This chapter considers the role that mindfulness and compassion can play in helping people who come from difficult and traumatic backgrounds. These individuals often have a highly elevated sense of threat – both from the outside (what others might do to them) and from the inside (feeling overwhelmed by aversive feelings or memories; or their own selfdislike/ contempt for themselves). The basic view is that traumatic backgrounds sensitise people to become overly reliant on processing from their threat systems.
But when the universe becomes your self, when you love the world as yourself, all reality becomes your haven, reinventing you as your own heaven.
Lao Tzu, Translated by Ralph Alan Dale Tao Te Ching
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Gilbert, P., Tirch, D. (2009). Emotional Memory, Mindfulness and Compassion. In: Didonna, F. (eds) Clinical Handbook of Mindfulness. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09593-6_7
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