About this Event
Mindful Self-Compassion or “MSC” is an empirically-supported program developed by Drs. Chris Germer and Kristin Neff. This 6-week version has been adapted as an intimate online offering.
In this 6-week program, participants will meet once a week for 1.5 hours and will learn MSC skills through activities such as meditation, experiential exercises, short presentations, group discussion, and home practices. No experience with mindfulness or meditation is required.
This course helps participants cultivate the mental and emotional habit of mindful self-compassion by learning the process of infusing our moment-to-moment experience with self-awareness kindness.
Mindful self-compassion is the first step in emotional healing—being able to be-friend oneself, turn inwardly and acknowledge our difficult thoughts and feelings with a spirit of openness, curiosity, and love, rather than self-judgment, or self-criticism. Perhaps most importantly, cultivating self-compassion means that we honor and accept our humanness.
Things will not always go the way we want them to. Many of us deal with ongoing uncertainties, insecurities about the future, being overwhelmed, feeling hurt, and encounter frustrations, discrimination and injustices, fears, and losses on a daily basis. This is the human condition, pronounced more now than before, a reality shared by us all.
Research has shown that self-compassion and fierce compassion greatly enhances emotional well-being. It boosts resilience, confidence, a sense of purpose, and deepens the connection to self and others. MSC has been shown to reduces anxiety, depression, and feelings of isolation. Being both mindful and compassionate leads to greater ease and well-being in our daily lives. MSC can be learned by anyone. It’s the practice of recognizing moments of difficulty, and repeatedly evoking good will toward ourselves. It extends cultivation of that same desire beyond ourselves to all living beings to live happily and free from suffering.
Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
Register for a Certificate of Completion and get CEUs. Our CEUs are available for licensed psychologists, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, and social workers in Washington State. We cannot guarantee that these CEUs will be accepted in other states.
Scholarships Available
CCFW aims to promote well-being by making evidence-based mindfulness practices available and accessible to community members, particularly professionals working with children and families. We believe that mindfulness has positive implications for professionals as well as the children and families they interact with. Therefore, we wish to encourage mindfulness training by removing possible financial barriers for professionals working with these specific populations. If these fees are cost-prohibitive for you, we invite you to apply for a scholarship.
About the Presenters
Yaffa Maritz, LMHC
Yaffa is the founder and director of the Community of Mindful Parenting, a co-founder of Listening Mothers, and the clinical director of both Listening Mothers and Reflective Parenting, two research-based parenting programs. Yaffa was born and trained in Israel as a clinical psychologist. She is also a licensed mental health counselor with advanced training in infant mental health. She is an advocate for the well-being of children and their families and served on several local and national boards that promote this agenda, including the Governor’s Commission for Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention. Yaffa believes that by supporting parents and creating nurturing communities for them, we can set the foundation for the positive growth of children’s social, emotional, and mental health.
Yaffa is a certified facilitator of Mindful-Self Compassion. She participated in the Stanford yearlong teachers training program called CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training) that was offered through Stanford’s Center for Compassion, Altruism, Research and Education. She also completed the advanced training program in MSC (Mindful Self-Compassion) with Drs. Kristin Neff and Chris Germer
Foxy Davison
Foxy Davison, daughter of Angela Collins, granddaughter of Barbra Brown, and great-granddaughter of Thelma Delespine is a momma of 3 amazing kids and wife of one incredible husband. She is an educator and activist, serving as community coordinator for the Metropolitan Seattle Sickle Cell Task Force and community outreach coordinator for the Progress House Work Release. Foxy helps facilitate mindfulness sessions through Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic in the community with other parents.