by Bryony Shaw | December, 2022 | Bryony Shaw, compassion, Uncategorized
Having self-compassion is the ability to recognise our own suffering and take action to comfort and care for ourselves. Traditionally, some may think that this is the road to complacency, but research from Kristen Neff (2011) shows us that it is the road to responsibility and action. She proposes that there are three components to self-compassion, which work to soothe us and place us in a more adaptive state to deal with stressors that may arise. The three components Kristen Neff has identified are self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. In my recent work with a sports team, I taught them how to use self-compassion to develop deeper connection as a team, as well as developing personal resources to deal with stresses such as competition anxiety or fear of failure. Self-Kindness Encouraging the athletes to be kind to themselves and not harshly judge themselves, helps to reduce fear and anxiety. Encouraging them to treat themselves as they would treat a friend is a valuable tool because we are often harder on ourselves than we are on others. Common Humanity Helping the athletes to accept that it is normal to experience fear, and that failure is a crucial part of becoming a successful team because you can learn from it. This helps to dampen the stress response and allows the athlete to fully focus on their game. Mindfulness Guiding the athletes to acknowledge and turn towards their painful emotions such as fear, anxiety or shame which can arise when reliving a missed shot or poor pass. This helps them to make an intentional act to stay with these...
by Bryony Shaw | December, 2020 | Bryony Shaw, compassion
Christmas brings mixed emotions, it can be a time of joy, of people coming together, of sharing and thankfulness. However, it can also be a time of pressure, conflict and stress. Sometimes it can seem that there is that unspoken requirement that everything needs to be perfect at Christmas; presents chosen carefully, delicious food, feelings of connection and bonhomie. That is a lot to expect, and a lot to take responsibility for. Therefore I suggest you give yourself a gift, the gift of self-compassion. Covid Christmas In more ‘normal’ times this would be a precious gift, but in these times of the additional stresses due to Covid-19, it is even more valuable. We may find we are unable to see loved ones, or unable to give the presents we have planned and saved for, we may need to care for those who can’t be physically with us and this can all add to our stress levels. However, this can also provide us with the opportunity to be more inventive and you never know we may enjoy Christmas in a way we didn’t think possible. Self-Compassion Kristen Neff, who is one of the world’s leading researchers of self-compassion proposes that to be self-compassionate there are three elements we should consider which are kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. I have found that each one of these is powerful, however the combination of the three together has a dramatic positive impact on well-being. Kindness Christmas can be a time of ‘shoulds’, ‘ought tos’ and ‘musts’ and we can use these to judge ourselves. We ‘should’ have sent this present off by now,...
by Sarah Monk | April, 2020 | compassion, Sarah Monk
Yes, it’s my favourite topic! Those who have followed my blogs will know that compassion and self-compassion (SC) are key interests of mine. Perhaps then it is not surprising that I come back to them when the world tilts sideways and we all find ourselves in lockdown facing a global pandemic. I believe that they are an essential part of the Positive Psychology response at this time and an opportunity for us, as a discipline, to show that we have assimilated “second wave” PP and gone beyond enhancing the positive. We are also about helping people embrace and balance the dialectics of living in a world where difficult and painful things happen. Suddenly, people are interested in well-being, the message we give now is important. I hope to explain why I think compassion is a fundamental part of this. Covid-19 is not a good thing I have seen lots of fantastic advice from Positive Psychologist’s about how to manage your well-being during the current crisis. Plenty of snappy acronyms have been developed encouraging us to cope well. I too have written about the benefits of gratitude, perspective, connecting with nature etc.. at the moment. But we need to be clear, the experience of a global pandemic and lockdown is not a good thing. Yes, potentially we have time to learn a new skill, spend joyful time with our family, clear out that cupboard, cook creative new dishes from ingredients found at the back of the cupboard and so on. There’s lots of great advice from PP to help people achieve these things. However, the reality for many people is...
by Georgina Clarke | December, 2019 | compassion
One starfish at a time Never before have we had to draw on our collective human strengths and resources more than now. The country is divided, we are all suffering from Brexit burnout, it seems as if community spirit is dwindling and I sense people feel angry and disempowered. I have felt for a while now that Positive Psychology has a huge part to play in helping to empower us to feel in control, not just of our own lives, but of our environment and our communities. Recently, as I have been trying to affect change in people’s lives, many people have said to me that I can’t really affect anything without a change in government. In response I tell them the starfish story and how I approach challenges with this story in mind – many of you will know it – but it has never seemed more relevant to me than in the times we find ourselves. A girl was throwing starfish that had been washed up on the beach, back into the sea to save their lives…a man approaches and says scornfully that she cannot possibly make a difference to the thousands and thousands laying helplessly dying on the dry beach…to which the girl pauses and bends down to pick up the next one, which she flings back into the sea and replies “I made a difference to that one”. I believe we can make a huge difference to peoples’ lives by taking individual and collective action. As Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is...
by steve Emery | September, 2019 | compassion
“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite” -Nelson Mandela Why do people hate? There has been a lot in the news recently about so called hate crimes, the most serious being mass shootings in America. So, what drives people to hate another person? As far as we know humans developed the notion of hate to protect their own property and possessions. A neighbouring tribe would be seen as a threat and so hatred towards another tribe would reaffirm the bonds within your own tribe. In recent times hatred has been used in many scenarios, people hate others from a different background, skin colour, politics, and even different football team. According to Simon Lancaster in his book “You are not human” he looks at the words used to describe people who we choose to disassociate with. By labelling them with a different name we can effectively dehumanise them. By giving someone from a different ethnic group a derogatory name we can effectively see them as inferior to us and in extreme cases this has led to violence and war. Throughout history there have been many instances whereby people who have lived together in relative peace suddenly develop a deep hatred for one another which ends up in conflict. In recent times we have seen such conflicts in places such as Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. In...
by Helen Golstein | August, 2019 | compassion, Health
The Message Cancer Research UK has recently decided to lead an awareness campaign highlighting the risk of obesity to certain types of cancer. They have in fact, plastered amongst other places, London Underground with their message, written to look like a cigarette packet. And, this is sponsored by Slimming World. If writing health warnings on cigarette packets worked then, well, most people would not smoke. If commercial diets worked, then there would be no campaign needed. Will it work? I wish, that all we had to do to change our behaviour was to read a risk message and stop. We all know that this is not how it works, for most people, most of the time. I am not going to get into whether this campaign is fat shaming or not… however, it will, if we are to believe the plethora of previous research, increase the feelings of shame in those who identify as being obese, resulting in more of what the campaign is trying to have less of. Causes We know that the causes of obesity are multi-factorial. We know that for most people, diets don’t result in long term behavioural change and in fact, tend to make the situation worse. And, when we explore the many underlying reasons for obesity, very few of them have anything to do with poor nutritional knowledge or the need for someone to tell you what to eat. So, surely, we need to be asking ourselves, why, with all our knowledge, research and understanding of human behaviour,are we still looking at obesity through the wrong end of the lens? The research clearly...
