Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is a secular (non-religious), research-based training programme designed to help participants cultivate the life-changing skill of self-compassion. Please note it is not a therapy group, but a skills-based training group.
Over the sessions, you will begin to experience:
- More self-confidence, the ability to overcome the harsh inner critic and strategies to cope with stress, anxiety, and prevention of depression)
- More satisfying relationships with yourself and others
- Resources that will help you to meet your full potential
- Better resilience in the face of life’s difficulties
- The courage to face your own blind spots, creating space for self-development
- An increased sense of connection to others
- A better sense of living more in alignment of what is important to you in life
- More natural engagement in healthier behaviours e.g. exercise and drinking less
- Being less afraid of failure – helping you to live life more fully
- And much more…
The MSC course is a series of workshops aiming to help you directly experience self-compassion and learn practices that evoke self-compassion in daily life.
Course content
MSC is based on the research of Kristin Neff (University of Texas) and the clinical expertise of Christopher Germer (University of Harvard). MSC is a training programme designed to cultivate the skill of self-compassion. The sessions cover the core principles and practices that will help you to let go of the inner critic and enable you to approach difficult moments in your life with compassion, patience and understanding.
What to expect
Each 2 and a half hour session will include easy and short meditations (suitable for all levels), short talks, exercises, some group discussion (participants are not obligated to speak if they do not wish to) and some manageable home practices.
MSC includes seven weekly sessions of two hours each. Aim to attend every session and ensure you practice mindfulness and self-compassion daily as you go through the course (audios and handouts will be provided).
More information
MSC combines the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion to enhance our capacity for emotional wellbeing. Mindfulness is the first step—turning with loving awareness toward difficult experience (thoughts, emotions, and sensations). Self-compassion comes next—bringing loving awareness to ourselves. Together, mindfulness and self-compassion comprise a state of warm, connected, presence during difficult moments in our lives.
It is said that “love reveals everything unlike itself”. While some difficult emotions may arise when practicing self-compassion, MSC teachers are committed to providing a safe, supportive environment for this process to unfold, and to making the journey interesting and enjoyable for everyone.
In a randomized, controlled study, MSC significantly increased self-compassion, compassion for others, mindfulness, and life satisfaction, as well as decreased depression, anxiety, and stress. Improvements were linked to how much a person practiced in their daily lives.
MSC is therapeutic but it’s not therapy. The emphasis of the program is on enhancing emotional resources to meet emotional challenges, old and new. MSC is also not primarily a type of mindfulness training; MSC is mindfulness-based compassion training in which the quality of warmth is emphasized more than awareness itself.
