Happiness Break: What To Do When You're Struggling, With Spring Washam

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Treating yourself with kindness reduces anxiety and improves coping skills. Spring Washam encourages us to be more self-compassionate through a short guided meditation.

Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/mrx8t9st

How to Do This Practice:

Find a comfortable position and begin to focus on your breath.
This is a practice to use when you are struggling in some way. Allow your attention to turn toward your suffering and notice how you feel, and where those emotions are held in your body. Close your eyes and imagine that you are literally breathing in compassion and care for yourself.
Hold your left hand in your right, or place your hands on your heart, holding yourself with care.
Continue to direct compassionate energy to yourself using the mantra “May I care about this suffering. May I care about these difficulties.”

Today’s Happiness Break host:

Spring Washam is a meditation teacher whose practices draw on themes of loving-kindness, well-being and compassion.

Learn More About Spring’s work: https://www.springwasham.com/about/

Listen to Spring’s podcast, The Spirit Underground: https://tinyurl.com/y87mxrw2

Follow Spring on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/springwasham/?hl=en

Follow Spring on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teacher.springwasham

More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

How to Feel Better About Yourself (The Science of Happiness Podcast): https://tinyurl.com/3jh5rheb

How to Bring Self-Compassion to Work with You: https://tinyurl.com/45zkrkam

The Five Myths of Self-Compassion: https://tinyurl.com/2p88vass

How Self-Compassion Can Help You Through a Breakup: https://tinyurl.com/222scejz

Can Self-Compassion Overcome Procrastination? https://tinyurl.com/mrfmvyj

The Three Components of Self-Compassion: https://tinyurl.com/mwa2zddp

We love hearing from you! Tell us about your experience practicing self compassion. Email us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/yrv47mh7

Help us share Happiness Break! Rate us on Spotify and copy and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/yrv47mh7

We're living through a mental health crisis. Between the stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, burnout — we all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real-time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown in a lab to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I'm Dacker Kilter, welcome to Happiness Break, a series by the Science of Happiness, where
0:09.3	we take a short break to try a practice designed to bring ourselves more peace, contentment,
0:14.3	gratitude, or in this case, compassion.
0:17.5	Today, we're continuing our discussion from last week's episode of The Science of Happiness
0:21.8	on self-compassion.
0:23.9	When we're kinder to ourselves, studies show we strengthen our coping skills, we feel
0:28.6	more motivated and resilient, and we also feel less stress and anxiety.
0:34.2	Feeling self-compassion can be healing, but when we're faced with intense emotions
0:38.5	like fear, grief, and shame, it can be hard to tap into self-kindness.
0:44.6	Today, meditation teacher and author Spring Washam is guiding a practice that leans into
0:49.7	that very struggle, caring for ourselves by turning towards our struggles with kindness.
0:57.2	Compassion means care, caring about the suffering of others, but most importantly, when
1:15.5	it comes to self-compassion, it's caring about our own suffering.
1:21.6	When I care about the places in me that are sad, can I learn to care about my difficulties
1:29.3	and my struggle?
1:34.5	Compassion is love, it's an expression of love.
1:38.5	I often do these practices myself when I'm in my hardest moment, when I feel strong
1:46.3	emotion.
1:52.0	Let's find a place where you can sit and be comfortable for a few moments here and begin
1:58.6	by closing your eyes and taking a big breath in and a big breath out and just grounding
2:05.4	in your body, grounding in your breath, becoming still, which is often
2:16.3	challenging when we're feeling pain.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PRX and Greater Good Science Center, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of PRX and Greater Good Science Center and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.