“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” (14. Dalai Lama)
In crisis or moments of stress and exhaustion a compassioned attitude towards oneself helps us to go through such difficult times.
In everyday life, we often tend to self-criticism and even more so in difficult times. But especially in those times it is important to meet ourselves with kindness and compassion.
Prof. Dr. med. Luise Reddemann (one of the leading trauma experts in German speaking areas) means the following: “the essential thing is compassion with ourselves. It is the beginning of everything. Unfortunately, we have no tradition to cultivate such attitude. In our performance orientated world, we learn so much but not how to be kind to ourselves when we are down.”
Mindful selfcompassion (MSC) is an 8-week mindful based compassion training developed by Dr. Kristin Neff (University of Texas) und Dr. Christopher Germer (Harvard Medical School, Gründer des Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy).
MSC conveys to the participants essential basics and exercises in order to meet difficult moments in our lives with loving kindness, self-care and compassion and to support and motivate ourselves in a constructive way. Just as we would deal with a good friend or a loved one who experiences a difficult situation in their lives.
MSC combines the benefits of mindfulness and compassion to support our ability of emotional wellbeing. Mindfulness is the first step to turn to difficult experiences, thoughts, emotions and feelings. Selfcompassion is the second step to turn to ourselves kindly and motivate us in a friendly way. Together mindfulness and selfcompassion are a state of warm connected presence which enables us to deal with difficult moments in our lives an improves our quality of life.
