Mindfulness & Self-compassion
“You can’t stop the waves. But you can learn how to surf.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn
What are mindfulness and compassion?
Put simply mindfulness is about bringing our attention to our present-moment experience in a non-judgmental way. Through mindfulness we learn to hold our experiences - both pleasant and unpleasant - in a gentle, open and balanced awareness.
Self-compassion enables us meet what we are feeling with some kindness; enabling us to meet challenging experiences in a helpful way, rather than feeling overwhelmed or judging ourselves harshly for them.
How can mindfulness and self-compassion help me?
Many of us spend our days within a sense of mental busyness; our minds constantly reaching into the future and thinking back to the past, without being present to our actual experience here and now. This can feel both overwhelming and exhausting. When living in this way we can miss out on the small aspects of life that bring us joy, and we can expend huge amounts of energy trying to control aspects of our life that feel challenging.
Through cultivating a mindful and compassionate awareness we learn to move through life with greater calmness and clarity; seeing clearly what is before us and creating space to respond to life wisely rather than react to it automatically.
A huge body of evidence supports that mindfulness helps to lower stress and improves mental and physical well-being.
Some of the many benefits include:
feeling more in control rather than being driven by our thoughts
experiencing less stress, anxiety and depression
feeling a greater sense of calm, clarity and focus
becoming more self-aware (of our thoughts, feelings, habits and patterns etc)
being more able to choose how to respond, rather than react automatically to life experiences.
becoming more appreciative and grateful of things in life that we may have previously overlooked or taken for granted.
feeling more calm and resilient within life's challenges
feeling more open and connected to, and less critical of, ourselves and others.
Mindfulness & Compassion courses
As with any new skill, mindfulness and compassion requires practice. Many people find it is best learnt over a period of time and in a supported environment; enabling them to absorb the theory but, most importantly, gain experience of putting it into practice.
In addition to working with clients on a one-to-one basis, creating a learning package to suits your specific needs, I also hold regular 4 and 8-week courses.
8-week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course
This course take place over 8, two-hour sessions. It provides: a comprehensive overview of what mindfulness is; an understanding and exploration of our stress response and our own habitual patterns that can contribute to our stress; a range of mindfulness & compassion practices that you can access to practice at home in between sessions; detailed supporting handouts and resources.
“I would strongly recommend Mindfulness to all people. I really enjoyed Anna's dedication to the course and to the participants, and the care she put in providing the maximum support to all of us. It has been a great experience.”
MBSR Course Participant
4-week Cultivating Self-compassion course
This course provides a more detailed exploration of self-compassion. Whilst many of us consider ourselves compassionate towards others, our tendency is often to be harsh and critical with ourselves. This course enables us to understand why this is and how detrimental it can be to our sense of worth and well-being.
We explore a range of tools to weave self-care and self-compassion into our everyday life to feel more resourced and resilient through challenging times.
“Like being wrapped in a warm blanket of acceptance and discovering that over the course you’d learnt how to take that blanket out into life with you.”
Cultivating Self-compassion Course Participant
