Mindfulness for stress, depression and well-being
All the meditations we teach involve and link to the practice of mindfulness. However, we also teach courses and workshops in the practice of Mindfulness as an approach to dealing with the stresses and strains of life. These courses are closely influenced by the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn in the USA and the work being pioneered at the Universities of Bangor, Exeter and Oxford.
Mindfulness can be described as being completely awake and present, fully and deliberately alive, moment by moment, to what is happening within us and around us. Mindfulness meditation helps us to wake up and stop living in automatic pilot mode. It frees us from the compulsive, re-active patterns of our minds, and allows us to stay calm and make sane choices. To be mindful is to live simply and directly with what is.
To live un-mindfully is to go through life in a semi-conscious, state adding all kinds of - sometimes unhelpful - factors to our experience. Our minds have an amazing capacity to make connections, imagine outcomes, form strategies. This is a defining aspect of being human. But all too often we give our minds too much power in the wrong situations.
Next time you get a headache, try to step back for a moment to see how much of your pain is rooted in actual physical discomfort and how much is based on the way your mind is commenting on, judging, and trying to push away from the experience. You might have a liberating surprise - liberating because you suddenly find you can drop the stress you've created around the original discomfort - which has been making it so much worse.
Mindfulness practice is about stripping our experience down to whatever it actually is in the present moment - warts and all - without embellishment or judgement, able to meet whatever life throws at us without drama. It's not necessarily about being deliriously happy all the time; life just isn't like that. It's about being realistic and living in a mode in which you are free from the compulsive patterns of your mind, able to make sane choices and deal with things calmly in a straightforward way.
To open up this gap between the flow of experience and the way our mind is processing and reacting to it from moment to moment, takes practice, but it can be done. Mindfulness is not magic; it is a skill that can be learned and developed.
Rooted in the ancient Buddhist art of meditation, mindfulness can practised by anyone, whatever their religious or cultural background.
Our courses will help you to:
Feel more fully and richly alive - moment by moment
Think and communicate more clearly and effectively
Discover that stress and anxiety are optional
Free yourself from, 're-active' impulses and habit patterns
Recognise and challenge unhelpful thoughts and beliefs.
Develop safe and positive ways of dealing with chronic mental or physical pain
For more information on courses in Stroud and Cheltenham go to www.mindfulness-west.com
Mindfulness can be described as being completely awake and present, fully and deliberately alive, moment by moment, to what is happening within us and around us. Mindfulness meditation helps us to wake up and stop living in automatic pilot mode. It frees us from the compulsive, re-active patterns of our minds, and allows us to stay calm and make sane choices. To be mindful is to live simply and directly with what is.
To live un-mindfully is to go through life in a semi-conscious, state adding all kinds of - sometimes unhelpful - factors to our experience. Our minds have an amazing capacity to make connections, imagine outcomes, form strategies. This is a defining aspect of being human. But all too often we give our minds too much power in the wrong situations.
Next time you get a headache, try to step back for a moment to see how much of your pain is rooted in actual physical discomfort and how much is based on the way your mind is commenting on, judging, and trying to push away from the experience. You might have a liberating surprise - liberating because you suddenly find you can drop the stress you've created around the original discomfort - which has been making it so much worse.
Mindfulness practice is about stripping our experience down to whatever it actually is in the present moment - warts and all - without embellishment or judgement, able to meet whatever life throws at us without drama. It's not necessarily about being deliriously happy all the time; life just isn't like that. It's about being realistic and living in a mode in which you are free from the compulsive patterns of your mind, able to make sane choices and deal with things calmly in a straightforward way.
To open up this gap between the flow of experience and the way our mind is processing and reacting to it from moment to moment, takes practice, but it can be done. Mindfulness is not magic; it is a skill that can be learned and developed.
Rooted in the ancient Buddhist art of meditation, mindfulness can practised by anyone, whatever their religious or cultural background.
Our courses will help you to:
Feel more fully and richly alive - moment by moment
Think and communicate more clearly and effectively
Discover that stress and anxiety are optional
Free yourself from, 're-active' impulses and habit patterns
Recognise and challenge unhelpful thoughts and beliefs.
Develop safe and positive ways of dealing with chronic mental or physical pain
For more information on courses in Stroud and Cheltenham go to www.mindfulness-west.com
You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Jon Kabat-Zinn
