense, potentially a sense of barrier between myself and others, or I use it as an excuse to not socialize or not go out and, you know, be more other oriented. So there's this kind of like interesting flip of taking something that was,
has a social essence and subtly undermining it through the terms self-care and self-compassion. And so I went into the literature, scientific literature on this, and I found that we did this comprehensive review of all the studies that have been done on compassion science, in compassion science, on compassion training. And I found that there was this dichotomy within the field. I mean, it's like we have in the paper presented in the paper, this bar graph, and you basically see there are studies that strongly emphasize self-compassion and there's studies that strongly emphasize compassion for others.
And there was basically none in the middle. So what I mean by that is there was no studies examining relationships between self-compassion and compassion for others. We talk about it a lot. There's a lot of sayings out there like in order to be compassionate toward others, need to have self-compassion. I don't agree with that by the way. Yeah, right. There's some truth in it, but I don't agree totally. People can be really compassionate toward others without having cultivated self-compassion.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (52:22.262)
And you want to love someone else, gotta love yourself, right? That's whole thing.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (52:33.641)
But basically there was this dichotomy or the either or mindset was present in the field of compassion science as a whole. And it had sort of organized itself in one direction or the other. And then we looked at trainings themselves and we found the same pattern that there was trainings that either were self-compassion trainings or that really strongly emphasized compassion for others. Like they might've had a module on self-compassion.
But like seven out of the eight weeks were other oriented and only one of the eight weeks was self-compassion. And then it was the opposite, you know, with the self-compassion stuff. And so I became really passionate about this. And after writing that and publishing that review and kind of, you know, criticizing this, this pattern in the field, I decided to do some research on how do people actually naturally experience compassion in daily life? So even without training, like in the midst of daily life, how do people experience this?
And so we used a technique called ecological momentary assessment, which is kind of smartphone based surveys. think Kibbe, you used that maybe even in your dissertation, right? And so smartphone based surveys centered around social interactions. So when people were in the midst of a social interaction, right afterwards, they were to complete one of these surveys, or I think maybe in this case, we did it as a daily diary. So they reflected on their daily social interactions. And we asked them, when you were in the social interaction,
Were you in touch with care for yourself? And then they would check, you know, yes or no. Care for the other person that you were in the interaction with, yes or no. People beyond the social situation. So, you know, it's maybe two people in interaction. What about others who are not even present in the yes or no? And we found that like a lot of the time, like something like, you know, 30 to 40 % of the time, people were checking that they were
caring for themselves deeply and for the other person that they were interacting with or for others outside the situation. And then we asked these follow-up questions to get more specific and we said, okay, were you toggling back and forth? Like were you experiencing self-care and then, you know, when the other person was speaking, you were caring for them? No, that's not what was happening the majority of the time. They actually reported that they were experiencing one integrated feeling state, like a field of care.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (54:50.719)
And we measured care, by the way, and we defined it so that it was consistent with the conceptualization of compassion, like it was focused on suffering. And so they were experiencing this field of compassion that encompassed them, the other person they were interaction with, and then frequently others beyond the interaction. And this is what's naturally happening for people in daily social interactions.
And yet our field of compassion science is making this dichotomous distinction between compassion for self and compassion for others and reinforcing this idea that you either are doing one or the other. So that made me even more passionate. And it eventually made me write this book that we're kind of failing people if we're not teaching them about this more interconnected experience of compassion. Not only is that a natural thing, but it's probably the healthier alternative to just doing one or the other.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (55:46.125)
Yeah, I love that. It's just so simply like instead of just focusing on am I caring for you or am caring for me? It's like we're caring for we. Like caring for the relationship versus like you or me. And I always liked the idea that especially when you see on social media or any kind of place where it's kind of stripping the nuance, it's like, are you the toxic one? Am I the toxic one? Am caring for me? I caring for, is this good for me? It's like a either or instead of like, no, two people are making.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (55:53.703)
Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (56:15.318)
toxic dynamic, two people are caring for each other. It's like a combination or emergent property of two people coming together.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (56:16.863)
That's right. Yes.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (56:23.167)
Right. Yeah, definitely. And there's complexity there. We could talk about probably that would be a longer conversation of like, well, what if it really is like the other person that's just causing all of the issues and then, you know, but, right, right. And We Care, by the way, relates to that as having an adaptable we. I don't know if we, do we have a few more minutes? I don't know how much more time we have. Would it be helpful to do a brief practice from a We Care perspective and try that out? Okay, so.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (56:32.226)
Right. So the you problem or me problem, I like to say.
Jacqueline Trumbull (56:52.109)
Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (56:52.11)
That'd be great.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (56:52.959)
I have a practice just like I talked about reverse self-care earlier. I have a practice that I call reverse self-compassion. And so this arose for me as a response kind of to some of the issues that I was just raising that self-compassion is often taught in a sort of more divided way. By the way, I have great respect for the self-compassion literature as a whole. And for that construct, I think just like self-care, we need to integrate self-compassion into our compassion practice.
So not trying to get rid of self-compassion. I'm just trying to emphasize it in a more interconnected framework and keep that really front or peak of mind. My experience is that people often struggle with the self-compassion practice. So I don't know if you too, have you ever done a self-compassion practice before like loving kindness for yourself? Yeah. So that's a very common one. So this is sort of rooted in that. But what we experienced in our compassion training is that that week tends to be the most difficult for people.
Jacqueline Trumbull (57:38.904)
Yeah, we'll be kind of seeing.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (57:50.066)
So when they're practicing compassion for themselves, it's more difficult than compassion for others. And we could say, you know, many different interesting reasons and come up with many different interesting stories for why that might be that relates to their own background and childhood and so on, you know, and that's true probably for almost everyone that there's complexity in how we relate to ourselves. But I think there's a deeper issue, which is really that we've removed self-compassion sometimes from this more interconnected frame.
And it's actually not natural for us to practice compassion toward ourselves in that way. So it is, it brings up guilt and so on for people when they're not in touch with that more interconnected framework and they feel like it's something idiosyncratic about themselves. And they think, I need to practice self-compassion more because I'm really struggling with this. But actually we need to put it in a more interconnected frame because everyone's struggling with that. And actually, you know, if you go back to our evolutionary history,
Jacqueline Trumbull (58:39.418)
interesting.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (58:47.795)
These complex forms of compassion evolved to be other oriented. So they evolved to be directed toward others and that flow directed toward others first. And it was only in modern history that we began directing that flow of compassion toward ourselves as a kind of unique entity. So this practice is meant to put that back into an interconnected frame. So there's two kind of steps to begin the practice before we actually dive into it. One is to identify what I call your compassion spark.
Okay, so I'll guide you to in that. Your compassion spark is something that when you bring it to mind, you immediately feel in touch with a sense of inner warmth and affiliative emotion or, you know, a sense of care. So I'll give some prompts or pointers. Sometimes it's like a memory of the holidays for people or of a loved one, you know, who's really precious to them, but often it's a pet. Okay. So yeah, it's good. Perfect.
Jacqueline Trumbull (59:40.718)
was just thinking that, I was like, I'm gonna go with my cat.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (59:46.068)
So people actually research on this, people find it much easier to get in touch with the filiative emotions for an animal than they do another human being, unfortunately, you know, but we can use that knowledge to spark compassion. So if that helps people, no shame in that. That's what I use. I actually don't have a pet myself at this point in my life, but my brother has a dog.
Jacqueline Trumbull (59:46.138)
you
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:00:09.181)
And I think about my brother's dog as a puppy and it's still an enduring compassion spark for me. So if that works for people, you can think about somebody else's pet too. My wife, works in hospice care and she thinks about her patients, you know, who are elderly. think the elderly also evoke a similar sense of, you know, natural affection and care in many people. So once you've got that compassion spark identified, that's the first step. And we'll come back to that in a moment, but you can drop that for now. Kibbe, you have your compassion spark? Okay.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:00:36.32)
I do. I'll pick my dog now that we're talking about animals.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:00:37.998)
Yeah.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:00:38.159)
Okay, perfect. Awesome. All good. And then the second thing is to identify someone in your life who would stand to benefit, just like I was talking about earlier, from you being more in touch with gentleness and kindness toward yourself. Like who in your life would benefit if you were less self-critical? Or another way of saying it, if we wanted to be more outcome oriented, is if you were more in touch with
love for yourself and you are more in touch with your sense of vitality. So try and identify someone specific in your life who would benefit from you having that kind of relationship with yourself. It might be your romantic partner or your family or someone like that. Yeah. Good there too. Okay. Let me, guide you then in this practice. So if you'd like, you can take a posture that's comfortable for, you know, sitting meditation or
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:01:20.27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:01:32.627)
something like that. You could close your eyes if you'd like. And we're going to start with just calling to mind our compassion spark.
So bringing to mind your cat or your dog or someone else's cat or dog, if that's supportive. Or again, it could be a cherished memory.
Sometimes for people it's a song or a phrase or a gesture like putting their hand on their heart.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:02:05.279)
But as you hold this in mind, allowing it to begin circulating, the sense of warmth in your body and in your mind, and you can rely on the breath to help you circulate that feeling.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:02:26.495)
And then when you're ready, see if you can allow some of that feeling of warmth and care to be directed toward yourself, that flow of care to come back inward into your inner self.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:02:44.883)
You might pair this with the in-breath. So maybe on each out-breath, you remember your compassion spark. And then on the in-breath, you're allowing some of that care to come back toward yourself.
But as you do this, see if you can remember that you're allowing this care toward yourself, not as an expression of self-compassion per se, but as an expression of your care for this other person that you identified as well.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:03:15.999)
Knowing that you receiving this kind of care and support in this moment, you offering yourself this mindful and compassionate pause, is likely to support not just you, but others.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:03:34.495)
And you can express this silently, internally, in the form of a wish, saying something like this, May this compassionate pause nourish me in ways that support you too.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:03:52.041)
thinking about that other person.
May this compassionate pause nourish me in ways that support you too.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:04:13.705)
Thank you both for trying that out with me. I wish I had my bell. I don't have my bell to sort of ring and close the meditation session, but yeah. Do you want to say anything? How was that for you? Any sense of difficulty or, you know, was it awkward in some kind of way? Sometimes people experience it that way at first, cause there's kind of a few moving pieces, but I'll just emphasize that if you try this out over a few sessions, it gets easier and it feels more natural to both evoke your compassion spark, allow that flow toward yourself.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:04:18.091)
No.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:04:19.033)
Hehehe.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:04:43.005)
and then still be in touch with this other person.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:04:51.162)
I mean, was, at first I went with my dead cat, Scipio, and then I was like, I think there's too much guilt attached here. I don't know if this is, cause then I was starting to send the compassion towards myself. I was like, am I sending guilt towards myself? I'm not sure, so I had to switch to another cat. I was trying to think if I struggled to send compassion towards myself. I I was trying to do it with body image, which is something that I've talked about a lot and how that would support my boyfriends not going crazy by my four million comments about myself.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:04:55.103)
Alright.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:05:01.743)
Right.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:05:13.951)
Mm.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:05:20.538)
And that was kind of interesting. But I kind of noticed that I'm willing to send that compassion towards myself, I think, in these moments. I think I struggle maybe more when I'm not in these moments.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:05:30.729)
Beautiful. Yeah.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:05:36.447)
When you're already in the self-critic or something,
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:05:42.424)
When I'm intentionally sending a passion to myself, I can do it. I think I certainly forget to do that when it comes to body image, specifically.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:05:51.614)
Thank you.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:05:52.119)
Right, right. That highlights something really specific that we talked about, which is how idiosyncratic care blind spots can be. Right. So it can just be domain specific, like, you know, um, what you're speaking to. So I think that, um, it's good for people to keep that in mind. Like your blind spot isn't just in self care or care for others, but it can be highly specific to just one domain or some kind of content or something like that.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:06:00.9)
Hmm.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:06:18.757)
And it sounds to me, fortunately, I think most people are already awake to the interconnection between their self-compassion and compassion for others. And it sounds like you might already be awake to that. for you to offer a care and compassion toward yourself, you probably already, due to what you're doing here and all sorts of studies and so on that you've looked at, understand that offering yourself that care and compassion is going to benefit your community too. And so, yeah, I love hearing that there wasn't as much friction for you with that.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:06:47.714)
I do think I'm pretty self-care oriented. I notice, I think that's how I think of myself more. I notice that behaviorally I can be pretty other oriented, but I do think I have a pretty active sense of self-care and believe in that as a resource as myself for others.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:06:48.124)
Thank you.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:07:05.783)
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:07:06.323)
Yeah, nice balancing those autonomy and connection needs. That's good.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:07:11.054)
Yeah, the practice was interesting because I feel like just in my whole life, I'm totally bought into the We Care model because I'm like, know, things that I do for me, like caring for others really nourishes me and hopefully vice versa. The practice was, I was thinking of my dog Mindy and then, you know, just kind of getting some warm fuzzies from that. And then thinking of my husband and how I can, you know, extend more love and compassion towards him.
And I just found myself thinking about like maybe like an intellectual exercise of a, oh yeah, we should have Mindy cuddle with Alex Moore and Alex gets a lot of like love from her. So it didn't go through me. At some point it was just like, I was like, oh, I identified a thing that I love and gives me a lot of joy. I should have give that to him. So it's almost like, you know what I mean? So it just.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:07:51.869)
Hahaha
Yeah.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:08:04.553)
Yes.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:08:04.952)
just skipped over the self-compassion part.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:08:06.646)
It just skips over me. Yeah, it was just like, I don't need the goodness. I'll give it to him. Huh. Interesting. Interesting. I know we're my blind sponsor.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:08:10.924)
Yeah, that's on brand for her.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:08:11.263)
Mm.
Well, yeah, I love that. Thanks for being honest and sharing both of you about your experience during the practice. And I'll just say that, you know, all of these practices, including all the, there's like 10 practices in my book, the point of them is really to get us to get that metacognitive awareness on our care. And maybe this is a good closing thought. don't know if we're reaching that point in the conversation. I think so. It's just that, you know, a We Care perspective, I think is powerful in the sense of getting
metacognitive about our care, trying out these practices that get us to notice potential blind spots that we may not have been totally attuned to or awaited to before. And the wonderful thing about getting metacognitive about our care is that unlike getting metacognitive about some other things, when we care more about our care, then the things that we care for also benefit.
Right? So whatever we're caring for already, we're trying to care for it to promote us well-being, to nourish it in ways, to reduce suffering, whatever the expression of care might be in that moment. And so when we get better at caring, when we get curious about our care and we get more reflective about our care, then those things stand to benefit too. Yeah.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:09:06.454)
huh.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:09:26.954)
Yeah, it's great.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:09:29.88)
Love that. I want to do that exercise next time I'm leading DBTT.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:09:37.306)
wonderful. Yeah, please, please share it. And if you, you want to reach out, you know, I can provide some more notes on it or something like that too.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:09:44.196)
Sure, yeah. All right, well, I think that's a great note to end on. Thank you so much, Jordan, and for our little helpers, if we care, then maybe we can leave some five-star ratings on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And we'll see you next week.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:10:03.795)
Yeah, thank you both so much. Yeah, take care, everyone.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:10:05.208)
Thank you, Jill. This was great. sorry. Pause this. Wait, could say your thank you again. Sorry, I interrupted you.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:10:08.767)
No worries.
Jordan Quaglia, PhD (01:10:18.917)
no worries. was just saying, yeah, thank you so much. Thank you both so much. And thanks to everyone listening. yeah, maybe I'll just say this one more time. If you're interested in this topic, check out my book. It's out soon. And yeah, hope everyone has a wonderful day.
Jacqueline Trumbull (01:10:34.444)
Amazing.
Dr. Kibby McMahon (01:10:35.446)
Yeah.
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