8 Week Mindfulness MBSR

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) refers to a strongly evidence based stress reduction program formulated by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding director of The Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The colour in your life

Mindfulness for Resilience Health and Well Being

The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guides one’s own thinking and actions.

Emotional Intelligence is recognized by the presence of the following:

1.    Self awareness: knowledge of one’s internal states, preferences, resources and intuitions.
2.    Self regulation: Management of ones internal states, impulses and resources.
3.    Motivation:  Emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals
4.    Empathy: Awareness of others feelings and needs and concerns
5.    Social skills: Adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others.

Course curriculum

1. Automatic Pilot. The Body Scan.
2. Calming the Mind. Mindfulness Sitting Meditation
3. Mindfulness in Movement

These three disciplines will become the main stay of the daily mindfulness practice. It is helpful to alternate between them and it is strongly encouraged that you spend between 20 and 40 minutes a day practicing them. A strong commitment to regular practice will support and deepen your mindfulness and help it to flourish and grow.

The following weekly course sessions 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 are designed to help establish the basis of mindfulness within daily life.

4. Coping With Stress
5. Mindful Acceptance
6. Mindfulness in Communication
7. Mindful Lifestyle Choices
8. Your Journey. Maintaining your Mindfulness Skills

How does mindfulness achieve these changes?

Mindfulness training is the self-teaching of conscious awareness in your mind. This is achieved through the concentration and focus of one’s attention, in the present moment, clearly and  singularly, holding the focus at will for as long as desired, without employing the judgmental or critical habits of the ‘conscious’ mind.

This practice frees the mind from generating stress, and creates a new perception of spaciousness and ease. This mindfulness practice acts as a brake on the reactive cascading of hormonal responses from the emotional and survival centers of the brain, which, previously, when triggered inappropriately could become habitual, automated and destructive.

Mindfulness is all about practice

Mindfulness is not an intellectual idea or thought. Mindfulness is a skill, a fundamental learning utilizing the plasticity of the long term memory, akin to that of learning the violin or riding a bike. To achieve this new neural pathway, one must practice daily, focusing the mind in the present moment, non-judgmentally.                                                                                                        (P Salovey, D Mayer)

The benefit of Mindfulness is to create within the individual, the ability to focus their attention on the awareness of what is actually happening in the present moment, within themselves and to what is happening around them in a wider context. 
Learning to focus the mind in this way relaxes the body and mind, improving emotional awareness and intelligence.

The practice of mindfulness is not an escape from life. On the contrary,  it is a gateway into the experience of interconnectedness and the interdependence out of which stem emotionally intelligent actions, new ways of being, and ultimately greater happiness, clarity, wisdom and kindness--- at work and in the world.
Jon Kabat-Zinn