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Compassion flows from our innate human capacity to care and recognize suffering, be moved by suffering, and choose to relieve it. Hence authentic compassion is embodied.
As a compassion, kindness, and meditation teacher, I teach the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT™) meditation courses developed at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education by dedicated faculty in 2009. The course is protected under Copywrite. Evaluation and research continue as these excellent practices are shared with diverse people and environments.
We aim to grow a compassion-focused community by teaching compassion cultivation training meditation courses and engaging in small acts of kindness and compassion locally.
Please join me in the 8-week Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) meditation courses. These start on discounts, scholarships, and pay-what-you-can arrangements are available.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023, from 2:00 to 4:00 PM NST.
Thursday, October 19, 2023, from 09.30 to 11.30:00 AM NST.
Saturday, October 21, 2023, 2022, from 09:30 to 11:30 AM NST.
With gratitude, we acknowledge this Land Acknowledgement we received permission to use from First Light.
We respectfully acknowledge the land on which we gather as the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk, whose culture has now been erased forever. We also acknowledge the island of Ktaqamkuk (Newfoundland) as the unceded, traditional territory of the Beothuk and the Mi’kmaq. And we acknowledge Labrador as the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Innu of Nitassinan, the Inuit of Nunatsiavut, and the Inuit of NunatuKavut. We recognize all First Peoples who were here before us, those who live with us now, and the seven generations to come. As First Peoples have done since time immemorial, we strive to be responsible stewards of the land and to respect the cultures, ceremonies, and traditions of all who call it home. As we open our hearts and minds to the past, we commit ourselves to working in a spirit of truth and reconciliation to make a better future for all.
Dr. Frances Scully: Activist. Physician. Contemplative. Teacher.
I am a 66-year-old widowed breast cancer survivor, blessed by two adult sons and two young lively, and lovely Australian Shepherds Lily and Enzo.
I strive to establish a daily Wisdom Healing Qigong practice, to compost and embody a worldview of “Indigeneity” as defined by LaDonna Harris.
I strive to embrace the interconnectedness of life, to focus on the relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution, to connect with and learn as much as I can from Indigenous Elders, land protectors with their strong allies to tread more gently on our rare and precious living planet. As a physician, I am sad that our collective human activities have caused our home planet to suffer from a constant fever of 1.2 degrees Celsius . We know that the current level of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere at 420 ppm is hugely toxic and still we fail to act decisively to save life on our planet.
The reports from the International Panel on Climate Change call me to co-create BeCompassionateNl.Inc.
I am grateful to continue to practice one day per week, as a clinical Hematologist at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada.
St. John’s is a small, vibrant city located in the most Eastern part of Canada. I am grateful to live on this stunningly beautiful land. I am grateful to live in Canada, our magnificent, multicultural country.
Starting in 2007, over a period of four years, I became increasingly anxious and depressed. During this time, I was attempting to provide excellent care to my beloved husband, who was ill and suffering intensely, to be an alert, responsive and supportive parent and a dog owner. I also sought to provide optimal care to my patients, their families and loved ones, mentor and teach learners, engage in clinical research and build a local patient support group.
In 2011, I experienced a very painful episode of major depression. I am immensely grateful for the healing, love and support of family and friends, especially my sons and my wonderful friends Gail Carroll and Hilda Wakeham Dunn and to my superbly dedicated and skilled healthcare team. My compassionate psychologist treated me with enormous kindness and skill. She introduced me to the critically important new (to me) field of trauma-informed care. When healthcare professionals become trauma-aware, we change our inquiry into the onset of an illness, moving away from the “why”, and on to the “how”.
In 2016, saddened and hurt by the extremely harsh and punitive process, I was subjected to. The regulatory system for physicians is not focused on cultivating compassion and kindness. I found the regulatory response to be unnecessarily abusive, cruel, insensitive and merciless, during an especially painful period of grief, illness and loss. After reading about the wonderful efforts of an anonymous customer displaying an act of kindness at a coffee shop in St. John’s, I became inspired to follow the advice of Gandhi “to be the change” I wished to see in the world.
In 2017, I asked Google if compassion even exists?
My search using Google led me to the inspirational Charter for Compassion, founded by Karen Armstrong with funds she received for an excellent TED talk. Through the Charter for Compassion, I found the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, at Stanford Medicine. Intrigued, I applied to the Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT)© Meditation Course. Weeks later, I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer and began my personal cancer journey. I was fortunate to take this life -affirming meditation course, online, while enduring the lifesaving and life-disabling side effects of cancer therapy, I found the course incredibly helpful. A deep bow to my wonderful teacher Leah Weiss and to my classmates.
My very positive experience with this course led me to reapply to train to teach this wonderful course. I am amazed at how much I have learned since focusing on cultivating compassion and kindness.
My intention is to collaborate, connect, discuss, and envision with all, working to create local, national, and global non-human and domination-centric cultures, processes and systems and instead to explicitly value compassion, democracy, diversity, fairness, gentleness, inclusion, joy, kindness, nature, the natural world, Indigenous and non-Indigenous Scholarship and Wisdom traditions.
My intention is also to connect, learn with and support all who focus on regenerative ways of living, restorative justice, reconciliation, and peace-making. I especially seek to collaborate with all educators, decision and policy-makers, who seek to add compassion, ecological literacy, fairness, inclusion, kindness, reflective practices, an understanding of human bias and cultural myopia and the practice of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Wisdom cultivation practices to higher levels of education.
I seek to connect with, cherish, defend, learn from, listen to, love and support all Indigenous Elders, bundle and knowledge protectors, land protectors with their strong allies, locally, regionally, nationally and globally, with Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, by birth or by choice and all who seek to co-create a more compassionate, reflective, ecologically and technologically advanced society for the benefit of the Seventh Generation.
We seek to grow and be members of a diverse, reflective, safe and welcoming community. We invite people, who self-identify as Indigenous and Métis, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, born and bred, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians by choice and all who choose to join us. It is is our intention to cultivate, compassion, joy, kindness and inclusion, make new friends and have fun.
We invite others to join us as we cultivate reflective and restorative activities and practices and co-create meaningful Environmental Social governance (ESGs) processes. During these stormy times, we invite all our neighbours to walk with us through the doorway of Truth and Reconciliation, to heal people and planet, find quiet coves, safe havens and co-create both human and non-human flourishing to the Seventh Generation.