Transform your ability to navigate challenges, drawing from evidence-based approaches and wisdom traditions.
Self-Compassion
The art and science of treating ourselves like a good friend.
Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is an empirically-supported training program designed to cultivate the skill of self-compassion for personal growth. Based on the groundbreaking research of Kristin Neff and the clinical expertise of Christopher Germer, MSC teaches core principles and practices that enable participants to respond to difficult moments in their lives with kindness, care and understanding.
Rather than adding to our to-do list, the practice of self-compassion incorporates tools and perspectives to employ on-the-spot anytime, anywhere.
Areas of focus include:
- On-the-spot practices to manage stress
- Perspective-taking to reduce feelings of isolation during stress
- Developing a friendlier inner dialogue
- Soothing and comforting the mind, body, and heart
- Motivating yourself with kindness and encouragement
- Meeting difficult emotions with more ease
- Caring for others without losing yourself
- Managing caregiving fatigue
- Savoring, gratitude, and self-appreciation
- A range of formal and informal practices, designed to increase the skill of self-compassion
Benefits of Practicing Self-Compassion
Research has demonstrated that self-compassion is strongly associated with emotional strength and wellbeing, resilience in coping with life challenges, lower levels of anxiety and depression, motivation with less fear of failure, and healthy life habits.
More information about MSC:
- Dr. Kristin Neff: self-compassion.org
- Dr. Chris Germer: chrisgermer.com
- Center for Mindful Self-Compassion: centerformsc.org
Mindfulness
Bring kind, curious awareness to your experience in the present moment.
One definition of mindfulness is: “Paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn
This capacity to be aware is naturally occurring within each of us, and can be strengthened with intention and practice.
Areas of focus include:
- Bringing non-judgmental awareness to your experience
- Noticing the contents of your thoughts
- Noticing and shifting patterns of reactivity
- Identifying and working with sensations in the body
- Emotional regulation: Labeling emotions and locating them in the body
- Grounding skills for greater presence and stability
- A range of practices to cultivate this open awareness: meditations, body scans, loving-kindness meditation, mindful movement, savoring and appreciation, and gratitude.
Benefits include:
- Reduced stress, rumination, reactivity
- Increased focus, cognitive flexibility, relationship satisfaction
More information on mindfulness:
- Mindful.org
- Nalanda Institute Guided meditations
- UCLA Health Guided meditations
Designing Your Life
Explore new perspectives and creative solutions when feeling stuck.
Designing Your Life (DYL), also called Life Design, is based on the work of Stanford Professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The Life Design framework applies the design-thinking process to our own lives – meeting challenges and uncertainty with more flexibility and creativity, and practical strategies for flourishing.
Areas of focus include:
- Exploring the social and personal narratives that have shaped you
- Identifying and reframing dysfunctional beliefs
- Using design tools for balance and energy and improvements
- Framing and reframing problems or areas where you’ve been stuck
- Brainstorming for new solutions.
- Design three possible future paths – Odyssey Plans – for your life
- Learning how to prototype (or do small experiments to learn more) the parts of these lives that are most compelling you
- Hone your decision-making process, tuning into the wisdom of multiple ways of knowing.
- Plan prototype conversations to enlist the support you need
- Use design tools to action plan for real change, momentum, and accountability
More information about DYL:
Yoga
A contemplative practice for healing, integration, connection and kindness.
Yoga = to unite. Yoga is often associated with poses, but the full science and philosophy of yoga includes many other elements for greater presence and clarity: breathing, meditation, ethical precepts such as non-harming, to name a few.
Practicing yoga offers an opportunity to listen deeply to our minds, bodies and hearts, to cultivate present moment awareness, and to play with embodying mindfulness and self-compassion.
Areas of focus include:
- Breathing practices
- Meditation
- Physical postures – helpful to build balance, strength and flexibility
- Ethical recommendations — such as non-harming, truthfulness, contentment
Benefits of yoga:
- Increased balance, strength, flexibility
- Greater mental balance and clarity, and emotional resilience
- Method to manage stress
- Increasingly employed as a healing modality for trauma survivors
We don’t use the body to get into a pose.
– Bernie Clark
We use the pose to get into the body.
Integrative Health
Holistic well-being
While we typically think of health and well-being as relating to the physical body, it actually encompasses 8 areas:
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Spiritual
- Occupational
- Social
- Financial
- Environmental
Integrative Health coaching is a process to help you:
- Clarify your values, priorities and goals
- Improve your health and life satisfaction
- Shift beliefs and behaviors in service of greater balance and flourishing
- Find greater alignment with your priorities in daily life
Areas of focus can include:
Physical well-being:
- How is your physical health – including your satisfaction with your movement or exercise, nutrition, and sleep and rest?
- What routines, habits and rituals help to support you in feeling your best?
Intellectual well-being:
- How satisfied are you with your current level of intellectual engagement and creative endeavors?
- What opportunities do you currently have – or would like to have – to expand your thinking, engage with new perspectives, or learn new skills?
Emotional well-being:
- How satisfied are you with your ability to manage stress?
- What practices do you engage in to deepen self-awareness and self-compassion, or to connect with optimism, meaning, flourishing, and joy?
- What new things might you like to learn about or try to strategically manage stress?
Occupational well-being:
- How satisfied are you with your work roles – those that are paid, and unpaid?
- How do you define meaningful and sustainable work?
- What goals do you have for professional growth, to embark on new projects or roles, or to connect with purpose and fulfillment?
Social well-being:
- How are you feeling about your connections with others?
- How do you experience your community?
- In what ways are you giving and receiving care and support from others?
- Are there any ways in which you’d like to enhance you sense of connection with others?
Spiritual well-being:
- How satisfied are you with the ways you connect with the values, beliefs, and rituals that matter most to you?
- How do you explore life’s big questions and/or connect with awe or wonder?
With these questions in mind, where would you like to focus make a change to enhance your well-being and life satisfaction?
Resources to learn more about wellness and well-being:
- National Board of Health and Wellness Coaches Code of Ethics
- Article: Dimensions of wellness: Change your habits, change your life, Debbie L. Stoewen
These frameworks are intended for personal growth and development, and are not to be used in place of mental health support, counseling, or therapy.
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