Ep. 104 Compassion Teacher, Harvard Law and Divinity School Graduate Elizabeth Pyjov JD, Founder of Happiness Sangha

Apple Podcasts | Breaker | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Radio Public | Spotify | RSS

Most of us know compassion when we receive it and feel it for others, but did you know that compassion is a powerful skill that can be developed? Sometimes it takes an expert to help you unlock your inner superpower! With 3 Harvard degrees, one being a Master's in Buddhist Studies, she is the perfect person to show you how self-compassion can transform your life. Listen to my conversation with Elizabeth as she shares how self-compassion has helped her get through the pressures that come with the extremely high expectations she sets for herself. Your emotional well-being will thank you!

Elizabeth is the founder of Happiness Sangha where she teaches the art of self-compassion. Her impressive education allows her to teach with a depth of knowledge and a unique perspective. Elizabeth graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, completed her J.D. at Harvard Law School, and completed a Master’s degree in Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School. Elizabeth is also part of the original cohort certified to teach applied compassion by Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE)

Find out more about Elizabeth here: Happiness Sangha

Elizabeth on youtube: Happiness Sangha

Support this podcast: mindbodyspace podcast

Transcript:

today i'm so excited to share my conversation with elizabeth pyjov she is  one of the most enthusiastic compassion meditation teachers I have ever met. Her classes are amazing as she always offers a unique and powerful perspective. You know when someone says something you've been hearing for a while but it really clicks? Well that's Elizabeth, and that's really the quality of a gifted teacher, guide mentor.

Elizabeth is the founder of Happiness Sangha where she teaches the art of self-compassion. Her impressive education allows her to teach with a depth of knowledge and a unique perspective. Elizabeth graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, completed her J.D. at Harvard Law School, and completed a Master’s degree in Buddhist Studies at Harvard Divinity School. Elizabeth is certified to teach applied compassion by Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE)

Enjoy Elizabeth's story and her incredible tips for staying grounded so that you can live your best life.

Transcript

===

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Mind Body Space Podcast, where you can boost your resilience just by listening. You're going to get research back tools to stress less and become healthier, wealthier, and wiser while you work towards your highest potential. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby. I'm a physician board certified in radiology and lifestyle medicine, and most importantly, I'm a mom of two amazing people.

[00:00:26] I created this podcast to answer questions from all my students over the years and to reach all the people who could benefit from conversations that I have with experts in meditation, performance psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and lifestyle medicine. For over 10 years, I've had the privilege of teaching my Science of Resiliency program to students who are curious and motivated to learn how to thrive in an increasingly complex world.

[00:00:54] I combined this experience with my certification in Harvard's Benson Henry Institute of Mind Body Medicine's SMART 3-RP, Stress Management And Resiliency Training Course to create a self-paced version, which is now available for purchase on mindbodyspace.com

Absolutely everyone can benefit from understanding their own biology of stress.

[00:01:16] Sign up for our newsletter to get special tips and information on all new digital courses on how to manage your stress, focus better, and get organized for extreme productivity.

In this episode, I'm so excited to share with you my conversation with Elizabeth Pyjov. She's one of the most enthusiastic compassion meditation teachers I've ever met.

[00:01:39] Her classes are amazing and she always offers a unique and powerful perspective. You know when someone says something to you that you've been hearing for a while, but it really clicks? That someone is Elizabeth, and that's really the quality of a gifted teacher, guide, and mentor. Elizabeth is the founder of Happiness Sangha where she teaches the art of self-compassion.

[00:02:03] Her impressive education allows her to teach with a depth of knowledge and a unique perspective. Elizabeth graduated Magna cum laude from Harvard University and completed her JD at Harvard Law School, and she earned a Master's degree in Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. Elizabeth is certified to teach applied Compassion by Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, CCARE. 

Enjoy her story and her incredible tips for staying grounded so that you can live your best life.

[00:02:37] 

Hi, Elizabeth. 

Hi Juna. How are you? 

Very well. Thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast. I'm very honored. 

Oh my gosh. The honor is all mine. I'm so excited to have you here today. Well, so let's go back to when we first met, right? I met you in 2014, I think. 

Yeah. 

At NYU. That was so long ago. . . I was teaching wellness. And you were teaching a class on compassion?

[00:03:03] 

Elizabeth: Yeah, I was teaching compassion cultivation training at NYU and I did a presentation to all the first year medical students on mindfulness and compassion, which was very rewarding. 

Juna: Right. Was was that the white coat ceremony? I think so. I think it was the same week.

[00:03:20] It was the same week. Yeah, so I went to medical school there, and so that was really interesting for me to see someone like you come and talk about compassion. I mean, and that week it's such a whirlwind, but something like that would stick out. Uh, the thing that struck me was, uh, first of all, you gave an amazing workshop.

[00:03:39] 

Elizabeth: Oh, thank you. 

Juna: But what struck me was how young you were, because I think you were just out of college, right? 

Elizabeth: I was 24. 

Juna: Wow. Cause I don't really meet a lot of people who teach mindfulness or compassion at that young of an age, you know? So I was really interested in how you came to, CCARE and maybe you could tell us a little bit about Stanford and CCARE.

[00:04:07] 

Elizabeth: This really taps into the story of my life at large. So I can tell you the larger story of why I came to meditation and how Stanford played into that. So I, I grew up in an immigrant family, immigrants from Eastern Europe to California, and my mom had a job at the Slavic Library at Stanford, and I think I had a lot of just childhood stress from the transition to a new country to a new language.

[00:04:30] I went from going to school in Soviet Russia. to going to a California kindergarten, and I don't think there are two environments more different than, like, I had my little braids in my uniform. I was doing serious math at age five. I would stand up whenever the teacher came into the room in in, in post Soviet Russia and.

[00:04:52] I get to a California kindergarten and it's like a zoo. Like these kids are in pajamas, like on top of each other, eating with their hands that I was taught to never do painting with their fingers, which I was taught to never do sitting on the floor, which I was taught to never do. I was, so the kind of, the cultural change was enormous, like Silicon Valley, pre-tech, boom, like a lot of freedom, a lot of differences from a big city like Moscow.

[00:05:16] So I am...I think I was struggling to find my own stability. I was also in a very competitive, private prep school, Menlo School at that time, and I was the person with a perfect GPA and, and a lot of, a lot of stress goes into that kind of level of, of perfection, even as, as a high schooler. So at age 16, my mom, who's a super achiever herself, she was a literature professor.

[00:05:39] Back home and she has a PhD and she started taking all the Stanford Continuing Studies classes. She took a class on the science of mindfulness before it was popular, like in 2000. It must have been 2001, 2002. And she said, Elizabeth, you need this. Take this class. So I, in high school, the 16 year old, I took a science of mindfulness class.

[00:06:01] 

Juna: Wonderful. 

Elizabeth: I've meditated every day since then. I took this series, I realized, yes, this will work. I was curious about meditation. Ever since reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, in ninth grade, I wanted to learn to meditate. So for me it was like a wish come true that I got to learn to meditate from a scientist who, who kind of specialized in it even scientifically.

[00:06:23] Then I studied in Italy for a year, kept meditating my last year of high school. I applied to college from this little internet cafe in Venice, cuz I was living in a Italian countryside with no internet. And got into Harvard, did a triple major in Italian, French, Spanish, a minor in the classics.

[00:06:47] And I was always searching for what's different between different cultures and what's the same. So for my major, I took classes in six different languages. Like I was reading, writing in six different languages. And I lived in Argentina for a summer. I was a journalist in Paris for a summer.

[00:07:05] I worked for UN Geneva, I worked for Italian Television in Rome. These are all kind of my summer experiences during college. And through that I was trying to see what, what's the constant in different places and what's truly different. And this question kept coming up for me after college. I was lucky enough to take Stanford compassion cultivation training while it was still in its research phase, and it wasn't open to the public.

[00:07:32] I just knew the people doing it from back when I was in high school and I took the eight week class and I thought, this is it. This is what is common to all of us. It's human suffering. It's how we approach human suffering. It, it's awareness, it's kindness, it's universal. No matter where you go, people respond to kindness.

[00:07:53] No matter where you go. People with a deep purpose are happy. No matter how many resources they have. They're happy if they have a deep purpose. That class was very helpful to me. Kind of combining science, combining philosophy, combining psychology, combining how to be a better person, meaning of life, questions.

[00:08:09] I already had the mindfulness practice. This added the compassion practice, which for me is, is my specialty now. That's what I love the most, and I took that. Eight week class, I thought, this is what I wanna do for the rest of my life. This is what I care about. And I had that aha moment. This kind of combines all my searches from before.

[00:08:24] And the arts, like the art for me, art for me is how do you deal with suffering and literature? How do you deal with suffering poetry? Mm-hmm. , how do you deal with suffering? Film? How as human beings do we deal with suffering. Meditation was a very direct way to deal with suffering head on. Like not, although I love the arts and I integrate them into my classes.

[00:08:43] Mm-hmm. . So after that, , I applied to a two year training program. They only did it once in that form, in that very comprehensive form. Um, in the psychology, neuroscience philosophy and Pedagogy of Compassion two year program at Surfing Med School. James Doty was the director then, and I was out of college. I didn't have money to pay for the program, so they took me as a compassion coordinator.

[00:09:08] I worked for the Center of Compassion while doing this academic program. And it was fantastic. It was a very important experience for me and I got to study with the do some of the Dwama's favorite teachers. The Daiwa is a co-founder of the Center and Top scientist like Kris Neff, Paul Gilbert, Philly Gold, Kelly McGonagal, Emma Sappa, kind of some top, top scientists in the field.

[00:09:29] I got to meet them, study with them, ask them questions, read their studies. and at the same time understand kind of the contemplative of ancient practices too. I developed a very strong, compassionate meditation practice, and I was not doing this to teach. I never had really the intention of teaching, but I had to teach one eight week, 16 hour course to get certified.

[00:09:50] So it was just a requirement, and I taught that course to a group of Stanford postdocs and Stanford professors, and in that moment, . When I started teaching, I started believing in reincarnation fully because I had the sense that I've been doing this forever through me. I had this flashback to Tibet and I, and I had the sense that I've done this before Wow.

[00:10:08] In the Tibetan context, and I've taught this very material before it makes sense cuz teachers were all coming from the Tibetan tradition. But I thought, this is exactly what I've taught over lifetimes and I'm meant to do this and ever since then, so it wasn't just Deja. , I had this, I just had this flashback in a lot of detail to exactly what like a Tibetan teacher would look like without knowing what a Tibet teacher looks like.

[00:10:29] Later I taught for Tibet house and I saw photos, and I saw what they wore, and it matched perfectly. Although I had no reference point, I, I didn't, wow. I never like looked at what that landscape and those clothes and those traditions actually look like, like mm-hmm. , like I knew the meditation practice, but so, so I had that.

[00:10:46] And after that I thought, okay, this is what I'm doing. And I've taught this course for 11 years now, ever since, and, um, 10 years. I've taught it for 10 years now and I haven't stopped. I've taught it 54 times now, 16 hour course, with different groups. And that was kind of the beginning of the journey. After I finished that certification at Stanford, I moved to New York.

[00:11:08] My plan ever since I was a nine year old, was to be a lawyer and I followed through with that. I was studying for the LSAT as I was teaching compassion, and for two and a half years at that point, I taught, I taught compassion all over New York City, so NYU, where we met, Columbia Medical School, Columbia Law School, Columbia Undergrads, Reuben Museum, 92 Y Tibet House, and then corporations like Deutche Bank, Warby Parker, Novartis.

[00:11:32] everywhere. My schedule was full and I couldn't even accommodate the demand at that point. Everything was live. This was pre Covid. 

And I did that until I got into Harvard Law School. 

Juna: That's amazing. You're like the Beatles of Compassion meditation. . 

Elizabeth: Bob Thurman calls me the Secret agent of the in New York, kind of softly passing his message, which is an honor.

[00:11:54] 

Juna: Um, you learned with him also, right? 

Elizabeth: I co-taught with him, yeah. We, co-taught several classes and he's an amazing teacher. 

Juna: Amazing. Can we reel back though? You were 16 and you started getting into meditation. Tell me about that. What was going, I mean, you're obviously not a run of the mill, 16 year old , and you knew you were going to be a lawyer since you were nine. So you're basically somebody who I think we would call gifted. Right? And you learned six languages. Are you a polyglot?

Elizabeth: Maybe. I think I was always asking kind of the big questions. I was always interested in spiritual things.

[00:12:35] I grew up going to an Eastern Orthodox Church, which I loved. I always loved the prayers, the spiritual knowledge. It's a very small, religion. Yes, Uhhuh compared to other religions in the US, but beautiful icons, beautiful liturgy, beautiful singing, amazing values.

[00:12:53] I was able to come to the compassion piece of it more directly through meditation than through the eastern. Hmm. Orthodox path, but I feel like everything I've done in Buddhism and in compassion still supports that tradition. It's the same. The values overlap very well. I still go to church. Uh, there's a beautiful church on Park Avenue, 93rd Street.

[00:13:11] There's a kind of cool story behind that. My, mm-hmm. , my dad's ancestor. I'm Elizabeth Piek, his name. He's my grandpa's brother traveled all over Europe and all over the US He was an iconographer painting churches and in the fifties he painted that church. So when I moved to New York, I saw his name and, and kind of verified that this was the monk who painted the church, who was my kind of direct descendant.

[00:13:39] So I go to that church though. 

I grew up in the eastern or tradition. I always was curious about the meaning of life. Is there one? God, what does that mean? All the spiritual questions were always very pressing in my mind. I, again, I, I loved, yeah, always like I wanted to know that I'm living well.

[00:14:01] And what I realized with the Stanford program is that if you bring awareness and you bring compassion, and you bring self compassion, those are stable things we can rely on. And in this life, a lot of things are uncertain, but those containers are both clear enough and broad enough. You can rely on these things to live a better life. And then I kind of got some questions answered. I had more questions. When I started Harvard Law School, I also applied for a joint degree at Harvard Divinity School, and I ended up doing both the Buddhism and Divinity School and the law degree side by side. And then I got another big chunk of questions answered at the divinity school, especially thanks to my professors Michael Puett and Charles Hallisey—one is in ancient Chinese philosophy and the other is Buddhism.

[00:14:43] They spent a lot of time with me one-on-one, just answering those questions, pointing me. And that was kind of the second block of big knowledge that I received that answered a lot of my own uhhuh questions in my own search. And then I started designing classes that kind of put all of this together, that offer the answers that I found in.

[00:15:00] A form that other people who are curious about it can take and apply to their lives. And it's very practical. Um, not like spiritual, but very practical at the same time, and not mysterious. I think a lot of people teach in this vague, mysterious way. In this realm. I teach very directly, and at the same time I still link it to all the world religions.

[00:15:20] Like this is Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity. Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, Islam, like I love being an interplay with even Native American traditions, which are so rich in wisdom and seeing where certain spiritual knowledge fits in, and then also how you can practice it. 

Juna: Mm-hmm. . Uh, let's just go back to when you were growing up.

[00:15:43] Like you said, your mom would tell you, you have to take this class. Was she a meditator as well? 

Elizabeth: Yeah, she started meditating before I did. Yeah. Uhhuh . Even now I work with students in groups when they really wanna work with someone one-on-one. I often don't have time. It's very rare that I have time. She works with them one-on-one, cuz we have, where we come from a similar place.

[00:16:01] But she started meditating before me. Has a very serious practice as well. And I guess the moral of the story is listen to your mother, um, when you're 16, they know what's best for you. , 

Juna: I was gonna say, when she said You have to take this class, a lot of kids would be like, no, . We had a very close relationship and we still have a very close relationship.

[00:16:20] So I would listen to her and I never regretted listening to her. That's amazing. So when you were abroad, you, did you have a spiritual practice? As a teenager? As a teenager, I just did breath focus. I would always do mindfulness. Me. , no matter what else was going on, I would focus on my breath for at least 15 minutes per day.

[00:16:39] Mm-hmm. . And when did you do that? Like before, uh, you started your day or how, I'm just trying to get into the nitty gritty of a teenager who, you know, goes into this amazing practice that you've cultivated. So just trying to get into your head. so my life. a little hectic. When I was abroad, I was living in this crazy town, family, and I would do it whenever I had time.

[00:17:05] like whenever I could, whether night or day, I would always do it within like that. The 16 hours I was awake, I'd do it at some point, but when would be a tossup and you would just focus on your breath, bring your mind back. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Awareness practice where? Mm-hmm. , you notice the sensations of your. You can count them, you can label them.

[00:17:24] You can just feel them. Whenever your mind wanders, you come back to the breath. And at that young age, why were you doing that? Because you felt a difference when you would meditate or was there something in it for you? Other than the spirituality? I was, I loved the way it felt. Uhhuh, . I sometimes felt like it gave me an access to a sense of timelessness or a sense of infinity even.

[00:17:48] I think when you're fully in the moment. . Mm-hmm. . There's kind of an endlessness there. And I was also so stressed from trying to be the most perfect student, perfect daughter, perfect everything that it gave me a kind of respite, it gave me a kind of space. to put my mind somewhere else on something else.

[00:18:07] Much more concrete than on the complexities of everything I was juggling with trying to figure out a future and trying to figure out how life works and all the dynamics in that moment. You're not figuring anything out, you're just present. And I love just even the feeling of it. So I wasn't doing it as an investment.

[00:18:21] Now I teach my students this is an investment. Do this. Mm-hmm. for an investment for a better brain. I wasn't even doing it just cause I loved the experience.

Juna: That's really cool that you mentioned that because somebody from the outside seeing you e. , they're like, she's a genius. She's doing all these amazing things.

[00:18:38] Definitely. Uh, she, and then when they find out that you were stressed, that's so important for people to know that , because from the outside, you're, I mean, everything looks so amazingly easy for you. Yeah. You know,

Elizabeth: no, that's not right. I, I've had so many challenges. I don't think anyone goes into a spiritual practice very seriously without a lot of challenges.

[00:18:58] So I've struggled. chronic health issues. I've struggled with huge levels of anxiety and was the self-compassion that helped me most there. Now I'm trying to go into the most type A stressed out places like top corporations. The top law firms, top banks. Cause I know that kind of suffering of the very motivated person who seems to have it all together.

[00:19:21]

I teach these practices. There. I started an organization called Self-Compassion for Lawyers For that reason, because I've struggled, I, I've struggled so much to answer the big questions and in my own life, and it hasn't all been smoother, easy at all, um, that I'm, these are just the tools that kept me going when it was tough.

[00:19:43]

Juna: Mm-hmm. . So you had to work hard for all of the things that, I mean like you're obviously highly intelligent, but you had to work hard as well.

Elizabeth: Very hard. I think maybe even, I think harder than other people. I don't think anything came a hundred percent, like languages came very naturally to me in literature and humanities came naturally to me teaching meditation comes incredibly naturally to me. Everything spiritual very naturally. But the LSAT, my first score was much lower than the average score, and it took me four years of taking every single practice test to go to a high score. But it was just pure grit and pure willpower law school was very hard for me.

[00:20:27] Um, finding balance was hard for me. So there, there's a lot of pieces that were not easy.

Juna: So how did you find balance at Harvard Law School? Were you going to divinity classes at the same?

Elizabeth: The first two years were all Harvard Law School. Okay. Then I did a full year at Divinity School and then I did a year at both.

[00:20:48] So a total of four years. I mean, I kept my meditation practice. I think a lot of it is learning how to listen to yourself, which is a lifelong process. Cause there's a lot of voices in our heads that tell us how we should be parents, ancestors, society, like how you're supposed to be, and I think it's a whole journey.

[00:21:08] to figure out what do I care about? How do I wanna live this life? What do I value? And it's not always an easy answer, and it's not always an easy journey as you do things that are not quite you, and then you start doing things that are more you. And your daily meditation practice obviously brings you back to what feels right for.

[00:21:29] Yeah. What I've learned is that when you connect to the body, when you connect to the breath, it's the body. You also connect to your emotions, and you also connect to your intuition and your, your kind of deeper truths. It starts, we can kind of touch the soul directly. We can connect to our bodies, and through other bodies, we connect to the soul.

[00:21:46] Mm-hmm. , thank you so much for sharing all of that. It's my pleasure. This is the most fun thing to talk about, . Wow. This is amazing. So are you a practicing lawyer now? I'm a practicing lawyer. I'm an investment funds at Sidley Austin. Amazing. Congratulations, . Thank you. And you still find time to teach meditation at the same time?

[00:22:05] My law firm has been wonderful. I told them that I really care about teaching meditation and I wanna do it to individuals, to organizations, even as I pursue a lot. Mm-hmm. , as I pursue law, I do both and I. I, I like, I appreciate the opportunity to do both cuz it's, it, it's a very, it uses different skills and both are rewarding.

[00:22:27]

Juna: Mm-hmm. , tell us about those different skills.

Elizabeth: What I love about the law is there's a whole, it's a profession. There's a system around it, and there's a lot that's supporting you and doing your work. I have colleagues, colleagues that inspire me, like wonderful lawyers at Sidley Austin LLC. With a meditation class, I don't have colleagues.

[00:22:46] There's no system around it. I create classes and I offer them in different places. So they're kind of, they're very different pursuits and they're structured very differently. One feels more artistic, one feels more. , um mm-hmm. , almost scientific in a way, like drafting a contract. It's almost scientific, like very, very rigorous.

[00:23:04] Hmm. I, I kind of have a rigorous approach toward my meditation classes too, where I combine a lot of ancient wisdoms, loss of science mm-hmm. , but it's almost an artistic thing that I weave and create. So one is very creative, one is not creative. Mm-hmm. , but I still feel like it makes me a much better professional, better focus, better attention to detail, better ability to figure out very hard things.

[00:23:23] Mm-hmm. , maybe it helps you even get into sort of the state of flow. when you're practicing law.

Elizabeth: Yeah. That can happen. Mm-hmm. , I feel like I'm learning a lot just about how the world works, how financial systems work, and I think that's kind of interesting.

Juna: Uh, I just love this division that you have two separate lives, but I, I think that it could be one,

Elizabeth: I come into a law firm and then I talk about my self-compassion practice and my mindfulness practice, and I designed programs for law firms, so.

[00:23:50] a very natural overlap. Mm-hmm. , I'm on the mindfulness committee and the New York City Bar Association, for example. It's a total overlap.

Juna: Wow, that's great. So when you were nine, why did you want to be a be a lawyer?

Elizabeth: I wanted to be a lawyer because my parents' legal status was going in and out of legal, uh, and immigration status, and I saw that they worked with some lawyers who were not helpful.

[00:24:12] To me, a lawyer was, it's synonymous with like belonging in a new country. Like I want to do something that's, that was very mainstream. And that was very accepted because I felt this whole tension of being in a new country and not understanding of the roles at all. Like my parents didn't speak English and there was a sense of loss and disorientation. And there was something about the law that was very concrete, very grounded, very much at the center of the US society. And I think that's how I made that decision.

Juna: That's amazing. But you never veered off to become a complete spiritual teacher. I mean, because that sounds like your passion. Right?

[00:24:48]

Elizabeth: It is my passion, but I very much want to stay grounded in a profession in the day-to-day, because I think that's where a lot of spiritual growth also happens.

I think there is a path of going off in the mountains and only teaching and meditating. I don't think that's my path. I think how you approach work, how you approach your colleagues, how you approach your clients, what attitude you bring, how you solve difficult problems, how you have difficult professional conversations. That's part of my spiritual path. What I get from you is this like certainty.

[00:25:24]

Juna: Sometimes things change, but it doesn't seem like things have changed much for you. So that's very interesting to me. I feel like I'm, I'm always asking myself the question because Yes. You know, I went from being a physician to now mostly teaching lifestyle medicine, although it, it is, you know, medical, it's all about prevention, but, it's definitely a different path from, you know, what I started on.

[00:25:47] So I'm just wondering, you seem so certain. Stuck with things since you were so little. It's fascinating to me. . .

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think I, I kind of understood my path. I wrote a letter to my grandma in fifth grade saying she was in Moscow saying, grandma got into this really wonderful private school. I'm very happy and at that school I can take Latin in sixth grade.

[00:26:09] I'm gonna take Latin in sixth grade. So then I, then I can learn French, Italian, and Spanish. And that's exactly what I did. And I, and I read the letter in fifth grade, so I think I had an intuition of like the path I wanted to,

Juna: So talk about intention. And, I don't always love the word manifestation, but , it sounds like

Elizabeth: maybe I'm just stubborn,

[00:26:25] Maybe it's just stubbornness. I don't know. Yeah.

Juna: Well, you seem like you have a plan though.

Elizabeth: Yeah. Now I just wanna reach as many people as possible with these practices... offer a perspective that's scientific and includes all the ancient wisdoms at the same time. And I also hope to contribute to the profession of law in a positive way.

[00:26:43]

Juna: That's, that's amazing. I mean, I taught some classes at Columbia Law School and they're very interested in this, so yeah, they need it. They're trained to look for the negatives or like out the mistakes and you know, those can all veer towards the negativity.

Elizabeth: Definitely. And just the amount of pressure, like.

[00:27:00] It's very hard to live with that amount of pressure. Without a very clear, I think bigger perspective and spiritual practices give you the bigger perspectives.

Juna: Mm-hmm. , tell me about your self-compassion practice and how all of these sort of soft skills have helped you get through all of the training that you've had to go through.

[00:27:18] Yeah. I mean, just the practicalities of like time management of, you know, having to do more than anyone humanly can possibly learn in a given time frame, , uh, deadlines, all these things. What is the most useful thing for you? I think the most useful thing is deciding that no matter what, I am on my own side, no matter what.

[00:27:39] I will support myself no matter what happens. If I make a mistake, if I win, if I lose, if I get the job, if I don't get the job, no matter how angry someone else might be at me, I will be on my own side and live by my values. and there's a stability to that. There's no stability to what happens outside of ourselves if you decide that no matter what, I'm not gonna turn on myself, I'm gonna guide myself through it in the way that feels most wise.

[00:28:09] Once you turn against yourself, once you blame yourself, criticize yourself. What that leads to is a desire to punish. We punish with self-destructive behaviors. The way I teach self-compassion is that, first of all, it's not being self-destructive. and there are so many ways to be self-destructive in our days.

[00:28:28] Spending all your time on social media, food, not pursuing your goals, putting off what's important. There are so many ways to not follow your path, but I think there is a stability to saying, I'm going to go forward towards what I believe in. Like, I believe in kindness. I believe in honesty. I believe in, um, doing work that matters.

[00:28:51] I believe in my self-care routine. I believe in getting as much sleep as humanly possible, having the most healthy diet I can possibly have. And I think another part of self-compassion is doing things that give you energy, and that's a very easy measure. Certain people take away energy, certain people give energy.

[00:29:08] Certain foods take away energy. Certain foods give energy, certain habits. So I've been very careful about building habits that give me energy and don't take it away as part of my own self-compassion practice. Mm-hmm. . Well, that is amazing. I love the way you, um, phrase that whole self-compassion, um, package.

[00:29:28]

Juna: you're not saying though, that you don't have those days where you beat up on yourself a little bit, right? Like everybody has that sort of automatic, you know, negative thoughts or have you meditated so much that maybe that's not your first automatic response to when you make a mistake or something doesn't go your way.

[00:29:45] How does that work?

Elizabeth: So I can feel. confusion or doubt or inner pain? Yes, but I very rarely turn on myself, to be honest. I think I've done so much self-compassion practice that turning on myself is not usually where I go. It's more what do I do now that feels most lies, or what do I do now? And kind of searching for that, but without the criticism, without, oh, that was so stupid, I shouldn't have done, like without all of those.

[00:30:11] It's a much more direct path that puts you back on the track.

Juna: Nice. So what if somebody is used to, um, criticizing themselves constantly, what would you tell them as a takeaway from this conversation? What is the number one thing that they should be doing practically and uh, as a habit?

[00:30:30]

Elizabeth: So I have a whole four week, eight hour class on this called Freedom from the Inner Critics.

Juna: Wonderful. and your classes are awesome cuz I've been to some of them on Zoom.

Elizabeth: Thank you. Yeah. I love that I can teach it to anyone, any, anywhere in the world. I have a big following among judges in Brazil,

[00:30:46] It's not something I was expecting, but lawyers, so it kind of makes sense, but it's kind of where the followings pop up. I can never predict . Okay. I don't think there's an easy answer. You can ask yourself the question in what you're doing. Would my future self thank me. Usually like what we want in the moment can be kind of some very quick fixes that aren't the most wise.

[00:31:08] Like would my future self thank me for this? People say, oh Elizabeth, if I were self-compassionate, I'd just be on the couch in my PJs eating ice cream. I would never work or do anything. But if you ask yourself the question, would my future self thank me for that choice for like half a day? Sure. Probably cuz you get rest, but as a lifestyle choice, no.

[00:31:28] So self-compassion is like, how would. , treat your nine year old child. Would you let that child wake up whenever he or she wanted? Would you let that child not go to school? Would you let that child just eat chips? Would you let that child watch cartoons and do nothing else? No, because you love your child.

[00:31:44] You'd want the child to exercise, to run around outside, to have friends, to wear new things, to eat broccoli, to take a bath, to go to sleep on time. That's how you treat your nine year old child. If you were a good mom, you treat yourself the same. Challenging yourself, building good, healthy connections to others, participating in life, eating healthy food, going to sleep on time.

[00:32:05] So how would I treat my nine year old child's? Another kind of easy parallel that people can ask. I love that as like, would you yell at your child when your child makes a mistake as a good mom? No. You'd be like, oh, what's going on? How do you feel today? Let's talk about this. Let's figure this out. Yeah, I'm with you.

[00:32:20] I'm on your side. I, I know that you have all the potential in the world to be happy and succeed, and this is just a minor setback. That's how I talked to a nine year old child. That's awesome. If I were a mom and the child did something that I'm unhappy with, like, let's figure this out together. I'm on your side.

[00:32:35] Yeah, this must be hard for you. Let's move through this.

Juna: That's beautiful. . That's amazing. As a mom, I can totally, uh, vouch for that , and

Elizabeth: I can see that you're an absolutely amazing mom. I re I admire not only for the work you do, but that I see that you're an incredible mom, just in how happy your kids look. And how accomplished your kids are as well. I know, I know. They weren't on the couch all day.

[00:32:51]

Juna: Oh my gosh. You're so sweet. We did spend a, a bit of time on the couch during the pandemic, but , but yeah, they're, we're really close and. But I do have to admit that there were days where I did yell instead of, instead of being all that nurturing.

Juna: [00:33:08] But as you said, with the self-compassion work, it really helped me become a better mother. You know, honestly, you said it so well. What is your key advice and take away for our listeners on the benefits of that practice? I mean, we went over that, but maybe you can talk about how to create a consistent practice, cuz I think that's one of the biggest challenges that people have; to convince themselves to do it every single day, or, you know, I mean, we know about the neuroscience of habits, right? Like tagging it onto something you already do, but maybe you can give us some more spiritual or deeper way to push yourself and convince yourself to do something.

Elizabeth: There's a lot of resistance to doing anything new and doing anything consistently.

[00:33:52] That resistance can be there, you don't need to push against it. You can make space for the resistance and you can still do it. The fact that two opposite things can happen in your mind at the same, you can have one voice totally resisting it. You can have 5% of you. That's kind of curious. What would happen if I did this every day?

[00:34:08] And you can give attention to that 5% and do it every day, even if the resistance is 95% of your mind, as long as there's 5% interest, curiosity, sense that this might be good. It's not. To do it. You don't have resistance. It's that you have multiple voices inside and you get to choose which one to listen to.

[00:34:31] That's, that's awesome. I love it. So how about if you expect that resistance? Like that's normal for everyone, right? Exactly. Normalize it like everything everyone does. Like I don't think there's a person who wakes up and exercises five years a week who still doesn't have some resistance. I don't think there's an Olympic athlete who doesn't have some fear before a competition.

[00:34:51] I think just. Knowing it's part of the human condition. It's part of the human condition to have resistance, to feel helpless, to feel lonely sometimes, to feel angry. Sometimes it's just part of the human condition. But what you do is up to you what you feel. You're gonna have the full range of all those human emotions, from joy to sorrow, to everything.

Juna:

[00:35:12] And you, Elizabeth, also have days when you don't wanna sit on a cushion that day. And it varies.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And you can still do it. Mm-hmm. , you still do it cuz I, I know the value. And I know I'll be happy after, and I know my future self in 30 years will say thank you If, if I get to those 20,000 or 40,000 hours of meditation that I hope to get to over the course of my life, would you say 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes?

[00:35:37]

Juna: What do you think is optimal for a teenager when you started? I think 15 minutes is good for a teenager?

Elizabeth: I think 15 minutes. I truly think like doing five minutes is endlessly better than doing nothing. Are you doing 15 minutes of better than five? If you can do 30, that's a very strong practice. But just decide what you think you can do.

[00:35:58] Subtract five minutes and then do that . Like decide what you're gonna do, commit to a little bit less, and then do that thing that's less. I love it. And then you can always add on. You can always do a second practice. I love it when I teach my classes. I spend everything from five minute to 10 minute to 30 minute meditations every week so people can choose what version they wanna do.

[00:36:15]

Juna: Mm-hmm. , it doesn't really last does it? Like you can't meditate one day and think it's gonna last a whole week, or it's just something you kind of, kind of do every day? Like brushing your teeth?

Elizabeth: Yeah, it's like exercise. Like if you exercise once, you'll feel great. But if you exercise five days a week consistently, you'll have a different body.

[00:36:34] It's the same with meditation. You'll have a different quality of mind if you meditate every day. Hmm, wonderful. And like every, I feel like every meditation matters. Like if you only do it, one step matters, that has value, but doing it every day has a lot of value.

Juna: And there's no wrong meditation, right?

[00:36:51]

Elizabeth: Like if you notice your mind is busier one day than another, it's just something. As long as you're noticing that, I think it's a great practice to approach. With spaciousness and compassion, self-compassion, everything that happens. So maybe the mind isn't where you want it to be. You can create a whole lot of drama around that.

[00:37:09] Mm-hmm. . And that's one path. Or you can treat that as just something that you accept. You accept fully, you're kind to yourself, and then you decide what you wanna do.

Juna: Okay. Thank you so much, Elizabeth. This was a wonderful conversation. I hope you come back and you are wise beyond your years . It's amazing.

[00:37:32]

Elizabeth: I'm not that young anymore, but thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm in my thirties.

Juna: Oh, you're in your thirties now. Okay. But still that's really young.

Elizabeth: I just look younger, but I think it's all the meditation that makes us look younger.

Juna: Yeah, you look beautiful.

Elizabeth: Thank you so much for reminding me on your podcast.

[00:37:46] I appreciate this conversation's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much. .

That was Elizabeth Pyjov, Compassion meditation teacher, and you can find her and all of her social links at Happiness Sangha .com. That's S A N G H A .com. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this, go on over to mind mindbodyspace.com and opt in to the newsletter for special tips on my neuroscience back planner and self-paced digital courses all developed from over 10 years of collective experience teaching high performing students of all ages at Julliard, NYU Medical School, Columbia Law School, Achievement First and many other schools and organization. Look out for my special Rx Chill Pill episodes where I guide you through relaxation response exercises using my extra calm voice to counteract your daily stress.

You can also find my audio courses and meditations on the Insight Timer app.

I do all this because I love sharing science backed, self-help tools that changed my life and so many others. There's definitely way too much information out there, so I work hard to curate and share trustworthy sources for you. And by subscribing, reading and sharing the podcast, you are supporting this effort.

[00:39:07] I am so grateful and appreciative of you. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you and your family wellness.