The Compassion Initiative: Just Two Guys in Brisbane talking Compassion. www.thecompassioninitiative.com.au

In this video, Dr Stan Steindl presents a brief "explainer" of Professor Paul Gilbert's evolutionary and biopsychosocial model of shame, as well as recent elaborations of the model incorporating the role of shame memories, to be described in a forthcoming chapter titled Shame Memories that Shape Who We Are by Matos, Steindl, Gilbert and Pinto-Gouveia (In Press). The original video on YouTube can be found here: https://youtu.be/iYQSdBqAqzw

Write in the comments below if you'd like to hear when the forthcoming chapter is published! Gilbert's chapter, mentioned in the video, can be found here: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ef68/f7fd6bf0fbac4cd563246ea73be0975814c6.pdf?_ga=2.186717288.1111814267.1593065214-959304887.1593065214

Shame experiences can often be firmly embedded as shame memories, with traumatic qualities and centrality to self-identity. These shame memories can then have negative effects on our psychological well-being, and also our openness to receiving compassion from others or from ourselves. But, as Dr Stan Steindl describes in this video, cultivating self-compassion can be very helpful in alleviating the suffering associated with shame memories. If you are human, you will have experienced shame. That's completely normal! Also innate to humans is our compassionate motivation, and we can learn to bring our own compassion to our shame memories. Oh, and the video also has a little rendition of a few bars from Body and Soul...and can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSwj5AA21lg

The greatest threat to prehistoric humans was to be cast out of the group. Social threat is still painfully felt by humans today, especially in the form of socially self-conscious emotions, most notably shame. In this video, Dr Stan Steindl discusses shame, the different types of shame, its origins, and its physical and psychological effects. Importantly, cultivating the compassionate mind seems to be very helpful in working with shame, and a recent study from the UQ Compassionate Mind Research Group by Carter, Gilbert and Kirby (2020) found that compassion focused therapy helped to significantly reduce body weight shame. The compassionate self knows you are good and worthy, and is motivated to help you suffer less. The original video can be found here: https://youtu.be/nBsRL0XAU3U

In this video, Dr Stan Steindl exposes himself to possible ignominy by playing his guitar and singing 80s hits to exemplify each of the three emotion regulation systems in the three circles model: threat, drive and soothing/affiliation. It is rather embarrassing, and quite ridiculous in a way, but here it is. Please feel free to leave your comments below! They are always welcome...the original video can be found here: https://youtu.be/xbMIDWgDSmA

Harry Potter and the Place of Safeness: Part 2 is a follow-up to the previous Part 1 episode, which used stories from the world of Harry Potter to discuss the compassionate mind perspective on safety versus safeness. Part 1 can be found here: https://youtu.be/qW690ageYkY . In Part 2, Dr Stan Steindl provides a guided safe place imagery exercise. Safe place imagery is a powerful way to move from threat-based safety seeking, to a feeling of safeness arising from the soothing-affiliative system. Please leave any thoughts, comments or questions below! The video for Part 2 can be found here: https://youtu.be/dOKmPPHFgl8

From the compassionate mind perspective, safety and safeness are considered to be quite different. Safety is threat-based, while safeness arises from the soothing-affiliative system. In this video, Dr Stan Steindl explores safety and safeness, using scenes from the Harry Potter series to illustrate the substantive difference between the two. This video will be followed by Harry Potter and the Place of Safeness: Part 2, which is a guided exercises for creating safe place imagery, and helping with the shift from safety seeking to feeling safe.

Anger can feel powerful, energising and strong. And yet it can also be destructive. Of course, none of this is our fault, and is just part of our tricky brains. But we do try to take responsibility for our anger, understand it, and understand what lies behind it. After a recent incident with his coffee machine, Dr Stan Steindl explores anger as well as how to approach our Angry Self with our Compassionate Self. He mentions Professor Russell Kolts' work with anger and compassion, and Professor Kolt's TED talk "Anger, Compassion and What it Means to be Strong" can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG4Z185MBJE

The original video of this episode is available on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rk5SSFPe1c

Ain't I Human (Steindl)

Stan Steindl: vocals, rhythm guitar, bass, drum machine

Dennis Tirch: lead guitar, encouragement

Shakespeare was a perspicacious observer of what it is to be human, and what it is to experience human emotions. Here, Dr Stan Steindl explores a passage from Shakespeare's play Cymbeline. It is spoken by the character of Imogen, dressed as the pageboy Fidele, when, after being drugged by a sleep potion, she wakes in a cave to find the beheaded body of her murderous pursuer but mistakes him for her lover, because the pursuer is dressed in her lover’s clothes. Complicated stuff! But she describes fear, and her need for compassion. This video explores Shakespeare, fear and anxiety, and the role a type of acting can play in helping us become more acquainted with our anxious self, and also begin a conversation between our anxious self, and our compassionate self. The original video (with recital and acting) can be found here: https://youtu.be/kc7DuKCfWhs

After last week's discussion about the Big Three Emotions (anger, anxiety and sadness), Dr Stan Steindl reflected on his own experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting sadness. In this video, he explores sadness, including the feelings and thoughts associated with sadness, the way our attention can shift, the behaviours, and urges to behave, we have when feeling sad, and the possible motives behind the Sad Self. What to do about it? Stan explores self-compassion, his own version of what works for him, and invites you to consider, "What might be most helpful for you?" You can watch the original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTEHX4c9sCE