Katelyn Moorman
Staff Writer
“There’s a lot of really compelling research on the power of self-compassion, and how self-compassion can promote wellbeing in general,” said Lena Newlin, Assistant Director of Wellness.
The Self-Love and Happiness Workshop is a relatively young program on campus. It was recently implemented in the spring of 2019.
The program was brought to UW by Dr. Toi Geil, the Director of the University Counseling Center. Dr. Geil, according to Newlin, had gone to trainings about the workshop before deciding to bring it to the university. Newlin also said that they applied for this workshop as a part of the suicide prevention grant in order to help them offer this program.
Students are able to learn, through the workshop, to be more compassionate with others as well as themselves, which promotes resilience. Other skills that they develop affect how they live their lives.
“[Due to the workshop] students have greater amounts of skills that they can incorporate into their lives to deal with strong and difficult emotions,” Newlin said.
While compassion is a large component of the Self-Love and Happiness Workshop, Newlin said that there is also a “significant mindfulness component to it as well.”
Different types of meditation techniques are used to help people understand the concepts being taught in the workshop. Meditation is able to stabilize the emotional well-being of participants so that they are able to focus more on expanding their skill sets.
Newlin said that a sign of a successful workshop would be having people come back after having completed the program to say that they benefited from it, as well as how they have continued to use the skills they had learned within the program.
It would also help “to have enough people that we can actually hold the workshop…the workshop is open to any student, staff, or faculty at UW,” Newlin said.
Registration is required for this 4-week workshop series. The workshop will take place Oct. 30, Nov. 6, 13, and 20 at 3:30 – 4:50 pm at the Half Acre Gym in room 117.
