Why Improving Executive Function is Necessary for Self Compassion

Ever wonder why being compassionate with yourself feels like climbing the Swiss Alps? It's not just you. Executive function plays a big role in how effectively you're able to be kind to yourself. So if you are neurodivergent or severely burned out and struggle with executive dysfunction and self compassion, this video is for you.

Watch the video below, or read on for the full transcript.

Hi, I'm Cassie Winter. I'm a productivity expert and mindset coach for neurodivergent and chronically ill individuals.

In my signature course, The Action Navigator, I have spent hundreds of hours working with my students navigating executive dysfunction, self compassion, and so much more. Executive function is comprised of many elements. There are three in particular that we're going to be talking about today. Because when you struggle with executive dysfunction, it's these three elements that are contributing to the difficulty with being compassionate with ourselves. And those three elements are working memory, metacognition, and emotional self control.

If you want a deeper dive into all of the disparate elements of executive function, and therefore executive dysfunction, you can check out my previous post here. So let's start with working memory. Working memory is the ability to hold onto and recall important information in the moment that's relevant to your current context or situation. Consider it the random access memory, or RAM of your brain. It helps you remember where you put the scissors down in the middle of a sewing project.

Why did the scissors disappear? Executive dysfunction. [BRAIN FART ] Maybe keep that brain fart in, because that was a really good example of a working memory dump. I've always ascribed those random brain farts where the brain just like, wipes clean, nothing is happening, and you kind of forget you're doing anything, let alone are trying to figure out what to do. To me, I have always ascribed that to a working memory issue.

So it's really funny. I'm having problems with that right now. So how does this relate to the ability to be compassionate with ourselves? Well, if you don't remember to be compassionate with yourself in moments where it would be helpful to be compassionate with yourself, you're not going to be compassionate with yourself. Oh, it's annoying. The ways we can counter that is to purposefully put reminders in our environment and in our schedule and in our daily habits so that way we're constantly reminded that self compassion is an option. In my program, The Action Navigator, one of the ways I describe this is strategic friction. And that's the idea that you're putting reminders in your path that you have to interact with in order to move forward. The most commonly understood piece of strategic friction is an alarm or a timer going off because you have to turn off the timer to make it stop.

And as we all know, it needs to stop. But there are other things you can do. You can put post its on your bathroom mirror, you can have a bookmark in your planner. You can have reminders to yourself in your calendar. There are lots of different ways to put reminders in our path throughout the day to help us remember things. And it doesn't just have to be self compassion, but in this context for what we're talking about, reminding ourselves consistently that being compassionate with ourselves is not only an option, but something that we want and choose to engage in for ourselves can be really helpful.

And that's how we combat the struggles with working memory when we have executive dysfunction. The next element of executive function that impacts our ability to be compassionate with ourselves is metacognition, which is essentially the ability to coach yourself. So this is probably going to sound deeply unfair, but those who do not struggle with executive function, they just like have executive function baked into their brain. They don't necessarily struggle with coaching themselves through something, be it logical, linear, or emotional.

Of course, everybody ends up needing outside help, but baked in, they already have the ability to kind of walk themselves through something to achieve a result. Is that unfair that some people have that baked into their brain? Yes. Is this why executive dysfunction is a disability? One of the reasons. So when you struggle with executive dysfunction, that innate ability to coach yourself through something step by step is impaired.

So in the chain of events of this is a moment where I, in theory, would like to be compassionate with myself. The first problem is remembering that you have chosen you would like to be compassionate with yourself. And then if you somehow do remember that your reminders are working, then how do you actually go about doing that? The step by step process of being compassionate with yourself. The way you can accommodate yourself in this situation with metacognition, is taking the time to put in the effort to come up with that step by step process of what being self compassionate looks like to you and having it written out as like a standard operating procedure or an SOP.

If you're in the corporate world, you're probably very familiar with sops, and that's just like we have the exact same to do list in the same order for this type of task each and every time, and it's just written out, and nobody has to reinvent the wheel every single time. What that step by step process looks like for you is going to depend on your circumstances and what you're trying to accomplish with your self compassion.

Because self compassion is like this overarching umbrella of being kind and understanding and empathetic with yourself and then deciding from there what to do about it. If you have a therapist already coming up with a self compassion, standard operating procedure would be a great thing to do with your therapist. So that way, in that moment where you're like, oh, I have all these reminders, this is a great opportunity to be compassionate with myself.

I have a plan for that! Then you can go through the plan and you don't have to worry about being able to coach yourself through it on the spot, reinventing the wheel, yeah. If any of you are interested in me doing another video in the future, giving examples of what a self compassion standard operating procedure might look like, I'm happy to do that. Just let me know in the comments.

I will do it if it's requested. Write "aha" in the comments below, if you're just now realizing the importance of the relationship between executive dysfunction and self compassion. The third element of executive function that impacts our ability to be compassionate with ourselves is emotional self control. I remember when I was first learning about all of the elements of executive function that I was surprised that emotional self control was one of those elements.

And I talked about it a little bit in my original video, how it can feel like neurotypical individuals are placing the onus on disabled individuals, those with executive dysfunction, for having tolerable behavior when it comes to emotions. For example, if an autistic child is going into a full meltdown, some people may read that as a tantrum and think that's something that the autistic child needs to control and not let happen.

And that... That's not okay. That's not how that works. So when I say emotional self control, I want to be very clear that I'm not talking about like the toxic versions of that in my example and in my coaching. Instead, I'm talking about the ability to notice and feel your feelings from a place of non judgment in order to either: A) let the feelings run their course, and / or B) decide to do something to support yourself while you're feeling those things.

And this is where the metacognition and the emotional self control kind of like conflate a little bit. So if we go back to that order of operations, so something happens where it would be nice to be self compassionate with yourself, you set reminders around your life. So that might mean you've seen a reminder recently enough where there's one right in front of you right now where you're like, oh, yeah, I would like to be compassionate with myself right now.

Awesome. Then the next part is your SOP. That metacognition and ideally, the coaching yourself part of your standard operating procedure that you've made for yourself will include reminders to become aware of your feeling state, what you're feeling in your body. And I realize there are going to be those of you who struggle with alexithymia, which is the struggle or inability to feel what you're feeling. Not everybody has the ability to feel their feelings or to know what they're feeling.

So if you're someone who struggles with that self compassion is still available to you, it's just going to look slightly different. So instead of feeling your feelings and then making decisions from there, because the feeling your feelings part is less available to you, it might be easier to go straight to the doing something about it, trying to self soothe, do some self care activities, etcetera. And then through the doing, you may become better understanding of what your current feeling state is.

And it's totally okay to intellectualize your feelings if you, especially if you're someone who struggles with alexithymia, because that's kind of how we get to the feelings, is the intellectualizing. So please don't demonize yourself for that. Okay, I went on a tangent. Let's come back. So we've got the working memory, and then we've got the metacognition and the emotional self control. So if you are someone who doesn't have alexithymia and you are able to label and feel your feelings in your body, and when I say feel your feelings in your body, I'm being literal.

There's really, for me, only one feeling that I feel in my body, and that is anxiety. And it tends to feel like a claustrophobic compression in my chest and sternum area. And when I say feel your feelings, I mean literally notice, become aware and allow that sensation in your body to exist. That's what feeling your feelings mean. And oftentimes a feeling, if we allow it to exist and we don't resist it emotionally or physically or cognitively, a feeling will only last about 90 seconds.

That's the theory. Easier said than done. Okay, so that was the feeling your feelings tangent. So now I think we have all the pieces for the big picture. So, working memory, you have systems in place to help remind you that you want to be compassionate with yourself. And then part two is your metacognition and emotional self control, which we'll just call feeling your feelings and being able to compassionately care for yourself and move forward based on your lived experience in the moment.

I was really excited when I had the idea for this video because it's a topic that I have talked about like from the sides a lot, but I haven't really hit the, hit the nail on the head because these two things are very intertwined. The ability to be kind and compassionate to yourself in the moment when you're struggling is in part dependent on how good your executive function is.

And that's not fair. So if you are someone who struggles with executive dysfunction to any degree, there are accommodations you can put in place for yourself to help take care of you in those moments when you need that external support, because you don't always have access to another person, be it a friend, family member, partner, therapist, doctor. You don't always have access to someone who can do that executive functioning for you.

So what can you do for yourself to make sure you remember that you have tools that you can use yourself and you have tools that work for you? It's interesting because teaching people and coaching people on how to be compassionate with themselves is one of the big things that I do in my program, The Action Navigator. It's not just all about the productivity and the accommodating yourself, but it's that big umbrella of am I able to go about my life in a way that is compassionate with myself?

More often than not. And I also talk a lot about executive dysfunction because a lot of my students are neurodivergent to some degree and therefore struggle with executive dysfunction. And you don't have to be neurodivergent to struggle with executive dysfunction. If you have brain fog from a chronic illness that affects your ability to have executive function. But I've never specifically tied the two together before like I have in this video.

Ever since I've had this idea to talk about this, it has been so obvious to me, and I hope learning about this has been helpful for you. So the takeaways for today, if you struggle with executive dysfunction and you're wanting to be more compassionate with yourself, is one solving the working memory problem. So what kind of reminders can you put in place throughout your life and your environment that will help you remember that self compassion is something that you want to engage with more often.

And then the next part is to build yourself standard operating procedure, or if you want to call it a routine that works too, same kind of umbrella concept to help walk you through identifying and feeling your feelings, if that is something that's available to you. If you have alexithymia, you can skip that part. And then questions to ask yourself to help you decide what to do about it what to do about this experience that you're having. If you're having a negative experience, how can you care for and soothe yourself?

How can you regulate your nervous system and your emotions? If you're having a positive experience, how can you reinforce that and feel it deeper and more fully? If you've come across a problem that you need to solve and you're stressed about it, and you have people pleaser tendencies and you have perfectionistic tendencies, how can you offer yourself self compassion in that moment in order to still move forward, but from a place of care and compassion instead of a place of shame and judgment?

Like I said, coming up with that routine would be a great thing to do with a therapist or another professional such as a coach like myself. And a lot of what I do is help my students personalize the tools and skills that they learn inside my course to their specific situations. Learning how to do this is hard, but there are concrete steps you can take to improve your self compassion while struggling with executive dysfunction.

My signature course, The Action Navigator, is designed for those who are neurodivergent, chronically ill, or disabled, and it's packed with tools and techniques for mastering your time, getting organized, and offering yourself radical compassion. That thing we've been talking about all day. If that sounds like exactly what you've been looking for, use the link in the description box below to learn more. If you missed my original deep dive video on executive dysfunction, you can watch it here.

And if you like this video, hit that like button and subscribe and be sure to share it with one other person. I'll be back in the future with another video. Talk to you then. Bye. 💖