MINDFULNESS

& SELF COMPASSION

Mindfulness & Self Compassion therapy is practiced in Kitchener-Waterloo, Milton, Oakville, London and the surrounding areas. Anchoridge Counselling takes pride in the therapy practice offered to help clients with individual needs.

Mindfulness and self compassion is used to help you improve your self esteem, self-worth, build resilience and improve your relationship with yourself. Mindfulness techniques can also be used to calm anxiety, support sleep and improve overall wellbeing.

Many people find it easy to show compassion for others, but much harder to show compassion for ourselves. Being hard on yourself, including negative self talk or self shame or blame, can have a significant negative impact on mental wellness and self-esteem.

Self-compassion means being able to comfort and soothe yourself, and motivate yourself with self-encouragement, much like you would a friend or family member that is having a hard time.

Mindfulness requires paying attention to an experience or emotion, without judgement, just a gentle noticing and with curiosity, wondering where it may have come from.

Mindfulness and self compassion means combining the skills of mindfulness (being present and self aware) with the emotional practice of self-compassion, in order to improve self awareness, self esteem, resiliency and mental wellness.

These practices allows us to increase our sense of self-awareness, creating a greater connection with our bodies and emotions, which allows for insights into habits and patterns and how to break old habits and behaviours and replace them with new, more helpful ones. This can even include promoting healthy choices.

Mindfulness and self compassion practices have been proven to help reduce anxiety and manage depression and also helps to improve interpersonal relationships.

What happens in a counselling sessions focused on mindfulness and self compassion?

A therapist may use practices such as the S.A.F.E technique, for cultivating self-compassion, first introduced by Goldstein (2015) which includes:

Soften: Ease into the emotion. Take a deep breath and recognize its presence. What emotion are you feeling? Where is its strongest presence within your body?

Allow: Give the emotion permission to exist as it is. Inhale and exhale, acknowledging the emotion without resistance or attachment. Simply allow it to be present.

Feel: Attend to the emotion with kindness and discover your needs. Investigate the feeling. How does it shape your self-image? What is this emotion telling you at this moment?

Expand: Extend your consciousness to include all individuals who experience such emotions. Every human being makes mistakes and experiences suffering. Your experience is not unique to you. Deeply take in this notion and embrace it.

source: positivepsychology.com