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Standalone Mindfulness Courses
Introduction to Mindfulness
Whatever challenges or difficulties we may face, these are workable. Cultivating mindfulness helps us to reduce the negative impacts of stress and to develop more effective ways of responding positively and proactively to stressful experiences.
Course Objectives:
· Explore the concept of Mindfulness
· Experience mindfulness through meditation and mindful eating
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Consider ways in which to incorporate mindfulness into daily life
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Perception and Stress
How we see things can have a major influence on how we react or respond to them but sometimes we interpret things differently to what is actually there. We may not always have control over things, but we do have some say in our attitudes.
Course Objectives:
· Explore the influence of perception on our stress response
· Experience awareness through meditation and sensory perception
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Consider the 8 attitudinal qualities of mindfulness as a framework for a mindful life
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Mindful Movement
With awareness, we may better discover the joy of simply being rather than doing. There is an inherent value in appreciating life as it is, and a power in choosing how to be with our present moment experience.
Course Objectives:
· Explore perception, reactivity and response in the present moment
· Experience awareness through breath and movement
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Consider how awareness creates choice and choice creates freedom
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Patterns of Stress Reactivity
Awareness is our first step in choosing how to respond skillfully to stress. With openness and acceptance, we can develop effective ways of responding positively and proactively to stressful situations, experiences and pain.
Course Objectives:
· Explore habitual stress reactivity patterns and how stress shows up in the body
· Experience awareness by ‘turning towards’ and allowing the whole of our experience
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Consider how kind awareness enables more skillful responses to stress and pain
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Mindful Response to Stress
Habitual stress reactivity patterns have likely supported and protected us in the past. However some may have become limiting or even self-destructive. Thoughts and emotions can trigger and amplify stress reactivity which can impact our health and wellbeing.
Course Objectives:
· Explore ways of working with stress; mindful responding versus habitually reacting
· Experience awareness through movement and a ‘pocket practice’
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Consider how looking ‘at’ thoughts rather than ‘from’ thoughts can impact our stress reactivity
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Interpersonal Mindfulness
Our relationships with others may be the most important part of our lives whilst also being the most stressful and difficult. As we grow our awareness of emotions, we may grow the ability to be with ourselves and others in more heartfelt and authentic ways.
Course Objectives:
· Practice mindful communications; both speaking and listening
· Experience awareness through breath, body, sounds, thoughts, emotions and open awareness
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Explore an informal self-inquiry technique for decreasing stress and anxiety
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Mindful Self-Care
Mindfulness is most effective when it is integrated into our daily lives and offers a broader sense of awareness and presence in each of our moments. Opening up to new possibilities creates flexibility in our choices to support, rather than limit, our health and wellbeing.
Course Objectives:
· Examine how our lifestyle choices either nurture or deplete us
· Experience mindfulness through open and kindly awareness
· Reflect on the experience of being mindful
· Explore an informal self-inquiry technique for finding greater joy and balance in life
Note: This is a 2-hour experiential mindfulness course.
Bespoke Mindfulness Programmes
Mindfulness workshops customised to client need
Life is messy. It’s wonderful and uncertain; beautiful and ugly in the same breath. It’s the best and the most stressful thing you’ll ever do. But we believe that human beings are resilient - they just often need a little support in finding the reserves needed for life’s inevitable challenges.
Our mission is to empower busy humans with tangible tools to manage stress, enhance wellbeing and build the mental fitness needed to not only survive, but thrive, through difficult times.
And now, this is needed more than ever.
One of the key tools we use is Mindfulness. Mindfulness provides a gateway to change. And mindfulness coupled with emotional intelligence can have dramatic impacts on leadership, performance and engagement.
We develop bespoke programmes to meet your strategic business objectives in the areas of leadership, wellness, diversity and inclusion.
Using experiential mindfulness techniques, your employees can learn to improve:
· Empathy
· Motivation
· Self-awareness
· Focussed attention
· Emotional regulation
· Listening skills
· Self-compassion
· Resilience
· Performance
All this leads to healthy and happy employees, healthy clients and ultimately, a healthy bottom line.
Workplace burnout is estimated to cost the global economy £255 billion a year (World Economic Forum, 2020). But what if you could turn back the clock on stress-related absenteeism and, by the same token, invest in the leadership potential of your team?
Join the growing list of companies embracing Mindfulness as a technique for developing high performing, compassionate leaders.
What is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)?
MBSR is a standard 8-week stress reduction programme based on intensive experiential mindfulness training. It is a secular approach taught globally and due to its consistent methodology, is now the most scientifically tested and well-established mindfulness meditation program in the world.
Individual sessions explore the concept of mindfulness, the role of perception in stress reactivity, mindful movement, how the body shows up in stress, mindful communications, active listening and lifestyle choices supportive of a mindful life. Through greater awareness of thoughts, sensations, emotions and habitual stress reactivity patterns, participants are better able to learn how to respond rather than react to stress.
No prior meditation experience is required to participate. Courses are therefore welcoming of beginners up to all levels and each course is restricted in size to facilitate a more intimate space for experiential learning.
The origins of MBSR
In 1979 Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme at the University of Massachusetts to treat the chronically ill. This sparked a growing interest and application of mindfulness ideas and practices in the medical world for the treatment of a variety of conditions in people both healthy and unhealthy...
The Benefits of Mindfulness
Physical Health
General Wellbeing
Physical Health
Mindfulness can lead to lower blood pressure, heart rate and improved overall cardiovascular health. It has proven useful in better managing symptoms associated with pain by facilitating less reactivity and improved quality of life. It results in improved immune function and can also improve sleep. Those regularly practising mindfulness h
Mindfulness can lead to lower blood pressure, heart rate and improved overall cardiovascular health. It has proven useful in better managing symptoms associated with pain by facilitating less reactivity and improved quality of life. It results in improved immune function and can also improve sleep. Those regularly practising mindfulness have also proven more inclined to adopt overall healthier life choices such as decreased nicotine and alcohol consumption and a greater uptake of physical exercise.
Mental Health
General Wellbeing
Physical Health
Mindfulness can result in higher brain functioning and cognitive improvements i.e. greater engagement of the prefrontal cortex (logic and reasoning) rather than the amygdala (emotion and behaviour); increased awareness (of self and the world around us); emotional regulation (better mood); attention regulation (better focus); increased cl
Mindfulness can result in higher brain functioning and cognitive improvements i.e. greater engagement of the prefrontal cortex (logic and reasoning) rather than the amygdala (emotion and behaviour); increased awareness (of self and the world around us); emotional regulation (better mood); attention regulation (better focus); increased clarity in thinking and perception (ability to alter ones' self perception and perceived ability to cope); decreased stress and anxiety; and bias reduction.
General Wellbeing
General Wellbeing
General Wellbeing
Mindfulness can induce general wellbeing benefits such as the experience of internal calmness, feelings of greater connection, increased empathy and self-compassion, enhanced coping skills and overall resilience. It allows one to evolve habitual stress reactivity patterns into more effective adaptive responses i.e. cultivation of heighte
Mindfulness can induce general wellbeing benefits such as the experience of internal calmness, feelings of greater connection, increased empathy and self-compassion, enhanced coping skills and overall resilience. It allows one to evolve habitual stress reactivity patterns into more effective adaptive responses i.e. cultivation of heightened awareness, leading to choice and thereby creating freedom in the ability to respond rather than react to stress. Mindfulness can improve our ability to sit with thoughts, sensations and emotions that are pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.
Jon Kabat-Zinn and the MBSR Mindfulness Programme
The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme uses the body scan as well as sitting meditation to manage pain. The body scan is derived from a traditional Burmese meditation practice called sweeping, from the school of U Ba Khin that S. N. Goenka teaches in his ten-day Vipassana retreats.
Much of this was inspired by teachings from the East, and particularly from the Buddhist traditions, where mindfulness is one of the eight constituents of the Noble Eightfold Path taught by Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha, who founded Buddhism almost 2,500 years ago. Although originally articulated as a part of what is known in the West as Buddhism, there is nothing inherently religious about mindfulness, and it is often taught independent of religious or cultural connotation.
Thich Nhat Hanh first brought mindfulness to the attention of Westerners. It was on a retreat he led in the United States that an American doctor, Jon Kabat-Zinn, first realized the appropriateness of mindfulness in the treatment of chronic medical conditions. Kabat-Zinn later adapted Hanh’s teachings on mindfulness into the structured eight-week MBSR course, which has since spread throughout the western World.
Mindfulness and other Buddhist meditation techniques receive support in the West from figures such as the scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn, teachers Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, psychologist Tara Brach, writer Alan Clements, and the teacher Sharon Salzberg, who have been widely attributed with playing a significant role in integrating the healing aspects of Buddhist meditation practices with the concept of psychological awareness and healing. Additionally, psychotherapists have adapted and developed mindfulness techniques into promising cognitive behavioural therapies.
Adapted from: The Mindful Academy, Solterreno.
Photo Credit: Guilford Press
