- CAN I WATCH LATER? Yes! Sign-up and we'll email you a recording
Event Description
Are you kinder to others than to yourself? We're often more generous towards and tolerant of others than to ourselves, but we can develop the ability to care for ourselves well. Research studies show the benefits of being a supportive friend to yourself, especially in times of difficulty. These classes offer a step-by-step approach to breaking free from harsh self-judgements and impossible standards in order to cultivate emotional wellbeing.
This 6 session course is based on the ground-breaking 'Mindful Self-Compassion' (MSC) course, developed by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, which has helped many people all over the world. The classes will include simple guided meditations, informal exercises and discussions. There will also be suggestions of exercises you can do between classes to deepen your learning, with access to free meditations. Improving self-compassion can help people address a range of issues such as anxiety, relationship stress, unhelpful habits such as overeating or overuse of devices, health concerns, sleep difficulties and other common problems.
It can sometimes feel self-indulgent or selfish to focus on being kind to ourselves. But it's useful to consider the instruction on airplanes that, in an emergency, you must put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping others. To help others fully, we need to be able to care for ourselves first.
As Kristin Neff says, "The seeds of compassion already lie within you - learn how you can uncover this powerful inner resource and transform your life."
Class focus for the course:
Each class will include an introduction, about 5 minutes of gentle movement, a guided meditation that lasts about 20 minutes, brief discussion, short grounding meditations and a poem. All parts of the class can be done sitting, standing or lying down. It is preferable if people keep their cameras on but it's fine if you go out of camera shot for any of the meditations. There is no need to talk or interact with others.
Also, you don't have to be in any frame of mind to participate. In fact, if you're feeling stressed, tired, unwell or self-critical, this is the perfect place to be!
Jan 7 - What is Self-Compassion and what are its benefits? Introduction to mindful Self-Compassion
Jan 14 - Developing kindness for ourselves and others
Jan 21 - Self-Compassion and our bodies
Jan 28 - Meeting difficult emotions
Feb 4 - Self-Compassion, anger, shame and forgiveness
Feb 11 - Embracing the good, self-appreciation
- Duration: 60 mins x 6
- Online Zoom event: Join from your computer, phone or tablet (a recording will be available)
Meet the Host, Catherine Nasskau
Catherine Nasskau is an experienced and qualified mindfulness teacher who's worked with adults and children for many years, online and in-person. She is committed to helping people of all ages with their mental health, and finds mindfulness an excellent way to do this. She runs the charity Mindful Surrey which offers a range of mindfulness and self-compassion classes. She trained to teach mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) with The Mindful Academy, Spain, and MiSP. She lives with her husband in Surrey and has two grown up sons. Besides meditation, Catherine enjoys theatre, singing, running and travelling.
Read more about Catherine and Mindful Surrey here.
More Information
What if I can’t make the event?
If a recording’s available for the event, you can still register for it and we will send you an email with a link to a recording shortly after it ends.
Will my camera be on and will I be visible to the other people?
Your camera and microphone does not need to be on for you to enjoy the event. The choice about whether to do this is completely yours.
How do I watch the live event?
Rest Less events are hosted on Zoom, a computer application that allows you to attend online events just by clicking a link. For detailed instructions, please go to our "FAQ" page, which you can find a link to in the nav bar at the top of the page.
How do I sign-up for and access the recording? (Recorded events only)
Book the event as normal (as if you are attending live). After the event ends you will automatically receive a post-event email with a link to the recording, as long as the event was recorded. You do not need to do anything else and there is no separate booking process for recordings only. Please note it can take up to 24 hours for Zoom to process recordings.
