Mindfulness and breathwork, two ancient practices that have revived in popularity in recent years as powerful tools to cultivate a sense of calm and balance in our lives.

Compassionate Co was set up and founded by Killarney Local - Chloe Enright, a Public Health Practitioner and Breathwork Facilitator who has extensive experience in health research, health communications and surveillance. With a particular passion for mental health, Chloe began to research the area of self-compassion and based on her own experience, developed ‘Your Self-Scribbler’, a guided journaling experience for improving self-compassion.

Chloe’s background is in Public health, which encompasses health promotion, epidemiology and health protection. Public health as a discipline focuses on prevention of disease, rather than treatment. Her recently launched business, Compassionate Co, follows these same principles – the upstream approach.

PREVENTION IS KEY

“I like to say the interventions I provide arm people with tools to protect and support their own mental wellbeing, rather than letting it get to the stage where illness has developed, and treatment is required. These tools are in the form of guided journaling and breathwork. Both of which support the development of mental resilience as well as other positive health benefit”

“I was always fascinated by the complexities of health as a discipline and that deepened even further when I was faced with health challenges myself, relating to my physical and mental well-being. Through my own journey, I realised the huge connection between mind to body, and body to mind and the degree of influence one has on the other.”

DISCOVERING SELF-COMPASSION

It was on this self-development journey that Chloe came across the concept of self-compassion. She described self-compassion as “treating yourself with kindness through difficult or challenging thought and emotion”.

It’s treating ourselves like we would a friend in times when these emotions or thoughts arise, and choosing to be kind over harshly self-critical.

“There is a choice! We are hard-wired to criticise ourselves, but we can change that. There is a framework that supports cultivating self-compassion. It is based on three pillars (mindfulness, self-kindness and common humanity). Being mindful of what we are feeling rather than over-identifying (mindfulness), choosing to be kind to ourselves over harshly self-critical (self-kindness), and realising that imperfection is part of the common human experience”

“I worked hard on learning the concept, as I was probably the most un self-compassionate people you would meet! Always criticising myself! Once I learnt the concept, I began to notice how good I was feeling. If I made a mistake in work? It happens, rectify and move on! If I noticed I was critiquing my body, noticing how that made me feel, and making a choice to replace it with kind phraseology. It started to veer into every area of my life, and I truly became my happiest version of self.”

YOUR SELF-SCRIBBLER

Late last year Chloe got news that she needed another major spinal surgery and she was devastated. Knowing what was ahead, she knew that there would be lots of difficult emotions involved pre and post recovery and she was looking for resources to help her cope.

“I went and looked for a journal which allowed me to practice self-compassion during this time. And there wasn’t one! And so, Your Self – Scribbler was born, the guided journaling experience to help you cultivate self-compassion”

“The journal is guided and is based on the three pillars for self-compassion: mindfulness; self-kindness and common humanity. The journal asks you a series to questions that require you to dig a little deeper than you average journal, but there is plenty of examples to draw on. Mindfulness – helping you to put words on how you are feeling and helping you to identify what you need based on those feelings. Self-kindness – breaking down unhelpful negative judgements you have made about yourself. Common humanity – discussing any difficult emotions you are feeling, reiterating that these are completely normal”.

Chloe is also a breathwork facilitator and runs a number of classes and workshops both locally and around the country. Breathwork is engaging in conscious breathing practices, where you move your focus completely to the breath.

“Breathwork allows you to practice mindfulness as it allows you to connect with your body, and move into the present moment – which is mindfulness! So, you could say breathwork is a mindful experience. Every attendee to my classes has a mindful hour, through connecting with their bodies through their breath. There is a huge amount of evidence that has been published in recent years on the benefits of breathwork, and the evidence base continues to evolve”

Chloe is due to launch her online facilitation classes in the coming weeks. She feels this was important to make it accessible to all, as it’s not always feasible for people to attend her classes in person, she will be sharing details on her socials in the coming weeks!

If you are interested in finding out more about Chloe and joining her on a journey of practising self-compassion you can find her on Instagram: @compassionateco, Facebook: Compassionate Co, TikTok: @compassionate_co and her website is www.compassionate-co.com, email: info@compassionate-co.com.