The Compassionate Mind Approach to Reducing Stress Quotes

“Exercise: Working with stress and anxiety This is a useful exercise in which we use our underlying, fundamental wholeness to support us in difficult times. For the purposes of the exercise we will divide ourselves into two parts – for simplicity we call them ‘A’ and ‘B’ here but you could apply whichever labels work for you: A – is the aspect of you that is well, relaxed, compassionate, self-aware, a true friend to you, always responsive and never-judging. B – is the aspect of you that feels stressed, frustrated, overwhelmed and misunderstood. This exercise focuses on the breath and there is a different activity for the in-breath and the out-breath. On the in-breath the A aspect takes away all the difficulties the B aspect is experiencing, and on the out-breath gives healing and nourishment. This enables B to relax and find some relief. As you breathe in, consider that A opens their heart completely and warmly and compassionately accepts and embraces all of the stress and frustration that B is experiencing. Touched by this, B can relax and open their heart, so that their pain and suffering melts away. As you breathe out, consider that A sends out to B all their understanding, healing, comfort, love and confidence. Continue the exercise for several moments and then sit in meditation. Let’s apply this exercise to the scenario in which you just lost your job. We could imagine that at last you have a job interview coming up – it’s for a job that you know you could do well and have a good chance of getting, but your recent experience since losing your job has left your confidence at a low ebb and you are feeling very nervous and insecure. This would be a good exercise to do to help you prepare for the interview. The A aspect of yourself would be the one that knows it can do this job and is well-qualified for it, whereas the B aspect is the one whose confidence has been undermined by recent events. The idea is that as you do the exercise, the A aspect does not change so much but the B aspect finds comfort and healing, and the stress and anxiety you have been feeling is eased. You may need to do it several times but that is fine. Once you have become familiar with it, then on the way to the interview you could do an informal version of just paying attention to your breathing and imagining your nerves settling.”
― Maureen Cooper, The Compassionate Mind Approach to Reducing Stress

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality. Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
― Maureen Cooper, The Compassionate Mind Approach to Reducing Stress