Self-Compassion
Free Guided Practice – Seeing the Goodness That Others See in You
These days when we get flummoxed or weary or discouraged, we can doubt our own capacities to continue to do what needs to be done to take care of ourselves, our families, our communities. We can lose track of our own strengths, our base of resilience, our own goodness. This 4-minute video leads you in […]
Human Psyche as Cat Litter Box
I won’t out the client who came up with this metaphor last week – of the human psyche as a cat litter box. But I’ve been a psychotherapist for a quarter of a century now, and an owner of several generations of cats for almost as long, and I can fully appreciate the complexity and […]
How to Be Affected but Not Infected
Phillip Moffitt, guiding teacher of teachers at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, used to teach tools to “be affected but not infected,” mostly in the context of being empathic and compassionate with other people but not being overwhelmed by their emotions or traumas. The practice could apply to being aware and accepting of our own experiences […]
Putting Some Muscles into Mindful Self-Compassion
This post is a direct pass-through of a message from my mentor, teacher, and the co-developer of the Mindful Self-Compassion protocol, Kristin Neff. Kristin pioneered the research demonstrating the power of self-compassion to help people cope more resiliently by facing the hard, yucky things in life, and our reactions to those stressful experiences, with more […]
Regrets: Cues for Compassion, Learning, Resilience
A twinge of regret yesterday – I missed meeting with a friend because I had the wrong day on my calendar. That mishap quickly repaired and the meeting re-scheduled. But the twinge lingered. And led to memories of other regrets. The time I carefully selected a super-cool gift for a friend’s birthday, then completely forgot […]
Loving Awareness in the Present Moment Is Foundational to Our Resilience
As we learned in this interview with Tara Brach, when we bring loving kindness to all aspects of ourselves, we wake up and come back to our inner resources, our larger consciousness, our larger beingness. Here is an exercise from Resilience for expressing loving kindness even for our unlovable parts. Expressing Loving Kindness Even […]
The Yin-Yang of Mindful Self-Compassion
As we learned in this interview with Chris Germer, mindful self-compassion gives us permission to ask “What do I need?” Here’s a practice for offering comfort and care from Resilience. Recovering from a Shame Attack 1. The instant you recognize the disturbance in the force field that is the signal of distress or upset, place […]
The Roots of Resilience
This month’s posts focus on relational intelligence from within, offering practices to strengthen the inner secure base of resilience that allows you to fully accept, appreciate, and love yourself. That allows you to engage with the world, take risks, and deal with the bumps and bruises of life more resiliently. The roots of resilience are […]
Self Compassion More Powerful than Self-Esteem
“People who are compassionate toward their failings and imperfections experience greater well-being that those who repeatedly judge themselves. The feelings of security and net worth provided by self-compassion are also highly stable, kicking in precisely when self-esteem falls down.” This is the intriguing premise – and promise – of Kristin Neff’s book on Self-Compassion, based […]