Mindfulness at Work
Introductions to Mindfulness at Work
This 60-90 minute session is a highly practical and experiential immersion into Mindfulness practice and theory, to allow each participant to discover what aspects work for them and ultimately to begin their own process of awareness.
This simply is what Mindfulness is: awareness. With awareness we have greater choice.
In the introductory session we look at such areas as being on Auto-Pilot, of Reactivity v Responsiveness, our fantastic nervous system, the human triad of thoughts, feelings and senses and then the key area of relationships.
Through direct experiences and practice (short meditations) you are encouraged to sit and be with your whole self with more openness and less need to change anything, leading to a greater sense of control and choice. We then look at how we can apply this into our daily lives through the informal practices.
If time allows we discuss the essential area of relationships: in work, at home with friends. The bottom line is that if we are able to be with our stuff: our thoughts, feelings and sensations then we will have a better chance of being with others and their stuff, as we perceive it. How we relate to ourselves will directly affect how we end up relating to our colleagues, to our customers or clients, to our family and friends.
The introduction can be enough for some people to gain an insight as well as some processes to work with, however it is also designed to encourage people to take the next step to learn Mindfulness through the 8 part MBSR course.
For organisations the introduction session can be geared towards any relevant discussions or needs.
For more information and to book this programme contact us here.
The 8 Part MBSR for the Workplace
This course is an opportunity to discover the simplicity and strength of being with your thoughts, feelings and sensations in a way that is more helpful and more flexible than we may be experiencing in our lives right now. If you are finding that you are being overwhelmed by pressures: whether internal or external, and that these pressures are affecting your day to day living, preventing you from living a life of fulfilment, then mindfulness could be of great benefit to you.
The MBSR course was created by American Jon Kabat-Zin in the 1980’s to help his chronic pain patients, at this time he was adopting meditation practices mainly. This soon developed into a more structured programme combining the Buddhist attitudinal qualities of non-judgement, non-striving, acceptance to name but a few, but allowing people to experience their stuff (pain, anxiety, depression, worry) in a more open and trusting way.
There are currently a plethora of articles, books and claims about mindfulness which has given rise to it being called MacMindfulness. I teach mindfulness in a way that helps each person find their way into it, slowly. Mindfulness is not a cure, it is not a quick-fix, but it is a complex process to learn to be with all of our daily stuff in a new more helpful way.
You will learn your auto-pilot triggers, your thought chains, what trips you up, and then you have a choice of how to respond to things rather than our old well-worn habit of reacting. This will bring to your life a new sense of freedom: freedom from the tyranny of unhelpful patterns of thinking, of strong emotions and of physical discomfort or pain.
Mindfulness at Work
Whether we like it or not, a good working environment is dependent on communication, trust and how we relate to each other and what our work represents. The error a great deal of organisational trainings make is to focus on the bigger picture: the team, the department and what the overall company wants changing or developing. With a more mindful approach to organisational development I train individuals to work with their internal relationships first: to cultivate a more flexible and healthier emotional and psychological behaviour. In other words to develop a greater personal resilience. This resilience can then be harnessed to develop teams and departments to be able to focus on more external targets such as performance and output.
I have broken up the standard 8 part MBSR into a more manageable structure:
Foundation: 3-4 weeks:
Choice
Discovering Space; to Breathe and to CHOOSE. to develop awareness of the breath and body as anchors to step back from the tyranny of thoughts. To establish effective behavioural skills and foundation practices to manage our lives as well as unhelpful issues.
Level 2: 2 weeks.
Control
Dealing with Difficulty. Understanding our thoughts and feelings. Our relationships with ourselves and ours: personal and professional.
Level 3: 2 weeks.
Freedom
Developing Resilience: at work, at home and in life. Establishing what matters to you, your values. Discovering and harnessing your Leadership qualities.
For more information and to book this programme contact us here.
Worrier to Warrior
We all worry and we all live through the relationships with our thoughts, feelings and sensations and the interactions we have with others and the external environment. How flexible we are with our internal experiences will determine the workability of how we either react or respond to these external stimuli.
Worrier to Warrior is a mindfulness based organisational development programme designed to move people and teams from a habitual, automatic way of behaving towards a more responsive, purposeful and aware way of life: the way of the working Warrior.
By understanding more of our own habitual tendencies, by developing more mindful attention of our thoughts, feelings and sensations, we are able to be with others, with stress, with our busy-ness in a more flexible and helpful way. By altering our relationships with our own thoughts, feelings and sensations (experiences) we can begin to be with them in a healthier way. The advantage to the individual is a reduction in the stress response, a less reactive and more responsive attitude, leading to greater clarity and values based actions.
The advantage to the team or organisation is an emotionally flexible and more resilient workforce, more aligned with their own and the organisations values.
The methodology and resources within W2W are the fundamentals of mindfulness based processes, psycho-educational input, and experiential learning.
Key Aims to Develop:
- Awareness
- Presence
- Performance
- Resilience
- Choice
- Control
- Relationships
Each section aims to:
- teach key mindfulness values,
- teach various forms of meditations,
- engage in experiential exercises
- shared conversations and
- explore organisational issues
For more information and to book this programme contact us here.