Yesterday, I completed the 12 hour (12 CEU) course hosted by Greater Good Science Center: Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) Core Skills Training The course was incredibly informative and helpful, mildly intense, and greatly transformative! The last year, I have been working to incorporate the practices of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion back into my daily thought and habit routine. It has not been easy! This course basically guided participants through Neff and Germer’s workbook on MSC, which felt emotionally easier while demanding more consistency than moving through the book on my own. Even working through the book on my own, I began to implement changes, and adding to the practices of Qigong/Taiji/Shaolin Kung fu, Metta Meditation, and fasting, my efforts have been life-changing! I see my life with a fresh perspective when I practice self-kindness and MSC! Or rather, I see myself and my actions (and others) through a lens of compassion, a lens inward I have been trying to clean since I was a teen growing up in a hyper-critical and abusive household. The dirtied lens of my self-image was layered in self-hate, self-criticism, feelings of lack and fear and shame, and concern focused on what others thought me. Most especially have the practices of Metta Meditation and Mindful Self-Compassion cleared that distorted and false vision of my Self. Fasting has given me space and time to practice. The Chinese martial arts practices have restored my energy, strength, and health. Past the toxic childhood, as an adult who learned to take responsibility for my emotions and actions, I have been my own slavemaster: I have held myself down and held myself back, mirroring in action Marianne Williamson’s famous quote from her book, A Return to Love. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us... Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do...” But now, with tools at hand, I am once again rising from darkness into my own Brilliance. During the session on shame, where Dr. Germer spoke of self-image, shame and MSC, I began to see light. I knew that finally, after 40 years of fear -- fear of what other people thought of me -- I could finally be free of the chains of my concern for other’s opinion of me! I sat with that feeling, that thought, and imagined what my life would be like when I was wrapped in that freedom because I treated myself with kindness and self-compassion... Imagine what my life will be like when I'm ALWAYS kind and self-compassionate to myself!!!!
Now, how do I create this life??!!
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진아 吉娜 진아... is studying and practicing the philosophies Taoism, QiGong, Taiji, and Shaolin Kungfu. Archives
May 2021
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