.b mindfulness programme
Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is a mystery,
But today is a gift,
And that's why it is called the present.
Kung Fu Panda
INTRODUCTION
OUR MIND
- We learn about our mind, that we can train it.
- We learn that mindfulness is about possibilities and that we can make choices between what we call the bad and the good in life.
LESSON ONE: FIRST STEPS IN FOCUSSING ATTENTION
OUR ATTENTION IS LIKE A PUPPY
- We can direct it
- We cannot control it
- We can train it
- We have to be kind and patient with it
- We need to do it over and over again -> practice
The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again,
is the very root of judgment, character, and will. . .
An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.
But it is easier to define the ideal than to give practical instructions for bringing it about.
William James, 1890
LESSON TWO; ESTABLISHING CALM AND CONCENTRATION
CALM CHANGES OUR ATTITUDE
- Our mind is like an animal, which one at this moment?
- We learn that our body can be an anchor and can calm our mind.
The inspiration you seek is already within you. Be silent and listen.
Rumi
LESSON THREE: RECOGNISING RUMINATION AND RETURNING HOME TO OUR BODY
RUMINATION
- We learn that we overthink most of the time; we create scenarios; we replay, we interpret, we catastrophise.
- Stories are not facts, they are thoughts closely related to emotions, body sensations and actions.
- We discover the difference between thinking and sensing.
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Victor Frankl
LESSON FOUR: DEVELOPING PRESENT MOMENT AWARENESS IN THE EVERY DAY
AUTOPILOT
- We observe our attachment to what we find pleasant and our avoidance to what we do not like.
- And we react. By noticing this we get a choice of REACTING OR RESPONDING to what is happening.
LESSON FIVE: SLOWING AND SAVOURING ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING WALKING
We explore different ways of MOVING MINDFULLY by sensing rather than thinking in our movements
We take these practices in our daily activities and we extend them to routine tasks like brushing our teeth, showering, getting up etc…
We discover the joy of slowing and savouring what we do.
LESSON SIX: STEPPING BACK FROM THOUGHTS THAT HIJACK YOU
- We use the traffic analogy to look at what is happening in our minds.
- We notice the THOUGHTS and learn that they can be observed.
- We talk about the brain.
- We compare our thoughts to buses that come and go and discover we don’t have to board each bus…
If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish.
Lao-tzu, The Tao Te Ching
LESSON SEVEN: ALLOWING, ACCEPTING AND BEING WITH DIFFICULT EMOTIONS
- Bad things happen and bring STRESS in our lives. We have a choice to react to them or to respond.
- We learn how to identify the stress response in our bodies and we draw our own STRESS SIGNATURE card.
- We see the value of allowing events to be just as they are rather than trying to change them
LESSON EIGHT: LOOKING BACK AND MAKING IT PERSONAL
This is a REFLECTION AND REVIEW time.
We write a letter to ourselves about what we have learned and how we are going to keep mindfulness in our lives.
The third certainty of life, after death and taxes,
is that nothing will work out the way you want.
Life is fully as bad as you think it is.
Choose to live joyfully anyway.
Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The first thing you discover is
a kind of emptiness,
a silence,
a presence which doesn't seem to have content to it,
like looking up
at a limitless sky.
That boundary-less place
inside you
is your own consciousness,
your awareness.
When you relax into it,
you realize that it's also full -
it is everything.
You realize this presence is
what you really are: Love.
Arjuna Ardagh
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