SELF-COMPASSION MEDITATION/ LOVING-KINDNESS

MEDITATION

Elena: Hi, guys. We’re Elena and Pablo, and we have set up our own
self-compassion meditation wellness workshop. We'll use two different hours to go
into detail of what we do and give a masterclass. In today’s class, we won’t burden
you with an overload of information, and we will just focus on what it consists of,
why we decided to undertake this project and how we help our clientele.

Pablo: First of all, what is self-compassion meditation? Self-compassion meditation

or loving-kindness meditation is a process, in which you intend to find a balance
between your inner and outer self. In other words, this process tries to help out
people who aren’t comfortable with who they are or people that just don’t value
themselves by various techniques. Furthermore, loving-kindness meditation focuses
on giving ourselves support and encouragement when we fail, make mistakes or just
feel uncomfortable with the world that surrounds us, rather than hating and blaming
our nature when times get difficult.

Elena: Why do we believe self-compassion meditation is so necessary for

self-improvement?
It’s a fact that this topic is a sore point for some people. We came up with this idea
for the project because we were inspired by the example of social media, where
influencers post images of themselves while they’re traveling and always have a
meticulous behavior and perfect grin. These posts are so perfect that they end up
looking unearthly. And that’s when we realized that these people had the power to
influence a large group of masses and convince them to buy without frenzy by
altering their reality. Suddenly, something in our brains started to make sense, and
we thought “Holy moly”. We know all of this is fake, but if more and more people are
supporting these kinds of posts, everyone will start to get convinced that it’s true and
that they need to follow everything they do, or they will be left behind.
Then we knew we had to spread the word of self-wellness and undeceive people
about how all these liars are polluting our minds and making us become a society of
consumption.
To the heart of the matter, social media has been affecting our perception of
happiness by creating unnecessary whims and a cloud of envy that makes us not feel
at peace with our lives as they aren’t perfect as theirs. This is the reason why
self-compassion meditation is so important, because it helps us to accept ourselves,
erase those polluted thoughts and connect with nature.

Pablo: Now I’m going to explain the benefits that self-compassion meditation
involves. Firstly, according to science, self-compassion meditation can:
- Reduce self-criticism: as we have explained before, this practice’s main
purpose is to stop acting so harshly towards oneself and others. So were you to
try it, you would experience less inner-critic, and you’d be more self
 acceptance. Moreover, it has been proved that loving-kindness meditation
reduces self-harming impulses in individuals with suicidal tendencies.
- Enhance wellbeing: studies have shown it improves life satisfaction as it
helps you to stop carrying burdens or regrets about your past actions, which
ameliorates your current way of life.
- Reduce cellular aging: when we said loving-kindness meditation is so
necessary we weren’t joking, recent studies have shown that we can control
our telomere’s shortening. If you don’t know what that is, telomeres are the
chromosome’s endings and every time we have to replicate our DNA to grow
up, to heal our wounds or just to create new cells, these telomeres are
shortened causing aging. Nonetheless, Elizabeth Blackburn who shared a
Nobel Prize has revealed that eating healthy, exercising regularly, stopping
smoking, sleeping enough and cutting down on stress via self-compassion
meditation can delay aging.
- Reduce pain: Pilot studies on patients with chronic back pain and migraine
showed that when they practiced loving-kindness meditation for brief periods,
experienced a reduction in pain symptoms and accomplished their daily tasks
with more ease and comfort.
- Greater resilience: it has been proven that loving-kindness meditation can
reduce trauma symptoms and flashbacks in those who have suffered
long-term post-traumatic stress disorders.
- Improved relationships: those who take up self-compassion meditation
seem to have greater empathy for strangers as well as strengthened
relationships with relatives, friends and coworkers because of their bigger
confidence in themselves and brand-new perspective of life and love.
- Improved mental health: some findings have reported that this practice is
able to decrease relapses in people who suffer mental disorders such as
depression and lessen hallucinations and delusions in patients diagnosed with
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Second Class

(La presentación la expone únicamente Pablo)

Pablo: Hi class, it’s me, myself and I, Pablo. And today I’m going to show you my
presentation about self-compassion meditation. Unfortunately, Elena who was
supposed to work with me has decided to just stare and do nothing. So, shall I begin?

Rebeca: Elena!? Are you aware that if you don’t , right? //////////////////////////
(Elena se encuentra sentada en su sitio enfurruñada resopla y se gira a hablar con
el compañero de al lado.)

Pablo: So, first of all. What is self-compassion meditation? Self-compassion involves

acting the same way towards yourself when you are having a difficult time, failing, or
noticing something you don’t like about yourself.
Instead of just ignoring your pain with a “stiff upper lip” mentality, you say to
yourself: “This is really difficult right now, how can I comfort and care for myself at
this moment?”
Oh, I know, maybe we can try to use some self compassion meditation to solve this
problem. But how does this mediation work, you wonder.
Now, I would like to demonstrate to you how it actually works, so I will need one
volunteer to help me as an example. (Echa un vistazo a la clase, y apunta hacia
Elena) Elena, why don’t you come here and help me show to your mates what it
consists of?

Elena: I don’t see the point of doing such a silly thing. Count me out! Because I’m
not gonna do that and embarrass myself.

Vanesa: Elena, he wasn’t asking for your opinion. Just come here and help him do
your project. If you do it, then you may have the chance not to fail.

Elena: Alright, so you want me to take part in this project, uh? Well, I suppose I
don’t have any other option instead of just letting me mind my own business. (Se
levanta y se dirige hacia el escenario) Now, I’m here to serve you. What do you
require of your humble servant? Your majesty. (Pablo entorna/gira los ojos con
annoyed)

Pablo: Well, now that we have a “volunteer”, I shall continue. As I said earlier,
self-compassion is accepting yourself and trying to love yourself during the most
difficult moments you may encounter during the short path of life. So,
self-compassion workshops were created to help people who are unaware of their
feelings, that feel restrained to express themselves because of various factors or
people that just want to connect their brain with their heart and find a balance
between their inner and outer self. (Se escucha a Elena suspirar pesado, tan fuerte
que distrae a Pablo) Is there anything you don’t agree with?
Elena: Um, aha. It’s just that this kind of workshop is useless, I have tried every
single tip found in my browser, and it hasn’t worked at all. It seems like I’m doomed
to an eternal damnation, where my worst nightmares are all together to make me
suffer like I was some kind of infested rat who everybody hates.

Pablo: (Momento de silencio) That's truly unbelievable, Elena has just opened her
heart to us. Now, I’m going to show you how you can control them, accept them and
feel comfortable with yourself and with everybody.
First of all, I would like you to take three deep breaths, just so you can relax and
enter into a calm mood.

Elena: This ain’t going to change anything.

Pablo:

ANTI-HERO
https://www.mindful.org/this-loving-kindness-meditation-is-a-radical-act-of-love/
https://positivepsychology.com/loving-kindness-meditation/
Research indicates that self-compassion is one of the most powerful sources of
coping and resilience we have available to us, radically improving our mental and
physical wellbeing. It motivates us to make changes and reach our goals not
because we’re inadequate, but because we care and want to be happy. This website
offers information about self-compassion, as well as research, guided practices and
a way to test your own self-compassion level. It’s a good place to start on your
journey of leaning to be more self-compassionate.

//////////////////////////

People who are probably insecure of asking for help and people who at least once in
their lives had been rejected for who they are or for being so “loud” when they were
just trying to be them. And after having seen a bunch of videos about personal
experiences
//////////
and these influencers to whom I haven’t stopped referring to influence their followers
to buy products that they don’t need just to get closer to their screen reality which
has been since the beginning a total sham.