The Compassion Initiative: Just Two Guys in Brisbane talking Compassion. www.thecompassioninitiative.com.au

Compassion focused therapy, or CFT, is often considered one of the "third wave CBT" therapies. This video will ask, "Is CFT a third wave CBT?" And the answer may surprise you. I am very keen to hear your thoughts, comments, and disagreements!

Episode 8 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. I am a lover of Star Wars! And every time I watch something new from the Star Wars universe I also learn something new! This time some compassionate wisdom from the recent Obi Wan Kenobi series! TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK: Compassion in a T-Shirt Say hi on social: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drstansteindl Twitter: https://twitter.co...

Episode 6 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. I was brought up to believe in the power and goodness of being compassionate towards others. Helping, healing…compassion…are in the blood! But it flows in three directions. It takes courage to be compassionate towards others. It can be difficult and distressing to work with suffering. And it takes courage to be compassionate towards ou...

Compassion focused therapy (CFT) was developed to help people who experience high levels of shame and self-criticism, and has been found to be effective in reducing these difficult aspects of human suffering across a range of presenting problems. Adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse can experience very painful shame, as well as self-hating self-criticism, which can also perpetuate on going sy...

Episode 4 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. We can often get all caught up in threat system activation. Usually, this means an internalising mindset and a particular body and brain pattern. The compassionate self also has a particular body and brain pattern, and we can access this through memories of compassion, times when we, perhaps spontaneously, were compassionate towards an...

Episode 4 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. "Safety" and "safeness" are defined very differently in compassion focused therapy. Not that one is better than the other, or one is preferable over the other. Rather, they are different and come along with very different feelings, thoughts, behaviours and motivations. Let me know what you think of the difference! TARGETED PLAYLIST LIN...

Episode 4 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. What is mindfulness and how does it relate to compassion? TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK: Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion To watch Jon Kabat-Zinn speak about mindfulness, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvXFxi2ZXT0 To watch James Baraz speak about mindfulness, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3-VaV4JpHY&t=15s...

Episode 3 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. In Episode 3 we discuss a fundamental compassionate insight, key to cultivating compassion for others and for ourselves. And we "go to the movies" in order to discover exactly what this key insight is! TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK: Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion To see the clip from the movie, go here: https://www.youtube.c...

Episode 2 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. In episode 2 we discuss compassion focused therapy's Three Circle Model of Emotion Regulation: threat, drive and soothing-affiliative systems. They all evolved to help our species survive. And they all come with trade-offs. But this is a foundational model in CFT, and one that we will often refer back to, learning skills and strategies...

Episode 1 of Compassion 180: Three Minute Gifts of Compassion. In this episode we discuss the topic of our "tricky brains"; brains that were designed for us by evolution, not designed by us; old brain motives, emotions and behavioural urges; new brain higher order functions; and the difficult old brain-new brain loops of the mind that can cause a lot of suffering. TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK: Compassio...

On the 17 November 2019, I published my first Compassion in a T-Shirt video titled “Understanding fears, blocks and resistances to compassion, and how to work through them”. You can see that first, slightly dodgier video here. All this time later, I am excited to return to the topic of working with fears, blocks and resistances to compassion because we have just had a new paper published in the jo...

No matter what might be going on around you, or in the world at large, even when the suffering of others seems so much greater, it is always important to occasionally turn to yourself, check in, see how you are going, notice suffering of your own and begin to direct compassion towards yourself. In this video, we will practice a guided imagery exercise designed to help you move into your compassion...

Compassion as an evolved human motivation is not the same as compassion being our default motivation. Compassion, a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate or prevent it, is actually rather uncommon and gets outmaneuvered quite often by other equally evolved, equally human motivations. So we gotta practice compassion, on purpose, everyday! TARGETED PLAYLIS...

It feels like suffering is everywhere at the moment. The COVID pandemic continues to engulf the world, Russia has invaded Ukraine, causing untold suffering, and last week, here in Australia, up and down the east coast, we have had terrible storms and floods, wreaking havoc on homes and business, and the tragic loss of life. And so compassion is more important than ever. The wisdom, strength, coura...

"We have very little time. This is a life and death issue for all of us. Can we stop the drift toward destruction? We all have a responsibility in answering this question. It is to carry out my personal share of this responsibility that I have spoken out so strongly. I intend to continue. I hope you will join me - and millions of others - in working for a stop to our terrible insanity - the trend...

People everywhere are lovely, so why do we have wars? And why does it feel like we might be on the brink of one right now? Goodness knows I don’t know the answer to that. But let’s have a think about it from an evolutionary point of view, and see if there is anything we can do to create a more compassionate world. TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK: Compassion in a T-Shirt LINKS TO PAPERS Gilbert (2021). Crea...

We have moral obligations. But what are they? And is compassion one of them? In this video I am going to extend myself a little into the realm of ethics and morality! No easy task. But the more I have been thinking about compassion, the more I have begun to wonder, is compassion in fact a moral obligation? In other words, is compassion, and especially taking compassionate action, something we are...

Last week I spoke about 5 evidence-based benefits to mental health of compassion focused therapy. But compassion focused therapy and compassionate mind training have benefits at a general community level as well, promoting psychological well-being in all sorts of people in all sorts of ways. So check this out: Five more evidence-based benefits of compassion focused therapy… in our community! TARGE...

Learning how to cultivate compassion through an approach like compassion focused therapy (CFT) can have profoundly positive effects on mental health. So, in today’s video I’m going to give you 5 evidence-based benefits of compassion focused therapy! There are others!! But let’s start with five. TARGETED PLAYLIST: Compassion in a T-Shirt RESEARCH LINKS: Gilbert and Irons (2005): https://www.amazon....

Compassion focused therapy is an evolutionary model of psychotherapy. We have these evolved brains and bodies, and both can be very tricky and cause us a lot of suffering: emotionally, physically, socially and so on. But CFT proposes that compassion also evolved as an innate aspect to human nature. Compassion is there, within us, and we can learn about it and practice it and go a long way towards...

Social rank theory relates to the human evolved motives around social competitiveness, hierarchies, influence and power. In this video we will explore the "dual-strategies theory of social rank" that incorporates two distinct yet equally viable pathways to gaining status in human social hierarchies: dominance and prestige. Importantly, we will consider...where does compassion fit in? Let me know w...

The notion of pride often comes along with negative connotations. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins! But recent research has differentiated two types of pride: hubristic and authentic pride. This video will explore pride, the details of these two types, where pride comes from and why authentic pride in particular might be very helpful. The video describes how to practice authentic pride in thr...

What is compassion? Well, one way to answer that is to highlight what compassion is not. Compassion is not a feeling. It is not the same as love. And it's not the same as kindness. Compassion draws on the skill of empathy, but is not empathy. It is definitely not pity. And it is not simply being nice. There is nothing indulgent about compassion. It is not weak. Compassion is not easy. And it is go...

Humiliation is a painful emotion, and it can be hard to get over! It's similar to shame, but there are important differences. In this video, we discuss those differences, as well as some compassion focused strategies for managing feelings of humiliation. See the links below to some of the books and videos mentioned. TARGETED PLAYLIST LINK: Compassion in a T-Shirt COMPASSIONATE MIND TRAINING: New d...

Yes they are! Embarrassment and shame are both self-conscious emotions, but like guilt and shame, embarrassment and shame have important differences. See what you think about the differences discussed in this video, and add your comments below! In the video I mention the recent conference organised by Compassionate Mind Italia. Here is the link to their website: https://www.compassionatemind.it/ S...