Inner resilience – a lense into the IDGs through Mindful Self-Compassion research

Emergent research points to compassion as a quality that has particular importance for transformation. Compassion is a powerful antidote to our sense of separation and can help us to overcome polarisation and move into action. Nourishing awareness and compassion can foster fundamental aspects of connection and address all aspects of the mind-sustainability nexus. They can support individual resilience, foster wiser decision-making, and thus support increasing individual, collective and planetary wellbeing.

Compassion-interventions use specific strategies with the aim to calm and sooth the individual. These include breathing practices, the use of friendly voices, and facial and bodily expressions, that have been found to activate the parasympathetic system which improves heart rate variability and decreases stress. In contrast, the sympathetic system is activated, when we perceive threat or stress, and then, the ability for higher order cognitive capacities such as perspective taking is inhibited. On the other hand, the activation of the parasympathetic system, provides feelings of psychological safety, which in turn, activate the prefrontal cortex and thus enables perspective taking.
Compassion directed towards oneself is referred to as self-compassion. This involves a loving, non-judgmental understanding of one’s own shortcomings so that the perception of one’s own suffering and difficulties is viewed in a larger perspective of what it means to be human (Neff, 2011). Self-compassion includes the three components Self-kindness (vs self-judgment): being kind towards oneself when encountering pain and personal shortcomings, rather than ignoring them or hurting oneself with self-criticism; Common humanity (vs isolation): recognising that suffering and personal failure is part of the shared human experience; Mindfulness (vs identification): taking a balanced approach to one’s negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.
(Self-)Compassion is trainable. Therefore, the IDG Global Empathy and Compassion Network emphasises and supports the understanding and integration of empathy and compassion exercises into all IDG domains.

In a next step, other compassion-based interventions’ research could be added to this graphic e.g. Compassion-Focused Therapy (Gilbert, 2014), Compassion Cultivation Training (Jazaieri et al., 2013), Cognitively Based Compassion Training (Pace et al., 2009), Cultivating Emotional Balance (Kemeny et al., 2012).

The presentation of the IDG communication framework in combination with mindful self-compassion research and practises was received with much interest with the