Mindfulness Courses

Mindfulness is often described as ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. So, when we learn to practice mindfulness we learn to be with all of our thoughts and emotions – including the difficult ones – with gentleness and kindness. We learn that there is nothing wrong with feeling unpleasant sensations or emotions – they are part of the human condition – and that when we desperately try to make them go away or block them out we are making them worse! We learn to really appreciate and be with moments of joy.

We learn that we are not our thoughts and that our thoughts are not necessarily true – there is no inherent wisdom in them – and they are often not very kind. So we can choose to see them and gently be with them but know that we don’t need to get so involved. We learn how to bring the mind back to the present moment rather than getting caught up in thoughts about the past or future – which the human mind has a very strong habit of doing! So we use a present moment support – like the breath, sensations in the body, the body moving or walking, or one of the senses such as sound or touch to anchor the mind in the present moment. The senses, the breath and body are always in the present. They are our friends and can help us learn to live more in the present moment. We learn to bring the attention back very gently and kindly to the present moment time and time again.

We also learn to be much kinder and more compassionate to ourselves. This is a very important part of mindfulness. There is no ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ mindfulness practice – there is just noticing what our experience is, in this moment and seeing if we can tap into our own natural kindness and begin to allow that to flow towards ourselves and others. We learn to be compassionate with ourselves knowing that we are not alone – that everyone struggles with our tricky human minds that have a very strong habit of getting caught up in thinking loops. We begin to notice the judgements, thoughts and beliefs that we have about ourselves, and learn that we don’t need to get so involved with these – that they aren’t necessarily true or kind.