I teach the 8-week Mindful Self-Compassion course from the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion (University of San Diego), as designed by Drs. Kristin Neff and Chris Germer. This course is the first pre-requisite to becoming a Certified Teacher of MSC.

I also lead workshops and run in-person and digital intensives in mindfulness and self compassion for schools, educators, caregivers, and others interested in these proven wellness practices.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch and ask me more about this via Twitter: @lloveridge

Mindful Self Compassion for International Educators as presented by Lorelei Loveridge: 

Additional Resources (meditations, handouts, self-assessments):

Dr. Kristin Neff’s website here.

Includes many full articles, self assessment on your ability to be self-compassionate, and exercises + meditations. THE meditation (self-compassion/loving kindness) that moved me to pursue a study of her work is in this collection, and it can also be found on Insight Timer, a phone app of free meditations.

Chris Germer’s website here.

He offers psychotherapy and further research and information on mindful self compassion as related to his work in psychotherapy (Chris is at the fore of psychotherapy in this field and penning textbooks on it now).

The Center for Mindful Self-Compassion

Founded by Kristin Neff and Chris Germer. Current courses and other resources.

Maitri Retreats homepage.

Home of my Zen meditation teacher Hamid Ebadi with whom I studied during a 7-day silent Zen meditation retreat in October 2018. Hamid is also a trained psychotherapist, philosopher, and an ordained monk from Iran.

These factors inspired me to work with him as did his choice of retreat center in Portugal: the Karuna Center, which I photographed extensively (almost 1500 photos) before it was sadly burnt down in the Monchique wildfire on the mountainside in August 2018. Thankfully, the Karuna Center was rebuilt with the same love that nurtured it into existence over 20 years. It is a remarkable place.

Hamid brings a rigor of the Zen traditions to practice that has changed my life. For me, the rigor of simple Zen meditation strongly reinforced the self-compassion and meditative and non-meditative practices of Kristin and Chris. In particular, what impacted me and my work with meditation are both the balance in (1) training in personal mindfulness and (2) understanding that we are part of a global community – a ‘shared humanity’ – and thus would do well to understand the impact of our actions upon others.

This fits with my philosophy of how to bring mindfulness, meditation, and self-compassion/compassion to students and staff in schools and other organizations.

My photos of the Karuna Center on Serra de Monchique, Portugal edited to B/W by Hamid after our retreat, here.