Introduction & Theoretical Background
Core to compassion focused therapy (CFT) is the ability to notice and engage in distress, and then to take wise action to relieve or prevent it. An important first step in doing this is through attention training and mindfulness, which help us to develop skills in noticing, turning towards, and engaging in things that might be painful or distressing.
The Spotlight Exercise is an exercise taken from the Psychology Tools For Developing Self-Compassion audio collection. In this introductory mindfulness exercise, the listener is guided through the process of focusing their awareness on a variety of targets, and is then led through a short reflection. It is useful because it gives the listener a brief inside-out understanding of the nature of attention, and more broadly, one aspect of how our minds work.