Mindful Self-Compassion Practice During Lockdown

Hi everyone,

I can't believe I haven't let you know about this beforehand, because it's been really important in keeping me feeling strong mentally and emotionally during this period of lockdown - and that looks like it's going to continue for a while.

There is an organisation in the USA called the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion. They teach you mindfulness with kindness to yourself, forgiving ourselves for our imperfections and flaws. It's a reputable organisation, nothing remotely cult-y or "woo-woo" about it.

As a response to coronavirus, they've been offering free mindfulness meditation sessions daily online using Zoom technology at several different times of the day. Each session is led by a senior accredited CMSC teacher. The sessions last about 45 minutes in total, but about 20 minutes of that is mindful meditation with self-compassion. The rest is checking with each other, a few words about the theme that day, feeding back via the chat window afterwards and so on. It's a relaxed atmosphere and a very pleasant thing to do for yourself while we're all stuck indoors so very much. If you're shy, you don't have to be seen or heard by your fellow participants or the teacher.

I want to give you the link so that you can sign up there yourself, should you wish to try these sessions out. When I signed up they were running the sessions up to and including 2 May, but I think they may well go on longer than that because lockdown continues in so many countries. The session I take part in is at 1300 UK British Summer Time, but we have people from Europe, from the USA, from Australia, absolutely all over the world so it is at different times of day for them. There is room for 500 people in each session, but at the time I signed up there was plenty of room for more people to join.

If you feel this lockdown is starting to get you down a bit, maybe it would be a good thing to do for yourself to take this time and relax and unwind a little. Being mindful is a very useful technique to learn, as is meditation, and self-compassion is something we could probably all do with a bit more of. I have a lively "inner critic" and I don't know anyone else who doesn't have one too! Quieten them down by spending some time doing something really nice, just for you - and there is something really special about knowing that there are so many other people in other parts of the world doing the same thing at the same time.

Here's the link: I hope that someone else here will join. It has been such a good thing for me to do with my lunchtimes!

signupgenius.com/go/10c0c4a...