Category: Self-Compassion

A Guide to Self-Compassion – October 2017

Welcome Dear Friend,

 

We are thrilled and honored to be present with you on this journey!   We’d love for this space to be a map to your highest self and a beacon to creativity and expression. The coming months will be full of guide posts and inviting spaces, awaiting your contemplation’s and discoveries.  We’d love to spark, share and sustain well-being with you.

Self-Compassion is our guide for the month of October!  Self-compassion can be a hard thing to come by these days. Too often than not, we have an inner critic that is bigger than our inner cheerleader. It’s time to notice those thoughts and be kind to them.  Self-compassion is not always innate, but it can indeed be learned.

October will be filled with weekly self-compassion content.  Please check out our content guide for dates!  We look forward to going on this adventure with you!

 

With love on the journey,

 

Your friends at Sounds True

Anne Lamott: Radical Self-Care Changes Everything

Anne Lamott is the celebrated author of many books of fiction, essays, and memoirs. Her works include Bird by Bird, Hallelujah Anyway, and Crooked Little Heart. In this special edition of Insights at the Edge originally recorded for The Self-Acceptance Summit, Tami Simon speaks with Anne about acts of “radical self-care” and how they are essential for anyone’s well-being. Anne talks about self-acceptance as an innately feminist concept, especially around issues of body image and self-esteem. Finally, Anne and Tami discuss how it is necessary to fully accept oneself before being able to show up for others, and why modern society often argues the opposite. (54 minutes)

Getting Grief Right

Dear friends,

Only a few months ago, I received word that a dear friend’s child had been tragically killed in a car accident. Although I have worked with hundreds of bereaved people in my 38 years as a grief counselor, I felt worried as I went to be with my friend. “What will I say to this dear man about his loss?”

Then I remembered: “I don’t need to be anxious about the right thing to say. My purpose as his friend is to be present for whatever he might need.”

Supporting someone in their grief is a tall order if ever there was one. How, exactly, do you show true compassion for a grieving person? Here are a few ideas I mention in my new book, Getting Grief Right:

  • Simply and sincerely say: “I’m very sorry.”
    • No more words are necessary. Really.
  • Show up at the house, visitation, or funeral; express simple words of sorrow; and then let the mourning person dictate what happens next.
    • She may open her arms for a hug, or she may clearly want to keep people at a distance. He may want to talk about his loss or about baseball. Be with them wherever they are.
  • Just simply be with that person and be compassionate.
    • Being with a person in grief is a unique, one-way intimacy. Don’t try to fix it or make him or her feel better.
  • Listen with your eyes and respond with nods that convey, “I get it.”
  • Laugh with them when it’s time to laugh. Cry if tears come.

And remember, even after the last casserole dish is picked up, many who mourn feel forgotten.

  • Bring a meal on the two-month anniversary of the death.
  • Take your friend to coffee six months after the death and listen carefully to what they share about their story of loss.
  • Speak the name often of the one who died.
  • Donate to a relevant memorial at the year anniversary of the death or on the birthday of the one who died.

I hope these ideas will help you to create a compassionate community for those who you know are grieving.

Most Sincerely, 

Patrick O’Malley

Martha Beck: What Does It Mean to Be Faithful?

Martha Beck is a renowned life coach, New York Times bestselling author, and monthly columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. In partnership with Sounds True, Martha released the audio program Follow Your North Star and will be a featured presenter in the upcoming online offering The Self-Acceptance Summit. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Martha and Tami Simon talk about the courage necessary to clearly evaluate difficult situations and to know when to leave when that situation no longer suits you. Martha speaks on her journey through “the center of hell” that came with her son’s Down Syndrome diagnosis and what that experience taught her about maintaining faith during times of change. Tami and Martha also discuss her experiences as a life coach and the many challenges that stand in the way of self-acceptance, especially relating to body image. Finally, Martha explains how she remains confident, positive, and joyful in her commitment to awakening consciousness and healing the natural world. (63 minutes)

Waking Up and Turning On

Hello dear one,

 

I suspect you might agree with me that the world has gone stark, raving, totally loony tunes; round the bend; nutty as a fruitcake; not in its right mind; dangerously and absolutely mad—especially in the ways it views women, girls, and the “feminine.”

This insanity compels most of us to hide away and push down parts of ourselves in order to feel lovable, valuable, or be taken seriously.

Which doesn’t work, of course and only ensures we remain unfulfilled, miserable, and at war with ourselves.

But as I’ve discovered—working in depth with women over the past 14 years as a coach, teacher, and mentor (and burning in the fire of my own medicine, of course)—we’ve got it absolutely inside out and backwards.

It turns out that your confidence and joy are actually buried in the very parts you have disowned—that you have literally been sitting on your true power this whole time.

And that even when you feel you have lost your way, there is a path to the woman you are aching to become.

This is the path of Feminine Genius.

  • Learn to trust (and eventually love) the parts of you that you previously warred against
  • Embrace your intuition, sexuality, emotions, desires, and cycles for enormous effectiveness and fulfillment
  • Meet your Oracle, the divine, infallible wisdom of your body—and discover why I affectionately call
    it the Oracle Between Your Thighs
  • Navigate your “dark” and work with painful, difficult experiences in healthy ways
  • Brighten your everyday with hands-on practices
  • Tap into your inner knowing so you can stop second-guessing yourself and get clear about your next steps
  • Explore the history, physics, theology, and biology of a universe built for harmony between “masculine” and “feminine”
  • Look in the mirror and see the face of the Goddess gazing back at you

In a world that might tell you ten thousand times a day how you are deficient and wrong, Feminine Genius will remind you that you are just right.

I am honored (and tail-wagging-ly happy) to invite you to dive into my new book, Feminine Genius: The Provocative Path to Waking Up and Turning On the Wisdom of Being a Woman.

 

I’ll see you inside,

LiYana

P.S. Come visit liyanasilver.com/newbook, where you can get bonus training with me when you order the book: a masterclass on finding your Oracle to source your clarity, deepen your confidence, and inspire your next moves. You’ll also receive your very own Book Club Kit to support you to journey through the book in a group and practice getting lit off of other women’s brilliance.  I’ll see you there!

Chris Germer: The Power of Self-Compassion

Chris Germer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and one of the cofounders of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. The author of many books and articles on mindfulness, Chris has partnered with Kristin Neff and Sounds True to launch the upcoming The Power of Self-Compassion online course in October. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Chris and Tami Simon talk about the practice of mindful self-compassion and the foundational questions it asks of us. They explore how this practice can be applied in the alleviation of pain and current research into other, everyday applications. Chris also details the ways in which self-compassion can help us ride waves of emotion such as shame and self-recrimination. Finally, Tami and Chris discuss how one has to adjust the messaging around self-compassion in order to reach a male audience. (62 minutes)

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