Self-Compassion

Contributors: Olivia Hansen, Jared Warren

Introductory Exercise

Grab a piece of paper or open a note on your phone. Now ask yourself: how do I/would I typically treat a friend who is hurting? Jot down specific phrases you would say, facial expressions you would make, adjectives describing your reaction, or things you might do for them. Perhaps even recall a recent time that this happened and how you reacted. Try to be detailed in your notes. Spend at least a couple minutes on this.

Now ask yourself: how do I treat myself when I am hurting? Make similar notes, including phrases you would use, facial expressions, adjectives, or actions. Be genuine about it. Compare these answers to your previous ones. 

If you see a discrepancy between the way you answered the first question and the way you answered the second, you are not alone; 78% of people (the vast majority) report being more compassionate to others than they are to themselves.  If this seems true for you, cultivating a little more self-compassion might make a big difference in rising to the challenges in your life. You are absolutely just as deserving of the love, acceptance, and kindness that you would naturally extend to a friend in need, in spite of what your “inner critic” might say at times. This module is about noticing when that inner critic is getting out of hand, and increasing our capacity to meet challenges and achieve our goals by learning to extend the same kindness and understanding toward ourselves that we would offer to others.

What is Self-Compassion?

As an introduction, listen to Dr. Kristin Neff, pioneering researcher on this topic, describe what self-compassion is and how it works (starting at 12:25):

To best understand self-compassion, it will be helpful to step back and introduce a couple other concepts from eastern mindfulness traditions, namely lovingkindness and dukkha. Lovingkindness is a translation of the Pali word metta. (Pali was the language in which the Buddha’s writings were recorded.) Metta (lovingkindness) is love, benevolence, goodwill and ultimately “universal, unselfish, all-embracing love.” Lovingkindness is the wish that all beings be happy.

Dukkha is a core idea in Buddhist philosophy. Roughly translated, it means unpleasantness or unsatisfactoriness and refers broadly to the suffering that is inherent in life. As derived from Buddhist psychology, compassion is the desire to ease suffering or dukkha in something or someone; it involves not fearing, resisting, or keeping distance from suffering. It is the willingness to “suffer with” (see the Compassion module for more on this!). Suffering is a prerequisite for compassion (but not for lovingkindness). Compassion is the wish that all beings be free from suffering. When lovingkindness bumps into suffering and stays loving, it becomes compassion.

Self-compassion, therefore, means wanting ourselves to be free from suffering. It means being kind to ourselves and wishing the best for ourselves. It involves turning toward our emotional pain and responding with kindness and understanding. It means bearing witness to our pain. With self-compassion, we give ourselves the loving kindness we might more instinctively give to a good friend.

Wanting ourselves to be free from suffering is one of the most natural things in the world; we strive for it consistently. Think about when you get a bad burn or cut. What is the first thing you do? Probably apply pressure, run it under cold water, or cover it with a Band-Aid. We try to lessen the pain because we don’t like pain! We want to be free from suffering! However, when it comes to emotional pain, often we don’t go about freeing ourselves from it in the most effective ways. We have the tendency to resist painful experiences and emotions, trying to be free from them. The fight or flight response has proved an effective evolutionary tool for coping with physical dangers, but the problem comes when this instinctive reaction is applied to emotional danger. We try to fight it or flee from it instead of constructively facing it. Fight, flight, and freeze (three natural responses) when applied to mental/emotional stress take the forms of self-criticism, self-isolation, and self-absorption, respectively. Unfortunately, these responses tend to increase emotional pain rather than heal it.

Ways to Think About Self-Compassion

At its most basic level, self-compassion is about not harming ourselves. Ideally, we want to alleviate our own suffering, but the first step for many might be to stop making it worse! The majority of the ways we harm ourselves are not conscious and overt but are unconscious or ingrained mental habits, like constant comparison or self-criticism. Self-compassion asks “is this hurting or harming me in any way?” and if the answer is yes, let’s it go.

Imagine you are running on a trail in the woods. The terrain is a little rough. You trip over an exposed tree root, fall clumsily to the ground, and scrape up your knee. You see the wound starting to bleed. In addition to the physical pain of the injury, you feel frustrated and embarrassed for having stumbled. At this moment, would it make sense to grab a handful of dirt and rocks and rub it forcefully into the wound? Of course not. Yet this is often what we do with self-criticism in response to stumbling over emotional challenges.       

Consequently, a way to think of self-compassion is simply giving yourself what you need in this moment. Self-compassion is all about being there for ourselves, and it is compassionate to give others or ourselves what we’re in need of. Not necessarily what we want, but what we need to bring peace or joy or comfort. What do you do already to take care of yourself?

To illustrate, here is Olivia’s list of some typical acts of self-care: “Turning to my husband, eating when I’m hungry, cooking, talking with people I love, acts of spiritual devotion, stopping when I’m maxed, planning fun things, and reminiscing on happy things from the past.” These very things are self-compassion! They are what she needs in the moment. Our deepest need is to love and to be loved. We may not always be able to guarantee that that will be immediately available from the people around us, so is there a way we can learn to give it to ourselves when needed? That doesn’t mean disregarding or not needing the love of others, it just means being able to be friends with yourself, instead of being your own rival. We could all use one more good friend!

One of the most common and effective ways that researchers and clinicians explain self-compassion is treating yourself like you would treat a good friend. Think back to the introductory activity. If you didn’t complete it, you could try it out now. We typically feel some natural compassion toward really close or dear friends, people we care about. We want what is genuinely best for them; we want their short-term and long-term happiness and it makes us sad when they suffer. We usually don’t beat them up for experiencing hardship; rather, their suffering makes our hearts engage and want to comfort and give aid. What if we could learn to react that way to our own suffering? You are just as deserving of a compassionate response as any of those dear ones you care about!

An Important Note: Cultural Resistance to Self-Compassion

Our western culture isn’t very good at self-compassion. We live in a comparison-based, self-critical, never-enough society where many believe that value lies in pushing ourselves too hard, being overly busy, or having the longest to-do list. Sociocultural pressure has contributed to the recent increase in eating disorders, depression, and other mental health concerns. There is a cultural resistance to self-care and self-acceptance - and it isn’t contributing to our well-being or even our improvement! Radical acceptance often makes us feel like we’re violating some sort of moral code--that acceptance and progress can’t coexist, when really progress is most likely to occur when acceptance is present! From a cultural perspective, self-compassion is needed now more than ever. Self-compassion may be a potential antidote to the mental pressure many feel, which manifests itself in stress, depression, anxiety, and perfectionism. See if you notice any personal resistance you may have to the idea or practice of self-compassion, and see if you can find the roots of this reaction in our individualistic, competitive present-day culture. [And, if so, let it go!]

The Building Blocks of Self-Compassion

Dr. Kristin Neff (University of Texas at Austin) is one of the leading researchers studying self-compassion. As conceptualized by Dr. Neff, self-compassion is comprised of three core components: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Examining these components in detail will help clarify what self-compassion is and which specific skills should be practiced for cultivating it.

Self-kindness is pretty straightforward: it means being kind to yourself, and opting out of meanness or judgment. It means being loving, caring for ourselves in effective ways, being tolerant of our imperfections, not beating ourselves up, and being understanding. The opposite of self-kindness is self-judgment: being too hard on ourselves, being impatient, being intolerant, and not being able to accept parts of ourselves we don’t like. It can also involve being closed off or cold-hearted to ourselves when we struggle, telling ourselves to ‘tough it out’ or other things that are hurtful or ineffective in the long run.

Common humanity is the idea that when we’re suffering, we remember that others have experienced similar things and that suffering is part of the human experience. Struggles are something everyone goes through, and we can’t be superhuman and avoid them. At any given moment, no matter what you’re feeling, there are thousands of people in the world feeling like you are. The concept of common humanity emphasizes our interconnectedness as human beings. The opposite of common humanity is isolation: feeling cut off from others because of our suffering. While it’s a common and often subconscious reaction, struggle doesn’t have to make us feel isolated; if we recognize the shared nature of human experience (that countless others have felt as we feel now, even if the specific circumstances are different), it can actually make us feel more connected to others. We really are all in this human experience together. In contrast, we experience isolation when we assume that other people are probably happier and better off than we are, or that they can’t relate to how we’re feeling.

Mindfulness is the third, and perhaps foundational, component of self-compassion. We have a whole module on mindfulness (a very deep and rich topic in its own right), but if you haven’t worked through that one yet, we will give you a little taste here. Mindfulness is generally defined as “present moment awareness with acceptance.” It is intentionally and non-judgmentally attending to this moment - an honest, balanced awareness of what’s going on with our thoughts, feelings, sensory experiences, and our interactions with other people and the environment around us. Meditation teacher Guy Armstrong says that mindfulness is “knowing what you’re experiencing while you’re experiencing it.” In other words, you’re not lost in the interpretations of your perceptions, just noticing your perceptions as they are (or as close as you can get). Simply stated, then, mindfulness is about awareness. In the context of self-compassion, mindfulness is critically important because it allows us to notice and accurately identify what we’re feeling, and provides a non-reactive, accepting approach to difficult emotions. 

In this context, the opposite of mindfulness is over-identification: identifying too closely with our negativity or suffering. It involves getting too caught up in what is happening (or our judgments/interpretations of events) at the expense of mindful awareness. Over-identification can be with a feeling, an idea, or a story of how we think something is or should be. It is getting lost in emotion, resulting in a narrowing of our perception which in turn prevents us from seeing the best options for moving forward.

An understanding of the concepts of self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness informs the specific strategies we can practice for cultivating self-compassion. You’ll see these components emphasized in the activities section later on, but you can also come up with effective personalized strategies on your own that target the specific components that you need the most help with or that resonate most with you.

Resistance and Acceptance

It makes sense that we resist difficult emotions and experiences. There are certain things we don’t want to feel! However, the mistake that almost everyone makes is thinking that resisting is the best way to get rid of the pain. Part of the reason for this is that resistance (including in the forms of avoidance and denial) often feels successful in the short term. The truth is that resisting pain and negative emotion typically makes things worse in the long run, not better. In trying to rid ourselves of it, we create more. What we resist, persists. Psychologists and researchers who study emotion (like well-known author Brené Brown) explain that we cannot selectively numb emotions. We cannot choose which ones we want to feel and which ones we’d rather dismiss. In trying to numb negative emotions, we numb positive ones, too, and end up feeling them less. The most common way that self-compassion researchers conceptualize the role of resistance is that Pain x Resistance = Suffering. The idea is that pain is unavoidable; it is part of the nature of life. However, suffering is optional. This is great news, because most of the ‘pain’ in our lives is actually suffering, which we’ve invited in by not coping with our pain in the most effective ways. Christopher Germer (another leading researcher in self-compassion) says that “when you resist something, it goes to the basement and lifts weights!” Once we realize that resistance isn’t helping, but really hurting us, we can begin to cultivate acceptance.

Poem: The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.

meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

          — Jellaludin Rumi

At the heart of self-compassion is acceptance. Acceptance is the opposite of resistance. It is allowing pain instead of hating it or pushing it away. Our favorite quip that goes along with acceptance says what we feel, we can heal. Acceptance (like mindfulness) has everything to do with the present moment, and change naturally follows acceptance. When we have fear/anxiety/pain and we don’t have the ultimate goal of reducing it (in other words, when we are willing to accept it), this leads to the most effective and long-term reduction of the pain! Saying, “I am practicing acceptance in order to reduce anxiety” is not true acceptance! Many practitioners outlines stages of acceptance that many people pass through, although the stages are gradual and don’t necessarily always happen in this order, and all may not happen for every person:

1. Resisting/aversion: instinctive resistance, trying to figure out how to remove the feeling, rumination
2. Exploring/curiosity: turning toward discomfort with interest and getting to know it
3. Tolerating: enduring, but still wishing it would go away
4. Allowing: letting tough feelings come and go
5. Befriending: seeing the value in all experience, letting the emotion be at home in you; if there is trauma involved, you may never get to this stage, and that requires acceptance, too

In your efforts to practice self-compassion, see if you can notice when you are resisting certain emotions, and experiment with ways to make room for them and even befriend them if possible (learn more about this in the Mindfulness module, Mindfulness of Emotions section).

What Self-Compassion is Not

• Self-pity – Self-compassion is not self-pity because it doesn’t exaggerate suffering (mindfulness helps us recognize suffering for what it is). Pity keeps its distance from suffering - feeling bad for the person, rather than feeling empathy (feeling with them) or compassion (wanting to make things better).
• Self-indulgent – Self-compassion cares for our long-term health and overall well-being, not short-term pleasure. Even though self-compassion feels wonderful, it is not indulgent because it is a healthy and productive option in the long run.
• Narcissistic – Narcissism lacks both mindfulness (namely an accurate, balanced awareness of one’s place in the world) and an appreciation for our common humanity. Self-compassion doesn’t close us off from others by becoming more self-centered; it makes us feel closer to the rest of life and is the foundation of kindness toward others.
• Selfish – It is not selfish to care for ourselves and cope with our suffering. Demeaning our suffering by comparing it to others’ greater suffering can be a form of avoidance or a cause of shame; it is not selfless. Additionally, when we become proficient at self-compassion, it only takes a few moments to help ourselves, leaving us with the time, energy, and skills to care for others.
• Lazy/passive – The most common reason people give for being self-critical or self-judgmental is that they need it for motivation (ex: “If I weren’t self-critical, I wouldn’t achieve as much”). However, recent neuropsychology research has shown that self-criticism taps into our threat defense system (there is a threat to our mental/emotional self and our body gears up to defend us…from ourselves). This includes the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, the presence of which undermines our long-term motivation. But when we practice self-compassion, feeling safe and comforted releases oxytocin and opiates (feel good hormones) that provide the ideal state for motivation!
• Self-esteem – Self-esteem is all about a positive self-evaluation, while self-compassion isn’t contingent on what you think of yourself or anyone else! If you didn’t watch the Kristin Neff video at the beginning of the module, it explains well the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion.
• Part of a religion – While self-compassion has roots in Buddhist thought traditions, you don’t have to adopt any new deities or beliefs or even have a faith tradition in order to practice self-compassion.

The Benefits of Self-Compassion

Considerable research emphasizes the psychological benefits of self-compassion. According to Yamaguchi, Kim, and Akutsu (2014), people who are compassionate to themselves tend to be more psychologically healthy than those who are not compassionate to themselves. Self-compassion is negatively correlated with self-criticism (Yamaguchi, Kim, & Akutsu, 2014), rumination (Krieger, Altenstein, Baettig, Doerig, & Holtforth, 2013; Raes, 2010), worry (Raes, 2010), shame (Johnson & O’Brien, 2013), and irrational beliefs (Podina, Jucan, & David,  2015). The inverse link between self-compassion and depression is firmly established in the psychological literature (Podina, Jucan, & David, 2015; Raes, 2010). A meta-analysis by MacBeth and Gumley (2012) found that across 20 different studies, there was a large effect size when looking at the correlation between low self-compassion and higher rates of psychopathology.

Numerous other potential benefits of self-compassion have been explored. For example, the presence or absence of self-compassion may be able to predict PTSD symptom severity in trauma-exposed war veterans (Hiraoka et al., 2015). Self-compassionate people are described by their partners as more emotionally connected and accepting, while being less detached, controlling, and verbally or physically aggressive (Neff & Beretvas, 2012). Self-compassion has been shown to support health behaviors including sticking to your diet (Adams & Leary, 2007), decreasing smoking (Kelly, Zuroff, Foa, & Gilbert, 2009), seeking medical treatment when needed (Terry & Leary, 2011) and exercising (Magnus, Kowalski, & McHugh, 2010). Self-compassion has been found to be a key factor in helping people adjust after divorce (Sbarra, Smith, & Mehl, 2012). Costa and Pinto-Gouveia (2011) found that self-compassion helped people cope with chronic physical pain.

The following research studies demonstrating the benefits of self-compassion warrant emphasis:

Johnson and O’Brien (2013) took a group of students who were prone to shame and asked them to remember an experience of shame. Then they were assigned to one of three groups: write about the experience self-compassionately, write about their feelings about the event, or do neither. They did this three times over the span of a week. The participants in the self-compassion group reported feeling less shame and negative emotion immediately after writing. Two weeks after completing the experiment, people in the self-compassion group showed less shame-proneness and depressive symptoms, while those in the other groups did not. 

Albertson, Neff, and Dill-Shackleford (2014) randomly assigned a group of multigenerational women to a meditation group or a waitlist group (the control). The meditation group completed a 3-week self-compassion meditation training, after which, compared to the control group, they had significantly lower levels of body dissatisfaction, body shame, and contingent self-worth based on appearance and significantly higher levels of self-compassion and body appreciation. All of these improvements still held true 3 months later!

 Hiraoka, Meyer, Kimbrel, DeBeer, Gulliver, and Morissette (2015) found self-compassion to be correlated with reduced PTSD symptoms even after accounting for differences in combat exposure in a group of US Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans. Self-compassion also predicted PTSD symptom severity a year later even after accounting for combat exposure and baseline PTSD severity.

Self-Compassion Strategies Menu

1. Compassion from Others - Either as a thought (meditation) exercise or a written exercise, ponder on the compassion that others have for you, including parents, mentors, friends, or deity figures. You can pick one specific person, a group of people, or more than one individual. How do they feel about you? How do they act toward you?  Most importantly, how do they treat you when you are struggling or hurting? What would they say or do in that instance? Now try to see yourself through their compassionate eyes. Say the things to yourself that they would say to you. Imagine how it would feel if you always reacted this way to yourself when you are hurting.

2. Natural Compassion - Almost everyone seems to have something or someone toward whom they experience natural compassion. This can be a helpful vehicle in bringing compassion to ourselves. Is there someone or something you feel compassion toward, who you want the best for? Someone whose suffering you want to ease? It could be your child (or any child), a close friend, your spouse, or even an animal or pet - anything you care deeply for. How do you feel about them? Most importantly, how do you treat them when they are sad or hurting? What would you say to them or do for them? Now replace that person with yourself. Do you feel any resistance to doing or saying those same things to yourself? If so, notice the resistance, and then try to let it go. Try to treat yourself the way you would treat this person.

3. Labeling your Emotions - Learning to label your emotions is a great first step to working with difficult feelings. Labeling specific emotions helps us see them as just emotions - not as reality or as something too all-encompassing to handle. Labeling can put enough distance between you and the feeling to no longer be drowning in it. Labeling is simply a way to learn to resist difficult emotions less. Neuroscience research shows that finding words for what you’re feeling deactivates the part of the brain that produces a stress response. You want to choose words that describe the root or core feeling (for example, your anger might be driven by disappointment or embarrassment) and that capture the feeling as accurately as you can. Once you’ve named the emotion, say its name 2-3 times. Remember that, like all emotions, it is just an emotion, and that emotions are never permanent; they are ever-changing.

4. Finding Emotions in your Body - Just as helpful as learning to label emotions is learning to find them in your body. Emotions always express themselves in the body, and often the physical component is easier to tackle than the mental component. When you feel a strong emotion (or any emotion), try to locate the sensation in your body. For negative emotions, it may be in the form of tension, pain, stomachache, dizziness, or clenched muscles in the face, hands, or elsewhere. Observe the physical feeling. Breathe into that space, and see if you can allow that area to soften a little with each exhalation. If you can soften into the physical feeling, it can begin to bring mental relief. (You can also practice finding positive emotions in your body!)

5. Soften, Soothe, Allow - Once you can find emotions in your body, you’re ready for soften-soothe-allow. Below is the guided meditation version of this exercise. It involves taking the emotion you’re feeling in your body and softening it (at the physical level), soothing it (at the emotional level), and allowing it (at the mental level). This is about being your own loving companion and wanting to alleviate your own suffering. You can even repeat the three words (soften, soothe, allow) to yourself as you’re mindfully observing the emotion in your body. [Kristen Neff: Soften, Soothe, Allow Exercise]

6. Self-Compassion Phrases - Metta meditation (from which self-compassion originates) focuses on using words to cultivate lovingkindness. Specifically, it uses short metta phrases to increase good will first for ourselves and then for others. For example: "May I be happy, may I be at peace, may I live with ease, may I be free from suffering" (and then those phrases are extrapolated to others). Using these phrases or writing others that resonate with us can be helpful for cultivating self-compassion. Our phrases can be tailored to our needs and circumstances (ex: "May I accept myself just as I am") but shouldn’t be too specific (ex: "May I get into the college I want"). Once you’ve written your phrases, try to use the same ones every day. Meditate on them formally or say them to yourself throughout the day or in difficult moments. What matters most is the attitude behind the phrases. Through these phrases, you are not trying to generate a specific outcome or circumstance; you are just trying to cultivate a kind and loving attitude. The point of the practice is to feel the warmth of loving intention and good will toward yourself.

7. Formal Metta Meditation - The school of meditation from which self-compassion is drawn is called lovingkindness or metta meditation, and teaches lovingkindness and compassion for yourself as well as others. If you are interested in pursuing this more rigorously or formally, search for practitioners or teachers in your area. See the Resources section below for links to several online guided metta meditations.

8. The Self-Compassion Break - This is a short guided meditation that can be done in a moment of difficulty or struggle, or simply throughout the day to stay grounded and compassionate. It brings you all the benefits of self-compassion in only 5 minutes and is easy to learn how to do without guidance. The core phrases of this practice are: This is a moment of suffering (Mindfulness). Suffering is part of life (Common humanity). May I be kind to myself in this moment (Self-kindness). May I give myself the compassion I need (Self-compassion).   http://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/self-compassion.break_.mp3

9. Self-Compassion in All Areas of Life - Take some time to write about ways that you can be self-compassionate in different areas of your life, including physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. Go slowly through each of these and ask yourself: how can I increase self-kindness and self-care in this area? How can I reduce any suffering in this area? This exercise can really expand your view of the ways that self-compassion can be brought into your life.

10. Twenty minute self-compassion meditation by Kristin Neff: http://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/LKM.self-compassion_cleaned.mp3

11. Self-Compassion Journal: http://self-compassion.org/exercise-6-self-compassion-journal/

12. Practice self-compassion, however that looks for you! What can you do today to be kind to yourself?

Your Personal Experiment

• Starting today, and for each of the next 21 days, spend at least 15-20 minutes learning about and cultivating your capacity for self-compassion.
• For the first 7-10 days, immerse yourself in the resources and links provided in this module, and experiment with as many of the different strategies as you can.
• For the remaining days, focus on the strategies and practices that resonate most with you.
• Continue to research the topic in greater depth as time allows, but be sure to practice some type of experiential self-compassion exercise each day.
• Record a few notes about what you did each day in your journal or MBS Dashboard.
• At the end of the 21 days go back and re-take the Self-Compassion Questionnaire to see how you're doing!
• Finally, moving forward, make a plan for how you will continue to cultivate and practice self-compassion in your life.  

Resources for Further Study

• Excellent website by Kristin Neff: www.self-compassion.org

• MSC: Mindful Self-Compassion is an 8 week program designed by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer to help individuals cultivate self-compassion. A randomized, controlled trial demonstrated that the MSC program significantly increased self-compassion, compassion for others, mindfulness, and life satisfaction, as well as decreased depression, anxiety and stress (citation). The trainings come in 8 week or 5 day intensive programs, and are taught by certified teachers around the globe. They also offer MSC core skills workshops that last 2 days (a weekend). Once you have completed the 8 week or 5 day intensive program as well as several other requirements, you can qualify to complete an MSC teacher training (6 day intensive program) and become a teacher of MSC yourself! If you are interested in learning more about MSC or finding a program near you, please visit http://centerformsc.org.

• [Kristin Neff and Brene Brown also now have an online self-compassion workshop together]

• Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D.

• The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions by Christopher Germer, Ph.D.

• Self-Compassion Step by Step (audio training by Dr. Neff) 

• Mobile Apps (more broadly for mindfulness of emotions):
  • Calm 
  • Moodnotes
  • Stop, Breathe, & Think
  • Insight Timer (search guided meditations for "self-compassion")

• Guided Metta Meditations:
  • http://www.mindfulness-solution.com/Mindfulness%20Solution%20Meditations%20-%20MP3%20Files/Loving-Kindness%20Meditation.mp3
  • https://youtu.be/auS1HtAz6Bs
  • http://www.contemplativemind.org/audio/DW_Loving_Kindness_Meditation.mp3
  • http://www.contemplativemind.org/audio/MB_Loving-Kindness_Meditation.mp3

Feedback

Was this module on Self-Compassion helpful for you? Do you have suggestions for making it better? Do you have other resources or personal examples you'd like to share? Please share your comments and suggestions through this anonymous survey link. Thanks for your feedback! 

[References]