The approach of mindfulness and compassion provides tools to improve your wellbeing with self-compassion, especially if negative stuff is crowding in
Do you ever get stressed or anxious?
Do you ever blame and criticise yourself? Do you feel shame?
Do you find it hard to deal with emotions such as anger, grief and fear?
Do you ever feel joy?
Mindful Self-compassion addresses all these and more, and provides practices that you can use as a basis for meditation, and that you can apply in a very practical way in everyday life. We combine
Mindfulness, and the chance it provides to notice what’s going on, create a pause, take a step back, and make better choices
Kindness and compassion, starting with ourselves so that, instead of being judgemental, we can be kind and open-hearted - sometimes it’s all in the internal language we use and the tone of how we talk to ourselves
Common humanity, which reminds us that, whatever our experience, we’re human and, even when stuff is painful, it’s part of being human and not something that’s wrong with us
A bit more about this approach
Whatever your age your life, like mine, has been shaped by past experiences, not least as a child. You and I have conscious and unconscious memories that affect how we live now, and also how we look to the future. This can lead to powerful emotions, and emotional experiences, that can play havoc with our lives.
This isn’t helped by the reality that the animal bit of our brain is “hard-wired” for survival. This means that, when the mind feels threatened, we react, often too quickly, and we get things “wrong”. Then the self-critic rocks up to tell us off, and we can end up believing that there’s something wrong with us! We end up in a negative place and we try to fight these emotions, or run away and flee from them, or we freeze and hope they’ll go away.
If you want to understand this more and try to fix it you can go the therapy route. The route of mindfulness and compassion doesn’t try to fix this or change this aspect of being human, and it doesn’t try to offer an explanation. Rather it introduces a way to acknowledge what feels negative, and also to turn towards more positive and compassionate voices that too often get drowned out. Yes there’s curiosity about childhood experience and a story we can’t change, though we can learn to change how we tell the story.
All this provides the opportunity to take a fresh look at your life and learn many practices that will help you take care of yourself in a consciously kind way, and as a result have better relationships with those around you. It has its challenges, which is why it's great to do this with a group.
Stories about how mindfulness and compassion has helped me and others
My story and learning
I reached the point in my 50s when I was really angry and I was turning into a grumpy old git! I was never violent, but I would take my anger out on other people who didn’t do things the way I (only child and centre of the universe) wanted them done, and I wasn’t fair and I wasn’t kind. I thought I might need anger management to give me the chance to get it all out, until I visited a friend who suggested that I try mindfulness.
I did an eight-week course that gave me many insights into the way the mind works, and how it gets triggered into fight, flight or freeze, and how I was letting the anger take over and push me around, so that I’d then push others around. I started to learn how to recognise the anger for what it was and I discovered that, just because anger was around, I didn't have to behave from a place of anger; that I could make different choices.
The following year I did an eight-week course in Mindful Self-compassion, the course I now teach, that deliberately introduces kindness and compassion, for myself as much as for others. This was the game-changer for me, and I learnt how to apply the techniques, to have a far more healthy relationship with anger and the other big emotions, and to change my behaviour. I also learnt to recognise that things won’t always go my way, that it’s not personal, and that I can allow things to happen and not try to control them. What a difference!!
Participant stories
Here are a few examples of changes that participants have made to their lives since taking the course with me:
The single mum who was always telling herself off for her “poor parenting” of two daughters; she has learnt not to beat herself up when she gets parenting “wrong”, and now has an inner power to cope with anything life throws at her.
The husband who blamed his wife for everything “wrong” with their marriage and, as a result, unconsciously became the “poor me” victim; he has learnt to take his own responsibility for the breakdown of the relationship and to hold his head higher and move on, no longer the victim.
The woman who told a story of being “abandoned”, as had indeed been the case at various key moments in her younger life; she changed the telling of the story from being abandoned to being a survivor and has gained her older power.
The housewife and mum without a career of her own who was always “invisible” and left to get on with the chores; she has learnt she has a life and a creative power of her own that she can use as she creates her own powerful story.
Please move on to the next page for all you need to know about the Mindful Self-compassion course…
Interested?
If you’d like to learn more please fill this form to tell me who you are. Soon after the details arrive with me I’ll arrange to discuss your interest by phone or Zoom at a time that is convenient for us both. Thanks and good wishes.