Mindful Self-Compassion for Anxiety

MSC for Anxiety is designed for people with mild to moderate anxiety. It is not therapy, however, the program is therapeutic. It can provide you with a toolkit of skills and resources to help you cultivate the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion.
Research shows that Mindful Self-Compassion can help improve our emotional well-being, improve our ability to cope with life’s challenges, lower levels of anxiety and depression, promote healthy habits such as diet and exercise, and lead to more satisfying personal relationships.
Self-compassion can fundamentally shift how we relate to ourselves and to our anxiety. Instead of meeting challenges with self-blame and criticism, we can learn bring to care for ourselves much as we would care for someone we loved. We can learn to bring kind and mindful attention to our experiences (thoughts, emotions, and sensations) and a sense of love and care to ourselves, right amid difficult situations.

What to expect

Live Online Classes
The classes will be offered live online and will not be recorded. We will send a link to the Zoom sessions to registered participants. We send a summary email with links to the new practices after each class.

ZOOM
We will be using the confidential platform ZOOM. We are committed to co-creating a safe, confidential, and compassionate space for our sessions. Participants have found they do not feel as comfortable in the program when some people have their video cameras off. Therefore, we ask participants to keep their video monitor ON for the sessions.

Please find a quiet confidential space where you can focus for 90 minutes without distraction. We will meet online for six consecutive weeks from 7 – 8:30 pm.

Prerequisites

Please check your calendar carefully before registering and consider whether you can commit to attend

• The first class, and
• 4 out of 5 remaining sessions.

Each session will offer a grounding meditation, a check-in on how the practices are going followed by the introduction of the topic for the night. In each class, we will present some new perspectives and introduce a new practice to try. You will have the opportunity to be guided through the practice, and then self-reflect individually, as well as in small groups if comfortable (optional).

If you cannot commit to this participation at this time, we encourage you to consider registering for a later course where you will have the time to commit to all sessions.

Participants who miss the first class will not be able to attend the remaining sessions and the admin fee will not be refunded.

Confidentiality

To create a safe, brave, and compassionate space to grow, we ask that you commit to protecting the confidentiality of members of our group. In addition, classes will not be recorded.

Fee

The program is covered under the BC Medical Services Plan and is offered free to adult BC residents who provide us with their full name (as listed on MSP care), MSP number, and birthdate. A small non-refundable admin fee of $55 is charged.