COURSE

Befriending Loneliness

This is a 20-day course to assist you in befriending loneliness and developing greater compassion. By meeting the pain of disconnection with compassion, you can transform it into greater loving connectedness with yourself and others. This course is divided into two parts. In Part I you will learn how to: turn toward loneliness with curiosity and understanding instead of fear or blame, hold your vulnerability in a warm embrace to help calm any fears of being alone, and begin to detox from feelings of shame, unworthiness, and exclusion that lead to disconnection. In Part II you will learn how to: work with the longing to connect- discovering it as a gateway to a universal loving connectedness - allow yourself to grieve to let go of the old and make space for new joys, and discover a sense of connectedness in an effortless way, allowing you to begin to enjoy your own company. This course is intended for self-study and cannot replace any otherwise necessary psychotherapeutic or medical treatment. Please make sure that you feel stable enough to dive into this experience.

Compassion Depression Stress Psychology Self-Compassion Love Relationships Recovery & Healing Stress & Anxiety Science Visualization

Meet your Teacher

Dr Christine Braehler

Munich, Germany

Dr. Christine Braehler is a clinical psychologist, therapist, lecturer, author, and a teacher-trainer of the Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) Programme. As one of the world's leading psychologists, she has been teaching self-compassion internationally since 2008 and continues to develop innovative ways to help people connect with their wise and compassionate selves.

20 Days

6.1k students

4.8 stars

14 min / day

Compassion

English

Lesson 1

Easing Your Way Into The Course

In this introduction, the intention of the programme is outlined. Instead of resisting loneliness and thus making it worse, you are invited to turn toward it with kindness to heal the associated pain of disconnection, vulnerability, unworthiness, and shame. A beautiful poem and a metaphor are presented to help guide and inspire you on this journey. You will receive practical tips for how to approach this course and its practices.

Lesson 2

Exploring Your Feelings Toward Loneliness

You get to explore your feelings toward loneliness through a playful imagery exercise. You get to see these feelings clearly and begin to welcome them instead of wishing them to be gone. You are invited to discover the common humanity in your personal suffering by hearing about social factors contributing to loneliness and its potential to help us grow across the life span. You get to understand how blame keeps us trapped and you learn how to validate parts that hold anger.

Lesson 3

Getting Started With Self-Compassion

To be useful in daily life, self-compassion practice must balance being, feeling, and doing in a pragmatic way. You are introduced to the three tenets of not-knowing, bearing witness, and loving action. You then get to experience the three components of self-compassion – mindfulness, common humanity, self-kindness - in the first guided practice.

Lesson 4

Supporting The Vulnerable Part

The goal of this session is to help you find inner safety when you are actually alone and feeling lonely. Fears of being vulnerable can hijack our threat system and make us suffer a lot. To calm your threat system, you will be guided through two exercises, which aim to ground you in your adult self, which in turn can reassure the vulnerable part.

Lesson 5

Meeting Your Compassionate Companion

If you dread being left alone with your own mind, fear not because you can actively invite good company through imagery. In this practice you get to imagine a wise and compassionate companion. We can thereby begin to develop a healing dialogue with ourselves that is not shaming or critical. Over time this practice can help you to trust in your inner source of wisdom and compassion.

Lesson 6

Warmth Embraces Emptiness

When we feel empty or vulnerable, we usually need grounding. You will be introduced to the many gateways that can help you feel more grounded, alive, held, and connected such as the body and the senses. You will learn about the physiology of soothing touch and the role of warmth.

Lesson 7

Held By Mother Earth & Father Sky

The goal of this practice is to help you feel as comfortable in your skin as you can. Sometimes we wish we would live in someone else’s skin - especially if we are experiencing emptiness or vulnerability. The body is our faithful companion and our home in this lifetime. In this nurturing body-focused practice you are guided to feel embraced by Mother Earth and Father Sky.

Lesson 8

Understanding The Pain Of Unworthiness & Exclusion

Shame makes loneliness chronic as it tells us that we are unworthy of attention and care. It is therefore important to understand shame and how it affects us, so we can free ourselves. Through self-reflection and an encouraging fairy tale, you begin to understand the workings of shame and exclusion in your psyche.

Lesson 9

Shame Detox - Step 1

In this first guided practice, you will start to familiarize yourself with shame in your body and discover what supportive or loving words would help to act as the perfect antidote to the shaming voice. By discovering our own inherent goodness, we can liberate ourselves from this prison of unworthiness and exclusion and feel like we belong again.

Lesson 10

Shame Detox - Step 2

In this second guided practice, you can deepen your practice by repeating the supportive words you have found earlier in front of a mirror. Whilst this might be challenging, this additional behavioural element of seeing yourself through loving eyes in moments of shame can strengthen your compassionate voice in daily life when you need it the most.

Lesson 11

Seeing Your Addictive Patterns

Loneliness reveals our longing for connection. Some of us ignore this longing whereas others let their lives be guided exclusively by this longing. Neither strategy deals with longing in a healthy way. Explore how you prevent yourself from feeling what you truly long for through addictive patterns in a reflective exercise.

Lesson 12

Find What Truly Nourishes You

You may know what you long for to feel less lonely such as friends or a partner. Do you know what deeper need in you would be met if you had those friends or that partner? Only if we understand our unmet emotional needs, can we begin to meet them ourselves right now without waiting for anyone on the outside to fulfil them. Discover the deeper unmet need which drives one of your more superficial desires in this exploration.

Lesson 13

Trusting & Surrendering To Longing

You will learn about the principles of working with longing by staying with the direct experience in the body instead of acting on impulse and fulfilling it temporarily with the usual comforts. A fairy tale aims to encourage you to trust in a source of abundant love and connection within you, which may reveal itself when you pause and feel. In this guided practice you are invited to surrender to the sensations associated with longing for a few minutes and to offer yourself compassion throughout.

Lesson 14

Getting To Know Grief

You will learn about grief as an important emotion of the care system. Grief can be transformative as it helps us heal and let go of the old. It usually only occurs at the end of a struggle. Grief differs from depression. You will be invited to see how mourning a loss can help you alleviate feelings of loneliness.

Lesson 15

Letting Go Of Resentment

You might still be holding on to some blame or resentment that no longer serves to protect you, but which prevents you from mourning. In this exercise, you get an opportunity to make space for, to welcome and to fully validate any residual feelings of blame towards others.

Lesson 16

The Healing Potential Of Mourning

Although it might sound odd, grief can be healing and offer us a gateway to compassion and joy. Many of us interpret crying and mourning as a sign of weakness and or that we are “losing it” or falling apart. In this part, you will learn about common blocks to mourning and crying and identify your own and hopefully develop the courage to let this emotion move you.

Lesson 17

Self-Compassion For Grief

After having understood the healing function of grief, you are invited to be your own best friend whilst letting yourself feel a pain about something or someone you have lost and that you have not yet had the chance to mourn fully. In this guided practice you learn to comfort yourself whilst letting grief move through you.

Lesson 18

Connectedness As An Antidote To Alienation

You are invited to consider new ways in which you can experience connectedness and belonging in an effortless way to counteract the increasing sense of disconnection in our urban societies. Our hardwired connection to nature, for instance, gives us access to an unconditional sense of belonging. By discovering connectedness in places where you had not seen it before, you can break free from inner isolation.

Lesson 19

Recharge Your Batteries In The Circle Of Care

In this guided imagery practice you can get an extra boost of care and connection by imagining several compassionate companions offering you what you need right now. After having recharged your emotional batteries in this way, you may feel enough good will to carry it with you into your immediate environment and thus to become an emotional climate activist.

Lesson 20

Solitude - Enjoying Your Own Company

If you are loving company to yourself in a moment of loneliness, then connectedness arises. Experiencing connectedness independent of the presence of others turns loneliness into pleasant solitude. In a guided practice, you get to furnish and enrich your inner and outer sanctuary. From a place of humble self-confidence and belonging you are invited to re-evaluate your social contacts so that you prioritize quality over quantity.

4.8 (222)

Recent Reviews

Tammy

September 19, 2024

Thank you for this course. What a gift! I plan on repeating it.

Ariana

September 13, 2024

Thank you Christine, this course provided beautiful depth and insight. I particularly valued the focus on becoming our own source of connection, compassion and care, rather than only seeking it from others 🙏

Diane

August 27, 2024

Intelligent and acsesssble

Audra

June 14, 2024

This course has helped me in moving past loneliness and into being alone. I am ready for the next time this creeps up and I am confident in how I can welcome it in. Thank you!

Åsa

September 7, 2023

Thank you for your warm and insightful course. The part with the compassionate companion helps me a lot to approach myself with self compassion. Thank you 🙏🏼

Roberta

August 16, 2023

This was very helpful! The caring & accepting tone along with thouhtful suggestions was a real gift. Thank you!

Dea

August 9, 2023

Thank you I really appreciate your insights and alternative ways of thinking and dealing with loneliness.

Robert

July 16, 2023

It was very helpful. Very soothing voice, deep topics, but also based on science and psychology!

Glenn

April 14, 2023

The content is amazing clearness, concise and the guided practices are spot on

Catherine

November 30, 2022

This was such a beautiful experience. I have learned so much and gained a deeper understanding of where true connection arises from. I’m sure I will return to listen to segments over and over as my understanding and connection to peaceful solitude grows. Thank you 🙏🏼 💚

Lena

October 18, 2022

Thank you SO much💓🌷

Buddy

April 13, 2022

I really have enjoyed this course. It has clear structure, and it is very informative.

Toast

January 18, 2022

Very helpful and comforting.

December 31, 2021

Really enjoyed this course. Thankyou x

Teesa

December 31, 2021

Very good course! I completed it on New Years Eve 2021. I don’t feel lonely at all now that I look back. I’m going to enjoy my empty nest even more in 2022. Thank You and Be Blessed 🙏🏾

Laura

December 23, 2021

Brilliant course, thank you!

Adrian

June 20, 2021

Very helpful.

Ann

April 27, 2021

Thank you for this wonderful course. It’s helped me understand the feelings of loneliness and discover new ways to be more meaningfully connected. 🙏💚

May

April 12, 2021

Thank you for this amazing 20-day lesson. It feels to me a nice and necessary complementary part to the other course of yours. It teaches me how to love and support myself unconditionally in great depth. As a creative person who enjoys imagination, I especially love the imagine my compassionate companions — five ladies, alive or passed away, real ppl or fictional characters — circling around me and holding hands together. I draw great Yin and Yang strength from them. Will definitely relisten this course to enhance my positive neurological synapses that have budded through this course ❤️😊. Looking forward to more of your wisdom. Thank you 🤝 Wish you a healthy, peaceful and prosperous 2021.

Linda

March 14, 2021

Beautiful 😍

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