Geelong Meditation Centre

17/03/2025

Ready for a change? Self-compassion can help you stop beating yourself up and get you back on your own side.

When I introduce self-compassion I often say it’s like treating yourself like you would treat someone you care deeply about. If you really hear that back it seems kind of nuts that we would need to learn how to do this but yet so many of us are too hard on ourselves.

Self-compassion isn’t self-pity, or letting yourself off the hook, or some form of self-indulgence. As you would help steer a good friend onto steady ground, comfort them and encourage them, self-compassion just sees the reasonableness of kindness in the face of challenge and doesn’t make things unnecessarily worse.

Through a mixture of theory, mindfulness, meditation, mindful movement, journaling and discussion you will learn concepts and tools to help you care for yourself better.

Group size is limited. *Two spots have become available. Everyone welcome.

6 x Tuesday nights starts March 18th, Newtown. See bio for details or dm with any questions.

Beth
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06/03/2025

Shame and self-criticism are rarely good teachers. They drop too deep, create an identity of inadequacy, make everything your fault.

Guilt, on the other hand, alerts us to having done something that could have been harmful: a careless action, an error of some sort. It’s important to feel some of this so that we don’t go around being jerks. Guilt can motivate us to attempt to rectify our mistakes, reduce the harm, apologise, learn how to do better. But shame, shame can sink into our bones.

In my own experience and that of with working with clients, it’s not enough to simply not be self-critical to reduce shame. What helps is to develop a reassuring self, a perspective that can accept mistakes as part of being human, and a deep commitment to reducing one’s own suffering.

Self-compassion course starts Tuesday 18th 🩵

14/01/2025

Farewell to our sweet Blossom bunny 🐰 A tearful lesson in letting go and the fragility of life. This sweet bunny is first pet my children have said goodbye to.

My parents didn’t like the idea of pets. I’m sure there were many reasons for this, but the one I remember was a fear of our grief when these treasured friends would inevitably pass away. As I witness my children’s grief, I instead see that pets are a gift not only for their companionship, cuteness, in teaching us how to care for another, for the way they help us shift out of our very human concerns and preoccupations, but also because they teach us this inevitable lesson of love and loss.

One the ways my daughter has comforted herself has been through sharing her realisations that everyone who has ever had a pet has lost a pet and, that each of these people has in their own unique way, suffered the pain of that loss. She’s shared her compassion for her dad who lost his cat to a snake bite as a child, to her cousin who lost their beloved Labrador when she was only 5, our dear friend who lost her 16 year old dog last year…the list goes on. It seems we can learn the depth of our compassion in our suffering, even as children, and that is so achingly beautiful.

Sending huge love to all those who have loved and lost a pet ♥️

09/01/2025

What would you like to step into this year? What intentions are you setting?

I am calling in more peace and play this year after an energised year of growth, personally and professionally.

While I’ve massively benefited from harnessing the oomf required to be productive in my outer life, I’m wanting to reconnect more with my reflective and self-care practices that have ebbed away as my work and family life have become more full. I’m particularly keen to get out for hikes and practice more art in my journaling to keep things fresh and interesting.

Any day can be the threshold to a new beginning with a bit of conscious effort. What do you yearn for?

**Dream & Create Your 2025 Workshop**, 25th Jan. See for details ✨

02/01/2025

Get clear on your vision for 2025 at our special new year workshop to help you bring to life your dreams and goals 💫

This workshop will be a friendly, relaxed and inspiring space to reflect on the past year and dive into the new one with clarity and confidence.

We’ll explore meditations, practical tools and creative exercises to help you align your dreams with inspired action. No artistic ability required! Just an open mind and a willingness to play, get the creativity flowing, and dream into something new 🤸‍♂️💫 🎨

You will leave with your own personal vision board to illustrate what you’re dreaming into for the year ahead.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
– Socrates

I don’t know about you but I find that early Jan isn’t always the easiest time to be reflective and find time just for yourself so we’re doing it later in the month after the busy-ness of the season is over but before the old routine fully kicks back in.

Come join us for a fun, full morning with like-minded others and set up your year.

Dream & Create Your 2025

Date: Saturday, 25th January

Time: 10am-12:30pm

Location: Newtown

Find the info in our bio
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08/11/2024

If you’re needing a life raft in this weird sea of doom come gather with like-minded others and learn to find calm in chaos.

Our final course of the year starts this coming Tuesday 12th November, 7-8:30pm, Newtown. 6 weeks.

Suitable for new and experienced meditators.

See https://www.geelongmeditationcentre.com.au for more info.

If finances are a barrier to attending please send me a DM and we’ll work something out. Beth 💛

07/11/2024

It’s a good day for some Thich Nhat Hahn wisdom.

Sending love and kindness to all 💛

28/09/2024

“When you are gentle with yourself, you grow mighty”. - Emily Nagoski

If you’d like to develop a gentler, stronger and more supportive relationship with yourself join us next Tuesday 7pm for our six-week Cultivating Self-Compassion Course (Newtown).

Through a combination of theory, discussion, meditation, gentle movement and journaling exercises you will learn:

- how and why self-criticism arises, how it holds you back and how to work with it
- strategies to tune into and regulate emotions
- the 3 components of self-compassion and how to develop them
- how mindfulness disrupts old mental and emotional habit patterns and how self-compassion reorients you to being more self-supportive
- the empowering side of self-compassion, how this develops into courage and supports the overcoming of people pleasing and over-committing

All delivered in a friendly and supportive small group atmosphere.

Notes and guided meditations provided.

Find out more via the link in our bio or dm for details 🤍

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24/09/2024

You don’t need to throw yourself away and become someone else to lessen your self-criticism.

In my work as a therapist, my study in this area and in my own experience I’ve discovered that the work of becoming less negatively impacted by self-criticism involves:

a deep realisation that everyone is imperfect and these experiences of self-criticism are widely shared and a cause of collective suffering

a deep level of curiosity and awareness (mindfulness)

increased experience of accessing your true Self (through a combination of therapy/journaling/meditation/group work/creativity)

a kind, nurturing presence or witness that eventually becomes your own internal support - this could be a counsellor, supportive friend or coach

and, a strengthened will to act against your inner critic or inner oppressor’s wishes and live more fully as yourself 💪

Self-compassion forms a GIANT part of this work.

Next course starts next Tuesday evening.

See bio for details 🧡

19/09/2024

So much needless self-shaming in our culture. Learning to love yourself is necessary, vital and wholly possible. Thank you JEFF BROWN 🙏

Please love yourself. You are so fu* divine! (-a passage from my book, ‘Hearticulations’)

02/09/2024

I meet a lot of people who identify as not being able to stop, always being busy, having “a lot on”, a mind that can’t switch off. And how wonderful it is to have a life that is full of activity and a mind that is alive with thoughts AND how tiring it is when your M.O doesn’t allow you to catch a breath.

There are innumerable reasons why stopping, or even slowing down, is hard. We live in a fast-paced culture, workplaces feel pressured, we wear many hats…But one thing is for sure, rest in some form or other is necessary for a healthy mind, body, perspective and relationships.

Demands can claw at us when we slow down after being in perpetual motion. The shift in gears can feel scary, like things will fall apart if we don’t jump and obey and we don’t permanently adhere to the identity of being a busy or efficient or productive person. The nervous system becomes wired this way and if we stop we might fear we will have to feel or think about all the things we run away from.

But knowing how to take a break - even just a little one - without guilt and with a heap of self-care, can prevent burnout and increase the quality of our way of being in the world. It feels like an urgent rebellion in a world that keeps pushing us on.

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If you’d like to learn how to slow down and treat yourself better join our next Cultivating Self-Compassion Course starts Tuesday 1st October. See bio.

20/08/2024

Last week I chatted with Loretta Hart about RUOK? Day and what it means to be a compassionate listener.

The fact is that not everyone is the right person to open up to. Not everyone feels like a safe person to hold your story and support you emotionally. But I do believe we can develop the skills required to become a safer and more compassionate listener and in the transformative potential of having more of us developing this capacity to have difficult, yet potentially life saving, conversations.

The main takeaways from our chat were:

🌿 Ideally you need to be relaxed and have no pressure on your time to create the best conditions for meaningful conversation. If you’re too busy to know how you feel yourself you won’t be able to empathise deeply with another.

🌿 Don’t try to fix or change the other person’s experience. Advice rarely helps. Listening, validating and giving a person your attention is generally more relieving than telling them what they should do or how you overcame a similar situation.

🌿 Mirror the goodness of the person back to them. When you’re in a dark place it can be hard to remember your own worth. Help them feel that they matter by purposefully seeing their goodness when you’re with them.

🌿 If you are struggling as you try to support a loved one with their mental health, reach out for support for yourself - counselling or a helpline. Much as we might want a person to get help there can be many internal blocks. Your supporting yourself is a course of action that will benefit the relationship, yourself and your suffering loved one.

There is a phrase I picked up on in psychotherapy training: “You today, me tomorrow”. Suffering hits us all at times in different ways. No one is immune, no matter how much you exercise, meditate or earn.

Keeping your heart open to hopefulness and compassion and not jumping to judgment is a powerful intention in a cynical world. Keep going ❤️

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