To respond to growing interest among young adults in mental and spiritual well-being, Fo Guang Shan Temple of Toronto, through its Buddha’s Light Spiritual Care Group and Buddha’s Light Toronto Young Adult Division, launched a four-session Mental & Spiritual Growth Workshop Series beginning January 17. The program invited youth to explore self-understanding with gentleness, cultivating inner awareness and compassion with the guidance of professional therapists.

Titled “Being With Me: Learning to Gently Understand and Care for Our Inner World,” the series was led by Ontario-registered psychotherapists Erica Wan and Linda Kwan. Through structured guidance and reflective exercises, participants explored their inner emotional states, deepened self-awareness, and gained insight into their relationships with others.

At the opening session, Abbess Venerable Chueh Fan offered a Dharma reflection, encouraging youth to learn skillful ways of supporting themselves and to understand the true meaning of compassion. Abbess emphasized that compassion extends beyond caring for others to include how one meets personal struggles and vulnerabilities. Genuine self-understanding, she noted, is cultivated through continual practice—reflecting the Buddhist emphasis on lived application.

Erica Wan shared that the series was not psychotherapy, but a reflective and supportive journey grounded in Compassion-Focused approaches, guiding participants to observe emotions with kindness and curiosity, nurture inner safety, and buildmore caring relationships with themselves and others.

Linda Kwan introduced Compassion-FocusedTherapy (CFT) concepts, explaining the brain’s three emotion-regulation systems—threat, drive, and soothing—and how imbalance can lead to distress. Through hands-on activities using color-coded felt circles, participants practiced identifying emotional states and responding with awareness.

In closing reflections, participants shared key takeaways such as awareness, balance, adjustment, and responsibility, expressing gratitude for the thoughtful guidance and looking forward to continuing this gentle dialogue with themselves.