The best books on Being Kinder to Yourself and Others

Even the title of this interview makes me want to sigh in relief. Why do you think it’s important for us to be kinder to ourselves and to others, and is this something that a book can help us do?

In my clinical work and my personal life, I am acutely aware that we can all be harsh to ourselves; we all have an ‘inner critic’ to contend with. This inner critic feeds off skewed comparisons that we make between ourselves and others, which is aided and abetted by social media. There’s so much comparison, and unfortunately only the extraordinary goes viral. When we see people doing incredible things on Instagram, X, or TikTok, we think: I can’t compete with that. There are also a lot of influencers out there who promote concepts that purport to infer a competitive advantage in the game of life, such as ‘mental toughness’ and ‘grit.’

I don’t know if you are familiar with people like David Goggins? He’s ex-special forces, an endurance athlete….

I think he finishes all his motivational posts with exhortations to ‘stay hard’?

Exactly. But I think there are other key qualities that are important for helping us to thrive. They’re perhaps a little less sexy. You know: Stay hydrated. Stay well rested. Stay kind… It’s just that these qualities may not have as compelling a ring to them.

So, yes, I think it’s important to advocate for the value of kindness. It’s okay to be relentless, to go after what’s important to you, but let’s not be relentlessly relentless—that’s going to lead to burnout. We need to take care of ourselves, so that we can continue to take care of business and the people that matter to us. That’s a great investment.

You’ve used the metaphor the tree that bends’ in the title of your book.  What does that mean and how does it translate into therapeutic practice?

‘The tree that bends’ comes from a Tanzanian proverb: ‘The wind does not break the tree that bends’. I’ve been fortunate enough to do work in Sub-Saharan Africa, where I learned about idioms of distress and wellbeing—linguistic expressions that help people share an understanding of what it means to be well. That was a proverb that was often used to capture resilience. It’s a lovely metaphor that has stayed with me.

I’m a big fan of psychological flexibility as a concept, and the psychological therapies that I practice focus on psychological flexibility, such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ‘Act.’ It’s important for folks dealing with clinical difficulties to understand those concepts, but it’s also important for wider audiences to learn about psychological flexibility.

I think nature is a great teacher; rather than becoming overly reliant on apps or engaging habitually with digital technologies, if we are prepared to look up and out, we can take inspiration from nature. I use the anatomy and the functioning of trees to capture what it means for us as humans to thrive.

“It’s okay to to go after what’s important to you, but let’s not be relentlessly relentless”

Think about the roots of the tree, which anchor the tree in its environment. We need to be anchored into the time and place in which our lives are unfolding. Too often we are engaged in ‘mental time travel’ to past regrets or future worries. We’re not actually present where life is unfolding here and now.

The trunk of a tree needs to be willing to sway in the wind, to absorb its energy, and then use that same energy to come back to centre. Likewise, we need to be willing to recognise that our minds are story-generating machines that all too quickly produce scripts about who we are, what we are capable of, and what other people think about us. So, we need to be willing to recognise those stories and, importantly, be willing to show up to the emotions that come with them. Those emotions can be uncomfortable, challenging, difficult… And I think we get into the habit of trying to suppress, avoid, or get rid of those emotions. That can lead to more difficulties than it solves. So, yes, we need to be willing like the tree trunk.

Then, finally, we need to be like the crown of the tree: the branches and leaves, which harness the power of the sun. That’s where photosynthesis happens, where the tree converts that energy into the fuel it needs to grow and develop. We too need to be empowered by our sense of purpose and our personal values – what it is that intrinsically motivates us; what do we want to stand for in the world? So, we need to be like the crown of the tree, empowered.

So, for me, psychological flexibility is being Anchored, Willing, and Empowered. The tree also has to adjust to changes in its environment. If you think about the tree in spring and summer, it has to be in ‘get’ mode to capture energy and produce the fuel it needs. We all have our ‘get’ mode. It’s important to work towards the completion of tasks and projects. We need to be motivated to see things through.

A tree also needs to be aware of potential threats: infestations from bugs or fungi can kill a tree. So, it must invest energy in protecting itself. A tree has its ‘threat’ mode. We too have our ‘threat’ mode that allows us to respond to environment that could be a danger to us. Our symbolic minds can generate imagined threats as well; we can anticipate danger lurking ahead, some of which never comes to fruition. Still, our minds can become preoccupied by potential risks, and we get stuck in that threat mode.

Finally, trees have the period of dormancy during autumn and winter, where it needs to revive and reset. A tree has its ‘reset’ mode. We too have our ‘reset’ mode. We need to take care of ourselves, and those around us, so that we can go again.

I think our own ‘get’ and ‘threat’ modes can be very highly activated. Consequently, we can miss out on opportunities to ‘reset’. That’s where burnout can happen. Being relentlessly relentless leads to energy depletion. Moving flexibly between the ‘get’, ‘threat’ and ‘reset’ modes means we can excel at the things that matter to us, and also continue to feel well.

Let’s go through the five books you’ve chosen to recommend, starting with Kristin Neff’s Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. It promises to help the reader let go of debilitating self-criticism.

Kristin Neff is someone who has inspired my work for many years. She’s an educational psychologist and an associate professor at the University of Texas in Austin. Because she works in an academic setting, she has a keen eye for research studies relating to being kind to yourself and others. As such, her work is evidence-based, and it provides a very persuasive argument using data to highlight the value of self-compassion.

What does she mean by ‘self-compassion’?

She identifies three key elements: one is mindfulness, being able to have an awareness of painful thoughts and emotions; there’s ‘common humanity,’ or the shared struggles we all experience in being human; and the final element is self-kindness, that is, being motivated to show a level of forgiveness and warmth towards oneself when we fall short or don’t perform to the best of our ability. She captures these in a very succinct, crisp way.

Could I invite you to repeat three lines back to me, if you’re willing to do that?

Sure.

So, if you’re going through a difficult time, the first step would be to acknowledge that in a mindful way. Perhaps you could just practice saying: ‘I am going through a difficult time.’

I am going through a difficult time.

Then the second element, which speaks to the common humanity element, is just to recognise that all people go through difficult times. Perhaps you could say that.

All people go through difficult times.

Excellent. Then, the final piece, the self-kindness: ‘May I respond with kindness.’

May I respond with kindness.

Exactly. So, in three very simple lines, we capture the essence of Kristin Neff’s conceptualisation of self-compassion. I think she has done a great job in operationalising self-kindness and making it relatable for people. In the book, she draws on her own lived experience as a parent, and some of the self-criticism and harshness she could direct against herself. So, I applaud her for her vulnerability, her willingness to do that, and that’s certainly something I’ve tried to capture in my own writing style.

It’s a really practical book. That’s the beauty of it. I think, as an author but also as a practitioner, I’m interested in books that are both intellectually stimulating but also full of practical tips, tools and techniques that readers can use to make a difference in their own life. Kristin Neff does that.

Thank you. Next we have Paul Gilbert’s The Compassionate Mind, which was released in 2010. It addresses the evolutionary and social reasons why our brains react to perceived threats.

I know Paul personally and I’m fortunate to have collaborated with him in writing some academic papers. It’s been lovely to read his work, be a fan of his work, and then to collaborate with him.

When you read The Compassionate Mind, you get a very strong sense of him as a person. It reads almost like a fireside chat. I asked Paul how he managed to convey this very personable, engaging style in writing the book, and he said he used audio dictation. I hope I’m not giving away his secrets, here! So, it comes across like he is having a conversation with you, or that’s certainly how I read it, and that made it very accessible for me.

He bases his approach to self-compassion—which differs a bit from Kristin Neff’s, although they were writing at similar times—as he comes at it from an evolutionary psychology point of view. He draws a distinction between three emotion regulation systems.

The first of those is the ‘drive’ system. It’s akin to the ‘get’ mode I talked about earlier. The drive system is reward focused and has helped us to thrive through the aeons of history that humankind have been around. But there’s also a ‘threat’ system, which allows us to be sensitive to danger—if the caveman didn’t respond to the sabre tooth tiger on the horizon, he was lunch, right? So, it was important to respond appropriately to danger and avoid it if it was there.

Finally, he talks about the ‘soothing’ system. The prefrontal cortex, which is involved in higher order cognitive processes implicated in the soothing system, is the most recently evolved part of our brain. Reptiles, for example, don’t have that anatomy, and arguably don’t have the capacity to nurture that mammals do. Arguably, it’s mammals sophisticated ability to nurture that has allowed them to prosper in recent evolutionary history. When they are newly born, mammalian newborns are quite vulnerable and require a lot of parental care to thrive.

Paul is a clinical psychologist, like myself, and his work has been focused on depression, shame and self-criticism. He used to use more traditional forms of cognitive behavioural therapy to help people identify what are referred to as ‘negative automatic thoughts’, to weigh up whether there is evidence in support of those, and then to generate alternative, potentially less negative thoughts. Over time, he began to see that there was a piece missing—something about the coldness and harshness of how people were relating to themselves that needed ‘warmed up’. That’s where he spotted the potential for this soothing system, the attachment to oneself that is often shaped by our experiences in childhood and the care that is modelled to us by significant caregivers.

That doesn’t mean that we are lost causes if care hasn’t been modelled to us. Many people have difficult upbringings and relationships that may have been critical, not even necessarily in the family—there might have been bullying at school. We can all internalise this internal bully, so it is about using techniques to strengthen our capacity to be kind to oneself.

Again, Paul’s book is very practical. It focuses on strategies that we can use to help ourselves. He’s been involved in research that has shown the efficacy of these approaches, and he’s been at the vanguard of the development of a particular approach which sounds fantastic: Compassion-Focussed Therapy. Isn’t that great?

Again, these ideas have influenced my work. In The Tree That Bends, there is a strong nod towards the importance of techniques and tools drawn from Compassion-Focussed Therapy.

It’s a great book for psychologists like me, but also for all those who struggle at time with that inner harshness.

As you have noted, this inner harshness can then be reflected outwards. The third book you’ve chosen to recommend, a work of popular history called Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman, looks at the mind in context. I liked what the economist Tim Harford had to say about it: that “after reading, you’ll have a good reason to feel better about the human race.”

One of the key things that comes through in this book is how Rutger Bregman claims back the notion of ‘realism’ from the cynics. For too long, ‘being realistic’ was a byword for being cynical. You know, the tendency that people have to say things like, ‘Come on, be realistic…’? There’s a negative undertone to the idea of being realistic.

Bregman’s point is that if we are going to be realistic, then there’s a lot to be optimistic about with regard to humankind. He has a lightness to his writing style, it’s slightly whimsical but never disregards the importance of and gravity of the material. He’s a historian, and in the book he revisits landmark events in human evolution, but also more recent historical events. Particular focus is given to a moral and political philosophical perspective known as Veneer theory. Veneer theory has developed from contributions made by people like Frans de Waal, Thomas Henry Huxley and Thomas Hobbes; it’s this idea that civilization is this very thin veneer, just struggling to keep a lid on all our carnal, dark motivations.

Rutger Bregman is seeking to undermine the legitimacy and credibility of Veneer theory. He revisits significant research studies, like the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram’s electric shock experiments, which are held up as being indicators of our dark motives and evil intent. But actually, he would argue that aspects of the data from these studies have been misrepresented. There’s also works of fiction like William Golding’s Lord of the Flies that he takes issue with; he did some research and actually found the real-life story of a Lord of the Flies island and a group of 6 boys who were washed up on a Tongan island in the 1960s. It turned out that rather than descending into acts of cruelty and barbarism, they actually conducted themselves in a fairly democratic, friendly, and supportive way.

It’s a fascinating read, a surprising read, and I think a vital read.

This discussion reminds me a little of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature, which came out a few years ago. It essentially argued that violence of all kinds is on the decline due to stricter societal expectations. I thought there was an interesting response to that book—a resistance to his conclusions. People seem to treat good news, or optimistic takes, as unserious somehow, no matter how well-evidenced.

I think that’s right. Bregman highlights the need for us to be sensitive and considered digesters of news, because—by its nature—it is focussed on the difficult, the shocking, and the unusual. So, there’s a bias in what gets reported, and so too much exposure to news can distort our sense of humankind.

Let’s keep moving. Would you introduce us to Graham Allcott’s recent book Kind: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work.

I thought that it was very important to have a book that focused on organisations included in my list of books about kindness. Graham Allcott previously wrote The Productivity Ninja—he’s really invested in efficiency and effectiveness and helping organisations to operate well. I love the fact that he has now written a book that highlights the role of kindness in organisations. When we reflect on optimising efficiency, it’s easy to diminish how important so-called ‘soft skills’ are for effective working, particularly in teams.

Interestingly, Allcott shines a spotlight on what he refers to as: ‘kindfulness’, like mindfulness. Mindfulness is our ability to be vigilant to where our attention has wandered, right? It’s a form of meta-awareness—developing our awareness of our awareness. Similarly, kindfulness is about building our awareness of how kindness is, or isn’t, deployed. It’s an appeal to ensure that we have greater awareness of whether kindness is in play in our interactions in groups and organisations.

It’s not a luxury, far from it. Allcott highlights that when kindness is foregrounded, things go better for the individuals within the organisation, and things go better for the organisation. He also debunks some misconceptions about kindness, that it lets people off the hook, or is about going soft etc.

People can deliberately reject the importance of kindness in the business world. He has a term for those people: it’s being the ‘business bastard.’ He names some popular, well-known business leaders who are recognised for being less than kind. People can look at their success and think that’s the way we should be, but he highlights that the success of these people is the exemption rather than the rule, and it comes at a cost.

In part two, Allcott introduces eight principles that are applicable for organisations. So, there is a lot to take home, both for employees and for leaders in organisations. These principles are pithy and practical. A key point he emphasises is that kindness starts with you. He presents anecdotes from both his own lived experience as a manager and recollections from his time as an employee, whilst also drawing on inspirational stories from other business leaders.

Again, there’s a real sense of optimism in his writing; there is hope for organisations that embrace this kindness and kindfulness work.

The fifth book you’ve chosen to recommend is Charles Duhigg’s Super-Communicators.

Yes, Duhigg is an American journalist and nonfiction writer. Super-Communicators is an interesting way of trying to understand what makes some people particularly accomplished in their interpersonal interactions. It’s not just about what is said, it’s about nonverbal communication as well. Duhigg emphasizes that around 50% of what is communicated is not communicated through words. It’s gesture, intonation, facial expression, and so on.

Duhigg emphasizes that generally speaking, communication could be about one of three things: Firstly, it could be about the practical—being goal-focused and getting stuff done; Secondly, there are conversations about emotions, about sharing how we feel; Finally, there are conversations about our social identities – our preferences and affiliations—who we are, and where we stand relative to others.

Teachers, for example, need to be fairly accomplished at identifying these different types of communication in the classroom. Teachers will ask their pupils: Do you need to be helped? Which is an example of practical conversation. Or: Do you need to be hugged? Which is an example of the emotional conversation. Or: Do you need to be heard? Which is about social our circumstances, a sense of being able to express your preferences and have them respected.

I thought that was a lovely observation. The idea of teachers asking their students if they need to be helped, hugged or heard.

How does this relate to our theme of being kind to ourselves and others?

He argues that often, in conversations between people, there’s a mismatch. So: you could come to me wanting to have a practical conversation—to solve a problem—but I might respond with more of a social response, such as: ‘Well, I don’t quite see it the same way you do.’ You can imagine how that might fall a bit flat.

This highlights the importance of understanding what the intention of another’s communication might be, so that we can respond in kind, and respond with kindness. Understanding the intention behind another’s communication equips us to respond more appropriately.

Duhigg also talks about the importance of what is referred to as ‘matching’, reciprocating not just the type of conversation, but the emotion within the communication. There’s the process of synchronization—mirroring the body language of the other person, being tuned into the extent to which they are engaging in eye contact etc. It’s not just mimicry, it’s about that process of helping the person know that they’re being seen, and that you are emotionally invested in the conversation. That’s why I think it’s an important book for being kind to people.

Having that sensitivity to figure out where somebody is, then join them on that level.

Rumi, the Sufi poet, once wrote:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

I do a lot of couples therapy work, which is a real joy for me. Helping couples to communicate better and be more sensitive is really important. Trying to break the cycle of proving the other person wrong is such an important part of that couple’s worth.

I think there is a bonus sixth book you wanted to mention. Would you call it a runner-up?

Yes. This is a bit of a surprise, but it’s The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Have you read it?

A long time ago. It pops up on Five Books surprisingly often. It seems that a lot of people take profound things from this book.

There’s the story itself, and then there is the story of the author. He incorporates his real-world experience of being an aviator and crashing in the desert. The protagonist in The Little Prince is an aviator who has crashed in the desert, and he is visited by this avatar, this little prince from another world. It’s essentially a children’s book, but it’s written in a very clever way.

There’s a lot to love about the way in which the writer captures a sense of endearing curiosity through the little prince’s eyes, and the telling of the little prince’s stories about all the worlds that he has visited. He has visited several different planets, and on each of those planets he met different characters. There are important lessons about love and loss, and the beauty of life in each of the stories he shares.

It’s really beautifully done and a very emotional read. One line stands out to me:

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

It’s beautiful. I think in modern life, we underplay the role of the heart and soul, and the importance of purpose and connectivity with others. That really does speak to our theme, about being kind to ourselves and kind to others, as we navigate our way through the complications of daily life.