Mindful Self Compassion as an antidote to the madness around us
Events in our World become more surreal everyday, leaving a real sense of shifting sands and a vulnerability for what lies ahead both at work and at home. There is an underlying feeling that things are spinning out of control, that change can be unexpected and life altering. Such underlying feelings can feel overwhelming and cause anxiety.
Mindfulness and Self Compassion combined with compassion for our fellow (wo)man is what is useful here to keep ourselves grounded. Research shows that self-compassion is strongly associated with coping with life challenges, lower levels of anxiety and depression, healthy habits such as diet and exercise, and more satisfying personal relationships. It is an inner strength that enables us to acknowledge our shortcomings, learn from them, and make necessary changes with an attitude of kindness and self-respect. However, any changes in the world must start with ourselves. Be the change you want to see. Or as Michael Jackson sang it – “Start with the man in the mirror”
Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is an empirically-supported, 8-week, training programme designed to cultivate the skill of self-compassion, teaching core principles and practices that enable participants to respond to difficult moments in their lives with kindness, care and understanding.
Is Self Compassion Selfish?
Using the Oxygen Mask Principle Self Compassion helps you to look after yourself before you can care for others.
How Mindfulness can help in preventing unhelpful ‘Thought’ habits
We are very much a product of our environment and our biology – both. Our genetic blue print unique to each of us, is very much infused with the values of those closest to us as we grow, most of which is very much implicit and not explicitly explained. As babies and children we soon learn when our behaviour does not fit the ‘norm’ from the feedback we receive. This feedback is frequently explicit as babies and young children, and then increasingly implicit. We fear so much the withdrawal of love and approval from our family and social circles that for the most part we conform to belief systems we had no conscious choice in. It is usually in teenage years that we wake up but at that point our brains and bodies are subjected to an influx of hormones and neuro transmitters gone haywire, which makes conscious choices difficult and confusing. No wonder teens rebel and in trying to assert their true selves make mistakes along the way earning appropriation and at times harsh feedback from the established culture.
It may come as a revelation to understand that we come into a world not of our conscious choosing (although some would believe otherwise – a discussion worthy of debate at another time), in a geographical and historical place in time which will shape the way in which we think of ourselves and our place within this particular world. Add to that differences in gender and race, religious beliefs of our immediate family and those of the general culture, you are set up already to absorb the nuances subtle and otherwise of all aspects of the culture you are immersed in from birth.
It stands to reason therefore that none of this is your fault. If you grew up as an Asian woman in a strongly Hindu family your view of yourself and your place in society will be different from those of a white British woman growing up in an agnostic household. Different aspirations, different expectations of you, and your perception of yourself and your potential will also be different. Your personality will also obviously play a part and therein lies some modicum of choice, but largely it is not our fault the family and time and place we are born into.
As a child growing up, most of us do not question these belief structures – they are simply part of your operating system, or part of your fundamental core values. They become the Truth. Even what seems to be a random thought is not at all isolated but interconnected with all the other thoughts, feelings, attitudes and belief systems built up over a life time.
This is precisely where developing a mindfulness practice is helpful. Stepping out of Automatic Pilot and noticing the thoughts and feelings triggered as a result of thoughts, can offer an opportunity to respond to them with curiosity (and kindness) rather than with habitual reaction. It also gives you an opportunity to question whether thoughts, values or beliefs that you hold to be yours, actually are. Or whether they still work for you.
Kristin Neff Founder of the Mindful Self Compassion Course
Kristin Neff speaks eloquently about how Self Compassion is the antidote to the inner critic and to managing stress in our time
