Quieting Your Inner Critic

Episode 2 of the Science of Happiness Podcast from the Greater Good Science Center featuring Steven Czifra in conversation with Dacher Keltner.

Steven Czifra: The day started with me waking up and deciding I wasn’t going to go to school.

I went and found my friend who also never went to school and we were trying to figure out ways to get money for drugs.

So I went with him to the Hollywood Hills to find a Becker, Becker pull-out car stereo. We climbed into this Mercedes and it didn’t have a Becker but we were just looking for something we could steal. And the owner pulled up. And he was an off-duty LAPD.

I was feeling some fear around what it’s going to be like in jail. And yeah, I found out right away. The LAPD came and picked us up and took us to the Hollywood substation.

They couldn’t find my parents. So they took me to a holding cell. My first time in a cell…chained to a bench and they you know, I probably was chained to that bench for another eight hours.

It got cold, got damp, and all I know is I’m never getting out. I broke into some car. Pretty sure that means I’m doing life in prison. I don’t have nothing to compare it to. The cops are merciless, so they’re not giving me any kind of comfort. Like, hey don’t worry about it, buddy.

It was really dark, really lonely, really scary time. It was just like the darkest night of my life. You know the dark night of the soul.

I was nine years old.

 Dacher Keltner: Since that night in jail, Steven Cfizra spent the better part of two decades in and out of prison…eight of those in solitary confinement.

He’s now a graduate student at UC Berkeley and mentors other previously incarcerated students through an initiative on campus called Underground Scholars.

Steven joins us today as our “Happiness Guinea Pig.”

I’m Dacher Keltner, and in each episode of The Science of Happiness podcast, we focus on a different research-tested practice for increasing happiness, resilience, kindness, and connection. And we have a guest like Steven try out that practice and tell us about their experience. Then we explore the science behind it.

Steven, thanks for joining us today. So the happiness practice you chose to do is something called the “self-compassionate letter.” Why did you choose to do that one?

Steven Czifra: I’m really hard on myself. A lot. And it’s an academic mental exercise to figure out why I shouldn’t do that. But if you live in self-loathing, you can read all the books you want on self-compassion, it doesn’t add up to anything. So I don’t have a lot of self-compassion but it’s a skill like any other.

If you live in self-loathing, you can read all the books you want on self-compassion, it doesn’t add up to anything.

So I wrote a letter, to me, as if I wasn’t me, but if I was somebody else who I was mentoring, what I would say to somebody who had this problem. And I am a mentor to some people so I have a little bit of experience talking people down.

 Dacher Keltner: Yeah I’m really curious how…  I mean one of the really interesting things about self-compassion is the perspective that you adopt on your shortcomings or failings or things that we’re embarrassed or ashamed about. What was the perspective on that, that you took?

Steven Czifra: Well usually when I’m trying to find guidance I hear my own mentor’s voice. His name’s Larry. He’s a retired English professor. He’s basically the dad I always wanted. Really kind and and warm and loving and gay and generous. He’s a Shakespeare scholar and I love Shakespeare. Shakespeare got me through prison.

 Dacher Keltner: So Steven, will you share part of your letter with us.

Steven Czifra: You are not inadequate. The fact is everyone feels scared at some point in their lives. Most people feel inadequate at times — that you experience these feelings daily, constantly, and can still show up for your family and community and for yourself as a more accurate measure of who you are. People are not defined by their feelings or actions. But if you must know yourself as something, you should know that you are as deserving of feeling OK as anyone. You are as qualified to take credit for your life as anyone. Sure, you and your benefits and resources, even internal resources, are derived from the past efforts of others. So then say that. Say to yourself and to those unfortunates who try to compliment you, “thank you.” You could have chosen differently.

Dacher Keltner: Coming out of the childhood that you had, and I have so much admiration for where you are today, you could have chosen a lot of different practices right? But you chose self-compassion.

Steven Czifra: This is what Larry would say to me. He says it a lot and these are my words but his idea and that is that… I had a rough going. And that I didn’t get what I had coming to me, which was care and security and the kinds of things we give children. And that had a that had an effect on me that is going to be a part of me for the rest of my life. And that I can, in understanding that I can, I guess, give myself a break.

Dacher Keltner: So when you when you read this and self-compassion letter and you took in his voice and put it to work what happened? How did it make you feel?

Steven Czifra: Well, I’ll say that when I wrote it I turned everything of