As children, many of us were not taught that our feelings matter. Instead, we learned that adults’ feelings were more important and that we should respect our elders without question. We were taught the importance of being kind to others, but not to ourselves.

As a result, many of us grew up with a negative inner voice, always telling us we aren’t good enough, that we don’t deserve happiness. The voice waits for us to mess up and then laughs at our failures.

Imagine how your life would be if that inner voice told you kind, loving things about yourself instead… if it built you up instead of tearing you down… how would your relationship with yourself change? That’s what this course is all about. It will give you the tools to develop love, empathy, gratitude and compassion for yourself.

We all stumble and make mistakes in life — it’s part of being human — but having self-compassion allows you to see mistakes as learning opportunities rather than colossal failures. When you have self-compassion in your emotional toolkit, you treat yourself as you would treat your best friend. You speak lovingly and gently to yourself. You have patience and empathy for yourself. You don’t beat yourself up over the smallest thing. You build emotional resilience and can cope much better when life throws you a curveball. You can form healthy relationships with other people without fear of rejection. All of this begins with loving and accepting yourself, just as you are, and that is what you will learn on this course.

This 8 hour course can be helpful to anyone and in any setting. It can be delivered in person or online via Zoom, over 4 or 2 sessions (4 x 2 hours or 2 x 4 hours).