Your open­ness and gen­tle guid­ance encour­aged all of us to speak our truth and to open to the soft vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of “true self.” I learned to speak to myself as a moth­er to her child or as a dear friend. My wish is that every­one has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence this. My grat­i­tude is deep and wide!

Thank you so much for cre­at­ing such a safe and clear envi­ron­ment for us to learn about cul­ti­vat­ing self-compassion. It was one of the best groups I have ever been involved with. I learned so much and felt like I was tru­ly part of a com­mu­ni­ty work­ing on learn­ing to love, accept, and embrace all of the aspects of what makes each of us so unique and individual.

Holy Crap! I’m a pos­i­tive per­son!

Thank you for this, Jennifer. Thank you for cre­at­ing the sacred con­tain­er of our group where hearts and souls have opened and allowed oth­ers to peek in, thank you for your sweet and gen­tle guid­ance, and thank you for being “you.” I appre­ci­ate you and hon­or your gift!

The group Cultivating Self-Compassion has opened my eyes to treat­ing myself with the same kind­ness, regard, respect, and com­pas­sion with which I try to treat oth­ers. [It] is mak­ing such a calm­ing dif­fer­ence. It is also mak­ing me much more aware of the trig­gers for stress and anx­i­ety that assault us in every­day life and some tools to cope with them. My life has changed for the bet­ter and will con­tin­ue to change as I walk down this new, excit­ing, empow­er­ing path.

This group opened my eyes to liv­ing mind­ful­ly.… The prac­tice path that I am going down includes con­scious­ly slow­ing down, con­scious­ly pay­ing atten­tion, con­scious­ly breath­ing. One con­crete exam­ple is that in the nine or so months since that group I can count on one hand the num­ber of times that I’ve mis­placed my keys — or any­thing else that was in my hand. That may seem like a very small thing, yet it rep­re­sents a great deal and has reduced some lev­el of dai­ly stress.

The great­est ben­e­fit was real­iz­ing that I am not alone, that every­one is going through some­thing equal­ly as painful or chal­leng­ing. Being there for oth­ers, to lis­ten to them, is a gift for your­self, not just for them. I am not alone in try­ing to learn and grow, and I am not alone in stum­bling along the way. I would rec­om­mend this group to any­one going through a chal­leng­ing time.

This group helped me get a good han­dle on my code­pen­dent ten­den­cies that I real­ized come out of my belief that I don’t have a right to ask for what I need. I now real­ize that I need to hon­or myself and that it is OK to express what I want.

The group con­tributed to my con­stant aware­ness of how I am led astray from the present moment by my inces­sant thought pat­terns and habits and how hard it is to accept myself as I am. I felt a strong sense of mutu­al respect and car­ing from oth­ers in the group. Everyone seemed to have a strong desire to under­stand their lives at a deep­er lev­el and shared a rev­er­ence for life. Thank you, Jennifer, for cre­at­ing this won­der­ful expe­ri­ence.

Than­ks, Jennifer. You are an inspi­ra­tion and an impor­tant per­son in my life. I get clear­er by the day, and my mind­ful­ness prac­tice grows. It’s been a life-changing, trans­for­ma­tion­al experience.

I am capa­ble of more emo­tion­al courage and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty than I thought pos­si­ble. I was able to break up with a man with­out hard­en­ing my heart against him and turn cold, con­tract­ed self-judgment into heart­warm­ing, expan­sive self-compassion. I felt so much car­ing from you (Jennifer) and others.

Dear­est group, as I pre­pare for Thanksgiving with my fam­i­ly, I am struck with deep feel­ings of appre­ci­a­tion I have for all of you in my heart. In a very short time, we have forged an open­ing into the deep­est heart of who we are and the light that has seeped through has light­ened my load and helped my inner chat­ter of judg­ment. I appre­ci­ate all of you for the indi­vid­ual beau­ty you share with all of us and for your lov­ing and kind being.

I just don’t know how to thank you—in eight short weeks, I feel that I have been giv­en valu­able tools that have begun to and hope­ful­ly will con­tin­ue to make the qual­i­ty of my life so much bet­ter. I have not felt so con­nect­ed, excit­ed, and moti­vat­ed since Bill’s death. I am so grate­ful to you for allow­ing me to par­tic­i­pate in this group of tru­ly won­der­ful peo­ple, to start look­ing at life issues in a dif­fer­ent way, and begin­ning to amass the tools for con­tin­u­ing on this path.

I felt a strong sense of mutu­al respect and car­ing in the group. Everyone had a strong desire to under­stand them­selves and their pat­terns at a deep lev­el. Thank you, Jennifer, for cre­at­ing this won­der­ful program.

There’s a moun­tain I keep try­ing to climb to find love. Why do I keep climb­ing the moun­tain when I’m already there?

Jennifer pro­vid­ed us with new ways to think about each oth­er and the rela­tion­ship. As a result, we have more mutu­al respect and appre­ci­a­tion for one anoth­er and addi­tion­al­ly we have been phys­i­cal­ly more calm and relaxed. We enjoy one anoth­er again. Jennifer pro­vid­ed us with very help­ful insights, com­mu­ni­ca­tion tools, a calm and wel­com­ing atmos­phere, body-healing strate­gies, and new inter­nal ori­en­ta­tions from which to oper­ate. She was both chal­leng­ing and empa­thet­ic, and we’re most grate­ful to her for sav­ing us from our worst selves and putting us on a new path to a hope­ful and hap­py future.

I have expe­ri­enced deep, last­ing heal­ing through my rela­tion­ship with Jennifer. I am a com­plete­ly renewed per­son; peo­ple in my life have all com­ment­ed on the dif­fer­ence in me. I am a part of a lov­ing fam­i­ly, am phys­i­cal­ly healthy, have new (and recon­nect­ed) friends, and am just begin­ning a new career, one that has been a life­long dream of mine! I can­not say enough about the enor­mous impact Jennifer has had on my life. Her wis­dom, com­pas­sion, intu­ition, humor, and patience helped me to become the per­son I was always meant to be.

After my divorce, I was feel­ing angry and dis­cour­aged. Jennifer helped me hon­or all my feel­ings and gave me the gift of know­ing that I can feel con­fi­dent and con­tent.

Some­times I feel lost in a dark for­est on a cold night. Jennifer is always ready to pro­vide a blan­ket and a flash­light.

I blind­ly select­ed Jennifer from her ad in the tele­phone direc­to­ry. I am grate­ful for that lucky choice. With com­pas­sion and hon­esty, she has helped me exam­ine some very dif­fi­cult per­son­al issues. She gave me not only things to think about between ses­sions but also things to do when I was liv­ing real life, things that will help me achieve my goals.

I can’t begin to express the changes I feel. Jennifer’s intu­ition, wis­dom, and com­pas­sion are help­ing me find a part of me I didn’t know was there. My core. Thank you for this amaz­ing gift.