Dr. Kristin Neff

Meet Your Inner Critical Coach

When asked what gets in the way of consistently performing at their best, most people can easily identify obstacles such as time, energy, scheduling conflicts, and distractions. These can indeed be areas that need focus but what I’ve found in my coaching practice is that most of our real obstacles are internal. Another way to say this is, our greatest obstacle to peak performance is often ourselves.

How About Making an “Old Year’s Resolution” to Be More Compassionate to Yourself in the New Year?

Perhaps you have seen the clever t-shirt depicting a pirate on his ship exclaiming “The beatings will continue until morale improves!” We tend to laugh at that sentiment because at some point in our lives we have probably found ourselves on the receiving end of that sort of “logic”. And we also laugh because we know it is a ridiculous notion that pummeling someone with negativity will bring about more positivity. It’s like continuing to put your car in reverse in order to move forward.

Take This Job and….

Photo Credit: Isaac L Koval
Photo Credit: Isaac L Koval

Wait!

Here are some research-based ways teachers and principals can rejuvenate their passion for their jobs in the new year.

I’ve always thought that educators are some of the luckiest people in the world.

Can self-compassion improve through mindfulness?

You shouldn’t kick yourself when you’re down . . .

. . . but sometimes it’s hard not to. Even if we’re compassionate toward others, we can still be our own worst critics. Mindfulness meditation really works. And self-compassion is one of its key benefits.

Kristin Neff, PhD, from the University of Texas, Austin, and Christopher Germer, PhD, from Harvard Medical School, wanted to find out whether self-compassion could be developed through training.

How Do You Meet Your Suffering?

Dr. Kristin Neff and Dr. Christopher Germer have dedicated years to studying, researching, and teaching self-compassion. All of this dedicated effort and passion have resulted in the Mindful Self Compassion (MSC) program, a research- and skill-based eight week training similar in format to Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) but focused on this key component of how we meet our own suffering.