The way I was working was leading me to burn-out. Medical school and residency at McGill were a boot camp, where I gained medical knowledge and honed the ability to wall off my emotions; compartmentalize. Always striving, not giving myself enough rest. I worked like that for years, all the while raising a family, getting divorced, blending a new family. I lost my brother, then my father. Despite the pain, I kept working, never stopping, never truly acknowledging my emotions. After COVID-19hit, the challenge became very real. I had led the Castlegar ED through the worst of it but then hit a wall.  It was all suddenly just too much, and I knew something had to change.

An advertisement for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program, with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, kept coming up in my social media feed. I wasn’t sure I had the time or energy for the two-year course. But then a friend asked me “What will bring you the most joy?” I signed up for the course the second I got off the phone.  And I am so glad that I did. I learned that developing self-compassion and self-forgiveness are the two core elements to healing our wounds and finding joy, but more importantly we delved into the process of how to get there. The two wings of awareness; mindfulness and compassion. They unfurl, helping us to open to our vulnerabilities and lean into them with compassion and love, allowing true healing to occur.

It’s human nature to be hard on ourselves. Our brains are wired to look for what’s wrong or what’s missing, and to focus on mistakes.  This “negativity bias” once helped us survive. For most of human evolution we were in the middle of the food chain, running from bigger animals, eluding danger. Fortunately, with the advent of technology we have more leisure and security. The negativity bias is less helpful and instead can leave us stuck in cycles of shame and self-blame. Family dynamics and the culture we grow up in often reinforce the idea that being hard on ourselves is the only way to improve, that if we aren’t beating ourselves up, we won’t learn from our mistakes. But deep down, most of us know that being harsh rarely leads to real growth — it just keeps us trapped in pain.

Compassion offers another way forward. When we respond to suffering with kindness — whether toward others or ourselves — our prefrontal cortex lights up in ways that bring healing. Compassion releases oxytocin and dopamine; calming us down, lifting us up, and connecting us to one another. It’s no coincidence that humans evolved this way: compassion helps us survive and thrive together. We learn and change more easily when we feel safe and supported than when we feel judged.

Forgiveness is part of this journey. Lilly Tomlin once said “forgiveness means letting go of all hope for a better past.”  We know cognitively that we can’t rewrite the past but we spend hours trying to reshape our stories.  So often, we find ourselves replaying our mistakes, late at night, as if rehearsing them could somehow rewrite history. We hold on to core beliefs of unworthiness, failure and brokenness. We also often hold onto the belief that we need to be hard on ourselves to stop making mistakes and improve. We may even believe that we don’t deserve forgiveness or compassion.

So how do we begin to let go? Mindfulness and self-compassion give us a path. When we slow down enough to notice what’s happening in our bodies, we can see our pain clearly. Practices like Tara Brach’s RAIN—Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture—help us face our pain without running from it. We learn to hold our pain gently, and to send compassion and love to the places in us that feel most broken. Healing comes not from pushing pain away, but from meeting it with kindness.  For me it was not intuitive to do this. I had spent years reading about Buddhism, vulnerability and compassion but it didn’t teach me how to get there. I didn’t have a process.  It wasn’t until I began working with Tara Brach’s RAIN practice and working with self compassion and vulnerability that I was able to find the way into myself.

However, cultivating joy takes practice. The negativity bias may be hardwired, but neuroplasticity research in the last 10 years has shown us that our brains are quite plastic. Through training our minds in more positive ways of thinking we change the brain itself. We can calm the limbic system, reduce our cortisol levels, and increase activity in areas that are responsible for joy. The Canadian neuropsychologist Donald Hebb coined the well-known phrase “nerves that fire together wire together.” And this is true for positivity.

Rick Hansen, an American neuroscientist and psychologist has written several books on the impacts of mindfulness on the brain. His most recent research focuses on how we cultivate and internalize the fruits of mindfulness. What he found was that there are essentially two steps, first we must have the experience and the second, we must cultivate the experience, stay with it, let it sink in. He came up with seven factors that help us download a positive experience and have it rewire our brains into a more positive state.

1. Staying with the experience longer helps more neurons fire and wire
2. Bring the experience some intensity
3. Feel it in your body
4. Notice what’s new about the experience
5. See what’s important or relevant to you
6. Let it sink in and imagine it sinking in like gentle rain on freshly tilled earth
7. Track what’s enjoyable about the experience

By using these practices, we trigger our brain to release chemicals that signal “this is important” and help store the experience as a strong, lasting memory. Over time, these practices change our brain so that we feel happier and more joyful.

For me, the heart of cultivating joy is this: releasing the stories of shame and blame and choosing instead to practice self-compassion, gratitude and joy. It isn’t a one-time fix. It’s a practice — a practice of forgiveness, of noticing the good, of gratitude. And while it takes effort, it’s worth it. When I live with compassion for myself, I might still stumble, get caught up in negative thinking loops but hopefully they’re shorter and less critical. By doing the work I am able to open the door to healing, to freedom, and to joy.

Dr. Lisa Vasil – As a family physician, I believe that medicine must have a holistic approach if it is to be successful.  Our health is shaped by the stories we tell, the relationships we nurture, the food we eat and the ways we care for our minds and bodies. That belief has carried me through my 25 years of practicing rural medicine and guides my work as a mindfulness meditation teacher. 

Born and raised in Montreal, Quebec to parents of Greek and French heritage, I was raised with the belief that a good life is rooted in good health, shared meals and open conversations. From an early age, I was drawn to exploring our connections with the natural world and our place in it. I was fascinated by how plants, ecosystems and people flourish and obtained an honours degree in biology from McGill, focused on ecology and women’s studies. I carried this curiosity into my medical training, which I completed at McGill in 2000.  

My journey into mindfulness began my early twenties, when I began to explore Buddhism and Yoga. Trying to find time for a yoga and meditation practice as a doctor and mother of three has not always been easy! But in 2023, I completed my 200-hour Yoga teacher training and in February 2025, I completed a two-year Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Program (MMTCP) with Tara Brach PhD and Jack Kornfield PhD. This was an incredibly enriching program and has further deepened my understanding of mindfulness and the positive impacts it can have on health and healing. Today, I share mindfulness meditation workshops with my patients and the general public. My intention is to offer a space where people can reconnect with themselves and find more  joy and happiness in their lives. 

About the Thriving Project