WELCOME

INTRO: SELF
For those who don’t already know me, I’m Justin and I work in the Creative department.
Although my career took a very different direction, at university I originally studied psychology
and I’ve kept an ongoing interest in some of the applied aspects of that subject. I’ve been
practicing mindfulness of one sort or another for approaching 10 years. And about three years
ago I started training to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and MBCT. Although, since
our son was born a year ago my priorities have shifted somewhat and I haven’t been able to

INTRO: CLASS
This is a taster session to give you all an idea of what mindfulness is and what it does. There will
be a bit more background and theory than in most mindfulness sessions and a bit of
mindfulness practice and there will be a chance to ask questions at the end.

INTRO: EACH OTHER

[LABELS?]

WHAT IS MINDFULNESS?
So, what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is simply non-judgmental, moment-to-moment awareness
of thoughts, feelings and sensations.

Can you feel the contact of your feet on the floor right now? Can you feel your contact with the
chair? Can you feel your breath going in and out? This is mindfulness.

Mindfulness is not a relaxation exercise. It’s a set of techniques for learning more helpful ways
of relating to our experience.

THE RAISIN EXERCISE

We’re now going to do an exercise together to illustrate what mindfulness is.

INQUIRY

STRESS
Can anyone who has no experience of stress please raise your hand? In a sense we’re all experts
on stress. It’s universal.

In the UK, over 13 million working days are lost every year because of stress. According to the
Health and Safety Commission workplace stress costs the country £530 million a year and is
associated with poor health and well-being, lower productivity and increased sickness absence.

Stress can cause:

  High Blood Pressure
 Heart disease
 Diabetes
 Chronic Fatigue
 Depression
 Weakened immune response

Some of the ways we try to cope with stress can cause problems in the long-term, for example:

 Alcoholism
 Over-eating
 Under-eating
 Gambling
 Dependence on drugs
 Obsessive behaviour
 Workaholism

MINDFULNESS OVERVIEW
[VIDEO?]

In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn, director of the Stress Reduction Clinic of the University of
Massachusetts Medical School introduced mindfulness techniques derived from Yoga and
Buddhist meditation. His success at helping people with stress, anxiety, pain and illness led to
an explosion of research and mindfulness applications.

Mindfulness has become part of mainstream health provision and personal development
training in the workplace.

Workplace mindfulness programmes can be found at companies like Google, Yahoo, Procter &
Gamble and many others.

In the US, mindfulness training has been given to police officers, prison inmates and in many
hospitals and clinics.

In the UK, Mindfulness Based therapy is recommended by NICE and programmes are being
rolled out by the NHS as an alternative to anti-depressants and traditional therapy.

SITTING PRACTICE 30 MINUTES

We’re now going to do some sitting mindfulness practice – focussing on the breath, on the body
and then expanding our awareness. This gets us in touch with our bodies and what our bodies
are telling us instead of always living in our heads.

INQUIRY

AUTOMATIC PILOT
In a car, we can sometimes drive for miles on ‘autopilot', without really being aware of what we
are doing. In the same way, we may not be really, 'present', moment-by-moment, for much of
our lives. We can be 'miles away' without knowing it.

On autopilot, we are more likely to have our 'buttons pressed'. Events around us and thoughts,
feelings and sensations (of which we may be only dimly aware) can trigger old habits of reacting
and thinking that are often unhelpful and may lead to worsening moods.

By becoming more aware of our thoughts, feelings and body sensations from moment to
moment, we give ourselves the possibility of greater freedom and choice.

The aim of mindfulness practice is to increase awareness so that we can respond to situations
with choice rather than reacting automatically. We do that by practicing to become more aware
of where our attention is, and by deliberately changing focus of attention over and over again.

To begin with, we use attention on body sensations as a focus to anchor our awareness in the
moment. We will also be training ourselves to put attention and awareness in different places at
will.

NEUROPLASTICITY
The brain has the ability to change as a result of experience, which is called neuroplasticity. By
opening up our experiences to greater awareness we can harness this, weakening unhelpful
habits and strengthening new neural pathways that give us more freedom to respond in ways
that serve us well.

GOING FORWARD
BREATHING SPACE
Once a day

DIARY
Event, thoughts, feelings/sensations, behaviour

CDS
Set yourselves a programme

QUESTIONS
Perhaps you can tell me if this time and length of session suits you. Also if you have any
questions about anything we’ve covered, this would be a good time to ask them.

CLOSING
Thank you all very much for coming...
So, to finish, I’d like to encourage you to bring a little mindfulness into your life – whether it’s
one of the exercises I showed you, or perhaps just paying attention to the everyday moments of
life – whether sitting in the garden, driving to work or waiting for the coffee machine. These are
the moments our lives are made of – why not appreciate them?