Compassionate Insight Course

Spiritual Education & Enrichment Program

Type of course: Experiential and immersive course that teaching skills such as developing self-awareness and offer practical applications of Unity teaching and Unity tools such as meditation and prayer

Number of credits/hours: 20

Number of classes: 6

Schedule:  over a course of 6 consecutive week

Meeting place: online

Timing: 3 hours per class and additional total of 2 hours of homework

Course Description

The course aims to enable students to develop deeper self-awareness and insight into the barriers to the Love of the Divine Presence. Often people avoid gaining self-awareness is because of the severe self-judgment that they experience each time they realize their shortcomings. This course enables students to develop ways to gain insights as well as dealing with them with compassion and loving kindness.

Motto: Our task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.  Rumi

Goals: By learning to embrace self and others with imperfections students will develop resilience in order to thrive.

Final: At the end of the course the students, individually or in group, will gain greater self-awareness, particularly into those thinking and behavioural patterns that may block their deeper awareness of the Divine Presence within them. They will also be able to embrace their limitations with more compassion and self-acceptance. They will understand and start breaking down the barriers to Love.

(Result(s) of the course: the students will be able create more loving and accepting relationships with others including themselves.

Enabling: During the course, the students, individually or collectively, will develop skills such as developing insight, self-awareness, compassion, letting go and forgiveness through meditation and prayer, using artistic tools to embrace different emotions.

Course Methodology

In general, I prefer student centred approach to teaching though depending on the desired outcome I occasionally switch to teacher-centred approach. In order to ensure that I respond and adapt to students’ learning needs and that students receives quality education I change my teaching style between “The Authority Style, The Delegator Style, The Facilitator Style, The Demonstrator Style and The Hybrid Style”.  I also investigate students’ learning styles which may be Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing Preference, or Kinaesthetic.

The reason I like student centred teaching and learning is it requires that students get actively involved in the learning process and take responsibility for their own learning. It requires a mutual respect within the student – teacher relationship.

I also pay attention to my students learning styles and ensure that I vary the material to all preferred styles which are Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing Preference, Kinaesthetic.

I also find it essential to create an active learning environment. In active learning, similarly to student centred leaning, learners are seen as people who are constructing their own understanding by interacting with knowledge and very importantly, with other people (including teachers and peers). Active Learning Environment ensures that students will truly possess the practical knowledge of the material provided. Practical knowledge means that they can adopt the material to their daily lives. Also, through active learning, constructing education is a process of co-creation, that of the teacher’s and students’. Both parties bring their entire person into the teaching and learning process, through which they both change immensely.

The class consist of 6 lessons and/or 6 sessions.  Each lesson is for 3 hours with and additional two hours in total of homework time. 

Class Themes

Class 1: What is insight and self-awareness. Students learn about the importance of self-awareness and how to develop it.  Students will experiment with staying present with difficult feelings.

Class 2: What is self-compassion and what it is not. Students gain clarity of the true meaning of compassion and its three basic components. Students will experiment with the difference between self-compassion and pity-party.

Class 3: Letting go of resistance and Living Deeply. Students will experiment with the idea “what we resist persists.”, and the fact that suffering is the result of pain caused by resistance. Students will look at the different forms of resistance and find out their preferred form of resistance. Self-compassion requires clear understanding of our needs so students will also identify their core values by looking at their needs.

Class 4: Developing Loving Kindness and meeting difficult emotions. Student will learn the true meaning of loving kindness and how it differs from compassion. Students will also experiment with discomfort caused by difficult emotions in order to cultivate compassion. Students will also learn about the five stages of emotional resistance.

Class 5: Self-compassion and Forgiveness. Students will develop an awareness of our common humanity. Students will experiment with five steps of forgiveness with main focus on self-forgiveness.

Class 6: Review and Evaluation. During this class the students will present what they have learned during the class and discuss practical applications of their newfound experiences and understanding. 

 

Lesson Structure

There are five main components of the structure of teaching or a lesson that varies depending on the subject and the age group we teach (and culture). These are named differently in different circles, but the main idea is that teaching goes through 5 distinct stages: Anticipatory Set, Introduction of New Material, Guided Practice, Independent Practice and Closure. Additionally, I often start the teaching with a Warmup that comes before the anticipatory set or included in it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In practice/Activities

The groups will have discussions, group work such as brainstorming, pair work such as interview, individual work such as reflexive journaling, both written and oral tasks.

 

Evaluation

At the end of the course students will prove their understanding of the material and present what they have learned in an informal manner. Students may also receive peer feedback if they wish so.

Supplementary or Related Readings

Frank Giudici, Love yourself into wholeness
Self-Awareness Unit

Claiming Truth
Understanding Kenosis: To Empty Oneself

Successful Living Through Self-Awareness (article)
Rev. Nita Strauss