A Little Kindness Goes a Long Way to Improve Happiness and Mental and Physical Well-Being in Veterans

This group teaches Veterans mindfulness and self-compassion techniques to attend to their thoughts, feelings, and challenges with kindness and care. In the middle of the program, there is a 3-hour silent retreat.

The practice of mindfulness has been around for thousands of years and was popularized in the East Asia by religious and spiritual institutions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Today, health care providers incorporate mindfulness into their practice to help patients observe and cope with thoughts, emotions, and sensations in the body, and to experience and observe the present moment, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The mindful self-compassion program was developed in the 1980s by two psychologists, Drs. Kirsten Neff and Christopher Germer, and combines these ancient mindfulness teachings and techniques with self-compassion training.

In an article from Psychology Today, Dr. Neff describes the importance of self-compassion in decreasing negative mind states, like shame, depression, and anxiety, and increasing positive mind states, like satisfaction, happiness, and hope. 

Dr. Susan Steinberg-Oren, clinical psychologist and Co-Director of the Integrative Health and Healing Program at VAGLAHS, teaches the mindful self-compassion group through the Center for Mindfulness, and was first introduced to the program 15 years ago.

“It is a way of tending to oneself during moments of pain, discomfort, stress, and suffering, that differs from ways of coping with difficulties that are offered through other psychological techniques,” said Steinberg-Oren. 

In this program, there are three important components, said Steinberg-Oren. There is mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. 

Veterans are taught different mindfulness techniques that help them to be present and which validate their pain instead of defaulting to avoidance behavior. Veterans are also taught the notion of common humanity which is to recognize that suffering is a shared human experience, and they are not alone, said Steinberg-Oren.

“Everyone feels anger. Everyone feels anxiety. Everyone feels sadness. Everyone feels grief. We all face the loss of loved ones. We all face aging. We all eventually face death. We all have situations where there could be a rupture in a relationship. It might be a friendship. It might be an intimate relationship. These are all parts of our common humanity, and rather than seeing our struggles from a frame of needing to isolate, these are human experiences that can unite us,” said Steinberg-oren. 

Finally, Veterans are guided on how to treat themselves with self-kindness and compassion, instead of self-judgement and self-criticism, when dealing with difficult emotions and difficult relationships. 

Philip Levin, a Navy Veteran, has been practicing mindfulness for over five years at the Center for Mindfulness and credits these mindfulness groups for helping improve his connection to himself and to others.

“I’ve had this inside voice in my head forever, and I never gave it much thought. But the inside voice was harsh to me. I would say terrible things to myself that I would never say to other people. I learned that in the mindful self-compassion group. That was just instrumental in my life, in changing my way of thinking,” said Levin.

To learn more about the mindful self-compassion Group, please visit the Center for Mindfulness page. For Veterans looking to participate in this program, please reach out to your provider for a consult.