“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
― Buddha
The 8 Week Mindful Self-Compassion Course (MSC)
Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) is a gentle, evidence-based eight-week course designed to help you cultivate a kinder, more supportive relationship with yourself.
Developed by Dr Kristin Neff and Dr Chris Germer, MSC weaves together mindfulness and compassion practices to support emotional resilience, inner safety, and well-being. At its heart, this work is about learning to meet yourself—especially in moments of difficulty—with warmth, understanding, and care.
Self-compassion is not about fixing yourself or becoming “better.” It is about learning to be with yourself just as you are.
The Heart of Self-Compassion
Self-compassion embodies three gentle yet powerful qualities:
Self-Kindness – opening your heart to your own suffering and learning to offer yourself what you need
Common Humanity – remembering that you are not alone, that difficulty is part of being human
Mindful Awareness – meeting your experience with presence and honesty, just as it is
Together, these create a warm, connected way of being with yourself—especially when life feels hard.
An Experiential Journey
This course offers more than understanding alone—it is an experiential journey, inviting you to gently explore your inner world and develop practical, embodied resources for meeting life with more kindness, presence, and resilience.
Over the eight weeks, you are supported to:
Learn how to be a kind and supportive friend to yourself when you need it most
Meet difficult emotions with greater steadiness and care
Work more skillfully with stress, self-criticism, and overwhelm
Relate to challenges and relationships with more warmth and clarity
Reconnect with your values, strengths, and what truly matters to you
Cultivate gratitude, appreciation, and a deeper sense of aliveness
Rather than striving to “fix” yourself, MSC offers a different path—one that helps you turn toward your experience with understanding and compassion, and to discover what naturally begins to soften and change from there.
Self-compassion has a paradoxical quality: it soothes emotional distress, while also gently opening us to feelings we may have learned to turn away from over time. As your capacity to be present grows, difficult emotions may arise—and this becomes an important part of the healing. You are supported throughout this process in a way that is caring, respectful, and paced.
While MSC is therapeutic in nature, it is not group therapy. The emphasis is on gently strengthening your inner capacities and resources, and learning practices that support you in everyday life.
How the Course unfolds
The MSC course is taught over 8 weekly sessions of approximately 2.75 hours each, and includes a half-day silent practice retreat mid way through.
Each week builds gently on the last, offering a spacious and supportive arc of exploration:
Week 1: You begin by discovering what self-compassion truly is, and why it matters.
Week 2: You learn foundational mindfulness skills for being with your experience.
Week 3: You explore loving-kindness and warmth toward yourself and others.
Week 4: You begin to recognise and cultivate your compassionate inner voice.
Week 5: You uncover your strengths and values, and what sustains you.
Week 6: You learn to meet difficult emotions with steadiness and care.
Week 7: You explore how self-compassion supports you in relationships.
Week 8: You integrate these practices into your life, as you embrace the fullness of your experience.
Each session weaves together short teachings, guided meditations, experiential exercises, and space for reflection and sharing. You will also receive recorded practices to support you at home.
Participants are invited to practice for up to 30 minutes a day during the course. Research shows that the benefits of MSC are closely linked to how these practices are woven into daily life.
A Supportive Space
This course is held as a warm, respectful, and spacious container—one where you are invited to be exactly as you are.
Many people arrive with quiet questions:
Do I have to share before I am ready? Can I go at my own pace? Can I simply arrive just as I am?
In this space, your boundaries are honoured. You are always free to participate in ways that feel right for you. Nothing is forced, and there is no expectation to reveal more than you wish.
One of the quiet gifts of this work is discovering that you are not alone. Practising in community allows us to experience common humanity in a lived way—seeing that the struggles we carry are shared, and that tenderness and courage live in many hearts. Simply being alongside others who are also learning to meet themselves with kindness can be deeply reassuring and healing.
At the same time, this is your individual journey. You are encouraged to listen inwardly, to take responsibility for your own wellbeing, and to honour your own rhythm.
The intention is to create an environment of safety, care, and trust—where gentleness is valued, where your inner world is respected, and where there is room for both connection and quiet self-honouring.
This course is an invitation
To meet yourself with greater gentleness,
To turn toward your inner world with care,
And to discover the strength that grows from kindness—
within yourself, and alongside others ♡
Shared Experiences