Zoom Meeting Recordings

Here is a link to the weekly Zoom recordings.

Class Slides

Here is a link to view the class slides.

Weekly Follow-Up Assignments

Below are your weekly follow-up assignments. Please make sure you check this on Thursday morning after each class so you are set up for the week. 

Week 5:

Week 5 Homework: 

We are now moving from loving kindness to embracing common humanity. It was so great to engage in this topic with you all and hear your thoughts. Thank you as well for your authenticity last night.

The theme of week 5 is cultivating a feeling of connection with others and appreciating the contributions of others to our lives.

1. Formal Practice: Week 5- Embracing Shared Common Humanity

[Option] When working with the “neutral” person try using the same person each day and see if they remain “neutral.”

Additionally, if you’d like an extra resource and would like to dive more deeply into the Compassionate Resource/Image, feel free to use Britta’s Daily Grace Meditations, where she goes through several different versions of a compassionate Image. (As with Britta’s Self Compassion meditations, each meditation is about 5-8 minutes long, with the possibility for you to pause the video and spend some time in silent contemplation, if you wish)

• Compassionate Image (Spiritual)
• Compassionate Image (Wise Person, Teacher, Ancestor)
• Compassionate Image (Nature)
• Compassionate Image (Any Image)
• Compassionate Image (Letting in the Good)

2. Informal Daily Life Practices 

• Silently say “Just like me” in your interactions.
• Look for an opportunity to reinterpret your reaction to a situation or interaction when you are feeling something other than compassion (e.g. disgust, irritation, pity, envy, schadenfreude) by remembering, “Just like me: this person wishes to be happy, loved, and appreciated; just like me: this person wishes to be healthy, safe and free from suffering.” Notice if this gives rise to greater compassion.
• In your everyday activity, every now and then consciously notice someone (a friend, an acquaintance, or a total stranger) and silently wish that he or she be happy, well, free of fear, and at ease (Like Sharon Saltzberg video: Grand Central Station – Street Lovingkindness with Sharon Salzberg)
• As you go about your daily activities, consider how you are part of a wider web. When you eat, consider who and what was required to bring this food to your table. When you get dressed in the morning, consider where the resources for the fabric, the buttons, the zipper came from. Who made these garments? What is their life like? As you walk or ride through your neighborhood, notice the landscape, the roads, the buildings. Notice and honor how we are all interconnected and how contribute or detract from each other’s lives. How can you be more mindful and more supportive of this infinite web and all who contribute to it?
• Optional: Repeat the Eye Gazing exercise (4 min.) with someone in-person. Perhaps share the video with them first. 

3. [Optional] Book Reading: A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa Chapters for Week 5: Chapter 10, ‘More Courage, Less Stress, Greater Freedom’, pages 197 – 213.

Supplemental Resources:

VIDEOS:

Beyond Borders – Amnesty International [Video we watched in class]

The video is based on a theory that four minutes of uninterrupted eye contact increases intimacy. Amnesty International Poland and Polish ad agency DDB&Tribal applied the theory, developed by psychologist Arthur Aron in 1997, to the refugee crisis, sitting refugees from Syria and Somalia opposite people from Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland and the UK, with overwhelmingly positive results. It was filmed by Amnesty International Poland in Berlin in April 2016.

Susan Fiske & Chris Malone –  “The Human Brand: How We Relate to People, Products, and Companies.” (2014) Dr. Fiske’s part of this talk discusses her research on the four quadrant and how we categorized/stereotype people.

https://practicalpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Warmth-and-Competence.png

Compassion and the True Meaning of Empathy Joan Halifax, TED Talk

ARTICLES:

Compassion: Universally Misunderstood,  Professor Paul Gilbert

People can be frightened of compassion because they think it is a weakness or an indulgence. This is largely because they don’t understand it and don’t recognize the enormous value in realising the causes of suffering, and our own fragility.

“Why Are We Doing This?” Clinical Helplessness in the Face of Suffering (2015) Anthony L. Back – Cynda H. Rushton –Alfred W. Kaszniak – Joan S. Halifax

This research paper discusses the feeling of helplessness that clinicians can face when dealing with patients. They show how clinicians can reframe helplessness as a self-barometer indicating their level of engagement. Second, they discuss how to shift deliberately from hyper- or hypo-engagement toward a constructive zone engagement through a strategy of ‘‘RENEW’’: recognizing, embracing, nourishing, embodying, and weaving—to enable clinicians from all professional disciplines to sustain their service to patients and families 

“Cloud in the Paper” by Thich Nhat Hanh: Beautiful Poem about interconnectedness

QUOTES:

* “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

* “A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” ~ Albert Einstein

* “In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience–our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” ~ Pema Chodron “The Places that Scare You”

* “Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.” ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Week 4:

Hi beautiful people,

This week, we keep going with cultivating loving kindness and compassion for oneself.. The theme of week 4 is being a friend to yourself, embracing your natural aspiration for happiness, and practicing gratitude. 

Enjoy the meditations and practices this week and thank you again for all your time and engagement!

1. Formal Practice: Week 4 – Self-Appreciation & Compassionate Resource Meditation
2. Daily Life Practices 

1. 1. Every day in the evening, choose one thing to appreciate about yourself! Share this with someone, like your buddy, and/or write it down in your journal. Allow yourself to sense the gift that you are.
   2. Then, choose one thing to appreciate about your life! A person/relationship, a pet, something from the natural environment, an event that happened, etc. Share this with someone, like your buddy, and/ or write it down in your journal. Allow yourself to sense the gift that this is in your life.
   3. Choose one action this week that allows you to live your life aligned with one of your core values. (Feel free to use the Personal Value List)
   4. When there is a quiet moment in your day, and when you feel like it, ask yourself, “In my deepest heart, what do I really value and want in my life?”
   5. Continue, when you find yourself caught up in a challenging emotion such as anger, sadness, disappointment or frustration, to see if you can connect these feelings with an underlying need that you are seeking to fulfill (Feel free to use the Needs List.)

3. [Optional] Book Reading: A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa Chapters for Week 4: Chapter 7, Chapter 9, ‘Greater Well-Being’, pages 181 – 195

Supplemental Resources:

VIDEO:

Gratitude- Moving Art – This is a short, inspirational spoken word video about gratitude. Watch it and check in with what’s present for you after you watch it. 

Positivity Resonates – CCARE Meng Wu Lecture by Barbara Fredrickson at Stanford

Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph.D., is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Director of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab (a.k.a. PEP Lab, PositiveEmotions.org) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is a great video lecture about how positive emotions broaden our awareness, builds resilience, significantly improve people’s well being and their positive contributions to others.

Positivity Ratio – This is the video we watched in class.

ARTICLES:

Why Gratitude is Good – Robert Emmons discusses the many benefits of gratitude. He shares a synopsis of his research in which he’s studied more than one thousand people, from ages eight to 80, and found that people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of benefits. There are multiple great videos in this article as well! 

Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources (2008) Barbara L. Fredrickson – Michael A. Cohn – Kimberly A. Coffey – Jolynn Pek – Sandra M. Finkel

QUOTE/POEMS:

“There can be no self-care without self-compassion, which is compassion turned inward. It is the ability to connect to our feelings, to respond to our suffering with kindness, and to desire that our suffering be ameliorated. Self-compassion prompts us to treat ourselves in ways that alleviate, rather than cause or amplify, our pain and suffering. While many of us understand compassion, mercy, and kindness to be essential in our interactions with others, we don’t always see these as core values for our relationship with ourselves. We neglect our self-care, directly and indirectly contributing to our pain and suffering. We judge ourselves for our own suffering, listening to the voice of our inner critic as it rehearses our shortcomings, our errors, and our deficiencies. But it doesn’t have to be this way! 

What if we are supposed to love ourselves? What if we are supposed to be kind and gentle, caring and nurturing, empowering and forgiving of ourselves? If we are unable to do this, ultimately we may be unable to do it for our neighbors. Self-compassion, then, is not indulgence; it is a necessity to live into our truest nature.” – Chanequa Walker-Barnes

“By self-love I mean a healthy delight in your true, imperfect, uniquely wonderful, particular self. I mean an unconditional appreciation for who you are, head to toe, inside and out: quirks, foibles, beauty, and blemishes—all of it. I mean seeing yourself truthfully and loving what you see.  

Honestly, the stories playing out in the world can make it difficult to love yourself, and therefore your neighbor. Messages from the culture that you don’t matter, not just because of your race, but because of your gender, sexuality, economic status, or religion, can thwart self-love. Even if you’re born into circumstances that others consider ideal, messages in the culture can signal that you’re not good enough, light enough, thin enough, smart enough, rich enough,  famous enough, feminine or masculine enough to measure up to some ideal. The space between those ideals and your realities can make it difficult to embrace your particularities and love them. Learning to love your particularities is not just an individual project; you need your communities—your posse—to see those pieces of you, to accept them, and to love all the parts of you, fiercely.”  – Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis 

“Radical self- love to me, I always describe it as your inherent sense of enoughness… I say the same thing that decided that there should be daisies and butterflies and the river Nile and sunrises also decided that there should be a [you]… And if we can connect to that, if I can connect to the sense that the most stunning sunset I ever saw is made of the same material reality as my own beingness, how is that not miraculous? How is that not phenomenal?” – Sonya Renee Taylor

“Nuptial Song” by Susana Thénon

I got married
I got married to myself
I said yes
a yes that took years to arrive
years of unspeakable suffering
crying with the rain
locking myself up in my room
because I–the great love of my existence–
was not calling myself up
was not writing to myself
was not visiting myself
and sometimes
when I dared call myself
to say, hello, am I OK?
I would deny myself 
I even managed to write my name in a list of bores
I did not really want to join
because they babbled too much
because they’d not leave me alone
because they’d fence me in
because I could not stand them
at the end I did not even pretend
when I needed myself 
I intimated to myself
Nicely that I was fed up
and once I stopped calling myself
and stopped calling myself
and so much time went by that I missed myself
so I said
how long has it been since my last call?
ages
must have been ages
and I called myself up and I answered and could not believe it
because even if it seems incredible
I had not healed
I had only shed blood
then I told myself: hello, is that me?
it’s me, I told myself, and added:
such a long time no see
me from myself myself from me 
do I want to come home?
yes, I said 
and we got together again
peacefully
I felt good together with myself
just like me
I felt good together with myself
and so
from one day to the next
I got married and I got married
and am together
and not even death can separate me.

“Love After Love” by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Week 3:

Week 2’s Homework: 

Daily Meditation: Week 3’s Self- Compassion Meditation

You can use the different length CCT meditations, or the meditation we recorded for you. 

As an add on, you can also use Britta’s Daily Grace Meditations, where she goes through the Self-Compassion steps, one step at a time. (Each meditation is about 5-8 minutes long, with the possibility for you to pause the video and spend some time in silent contemplation, if you wish)

1. Self Compassion: Acknowledging our Distress
2. Self Compassion: Reassuring ourselves that it is ok to feel this
3. Self Compassion: Recognizing Common Humanity
4. Self Compassion: Skillful Self Mentoring
5. Self Compassion: The Whole Practice

Practice tips:

When you picture a time when you were suffering (in the Compassion for Oneself meditation), take good care of yourself by not going to the worst thing you can think of. 

Find a photo of yourself as a child to place near your meditation spot. Seeing the photo will connect you to the visualization in the Self-Compassion Meditation from class.

Daily Life Practices:

• Self-Compassion Letter

Write a Self-Compassion Letter to yourself! You will share this letter with one other person during next week’s class, so keep it brief (no longer than 1 page) for that purpose. If you wish to write a longer version of the self compassion letter, please do and also make a shortened version to share next week.

• Replace Negative Judgments

Notice and be more aware when you are criticizing, judging, or shaming yourself. As you bring awareness to these thoughts, recognize that in that moment you have a choice. Would you like to continue to judge or criticize yourself? Or would you like to explore meeting yourself with compassion or kindness. You can ask yourself, “If one of my friends were struggling with something similar, what would I say to him/her?” Explore ways you can consciously replace negative judgments with more compassionate narratives. 

• Needs Inventory

Explore if you can identify the unmet need when you’re aware of any difficult feelings and then validate the need using the Needs Inventory. Allow the feelings to be felt in the body, and then see if you can release the negative thought.

OPTIONAL | SUGGESTED

• Self-Compassion Break

Practice the Self-Compassion Break once a day or when you notice you are engaging in negative self talk.

• Supportive Touch 

Use Supportive Touch (similar to what we did at the start of our meditation in class) when you feel in need of a little self-soothing when things are difficult.

• Scale to Assess Self-Compassion

Complete Dr. Kristin Neff’s assessment of Self-Compassion. 

• [Optional] Book Reading: A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa Chapters for Week 3: Chapter 7- “May I be happy? Caring for Ourselves” pages 133 – 144.

RESOURCES:

Needs Inventory that we used in class

ARTICLES: 

Greater Good Magazine, Berkeley 2016:
Five Science-Backed Strategies to Build Resilience 

Greater Good Magazine, (2015) Kristin Neff:
The Five Myths of Self Compassion  

(2014) Emma Seppala, Ph.D.:
How to Practice Self Compassion  

(2014) Psychology in Austria, Kristin Neff and Andrew P. Costigan
Self-Compassion, Wellbeing, and Happiness 

(2012) Enhancing Compassion: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Compassion Cultivation Training Program | SpringerLink 

(2007): Leary, Tate, Allen, Adams, and Hancock
Self-Compassion and Reactions to Unpleasant Self-Relevant Events: The Implications of Treating Oneself Kindly

QUOTES/POEMS:

“So how can we really seek a compassion that can stand in awe at what people [including ourselves] have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it?” – Fr. Greg Boyle

“Shame actually comes on our behalf trying to take care of us. We blame ourselves so we can believe the world is a safe and beautiful place or would be if we had done something different.” – Andrea Gibson

“Self-compassion involves treating ourselves kindly, like we would a close friend we cared about. Rather than making global evaluations of ourselves as “good” or “bad,” self-compassion involves generating kindness toward ourselves as imperfect humans, and learning to be present with the inevitable struggles of life with greater ease. It motivates us to make needed changes in our lives not because we’re worthless or inadequate, but because we care about ourselves and want to lessen our suffering.” – Dr. Kristin Neff

“An important aspect of self-compassion is to be able to empathetically hold both parts of ourselves, the self that regrets a past action and the self that took the action in the first place. The process of mourning and self-forgiveness frees us in the direction of learning and growing. In connecting moment by moment to our needs, we increase our creative capacity to act in harmony with them.” – Marshall Rosenberg

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.
May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love.

– John O’Donohue

Week 2:

Week 2’s Homework: 

1. Formal Practice: Week 2- Compassion for a Loved One

Ideally you do one meditation a day, either one of the three versions of the CCT meditations, or the audio of Britta’s recorded class meditation.

2. Daily Life Practices:

Reminder: The key idea behind “daily life practices” is that these exercises are intended to be done in the midst of our daily lives. These exercises take what is learned and cultivated in our formal sitting meditation practice and brought into or applied in our daily activities and interactions with others and the world around us.

a) Do “kindness on the go” at least once a day. This could be in the form of silently sending an “anonymous” wish of kindness to a random stranger. For example, in your mind you can say to them, “ May you be happy…..May you be free from suffering……May you find peace and joy.” Notice how you feel after doing so. Bring awareness to your internal experience. 

b) Notice when loving-kindness shows up naturally in your daily life– pausing to relish and observe what it feels like in the body. It is great to write this down in your journal.

3. [Optional] Book Reading: A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa Chapters for Week 2: Chapter 6

4. [Optional] Take notes about your meditations and daily practices throughout the week! This can be a helpful way to track your observations, insights, and questions, as well as help keep you accountable. You can journal or use this form each week.

Week 2 Supplemental Resources:

QUOTES/POEMS:

“I Am Breathing” by Mary Oliver

I Am Breathing
Breathing, just a little life flows
Without thought of each moment passing away
Draining into the next
Every drop of anticipation sucked dry of life’s rich bounty
Unfolding in the unexpected joy of being alive. 

Breathing together of all things I find myself awakened
Revelling in every drop of anticipation
Dripping wet in the ripe, rich fruit of life
Flowing effortlessly into the unexpected joy of being alive.

“Love Does That”  by Meister Eckhart

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,
he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does
that.

Love frees.

VIDEOS:

The Role of the Vagus Nerve in Compassion:

Dacher Keltner, Ph.D. The UC Berkeley psychology professor and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center shares his research on the vagus nerve, a key nexus of mind and body and a biological building block of human compassion. 

Secrets of the Vagus Nerve

6 yr. old Jason helping everyone smile: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCPc2RlMTII     

ARTICLES:

Emotions:

The Life-Changing 90 Second Secret- Jill Bolte Taylor https://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/10/the-life-changing-90-second-secret/ 

Research on loving-kindness and compassion meditations:

Loving-kindness meditation: A tool to improve healthcare provider compassion, resilience, and patient care

Compassion meditation reduces ‘mind-wandering – Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education found that compassion meditation training can reduce “mind-wandering” and encourage caring and benevolent behavior toward oneself and others.

Study shows compassion meditation changes the brain

Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources

Week 1:

Week 1’s homework:

• Do the week 1’s guided meditation daily
• Daily Informal Practices
•  The key idea behind “daily life practices” is that these exercises are intended to be done in the midst of our daily lives. 
• These exercises take what is learned and cultivated in our formal sitting meditation practice and brought into or applied in our daily activities and interactions with others and the world around us. 
• These daily life practices in turn, inform and enrich the quality of the formal sitting meditation practice, thus complementing and reinforcing each other in a constructive and efficient manner.

• For the first week of the course, our practice is to develop awareness of our experience (mindfulness) and also settling the mind. The daily life practices that can help develop these skills are listed below. Please incorporate these at least once a day (or as often as you wish) in your daily activities.

Journal about your Intention
Set aside at least 5 minutes to journal about your intention for the course. Before you journal, take a moment to breathe into and out of your heartspace a few times. You might even like to journal after doing the week’s meditation. Then journal and answer the following questions: “Why are you in this course? What is your heart most desiring from doing this work? What is it you are hoping to receive? What is your intention?”

Make Meaningful Pauses
Make meaningful pauses throughout the day while checking in with your body, mind, and heart – for example, while stopped at a stoplight notice any tension or tightness in the body, notice any thoughts or emotions, and tune into your breathing. We suggest you breathe into the chest, the space of the heart.

 You can use the STOP protocol:

• S – Stop or pause
• T – Take a breath or two into your chest and heart space (these can be deep, diaphragmatic breaths, with a slower exhalation letting the body release and relax)
• O – Observe what is happening (take in the whole picture: are there thoughts, emotions, sensations) and whatever you observe, see if you can open your heart to this moment right now and your experience in the moment
• P – Proceed with what you were doing

Do a Mundane Daily Task Mindfully
Take a mundane daily task, such as brushing your teeth, doing the dishes, or folding laundry, and do it mindfully. Taking care to notice the physical sensations of the task, such as the feeling of water, the texture of clothing, etc. You can apply deliberate awareness to any activity, even using the toilet!

[Optional] Track Your Observations-
Take notes about your meditation and practices throughout the week! This can be a helpful way to track your observations, insights, and questions, as well as help keep you accountable. You can journal or use this form each week.