The Neurobiology of Compassion
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with Paul Gilbert, PhD;
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with Paul Gilbert, PhD; Kristin Neff, PhD; Jack Kornfield, PhD; Kelly McGonigal, PhD; Christopher Germer, PhD; Dennis Tirch, PhD; Emiliana Simon-Thomas, PhD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD and Ashley Vigil-Otero, PsyD
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Feeling gratitude right now – for the research and endeavour that has taken on to get us to this place of understanding. Wanting everyone to have equal access to it.
The three circle model gives me a simple way to illustrate where clients’ difficulties lie and how to address them, and that self-compassion can grow is powerful, encouraging news to pass on to a wide range of clients.
I am very excited to formally bring compassion to my practice. I’ll be using these exercises with many of my clients. Our culture seems to actively discourage self-compassion. Kristin Neff’s book was a life changing experience, and I am eager to share self-compassion with others.
As always this training was excellent! Paul Gilbert’s 3 circles really helps with visualising the different emotion regulation systems. I liked the idea of asking client’s to identify a size that represents each system to help with acknowledging that the drive or threat system may be over active. I also loved the neurobiology of compassion and understanding how the different brain regions have different roles in compassion. Loved the idea of the fire fighter to help with the understanding of compassion beyond kindness or caring but really emphasising the role of courage and motivation to relieve suffering. How the vagus nerve is involved in activating the parasympathetic nervous system was also very useful and how future research may give insight into physical health benefits. I could go on and on….but will wrap up with how useful the technique of loving heart will be to share with client’s to encourage engaging with the feeling of self-compassion and hopefully increase the soothing circle..engage the vagus nerve…activate the rest and digest…and continue to build that muscle of mindful compassionate awareness. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
Beautiful. You are such masters at this work. I am writing a book about our relationships with ourselves and so i know quite a lot of this information, but the way you put it is so very clear in its focus that I feel more confident now about finishing the section called “Why our relationship with ourselves is so important”! I’m immensely grateful and make full acknowledgement of your work.
The 3 circles are new for me, and I also realise my own Soothing Circle is way underused. I have recently been feeling depressed by how long it is taking me to finish the book and I can’t wait to get activating that self compassion circle – tomorrow! I will try to draw my own version of all three circles, because I agree it’s a very helpful concept to look into with clients and visual material is so helpful for us all. I wonder if you would consider making an infographic for us on this!
Thank you Ruth and team so much for offering this program at no fee, as I can use much of today’s program in my work with client’s starting next session. Relying on ‘trans-diagnostic change process’ tools based in loving awareness provides a really comfortable framework for me, to feel confident that the work we are doing is meaningful and that it can make a big difference. What I am learning here supports my own development of key, effective central strategies that can be ready to meet the complexity of my client’s experience and reality no matter the specific presentation – this is really valuable. For example, I have been working with labelling emotions, and I loved the simple suggestions of how to help clients soften, soothe and allow – I do this already, however the commentary made it more clear about the purpose of why it is helpful for us to learn them and to practice in the first place; and how self-soothing is evidence-based – based on the associated neuroscience research studies, which are presented beautifully and at a ‘just right’ pace by all the presenters. I am so appreciative of everything you covered today, and fired-up to share my insight and hope with my clients. You are all so smart and kind, I enjoy your personalities and the unique ways each practitioner shares their own contributions in such a passionate way. I feel very grateful for everything that was shared here via this course. – Thank you, again.
I realized the importance of compassion towards myself to see situations clearly. I think it is important to develop “compassionate skills” for any social or labor relationship and to deal with our pains. It makes us better human beings. Thank you!
Excellent Session. The 3-Circle Model is a beautifully simple tool to share how powerful emotional regulation works in affecting one’s life; and most importantly, how harnessing self-compassion can transform emotions into feelings that nurture the body, mind, and soul. I also loved the Soften, Soothe, and Allow technique–in fact I tried it on myself while listening to today’s session and plan to share it with colleagues! Thank you very much for streaming this gratis. I look forward to learning more in the coming sessions!
Loved how you tied so much together in this first session. My take-away is that
I can adapt and use this in my work with children. I’m thinking of an 8 year old
girl who has a lot of conflict with her special-needs sister and a younger sister.
They are down right mean to each other! I think the “heart breathing” with her
nose on her chest can be a fun way to prime her imagination.
Thank you for an interesting session. I found it built very much on my existing knowledge but provided a little more depth and understanding on the neurobiological underpinnings of compassion. It was particularly useful to me to learn HOW exactly the parasympathetic/soothing systems down-regulate the amygdala. I think being able to talk with this level of confidence about the “plumbing” behind the age-old “be kind to yourself” message will help many of my clients have the courage to begin or continue with their difficult work.
Hi, I’m familiar with a lot of the content via both meditation and psychotherapy.
though great nugget is seeing the 3 circles/systems applied to easily help client identify that the soothing system is 1. underactive in relation to the other two; and 2. can be developed, like a muscle can. that this can give client a reason to reorientate their priorities. Love the accessibility and simplicity of this.
my clients are children and adults. so I think that the question “what would you give your friend when you would see him suffering?” is a very useful one. it allows them to give the same to themselves
I am a public school teacher. Many of my students live or have lived in violent, highly traumatic homes. I plan on forming a mindfulness group for adults and teens to practice heart breathing.
I loved the heart breathing technique. When it was talked about I did this and noticed the shift in focus as described. I am going to incorporate this as an additional technique in my work with clients who struggle to engage their soothing system.
The biggest take away for me was the three circle model. I will do my best to understand this model to implement with my future clients
Thank you SO much for this! Truly an act of compassion on your parts!
I will be sure to instil this knowledge into my work with young people. Especially the the circle diagram and “soft, soothe and allow” techniques.
I am a Neuromuscular/Clinical Massage Therapist. I also provide stress management/resilience workshops. Your trainings have launch me far ahead of my contemporaries because I am able to articulate what going on internally with my clients. The vagus nerve info is always help when presented, to reinforce my understanding of its function. This training also helps me be aware when I need to refer my clients to a Clinician.
This rich presentation constructs a cognitively-affectively stable platform of brain-science correlated thinking — thinking that forms a part of a still-current modern-age material theory “faith”-object modality for focusing awareness and intention, even in paging mode within a gestalt) with the affective support of positivity, to anchor intention focused on compassion as a scientific-plausibly explained wellspring of freeing positive self-regulation — a constructive syncretism that builds on brain-related experimental and clinical research with a focus of practising compassion, leading beyond brain ideas and information (while including them) towards a fuller and freer constructive transformation of active lived experience, self- and other-image, and self-and other-awareness.
As a research consultant with a clinical support focus I will share this within a positive affective situational boundary frame (compare the balancing of affective arousal with focused awareness in M. Csikszentmihalyi’s description of “flow” in optimal learning) with cognitively-oriented colleagues to illustrate the benefits and hence motivation for valuing and focusing on compassion and on compassion skill building as a synergically as well as increasingly intrinsically meaningful goal with a rewarding purpose. Thank you.
We struggle so much to find the language that expresses our feelings and needs and it is so reassuring to have been given such insight into ways of exploring that language both verbally but also viscerally. The 3 circles feels like a really helpful tool to work through what each system feels/looks like and how this practice can enable us to connect with ourselves, find the language of self compassion and move into a process of softening, soothing, allowing….I have this image of breath and freedom ‘within’ rather than ‘from’ whatever we or others may be going through. A real sense of release. I feel that a couple of clients I work with have arrived at a space where they are ready to explore self compassion further with this guidance you have shared.
enjoyed listening, all well explained, not to overwhelming. Nice to have a combination of the theory of how the brain works, with examples and then move on to ore practical information of how to impact the brains functioning. At this moment of time i focus first on my own brains functioning. Am also able to start to integrate further what `i know already as i have been introduced to the work of some of the speakers. helpful to understand how clever the brain is to manage life. and the more we understand of those parts the better we can make use of it, firstly for ourselves, for those around us and this ewe work with professionally.
Thank you, looking forwards to the remaining sessions
Thank you Ruth and your team.
Great information in understanding the power of self-compassion.
As a sex and intimacy coach I often see a lack of compassion and self compassion with my couples.
They often lack the skills for emotional regulation in the midst of conflict. The three circle model is a helpful way to explain why self-compassion is an important tool to use to deescalate conflict. Compassion is not only something we extend outward to others, but most importantly for my clients, it’s a tool of self-care that gives them the resilience and self-awareness they need in order to repair conflict and reconnect.
Looking forward to more. In the meantime, breathing into my heart. 🙂
Thank you for this spot-on observation re how criticizing others activates the self threat system. Very helpful.
It was very informative and helpful. However, I hated that the SIGNUP BOX covered the video screen. You guys need to fix that so it appears differently on all browsers. In fact, it shouldn’t even be up there the whole time. Feels intrusive and much like other programs trying to SELL,SELL, SELL. It was unfortunately very distracting.
To focus on spending more time educating clients about their brain in terms of their emotional regulation systems and their autonomic responses to perceived threats. Teaching them about how different practices can change their physiology and their emotional states. I really believe this understanding can empower our clients to take control of their minds and their healing journey. Thank you for sharing this knowledge. Compassion has changed my life and the lives of everyone around me. The biggest change was being able to be compassionate towards those I do not particularly like.
My first take away was for myself. I was able to de-shame over something I thought was a negative change in myself only to realize what I’ve done is to retrain my brain to face the trauma in others’ lives with courage and compassion. It is very empowering to know that my supposed ‘lack of emotion’ is a move toward courage, action, and compassion instead of numbness and desensitization to the suffering of others. A major take away is that I realize that a lot of this learning has taken place because I’ve had to teach myself to actively choose to place myself in a place of rest and digest while working through my own imbalances that past trauma created.
Sharing the three-circle model will be a regular part of my practice from now on. I have a strong belief in working myself out of a job by teaching my clients to become more emotionally self-reliant, and this model is a helpful tool in achieving that goal. Thank you!
Attending this from a perspective of self-healing with the intention of sharing this information with others in the future.
So many takeaways – the biggest one being the 3 Circles, and realising that I have lived my entire adult life from the Threat circle, with dissociation created from toxic shame. I have been using EFT for years and still have had zero compassion for the length of time it has taken me to heal. It’s only over the past couple of years that I realised I had emotions in my body.
So now I am going to relax and breathe into my heart. And send myself some Loving Kindness.
Thank you so much for streaming this for free.
This was phenomenally helpful thank you.
I have 2 particular clients that came to mind. For one, where constant rumination and cognitive storylines fill their mind endlessly, I feel helping them to find the emotion in the body and talking them through that as suggested, may be very helpful.
For another, who gets stuck in the their threat cycle, I feel working with the 3 cycles could be powerful.
Thank you again.
I really like the 3 circles and the idea of visually recognising how the sizes of our different circles vary – this will be useful in the work I do with clients. Recognising how care and calmness activates the parasympathetic nervous system. I also like soften, sooth and allow – I will incorporate this in my work with distressed and traumatised individuals.
Excellent presentation! Very well organized and user friendly. I especially appreciate the neurobiological explanations and the three circle system description. Makes a lot of sense!
My biggest take away was the 3 circles and how to encourage a person to recognize where their emotion is felt in the body.
I am not a professional, I am a parent of an adult child that experienced a severe concussion and is still suffering after 4 years. I also will apply this to myself as a caregiver.
I can easily see myself using the Soften, Soothe, Allow exercise with my clients, as well as the heart breathing exercise recommended by Kelly McGonigal. Just practicing them during the video, as we were guided through them, helped ameliorate feelings of anxiety I was experiencing. This happened naturally, without trying to suppress or eliminate the anxiety. Beautiful. I look forward to seeing this field of research (the clinical applications of mindful compassion) continue to grow in application and deepen in evidence.
Thank you for your seminar and a wide range of ideas related to compassion focused therapy (CFT). I like the wide range of angles offered to a number of my clients. In particular, the relevance of CFT to clients with anger – a common presentation – was of practical help. The three circles Venn diagram was impactful helping me to have some system in letting clients examine their own responses to events. I continue to be impressed by the bridges that are being built between my day-to-day practices and neuro-science. One day I may be able to absorb it all!! Keep it coming.
Amazing and cutting edge information! I will use It to improve my personal and professional life. It also gave me ideias to create some meditations for collective trauma. Many thanks!!!
I’m not a clinician, I am a prospective patient. I love NICABM’s offerings, because I am not able to find a therapist I can afford who applies these principles, or, much less, knows about them. BUT, my comment is not about this. I have been thinking right from the start of this session that these strategies, especially the 3-Circle idea, could be applied with maximum beneficial results to police officers. I’m placing this comment although I know this is really a space for professionals, because maybe one of you actual professionals out there works with cops :-). Imagine…both what they must be going through and how much they can be helped.
I appreciated the information on the Three Circle System. Our society often pushes us to the DRIVE circle to problem-solve our difficulties. If you DO something, you’ll feel better. I love the idea of strengthening and growing our SOOTHING circle. Allowing ourselves to give safety and connection to ourselves. I think this will be a helpful visual to work with clients who are self-harming and carrying a lot of shame.
I miss the ability to pause and restart the broadcast especially when the session runs over the hour timeframe. While the new person tries hard, she needs to look at the camera and read script less.
Thoughts: When I can stay calm, and don’t feel panic or overwhelm when confronted with a friend’s ‘problems’, my calmness helps activate her parasympathetic system. It takes courage to face our own and/or another’s ‘problems’, but we are rewarded with a burst of the ‘feel good’ hormone, oxytocin. Thank you for explaining this so clearly.
I am so grateful to you wonderful people to be sharing such amazing well researched information and application. I am using it in my practice today and what a great help it is providing.
I am sure with practice my work will shine and become more useful for my clients
Looking forward most eagerly to more
I live in Pakistan and these experiences help me feel connected to the current practices
Warm regards
Not only does self-criticism activate the threat system, but criticizing and judging *others* does as well. This was an insight for me, as it explains why being judgmental doesn’t feel very good (beyond perhaps a fleeting moment of self-righteousness.) Criticizing others actually activates the threat system, thereby *increasing* the feeling of threat we already felt, by focussing it some more. On the other hand, if someone or something is hurting us, or has hurt us, it’s important to be able to name that. People need skill-building for identifying and naming threats, problems and irritations without going into criticism mode, which makes the threat felt even bigger. These are great skills to develop and to impart to others.
Excelent and very inspiring and clarifying in all respects. It inspires my own approach and training in mindfullnes with compassion and will share these ideas and inspirations with a fellow colege(who doesn’t speak English). The effort to use this approach in doing so,will serve also as training for both of us who are in great need of this way.
Note: hope that I will be able to acquire this package maybe tomorrow
I have found this first module incredibly helpful in so many ways!! As a child and even as an adult student and teacher I could sense the impact of compassion on cognitive functions. Now as an older adult suffering from a chronic disease, I love learning about compassion and its role in healing. Thank you!
I have practiced mindfulness before but not this type of mindfulness. I like the way it was broken down, softening, soothing and allowing the emotion, labeling/naming it. I think if we help them understand their emotion/s, except it, except they are human and it is okay to have emotions, they are not crazy or weird or different. It will assist them in excepting themselves and being able to start to heal.
I will remember to feel compassion for the spirit of my daughter who left this world too soon. She has told an intermediary that she needs to talk to me but that she runs into a barrier of grief. Apparently, grief does neither of us good. I will remember that I need to be more prosocial. It’s easy to be a hermit when you live in a house surrounded by trees. The songbirds, owls, and foxes are fun, but they are not as socially animated as Homo sapiens. I now know that I need to develop more self-compassion routines, like meditating and learning to down-regulate my fight vs. flight response. To be honest, my go-to response has been freeze mode.
As a Native American RN, PHN I inherently practiced and nurtured compassion for others but not myself. I healed through self compassion and vagal tone after 15 years of suffering with fibromyalgia. Knowing my ancient traditions and using them installed and expanded my capacity for resilience after struggling for over a decade not knowing why. I can return to patent and community Care much stronger and resilient using this to keep myself healthy in uncertain times continuing to give compassionate Care and resilience. Thank you for this critical course.
Thank you for this gift. I really liked the 3 circles and think it will help patients/clients understand where they are and more ways to resource. I love the breathing from the heart for a nice imagery and get them into their body.
Loved the breathing into the heart.
Will use the soften/soothe/allow info to explain the somatic work I already do with clients.
Three spheres of emotions helps people who need the sense of understanding to help motivate them to engage in the learning process.
The three circles, threat, drive, and soothe!!! So interesting and such a great visual way to conceptualize what’s going on in the brain! Thank you for posting!
So few people have compassion for themselves,so this session was so useful to help us engage in walking with them to help them discover self compassion!
Sorry to miss the sound; no audio would play for the late broadcast.