ms spock
VIP Member
I have been thinking of running a Self Compassion Challenge for awhile now.
I was thinking of a 30 Day Challenge as it apparently takes 30 days to form a new habit.
Kristin Neff has a website where she allows free downloads of the meditations/guided audio. Her website is worth checking out.
The one I am most interested in is call "The Self Compassion Break". It is seven minutes long. So I was thinking we could start with doing that once per day and discussing how that was for us and perhaps trying out the other free guided audio?
Kristin Neff also has talks available to watch on youtube. I found the one for teachers interesting. Borrowing a copy or buying a copy of Kristen Neff's book on Self Compassion could be useful.
Tara Brach has some youtube vision on compassion. She is a good speaker. She is very generous to share her work on youtube for us all to watch.
I sure lots of people on this forum know many other good self compassion and/or Metta/Loving Kindness sources and speakers.
I know very little about self compassion or metta/loving kindness, so we would all be learning together. I do practice Mindfulness each day, so I am working towards incorporating my self compassion into my Mindfulness practice, (and now my Tai Chi practice as well). At Tai Chi yesterday the teacher immediately picked me and said gently "If you try too hard, it becomes too hard." Nailed me right away, and with total compassion. No control. No you have to do X now. Just let go and relax and praised my humble efforts. It was a big shift. I went into the practices differently. But I can't explain what happened. The guy is a grandmaster with 39 years experience. I have a couple of months struggling even to do a self compassion exercise and the first few times I just bawled my eyes out, and I resisted doing it with every fibre of my being. I am too bad for self compassion. So I have no skills just a burning desire to get well and improve my life, and improve my symptom management of my PTSD.
Maybe someone on this forum is really good at self compassion and they could comment or offer advice or even take over and run the Compassion Challenge if they so desired and that the time? (Highly unlikely but you never know your good luck unless you ask. ;) )
I have read "The Mindful Way Through Depression" and David Burns' book "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. The Clinically Proven Drug Free Treatment for Depression"(which @anthony recommends) and have the book, audiobook and CD of the "The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness" by Mark Williams, Jon Kabat-Zinn, John Teasdale and Zindel Seagal. Both of these books are great in breaking down the harsh, caustic, corrosive inner critic, so perhaps they are a basis for self compassion? Well they have been for me - but they might not interest other people. But they are there as suggestions. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
Any way putting it out there to see if anyone is interested. There are a few takers so see how many we get and see how we go.
Self Compassion is meant to be very helpful for those with chronic illness, chronic pain, Complex Trauma, (of course) PTSD and those living with the life altering/shattering effects of Child Abuse. Child Abuse is so persuasive in it's ongoing life effects.
It would be important to have self compassion or a bit of kindness for yourself around your total or partial inability to have self compassion for yourself surrounding your PTSD, chronic illness, chronic pain, Complex Trauma, Child Abuse or whatever your particular challenge is that you are so harsh and self blaming of yourself about. I don't want to set up something else for people to beat themselves up about. I don't think that would be helpful, but I think it would be an unsurprising outcome for some people.
What do you think of this @Lionheart777?
I was thinking of a 30 Day Challenge as it apparently takes 30 days to form a new habit.
Kristin Neff has a website where she allows free downloads of the meditations/guided audio. Her website is worth checking out.
The one I am most interested in is call "The Self Compassion Break". It is seven minutes long. So I was thinking we could start with doing that once per day and discussing how that was for us and perhaps trying out the other free guided audio?
Kristin Neff also has talks available to watch on youtube. I found the one for teachers interesting. Borrowing a copy or buying a copy of Kristen Neff's book on Self Compassion could be useful.
Tara Brach has some youtube vision on compassion. She is a good speaker. She is very generous to share her work on youtube for us all to watch.
I sure lots of people on this forum know many other good self compassion and/or Metta/Loving Kindness sources and speakers.
I know very little about self compassion or metta/loving kindness, so we would all be learning together. I do practice Mindfulness each day, so I am working towards incorporating my self compassion into my Mindfulness practice, (and now my Tai Chi practice as well). At Tai Chi yesterday the teacher immediately picked me and said gently "If you try too hard, it becomes too hard." Nailed me right away, and with total compassion. No control. No you have to do X now. Just let go and relax and praised my humble efforts. It was a big shift. I went into the practices differently. But I can't explain what happened. The guy is a grandmaster with 39 years experience. I have a couple of months struggling even to do a self compassion exercise and the first few times I just bawled my eyes out, and I resisted doing it with every fibre of my being. I am too bad for self compassion. So I have no skills just a burning desire to get well and improve my life, and improve my symptom management of my PTSD.
Maybe someone on this forum is really good at self compassion and they could comment or offer advice or even take over and run the Compassion Challenge if they so desired and that the time? (Highly unlikely but you never know your good luck unless you ask. ;) )
I have read "The Mindful Way Through Depression" and David Burns' book "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. The Clinically Proven Drug Free Treatment for Depression"(which @anthony recommends) and have the book, audiobook and CD of the "The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness" by Mark Williams, Jon Kabat-Zinn, John Teasdale and Zindel Seagal. Both of these books are great in breaking down the harsh, caustic, corrosive inner critic, so perhaps they are a basis for self compassion? Well they have been for me - but they might not interest other people. But they are there as suggestions. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.
Any way putting it out there to see if anyone is interested. There are a few takers so see how many we get and see how we go.
Self Compassion is meant to be very helpful for those with chronic illness, chronic pain, Complex Trauma, (of course) PTSD and those living with the life altering/shattering effects of Child Abuse. Child Abuse is so persuasive in it's ongoing life effects.
It would be important to have self compassion or a bit of kindness for yourself around your total or partial inability to have self compassion for yourself surrounding your PTSD, chronic illness, chronic pain, Complex Trauma, Child Abuse or whatever your particular challenge is that you are so harsh and self blaming of yourself about. I don't want to set up something else for people to beat themselves up about. I don't think that would be helpful, but I think it would be an unsurprising outcome for some people.
What do you think of this @Lionheart777?
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