small steps to self-love: the mental health podcast

8: self-compassion and feeling big feelings with james kerti

• shelby leigh • Season 1 • Episode 8

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shelby is joined by poet james kerti to talk about self-compassion, treating yourself with kindness and acceptance, and feeling big feelings.

we talk about being too sensitive, whether it's normal to feel multiple emotions at once, how to navigate healing and treating yourself with compassion, and practicing stillness in your life.

plus, we hear two wonderful poems about self-compassion from james!

tune in for today's small step about practicing stillness with yourself.

be sure to subscribe for more episodes like this! if you enjoy the podcast, leaving a rating and review is an incredible way to support the podcast and future episodes. thank you so much for listening!

about our guest:
James Kerti is a writer, poet, and strategist. His writing covers mental and emotional health, with a focus on kindness, connection, and self-acceptance. His first book, kind words for big feelings, comes out in June 2023.

connect with james on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jameskerti/ 

resources from shelby:

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Shelby:

Hi everyone, today on the podcast we have James Kerti who is a writer, poet and strategist. I actually met him through with the poetry club which is the online poetry community that I run and he's been a wonderful fabulous member, super talented. He writes a lot about mental and emotional health with a focus on kindness, connection and self-acceptance, and his first book kind words for big feelings (I love that title!) Comes out in June of 2023.

I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today James and i’ll pass it over to you to talk a little bit more about you, about your book anything you wanna share. 

James:

Thanks so much Shelby, really happy to be here. I have absolutely loving this podcast so far so it's wonderful to get to be a guest and this yeah this is I guess kind of my first semi official announcement about the book so thank you for helping get the word out about that. A little bit about me, i've been writing for several years but it's been more recent for me to be sharing and publishing the way that I have been. It's I think it's been a bit of an extension of like a lot of people in this space that i've talked with where I would write for myself and I would journal and then as I got more comfortable sharing that, first with people close to me and then with a bit of a broader circle, say Facebook friends, I was just having more positive interactions around that. I went through this phase in the last year or two, I was living in a small little town on the Oregon coast, a lot of close friends out there and I got in this habit of just sharing poems with nature photos that I had taken of the area and I walk around town and people would stop me and say “Oh my goodness I love that poem that you shared the other day” and I started thinking whoa so just even by sharing other people’s work in a lot of cases, not even just mine, I was getting these kind of reactions than making these connections so as i've leaned more into the sharing. It's helped me understand how powerful it is to connect with people through words like this.

Shelby:

I love that, that's amazing. From writer to writer, did you find it scarier to share your work with like strangers online, or with people that you knew in person? Just curious. 

James:

That’s such a good question I think the nature of the writing itself it doesn't really make too big of a difference, but the one thing that does kind of stick out and I actually just had a conversation with my friend Erin about this the other day, because she's also a writer it's it's that feeling of like when I share something that sounds like it might be really vulnerable, how will people close to me take it? Will they think like if I share something about grief, if I share a poem that somebody wrote about grief, will the people close to me assume oh James is grieving something right now, because you don't know sometimes you know as a writer you are sharing something because you're going through something very personal and other times you're sharing something because it's something that you've been through before and you had a conversation with somebody close to you and you shared something like this with them and now you're thinking OK well I want to share this with more people and helping them too so I think it's that little bit of vulnerability there of not knowing if somebody is going to read into something I share in a way where they think that it's indicative of a personal moment in time and sometimes it is and sometimes I do appreciate when people reach out right.

Shelby:

That's so true! I used to give disclaimers on some of my posts if it was like a poem that I wrote a couple years ago, I used to be like it's not anymore, like I'm fine and to do these things that we shouldn't have to do. It's very nice when people are concerned but yeah sometimes we can just relate to something or resonate with something and want to share it and other times maybe it is something that we're going through at that moment, but that's a really interesting point.

So tell us a little bit how you got started writing about these topics and why these topics like kindness compassion self acceptance are so important to you .

James:

Great question Shelby well self compassion is something that I started diving into about two years ago I was going through a divorce at the time and coming back home to myself re grounding and making choices as to what I wanted to experience. And like while I was going through some really difficult deep emotions and a lot of healing and I came across the work of doctor Kristen Neff her specialization is self compassion, and I realized by going through her work just how impactful self compassion and similarly self acceptance was to me because i've gone through a lot of my life thinking that the way to motivate myself to show up and get things done by beating myself up all the time and it turns out from reading her work that I realized maybe if I were kind to myself and I would not only feel better but maybe I would still get a lot of good stuff done because as I was learning to be more aware and accountable with myself I couldn't help but acknowledge like hey this whole beating myself up thing not actually really working.

And so learning to be more compassionate with myself was really important and it unlocked these portals to kindness and self love and connection as i've explored more in my writing and in my talking with people around this I feel like self-acceptance is the underpinning of so much of this because i've been coming to look at this exploration and this work through a similar portal through which like I look at relationships. In relational psychology or just basic thinking like you think well like if I'm gonna love somebody like before I can really love somebody I need to accept them for who they are, and I need to feel like I can trust them, because without acceptance and trust and kindness what kind of love do you really have but I think that's true about self love too. And I think that as we learn to love ourselves better it's really important that we're learning to do that on a foundation of really accepting ourselves and being kind to ourselves and from there we can reach out and we can make connections with other people too. 

Shelby:

I love that. That's beautiful I'm curious did you have a hard time tapping into these emotions especially with kind of the male stigma of not really expressing emotions as much, was it something that comes naturally to you in writing these types of poems?

James:

I think in a way it's something that's really natural to me or at least it's become natural the more that i've leaned into the vulnerable sensitive parts of myself I identify somebody who is very sensitive and has a lot of big the feelings a lot of the time and it's part of my journey to process those in to continue healing but also showing up as myself because I don't want to be somebody who feels like they need to shut down their feelings in order to fit in in order to confirm certain stereotypes about gender or anything else but I I do really appreciate that I have this opportunity as a man to be able to step into this mental and emotional help space in writing and in social media that is you know I I think by and large you know but not dominated with a lot of men because it seems like a lot of the men in this space are more just kind of writing about dating and relationships and love which is right there's plenty of space for that too but I feel like the more that I right and more that I share and more I connect I feel like I found my voice and I I feel like I found my audience and I'm I'm really grateful because I think that it takes some people a lot longer than it took me in my writing to figure out who they are and what they need to say and who they they say it to.

Shelby:

I love that, that's amazing that you have found that. I feel like it definitely took me some time to as well, and I'm sure that we both have a lot more growing to do and a lot more topics to explore, but feeling confident in what we're sharing with the world is amazing so I'm glad that you found that in your work. Speaking of your work and your poems we would love to hear if you wouldn't mind sharing a poem I love having you know guests read a poem, and then maybe talk a little bit about what this particular poem that you've chosen means to you and what you would want readers to take away from your work.

James: sure absolutely so this first poem that am I gonna read it doesn't exactly have a title but sort of a tentative title it's called heavy heart.

And here we go. When your heart feels heavy with the weight of life’s levy and you can't seem to let it go, stop. Breathe. Remember what you know. You've weathered storms before when you felt tethered to pain and despair, no need to compare as no two hurts are quite the same but it can help to adjust the frame. Feel the waves washing over you without them squashing your hopes and dreams and joys. Cry, scream, make all the noise, recalling that the tide will recede in the thick fog will heed the late morning sun and clear calmer brighter days are near.

Shelby:

I love hearing poets read once i've read, i've seen that one on Instagram I love hearing the poet read it as it's intended to be read, it flows so beautiful—so beautifully thank you for sharing that.

James:

Thanks Shelby, yeah that is that is a special one for me I wrote it while I was going through it felt like a challenging season in my life and I find it helpful to right my way through some of those challenging seasons sometimes and being able to reflect and to share it with other people who are going through their own things that just makes everything easier I know one of the things that you said before in some of your writing and how you talk about your work is that it's about helping people feel less alone and sometimes when dealing with big feelings particularly difficult ones they have this way of making us feel incredibly alone like we're the only people who have ever lost the job or gone through a breakup or last at last a close friend I feel like part of you know myself acceptance journey and how I'm sharing from that is accepting that these things are hard and also that we're not alone and we can seek connection and I I think something else that I'm continuing to explore my writing is that especially those of us with big feelings we have the capacity to hold different feelings at the same time we can feel joyful and incredibly sad and those moments can be right next to each other they can be at the same time yeah and I think many of us have been taught to feel like everything just has to be black and white that you can't miss somebody or grieve relationship and also open yourself up to love and join your life at the same time that it has to be one or the other for instance and that's just simply not true and so I'm I'm looking to help people and myself through all of this fine nuance

Shelby:

Absolutely that's beautiful very powerful, and that poem definitely I think makes people feel less low and it definitely made people that way so thank you for sharing. As this is the podcast about self love we’ve kind of already tapped into self love a little bit but are there any specific ways that you show yourself kindness and compassion and either to yourself or to others? How can all of that kind of help us on our self love journey?

James:

Part of it for me Shelby has been trying a bunch of different things over the years different techniques journaling grounding alone time, time with people, just to kind of see what helps me feel like me I have a couple different sort of like little litmus test that I use one is like if I'm thinking about doing something out of a sense of like feeling more like myself or feeling more loving I I kind of asked myself like this does this make me feel bigger or does it make me feel smaller that's a question that I try to pass like different little opportunities through to see if it helps me feel bigger and closer to myself or smaller and further away from myself so I try to ask myself that question because I don't always know in the moment when I'm gonna need sometimes I sit down to watch a TV show and I think this is just what I need and then 5 minutes in I'm distracted or I'm crying or I need to journal or I need to go for a walk and I just guessed wrong and that that's that's OK so I think giving myself the space to not always know what I need counterintuitively is one of the ways but I I really do good job taking care of myself yeah one thing that I do come back to a lot though is is still nice it's just kind of giving myself space away put that phone in the other room put it on do not disturb my phone lives on do not disturb mostly but I'm actually because when I'm able to just carve out a little bit of space for myself to just be quiet things start to feel more loving and more relaxing able to figure out what I need thank you know maybe for maybe this is something you resonate with to like as I spend more time on social media sharing my work and connecting with other writers it's easy to go too far and to go down that social media addiction rabbit hole which could be a really dark place sometimes and even when you're surrounding yourself by things that are filled with love and light and caring it can still be something that pulls you away from yourself a little bit so I'm trying to make sure I'm coming home enough.

Small step

Yes, as you may know every week I give a small step to my audience, I'm sure you've heard in past episodes so maybe this week is like put your phone on do not disturb for a few hours. Maybe a day…maybe a whole day for people who are really in that social media. And take some time, take some stillness for yourself. I love what you said about that so I think that's a really great goal for those of us listening to do.

James:

Exactly, put the phone down snuggle dogs snuggle a cat snuggle the kids snuggle the special person in your life.

Shelby:

So you write about um so you write about self acceptance often. What’s way that is helps you on your path to self acceptance that you could share with our listeners?

James:

 I'd say journaling honestly has been one of the things that helps me the most because it it helps me get thoughts out of my head I found that as again somebody with big feelings that sometimes those feelings can just get stuck up in my psyche and just float around in my brain rattle around get a little bit of sludge on the inside of my skull but when I when I journal and I get it out and sometimes that's written journaling and sometimes honestly it's just giving a bunch of audio notes for myself that i'll probably never listen to but out of my head I kind of know like OK this is accounted for and it's recorded somewhere for posterity and therefore like I'm accepting it as a thought or a feeling that I have and I'm not like just throwing it in the garbage or something I know some people find it really valuable to do like a journaling exercise where they like write down all their thoughts are the feelings on a piece of paper and then they just throw that piece of paper in the garbage because they're just like purging it and i've done that before but I find it more helpful to get it out of my head in a way where if I ever do come back to it and I'm probably not going to but it's like I know that it's preserved in its accounted for like somewhere so like I don't feel like I need just hold on to it and by practicing letting go in this way it helps me let go in other areas of my life letting go of old jobs old relationships or old communities and for me i've been learning and coming back to the original question that like letting go of what's no longer for me and self acceptance or two things that go hand in and because I feel like for me one of the impediments to self acceptance is a holding on to things that are are meant to pass through me rather than to the stay wow and that reminds me that like I'm you know accepting myself and I'm enough and I'm worthy just as I am and I don't need to hold on to things that aren't meant to stay right.

Shelby: 

Beautiful wow I love that I also definitely turned a journaling a lot for similar reasons so For anyone listening if you feel like that is something that could benefit you or the audio note thing I always say if you don't like writing it's not really your jam like talking to your phone like let it out it's so healing and so powerful so I'm glad you mentioned that yeah audio notes while walking by the way or something that i've discovered lately and Oh my goodness do I like those yeah that's awesome I sometimes do that if I come up with like an idea or a poem or something while I'm walking i'll do that but especially just using it as a way to just kind of talk to yourself and let things go let things out wonderful most people walking by just assume I'm just talking to a friend about whatever problem going through my life so it's great I just I'm always talking to a helpful friend they made my ternal they may be an actual friend who knows yeah that's so true so true wonderful well I love to kind of wrap us up with another poem for you from you if you have another poem that you'd like to share with us and talk a little bit about what that one means to you?

James:

I got one more here saying a little bit of an introduction to me and and my work and people who might resonate with it there we go. 

You. Yes you, from the land of big feelings plunked down into this unfamiliar plates clutter and clamor, wholeness and healings swirling swept up in an unceasing chase, who's beginning lies beyond your recall. Be still. Remember. You’re big, not small. 

Shelby: oh I love that wonderful.

James: this poem came to me several weeks ago was after I had been on a bit of a flurry on social media lately of doing a lot of both sharing writing and spoken word readings and so i've been gathering a better understanding of who resonates with my work and people have just been showing up and it's been wonderful, i've been coming to a better understanding of what we all have in common and like i've been saying it's it's you know being people who have big feelings and are learning to to process them to accept themselves tonight this phone came to me as something of an invitation people by which people can people can arrive here in this space.

Shelby:

I love the phrase big feelings. It makes me happy it's like almost just a reminder that it's OK to feel it's OK to have all these big feelings and express them and feel them and I'm just I'm so excited about the book title I love it so much I think it perfectly encapsulates you and your work. That's wonderful. So where can people find you if they wanna hear your spoken word poems that you've been sharing or read your other poems where can we find you?

James: Yeah absolutely I am most notably on Instagram or my handle is @jameskerti it's KERTI I'm also on tiktok under the same handle and if you look me up there or at my website jameskerti.com you can also get on a mailing list that I'm putting together or i'll be sending out small things here and there. My book is coming out next June, June 2023 that's kind words for big feelings, lots of good stuff coming on the way there.

Shelby: Amazing I'm excited. I'll have all the links and things in the description as well alright well thank you so much for being here James this is wonderful, so many lovely quotes about self compassion and kindness and acceptance for yourself that I hope our listeners will take with us this week. Thank you again for being here.

James: I hope it helps too. Thanks so much for having me on.

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shelby leigh

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