Do you work with coaching clients who are challenged by self-criticism?

If so, then the AC’s Signature Programme on ‘Compassion Focused Coaching ’ which started last week might just be for you. ?

There’s still time to watch the recording of last week’s webinar, catch up and take full advantage of the seven live webinars yet to come.?

The Speaker for this programme, clinical psychologist Dr Ashleigh McLellan, is taking well-established theory and model from Dr Paul Gilbert from the world of therapy and demonstrating its applicability to coaching.?

Infused with Ashleigh’s warmth, openness and inclusivity, this programme is already an enjoyable experience and a great learning environment too.

?The Compassion Focussed Coaching (CFC) definition of ‘compassion’ is:?a sensitivity to suffering i.e. noticing, understanding, approaching and engaging with it, AND a motivation and ability to prevent and alleviate it.

Application of Compassion Focus Therapy to Coaching:

• Humans still have an ‘old brain’ which is on the constant lookout for threats.
• Our ‘new brain’ ability for thought and imagination in combination with our ‘old brain’ can lead us to ruminate, exaggerate and catastrophise about issues, and in turn cause us to suffer from anger, anxiety or sadness.
• Compassion focussed coaching (CFC) is about helping people work through their suffering and move forward.

In this first webinar we learned about the three flows of compassion:

1. Self to Others - Giving
2. Others to Self - Accepting
3. Self to Self - Generating

… and, how people’s responses to each are different, with self-compassion being the hardest to access.?Ashleigh’s simple yet powerful question for us ‘How do you respond differently to each flow?’ shed instant light on this and provided a starting point for knowing where we might develop our self-compassion capabilities.

We then went deeper and learned about the six attributes and six skills of self-compassion, and were asked to rate ourselves against them.

By breaking down the capabilities of self-compassion into their component parts, we could see the distinctiveness of ?each e.g:

• Recognise our distress
• Be non-judgemental about our situation/reaction
• Tolerate and confront our feelings of distress

And this new depth of understanding, together with the question ‘what will move your scores up?’, is giving us a practical entry-point for developing our self-compassion, and helping our clients do the same.?

This AC Signature Programme comprises eight webinars run live between 13:00 and 14:30 on the following dates with recordings and slides available afterwards too.

8 September????????????????What is compassion and why it applies to coaching

15 September??????????????Our tricky brain and its problematic loops

29 September??????????????The three systems of emotion regulation and how to apply them

6 October????????????????????Fears, blocks and resistances to compassion

13 October??????????????????Self-criticism, its function, how it blocks us; and compassionate correction as an alternative

20 October??????????????????Thought balancing, letter writing, and behavioural goals

3 November?????????????????Identifying out ‘multiples’

10 November???????????????Enhancing our compassionate inner coach

You can find out more about the Compassion Focused Coaching Signature Programme and book a place on it here .

I look forward to sharing further learning insights from this thought-provoking and very relevant coaching?programme in the coming weeks.