Kelly McGonigal
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This audio-only course combines science, inspirational stories, and research-based practices to help you build your capacity for generosity, empathy, kindness, and compassion.
Why is compassion so powerful? Like many forms of spirituality and meditation, compassion practice has been shown by research to enhance your health, psychological well-being, relationships, and sense of purpose. In The Science of Compassion: Getting Started, health psychologist...
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This course explores the concept of empathetic distress, and how to keep from being overwhelmed by another's suffering.
While other installments in The Science of Compassion series have focused on compassion as a response to suffering, it is not the only possible response. In different situations you may feel guilt, anxiety, sadness, disgust, and sometimes even pleasure in response to someone's suffering. In this course, Kelly McGonigal focuses on...
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This course examines the concept of contagious compassion, and how one act can affect anyone directly or even indirectly involved with a compassionate act.
One of the keys to understanding compassion, and how to act compassionately, is to recognize that compassion is not pure altruism. Just by showing compassion toward someone else, you also benefit from that act, as does anyone who witnesses or even hears about it later. This is centered around...
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In this course, learn how to use meditation and compassion training to undo the negative physical effects of anger, resentment, and hate.
Anger can be toxic. When you're angry, your body shifts into a state that isn't healthy, which can affect your cardiovascular, nervous, and immune systems. Additionally, holding grudges can lead to declines in your physical health over time. In this installment of The Science of Compassion, Kelly McGonigal shows...
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In this course, learn about the various ways in which caring meditation can physiologically impact you and others around you.
While you may feel compassion toward others, you yourself are always the first recipient of your own loving kindness and compassion. Recognizing this and connecting to your own experience of compassion is key to affecting others. For example, there are studies that show that a doctor with a caring bedside manner can affect...
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In this audio-only course, Kelly McGonigal teaches the complex ways compassion, courage, and fear are all interconnected.
The Science of Compassion audio-only series takes a deep dive into the many forms and different aspects of compassion, and in this course, Kelly McGonigal begins to look at some of the more difficult types of compassion. As she explains, some forms of compassion require courage, to go beyond your compassion comfort zone and stretch...
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In this session, learn how to recognize and deal with empathy fatigue and decreasing compassion as your awareness of suffering increases.
Even if you consider yourself a compassionate person, feeling compassion all the time can simply be overwhelming, especially when confronted by large amounts of suffering. In this installment of The Science of Compassion series, Kelly McGonigal explores empathy fatigue and the concept of compassion collapse. As...
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Explore what happens in your body when you experience compassion- from your brain, to your heart, to your nervous system, and beyond.
How would you describe what compassion feels like? To some, there's an idealized notion of what compassion is. It can feel calm, pleasant, and peaceful. Often, however, you practice compassion in the most unpleasant of moments, like when you have to give someone devastating, life-changing news. Compassion can often...
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This course examines the positive effects of helping others during times of your own distress.
In this installment of The Science of Compassion series, health psychologist Kelly McGonigal encourages you to think about ways in which genuinely caring for others can be a source of both meaning and courage, and can help support you through difficult experiences in your own life. While helping someone else while you yourself are suffering can seem like...
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This course addresses the difficulty of engaging in self compassion, and how to feel compassionate toward one who is suffering when that person is you.
If feeling compassion toward someone else may seem like an easy and even natural thing to do, why is it so hard to feel compassion for ourselves? In this installment of The Science of Compassion, Kelly McGonigal delves into this important question. The first reason, Kelly explains, is the confusion...
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The bestselling author of The Willpower Instinct introduces a surprising science-based book that doesn't tell us why we should exercise but instead shows us how to fall in love with movement.
Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it's a chore. But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn't have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy.
Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling,...
Exercise is health-enhancing and life-extending, yet many of us feel it's a chore. But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn't have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy.
Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling,...