What is Mindfulness & Self-Compassion?
I use the tried and tested approach of mindfulness, combined with self-compassion, to provide tools to improve your wellbeing, deal with negative stuff, and be the best possible version of you.
I offer both one-to-one coaching, and the 8-week Mindful Self-compassion course, to help you access these life-changing and life-affirming tools and skills, in the comfort of your own home.
How Mindful Self-Compassion helps you
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
Curious about Mindful Self-Compassion?
Why not start with a free 20-minute chat and we can see how these amazing tools and practices can support you in being your best self. No obligations, just conversation.
The MSC 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.
MSC Success Stories
My story and my journey with mindful self-compassion
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!!
Get Started with MSC
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Free 20-Minute Call
Clarify what you need and see how Mindful Self Compassion can help you and if we’re a good fit to work together.
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The 8 Week Course
A Toolkit for the Mind and the Heartoffers 8 weeks of teaching, exercises, group discussions and meditation practices. The course provides resources that can help you be the best possible version of yourself.
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One-to-One Coaching
Compassionate coaching and mindful mentoring to shed a light on what's going on in your life and to offer resources and strategies to help you cope and grow.