ACC and the Coronavirus
ACC was formed in 2010 with the intent to make the benefits of mindfulness and related practices available to Atlantic Canada.
One of those benefits is the ability to relate mindfully and compassionately with difficult situations. As we write this it would appear that our region, along with the entire world, is facing the possibility of significant disruption and challenges as a result of the Co-Vid 19 virus.
ACC will provide whatever support we can to those who would like to use mindfulness related practices to help work with the challenges ahead. In that context we offer the following:
- A series of short videos on EFFECTIVE COMPASSION. Compassion for our self and others is particularly important in times when fear and frustration may be triggered by challenging changes in our lives. This series offer simple practices to help us remember and cultivate our innate, inherent ability for compassionate action. Presented by David Whitehorn*
This video series is based on the view that compassionate action is essential to creating social environments in which people can work together to accomplish whatever they have chosen as their goals and objectives. Compassionate action is effective when it actually addresses distress as it inevitably arises in life. The video series offers four basic contemplative practices that can be used to remind ourselves to use our inherent capabilities to act compassionately.
The series consists of nine short recorded videos. A live video conference will be offered as well (TBA).
There is no cost for viewing the series.
Links to the videos are as follows:
- Introduction to Effective Compassion online program (5 minutes)
- Compassion and Distress (6 minutes)
- Compassion and Distress as Inherent (6 minutes)
- Four Practices for Cultivating Compassion (7 minutes)
- Paying Attention Practice (10 minutes)
- Listening Practice (7 minutes)
- Considering Practice (10 minutes)
- Acting Practice (8 minutes)
- Final comments (7 minutes)
*David Whitehorn, PhD, MSN has been studying and exploring contemplative practices for close to fifty years. He is the co-founder of the Atlantic Contemplative Centre (ACC) and a faculty member in the Dalhousie University Department of Psychiatry. With Jim Torbert, he has been offering workshops on compassion for the past five years. He is author of the book EFFECTIVE COMPASSION, available from Amazon or the ACC. For questions or comments regarding the video series contact: davidwhitehorn@eastlink.ca
2. A weekly online open mindfulness group. The ACC has been offering weekly open mindfulness groups for many years in a number of locations. For those who may find it difficult to attend one of the groups in person, we are now offering an online group. The group will use the ZOOM platform. It will be from 7 to 7:45 pm on Tuesdays. The first session will be on March 17. The ZOOM link to join the sessions is: https://zoom.us/j/813697043?pwd=ejdCbUhhdlF5YWcxTTVPZ1BCalM4UT09