CES - Self-Compassion and Self-Care: Featuring Stan Steindl

Description: 

Behavioral health and lifestyle practitioners of all backgrounds and modalities hold compassion at the heart of all they do. They are sensitive to suffering and motivated to help! This is vital work, and it can also take a toll on the practitioner.  

When compassion is only flowing out toward others, practitioners can be left feeling drained, depleted, and ultimately burnt out. Compassion Focused Therapy proposes that compassion flows in three directions. Compassion toward others is often the most familiar, and there is also the flow of receiving compassion from others, and compassion flowing from the self to the self, or self-compassion.  

A key aspect to working in a compassionate role is to maintain a balance across these three flows. Sometimes this is difficult, with receiving compassion from others and self-compassion feeling blocked for practitioners. Nevertheless, if we can find ways to be sensitive to our own suffering, and motivated to take helpful action, then we can be best placed to continue our compassionate work in the long term. 

Participants will learn about compassion from the perspective of Compassion Focused Therapy, including the three flows of compassion and some of the fears, blocks and resistances that can inhibit these three flows. We will focus specifically on self-compassion, and the role self-compassion can play in self-care. The session will involve a mix of didactic information, brief experiential exercises and group discussion to help participants explore their intrinsic wisdom about this age-old notion of compassion.   

Goals: 

Participants will understand compassion, the importance of balancing the three flows of compassion with a focus on self-compassion in particular, their potential blocks to self-compassion, and strategies to begin exploring bringing more self-compassion into their daily lives.  

Learning Objectives: 

 At the conclusion of the session, participants will: