Join us in this transformative episode of WyzeCast™ where we delve into the powerful journey of developing self-compassion. Erin LoPorto, your compassionate guide, takes you on a heartfelt exploration of this essential aspect of personal growth and development.

In a world that often demands perfection and constant striving, it’s easy to forget that self-compassion is the key to a more fulfilling life. In this episode, we uncover the secrets to unlocking this transformative force within you.

Here’s what you can expect:

1. **Understanding Self-Compassion**: Erin LoPorto unravels the very concept of self-compassion, explaining why it’s the cornerstone of personal growth. You’ll gain insight into what self-compassion is and what it isn’t.

2. **The Science Behind Self-Compassion**: We’ll explore the latest scientific research and psychological findings that support the profound benefits of self-compassion. Learn why it’s not just a fluffy concept but a scientifically validated tool for well-being.

3. **Practical Techniques**: Discover simple and effective techniques to cultivate self-compassion in your daily life. Erin shares actionable strategies that can help you transform your relationship with yourself.

4. **Real-Life Stories**: Hear inspiring stories from individuals who have embarked on their journey to self-compassion. Their personal experiences and insights will motivate and guide you in your own quest.

5. **Guided Meditation**: In this episode, we offer a guided meditation session led by Erin, which will help you experience self-compassion firsthand.

6. **Q&A Session**: Erin takes listener questions on self-compassion, offering personalized advice and guidance.

7. **Resources**: We provide a list of recommended books, articles, and online resources to further your exploration of self-compassion.

Whether you’re new to the concept of self-compassion or looking to deepen your practice, this episode will offer valuable insights and actionable steps. Tune in to Insight Seminars with Erin LoPorto, and start your journey toward a more compassionate and fulfilling life.

Your path to self-compassion begins here.

Watch on YouTube – Premieres November 3rd, 7 AM ET

Listen on Spotify

Melanie McSally
Welcome to another episode of WyzeCast™, the show that elevates the voices, shines the light, showcases the gifts of our heart-centered guests, and amplifies the positive differences they are making in the world.

Back when I was in corporate, I had this moment of just leaving a challenging job and not feeling like I wasn’t in the mental or energetic space to start a new one, or even begin the interview process for that matter. At the time, I was completing a master’s program, and one of my teachers suggested that attending an Insight retreat would be just what I needed. So I am delighted to have today’s guests with us today, we’re going to break from our traditional format of chatting with entrepreneurs about their business and their entrepreneurial journey to talk a bit about personal growth. I believe, as does our guest, that to be effective in running your business, you have to care for yourself so that you can show up for others with a full cup. As we learned from Evelyn in an earlier episode, you need to heal yourself in order to heal others; you need to put your own oxygen mask on before you put on another person’s oxygen mask. We learned from Carina and Matt that when you’re in conflict in a relationship, it really takes away from your business. Well, the greatest relationship is the one with self. So if you’re in conflict with yourself, it’s really going to take away from your ability to be productive and to run your business. We want to be whole and complete human beings who just happen to be running effective, efficient, and highly successful businesses.

Today’s guest is an established entrepreneur and business owner in her own right, but today, she comes to us as a facilitator in training for Insight Seminars in Boston, Massachusetts, which is in the United States. Insight Seminars is a worldwide experiential education program and a nonprofit that has been around since the 70s, helping people live more heart-centered lives; what we’re all about here.

My name is Melanie McSally, your host for today’s episode. And without further adieu, I would like to welcome the loving, the compassionate, the caring. Erin LoPorto. Erin is joining us today from Switzerland. Welcome Erin.

Erin LoPorto
So great to see you.

Melanie McSally
Who needs self compassion? And what are the benefits?

Erin LoPorto
Yeah, we all need self-compassion. I like to think of commitment as the fuel that makes us go and compassion as the thing that keeps us going. When things get rough and bumpy. Most of us become highly self-critical. When things get bumpy, we judge ourselves; we blame ourselves, we shame ourselves. We give up, we break our commitments, and we then feel more guilty. And we start thinking poorly about ourselves, and we get in these spirals and these rats of really not being as motivated or successful as we know that deep down that we’re capable of being. And this all happens just because there was a little hiccup in our plan sometimes. So the benefit of self-compassion is really resilience, that ability to keep going in tough times. But research has shown that there are increased feelings of happiness, optimism, curiosity, and connectedness with others. There’s evidence of having decreased anxiety and depression. There’s less rumination and less fear of failure. A year. And there’s even some research that’s starting to a point that practicing self compassion leads to reduced stress and a choice toward healthy behaviors.

Melanie McSally
It’s so interesting that self-compassion can lead to a feeling of connectedness with others. I know as entrepreneurs and business owners, we could certainly benefit from the list you mentioned – resilience, reduced stress, and connectedness. So how does one develop self-compassion?

Erin LoPorto
Yeah, so Christopher Gerber and Kristin Neff have done research on self-compassion, and they outline self-compassion in three steps. The first is mindfulness – the ability to be aware of what’s going on within you. The second is recognizing our common humanity, that we’re not the only person or the first person to experience this particular thing. But this is just one of those experiences that we’re going through that is actually more common that we might like to think. The third, is just being kind to ourselves.

When we are aware of our humanity, when those two parts come together, being kind to ourselves becomes very easy, but the truth is we’ve never been taught that we work as humans; we didn’t get taught that in classrooms, we didn’t get taught that by our parents. So when we have any sort of failure, where we choose anything that we can’t make sense of, rather than understanding that that’s really a part of being human, we go into these very critical self-sabotaging patterns as humans.

Erin LoPorto

Erin LoPorto
I think that’s what insight seminars does best is that it educates us in an experiential way, where we get to see and witness ourselves doing things that are really common and really universal. Then it explains what the benefits are. These are everything from, why do we experience guilt? Why do we break commitments? Why do we put such pressure on ourselves. We look at the benefits that we get from some of the really dark places that we go. When we can understand why we’re doing these things that on one hand, don’t make sense, but on the other hand, are just a part of us, then it’s easier to be kind to ourselves, and it’s easier to get out.

Melanie McSally
It’s interesting that you talk about the first step being awareness, that reminds me of the steps to breaking an addiction. It’s hard to believe that we might be addicted to sabotaging behavior. But as you say, once we become aware of the behavior, we can then understand it and have compassion for ourselves. So I’ll take that one step further, which is also covered in the seminars, which is, diving into what is the benefit that you’re receiving from that behavior? Because once you know that, it then becomes much easier to have compassion. When we know the why, we can replace the sabotaging behavior with more expansive behavior. So Erin, what can someone expect if they were to attend an Insight Seminar?

Erin LoPorto
So if someone were to attend insight seminars, first of all, they would have to start with the level one, which is three days of really intense long days of this kind of diving into self examination, the first couple days of all of our programs are really designed to dig into those patterns that aren’t working for you. Where are you stuck? What have you been like grappling with, so they can kind of feel heavy and dense, but they still move by incredibly quickly and they are still filled with lots of interactive experiences. So you really get a sense of yourself. And none of the content of Insight is “here’s information up on…”, well, there is a PowerPoint, but none of it’s just like doing the PowerPoint; all of them are very interactive things where you get experiencial learning. Then the second couple days are all about really developing a stronger understanding of the light and the strengths that you have and of who you are, and really kind of digging in and letting out what you really want for yourself so that you have that deep motivation to go for those things and belief in yourself that you can get there. So it really gives you a full arc of experience and we always suggest that you need to be able to complete the whole seminar without taking time off or hopping here and there; each part builds on itself, which makes it really exciting and really keeps your interest throughout.

There are four levels. There’s Insight One, which is three days; there’s Insight Two, which is a five-day deeper immersion; there is Insight Three, which is retreat style; and Insight Four, which is either a 28-day experience, held down in South America right now, or there is a master’s program that can be done over weekends. In the level four option, most of the people who get into that level are interested in becoming a facilitator, such as I am. So that’s the track that I’m on at this point.

Melanie McSally
I’ll second that it’s a very interactive seminar, as Erin said, experiential, and I’ll note that if someone is interested in becoming a facilitator, I do believe they’re also offering the four in Bulgaria. But that’s down the line. Let’s go back to the beginning of the process. Why would someone attend insight seminars?

Erin LoPorto
You know, most people who have ever attended Insight seminars have simply done so because somebody recommended it to them. Or they saw the changes and the lightness in somebody who attended insight seminars and was like, what did you do, and wanted to get some of it? It’s not like Insight treats any one particular condition. It’s really one of the only programs that I’ve taken, and I’ve taken a lot of different programs, that I can say, absolutely everybody should check out Insight Seminars: I really believe that it should be part of our educational system in schools, is just a piece of our self-understanding, our understanding of humanity and each other that I think is missing in the world, and in most of our understanding, and therefore acceptance or ability to love ourselves and each other. So I think it’s mostly for people who are curious and who just want more in their lives or more for their lives than what they’re able to get right now.

The amazing thing about Insight is that it is a nonprofit; it’s run mostly by volunteers. And in the Boston community, what we’ve done for a while is have this really low entry point, so that anybody can take it literally anybody; we want it to be accessible to everybody. So it’s only $100 For the first three days of the seminar. And then at the end of those three days, there’s a further donation that you can make whatever you are able to, whatever you are most inspired to. And that’s totally tax deductible. So we tried to really work and make it accessible to absolutely everyone.

Melanie McSally
Yeah, in the introduction, I mentioned one of my college professors recommended insight as a remedy, I needed to help me transition my mind into a more positive, peaceful, and accepting state before embarking on a new job search. So I can attest to going on blind faith that the seminars were exactly what I needed, just by the recommendation of a trusted adviser. I later asked her about recommending it to my employees, and her response to me was, I recommend it to all the people I surround myself with because I want to be surrounded by people leading from their hearts. I couldn’t agree more. I want to be surrounded by heart-centered people living with compassion, and empathy. We’ve all heard of personal growth, like Landmark or Tony Robbins; it’s not a new concept, and so I would say to anyone looking to grow, grow personally and professionally, grow out of something that’s holding them back. You should go to any seminar you should connect with any organization that resonates with you, because that’s where you’re going to get the most benefit. I resonate with Insight because it gives you the tools to break through roadblocks and beliefs that are holding you back. But it also gives you the tools to have compassion for yourself and others. It allows you to recognize when you’re not living from your heart, and let’s be honest, we all have those moments when we are not acting as our best selves, our most enlightened and our most loving selves. This gives you the tools to be self-aware and self-correct in those moments; we’ve seen families go together, we’ve seen friend groups go together, I’ve sent all of my employees, and I’ve even recommended it to bosses. How many of you would love it if your boss was a little bit kinder, a little bit more compassionate, a little bit more thoughtful? It’s really an affordable way to do something for yourself, while helping raise the vibration of the world by living from your heart. So Erin, what outcomes have you seen people experience?

Erin LoPorto
So, what are some of the outcomes people have experienced? Well, I’d love to share. My experience was that it really gave me a new reference point. I was 19 years old when I first took it; I was very, very angry. And I really came out severely, having reduced my anger severely., I had an eating disorder at the time, and I was able to let go of a lot of those behaviors and how I was using them. Then, I was inspired to put on a one woman show shortly after that. I know that I was able to do that because of the safety and support that I now had, a new reference point of an audience just fully seeing me and supporting me in a way that I could carry that memory into other avenues of my life. I have certainly heard that people feel safe, sometimes safe in their bodies, for the first time after insight seminars, that they have made incredible connections with other people in the program on deeper levels than they have in other environments. So there’s friendship that people take out of the seminar. There are just usually realizations about the self, like I’m more capable than I thought I was, or you know, like, all of these levels of self-compassion and how they just inspire people to reach a little further for things. And you start to see that and you start to believe in humanity again, at the end of a seminar. So yeah, the outcomes are really far and wide. And so personal. And so deep and very permanently life-transforming, it does give you that memory and that change in your nervous system composition that can allow you to reach bigger in your life when you get out of there.

Melanie McSally
I have also seen people let go of addictions, overcome childhood trauma, rebuild relationships, and gain freedom from guilt and resentment, as just a few of the many, many, many examples of ways that people transform themselves and their lives. So thank you, Erin, for taking the time out of your busy schedule there in Switzerland to let our listeners know about Insight. Do you have any final thoughts you would like to leave our listeners?

Erin LoPorto
Yeah, thanks so much, Melanie, for your time here. I think the biggest thing is that kindness is easy to offer when we have an understanding of what’s going on and that this world certainly needs more kindness. And that insight seminars is certainly a place to gain deeper understanding that can allow that in easily. And if you want to stay in touch, I invite you to just sign up for our newsletter, and you’ll be informed about upcoming seminars. And you’ll also be informed about other community events that we are doing for free, educational trainings, and get-togethers so that you can stay inspired, even when a seminar is not going on.

Melanie McSally
Thank you, Erin, for all of that information. Click here to join the Insight Boston newsletter so that you can start your personal growth journey at your divine timing.

I also want to note that Boston isn’t just limited to folks living in the Massachusetts or even the New England areas. In fact, we’ve had folks from all over the United States attend these seminars in person. We’ve also had folks from Central and South America and even Europe attend. That being said, if you can’t get to Boston Insight, Boston also offers weekly Zoom calls and a virtual community of friends. So you can start to experience the gift of Insight almost immediately, and do so from the comfort of your own home. If you are feeling stuck, or honestly just want to be surrounded by supporting, loving people and energy, then I highly suggest you attend a call and see what Insite feels like for yourself.

Once again, thank you for being our guest today, Erin. It has been such a joy and an honor to listen to your wisdom and compassion.

I want to thank our listeners for tuning in. If you like what you’ve heard here today, please do like, share, and comment. We are trying to get WyzeTribe™ to be a hot new release. So if you feel inspired, if you feel moved, if you feel called, if we earned it, please do like, share, and comment. It is free for you to do so and really helps the podcast grow. And we really do love your engagement.

This was another episode of WyzeCast™, the show that elevates the voices, shines the light, showcases the gifts of our heart-centered guests, and amplifies the positive difference they’re making in the world.

If you want to learn more about WyzeCast™, you can visit our wyzecast.com. We dropped ten episodes every month on the 21st, so you can binge-watch or spread them out over the month. Whatever suits your mood and lifestyle.

Once again, my name is Melanie. It has been my pleasure being your host today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching, thank you for your engagement, and I invite you to come back and join me once again for our next episode of WyzeCast™.