Building Children’s Emotional Resilience Through Self-Compassion
Integrating self-compassion practices into family life is a profound gift. Educators and co-authors Wendy O’Leary and Louise Shanagher share creative practices that create a culture of kindness and compassion in the family that will nourish children throughout their lives.
#kriyayoga #harmlessness #kindness #self-compassion #mindfulness #emotional resilience
Wendy O’Leary
Wendy O’Leary is an educator, author, and public speaker with expertise in mindfulness, self-compassion, and social and emotional learning for children. She is trained in mindful self-compassion, trauma informed yoga, and mindfulness and is a member of the International Mindfulness Teachers Association.
Wendy’s website is WendyOleary.com
Louise Shanagher
Louise Shanagher is a mindfulness educator, children’s therapist, author, and founder of the Creative Mindfulness Kids Organization. Based in Ireland, Louise Shanagher has a BA and MSc in Psychology and further qualifications in mindfulness, psychotherapy, and play therapy.
Louise’s website is Creative-Mindfulness.com
Wendy and Louise are the co-authors of the book we are discussing today, Growing Self-Compassionate Children: A Family Guide for Nurturing Resiliency and Kindness.
THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: This discussion with Wendy O'Leary and Louise Shanagher about their new book Growing Self-Compassionate Children: A Family Guide for Nurturing Resiliency and Kindness is a very important topic for our children, for parents and teachers as well as for anyone who is a human being wanting to live life in the highest way. They both say that the most important thing we can do for our children and for ourselves is recognize when we are suffering or have difficulties, remember that as a human being we all have difficulties in life and bring kindness to ourselves when we recognize that we are suffering. We should treat ourselves as our best friend with kindness and compassion. Their book has many good exercises and practices that we can use for ourselves and for our children. This practice of self-compassion affects the way we are in the world and as we model it, our children will experience it and be able to choose this way of living for themselves. This is an excellent program.
DR TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: I appreciated that so much of our conversation was about how adults can bring more self-compassion into their lives, and how being more self-compassionate actually helps us to better learn and grow. These are behaviors that we can then pass on to our children. We discussed ahimsa, the yogic practice of harmlessness or kindness, which applies to us being kind to ourselves as well as to others. If we are going to increase our self-compassion, we must first notice that we are suffering, which involves self-study, one of the three key practices of Kriya Yoga.