Ep. 155: Learning to Embody Self-Compassion with Dr. Dennis Tirch
Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression
Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT | Anxiety & OCD Specialist
4.9 • 882 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2020
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today on the podcast, we are so lucky to be able to talk with Dr. Dennis Tirch, the founder of The Center for Compassion Focused Therapy and the author of six amazing books including, The ACT Practitioner's Guide to the Science of Compassion and The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety. Dr. Tirch is here to talk with us about learning to embody self-compassion.
In the beginning of this interview, Dr. Tirch spends some time discussing the definition of self-compassion and why self-compassion is so important for our mental health, especially for those struggling with anxiety.
Dr. Tirch says that learning to embody self-compassion involves "grounding ourselves in a sense of emotional safeness, meaning and purpose." By practicing self-compassion and mindfulness, Dr. Tirch says we can "gradually train the mind to rest in an awareness of compassion and care." He so beautifully tells us that if people can learn to embody this self-compassion and feeling of being grounded then they will be able to "turn towards the things they fear and walk through them." By learning to embody self-compassion and learning to speak to yourself in a compassionate voice, Dr. Tirch says your empathy will grow and your ability to tolerate distress will grow as well.
Dr. Tirch spends some time talking to us about his own personal self-compassion exercises and he shares how important breathing and meditation can be when learning to embody self-compassion.
Finally, Dr. Tirch spends some time explaining the importance of "finding your aim." When we ask ourselves "what is your aim?' it helps us become more self-aware and able to find our purpose.
This is an amazing interview so full of beauty and wisdom. I hope you all enjoy.
The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety
The ACT Practitioner's Guide to the Science of Compassion
Dr. Tirch's website www.mindfulnesscompassion.com
Ep: 134: Giving and Receiving Meditation
ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Your Anxiety Toolkit, episode number 155. |
| 0:10.7 | Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. |
| 0:13.3 | I'm your host, Kimberly Quinlan. |
| 0:15.4 | This podcast is fueled by three main goals. |
| 0:18.7 | The first goal is to provide you with some extra tools to help you |
| 0:22.2 | manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you. Anxiety doesn't get to decide how you live your life. |
| 0:29.9 | And number three, and I leave the best for last, is to provide you with one big, fat virtual hug, |
| 0:37.1 | because experiencing anxiety ain't easy. If that sounds good to you, |
| 0:41.3 | let's go. Well, welcome back. I'm so happy to have you here with me. I know you guys know, but I'm |
| 0:52.7 | going to tell you right up front. |
| 0:59.9 | We have two more episodes before I am taking a little bit of a break over the summer to replenish and restore and to be with my family and take a breath just like I did because it's |
| 1:09.3 | what I really need. And if that's what you need, |
| 1:11.7 | I strongly encourage you to do whatever it is you need to do to recharge. This is going to be an |
| 1:22.3 | amazing episode. I cannot tell you how much I geeked out over this episode. |
| 1:28.2 | Today we have with us the amazing guest, Dr. Dennis Tersch. |
| 1:33.5 | I am a massive fan of the work he does. |
| 1:37.7 | I've read pretty much, I think every one of his books. |
| 1:42.0 | I would just consider him to be someone I look up to and a mentor and |
| 1:48.6 | just an all-round awesome human being. And so I'm going to just love sharing with you this |
| 1:53.5 | amazing conversation that we had that was supposed to be short, but it just kept going and going |
| 1:57.9 | because I just kept tacking on extra questions. I just found it to be such a great, great interview. |
| 2:04.4 | And what we're talking about here is embodying self-compassion. |
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