The Compassionate Mind (Compassion Focused Therapy)

by Paul A. Gilbert

Another response is to be compassionate to that anger or denial, seeing them as entirely understandable – it is indeed very unfair that I have a brain (not of my design or choosing) that makes me really enjoy and want things that are bad for me (or others). I can learn to be understanding and empathic to my feelings of irritation and loss arising from the fact that I can’t have what I want. When I was trying to give up cigarettes, my wife bought me a wonderful book by Richard Klein called Cigarettes Are Sublime.2 It focuses on all the pleasures of smoking – and that giving up will involve quite a major grief process. It was then that I realized that I had neither recognized nor been prepared to face up to or deal with my grief and loss – the loss of the romantic Paul, with the jazz, glass of wine and soft smoke. Smokers will understand this. So it was a sad and compassionate goodbye to smoking – well, okay, if I’m honest, a string of goodbyes. But in the end if I want to stave off health problems, getting fat and having headaches, I haven’t much choice but to take control over my pleasures of smoking, eating and drinking. It is how I do that that is key. The thing is to cultivate the genuine desire to look after and nurture oneself, with a sense of warmth, kindness and even playfulness and to limit our acting on our desires from a position of kindness and understanding.