by Claire Kidd | Jul 21, 2022 | All Blog Posts
The team at MindfulnessUK are extremely proud to have taught so many incredible teachers, over many years, in every sector. We really value hearing about their teaching and any feedback on the teaching materials provided during their course.
When you train to become a mindfulness teacher with MindfulnessUK you are invited to join our community. We’re with you at every stage, from practitioner to seasoned teacher, and will continue to support by sending up-to-date materials and resources.
It’s important to continuously share insights, for example, working with trauma-informed mindfulness. This is something that Karen Atkinson, co-Founder and Senior Partner at MinfulnessUK, has been doing for over 20 years. The team teach and train with these skills underpinning their work. Karen wanted to share these considerations in a more explicit and comprehensive way to ensure all students and graduates are well equipped to teach within their own areas of specialism.
We recently sent all our Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher Training and Integrating Mindfulness and Compassion graduates updated teacher training notes. Helping them in continuing to support others at this most challenging of times.
This is what some of our graduates said:
“Since finishing the IMC, I completed the MBSR teaching component and slowly but surely chipping away at the extensive portfolio. I’m looking forward to the Process of Inquiry workshop in October. I work for the NHS as a pediatric OT and was keen to provide an offering within the Trust I work for. So now I am providing a ‘mindful moment’ every Monday, Wednesday and Friday lunchtime. Staff click on a Teams link to have guided meditation and mindful movement with me which is a privilege and a joy . Feedback has certainly been very encouraging which is heartening.” Cath Gibney
“I did a workplace session this week as part of well-being week and had my first mindfulness client. I also led a session on a yoga retreat and I have my website up and running, and my marketing materials printed. Over the next 6 months I hope to promote my new Facebook page and have some calls for schools going to run the CMR course.” Dionne
Continuous Support And Improvement Is Important To Us.
Without it sounding like a cliché we do genuinely want to look after our students and graduates alike and offer them support both during and after their course. Currently we have an Alumni Community that students and graduates can join, offering monthly sitting groups, a closed Facebook group and a portal containing practices, notes and much more.
We listen to our students and have heard the wish and desire to feel more connected to each other so we will be launching our newly imagined community after the summer break….watch this space!!
It’s never easy to set up your own business but with so much fear-driven anxiety in the world right now, the need for people to feel less separate and more connected to themselves, others and their planet is essential to support mental and emotional health and well-being.
There has never been a better time to explore a career in mindfulness and compassion and support others in every sector of society. We’re experiencing a paradigm shift, would you like to contribute to it?
We have a number of mindfulness and compassion teacher training and continuous professional development courses starting in September and October this year to help you do just this, please visit our website to find out more or contact info@mindfulnessuk.com.
by Karen Atkinson | Nov 26, 2021 | All Blog Posts
Wining the silver award in the Southern England Business Woman of the Year category at the National Business Woman’s Awards is recognition for all the work that we have been doing at MindfulnessUK. This award is for the whole team and everyone that supports us.
MindfulnessUK started when I decided to leave the NHS as I really wanted to set up a centre for mindfulness and yoga. With encouragement and support I found a property in Taunton. When I viewed it, I could feel the positive energy in the property as it had been home to several charities since the 1970’s so there was something really special about it and I knew it was the right place.
This all happened during a recession, but I was determined the carry on, take my business plan and bring it all to life.
It was a remarkably busy for the first 3 years, building the organisation, letting people know what we were doing, offering different therapies with a variety of therapists, and building the reputation of the business.
Then in 2013, I was diagnosed with cancer. This was a really pivotal time for me, a cross-roads really, and after which I came back to work having discovered on a deep level the value of self-compassion.
I knew about self-compassion before, but it then became so important to me because of the compassion I was shown by other people. I knew that I wanted to move forward and focus the MindfulnessUK offer on mindfulness and compassion, and this is when I wrote the Integrating Mindfulness and Compassion (IMC) Qualification.
We have worked with 1000’s of students over the past 10 years, creating a unique teacher training organisation, educating, and empowering students and showing how mindfulness can support mental health and help people to thrive in their personal and professional lives.
The best thing about being the Senior Partner at MindfulnessUK, is that every day I work with a great team who share my vision; building a mindfulness community of practitioners and qualified teachers, sharing the transformational potential of mindfulness and compassion with others.
I cannot imagine my life without a mindfulness practice. It empowers me to make choices on a moment-by-moment basis. It helps me to keep everything in perspective and to be more compassionate to myself and others, always.
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a stressful and extraordinary time for the team and the business. In the beginning, everyone cancelled everything, and it looked like that was the end of the road for us, almost overnight. But, instead of giving up, we realised how people would need mindfulness and compassion even more during and after the distress and grief caused by the impacts of the virus.
Therefore, we rolled up our sleeves and took all our courses and training online, as well as developing e-courses for CPD and offering free classes in meditation, movement, and compassion. Our free classes had a donation option, and all proceeds went to the NHS.
We have been able to support thousands of people during this time, both directly and also through training others to teach mindfulness and compassion to their colleagues in the NHS, teachers, fire and police staff, carers and many more besides.
We’re incredibly proud of what we have achieved in 2020, being in a position to utilise our skills for the benefit of the mental health of those not only in the UK but internationally. Specialising in teaching people suffering with pain, anxiety, and trauma I use my expertise to train others to deliver mindfulness and compassion in a trauma-informed way.
I am so passionate about what I do, and all of our teaching and training has my book, Compassionate Mindful Inquiry In Therapeutic Practice. A Practical Guide for Mindfulness Teachers, Yoga Teachers and Allied Health Professionals, and iceberg model at its core.
I am incredibly lucky with all the support that I have, and I could not have created MindfulnessUK, and won this award, without the support of my wonderful team. I am immensely proud of what we have achieved.
by Kate Elliott | Oct 21, 2021 | All Blog Posts
It’s National Adoption Week, and a call to arms to those who could become parents to a child in need, but also to the government to ensure the support for these children is lifelong.
Why do these children need lifelong support?
As an adopted parent, you so often hear comments such as “isn’t she lucky” or “well she won’t remember what happened to her when she was a baby” or “she looks so normal”, which in some ways are true, yes she’s lucky to have the care now that every child deserves, yes she won’t remember what happened to her, and yes she does look ‘normal’, however the thing to remember is that once a child is adopted the trauma doesn’t just leave the body when the new front door shuts.
The first months of a baby’s life help them to learn their role in the world, and the brain develops pathways that are the foundations of how they view the world. A child who experiences love, care and attention learns that when they need help their primary caregiver responds to keep them safe. A child who doesn’t experience love and care learns how to survive in a world that doesn’t care for them. They learn to cry and scream if that helps get them attention (even if it’s not kind attention) or or to be quiet if no-one ever comes, and so the pathways form, and these don’t change as soon as they step across the threshold of their forever home.
Imagine this, one day you are with your family, it’s all you know and you have learnt to be safe there, and then the next day a stranger comes and takes you away and you find yourself in a new home with new adults. It’s a scary thought! This is the reality of an adopted child, from one day to the next they lose everything they know.
What happens to their brain?
It goes into survival mode; the stress response is activated and pathways built that remind the child to be hyper-vigilant and ready for change to happen again. It took my daughter 12 months to have a cuddle at bedtime!
They often say adopted children have 3 ages – their experiential age (old beyond their years, having experienced things we can never understand), their chronological age (the age they are) and their developmental age (often younger than their years due to the gaps in their development). This is why they need lifelong support! In some ways they are always playing catch up developmentally, but also need to be encouraged to be the child that they are, to be free to play and explore.
All of the above doesn’t make for a relaxed nervous system or a calm brain, in fact it makes for a body flooded with cortisol, a highly active amygdala and deeply rooted survival behaviours. Why should we expect them to trust adults, when adults haven’t kept them safe?
Where does mindfulness and compassion come into this story?
As an adopter, it is very easy to fall into compassion fatigue, caring for a child who has experienced early childhood trauma often feels like a one-way street, it’s relentless and you don’t often get much back. For me mindfulness and compassion have helped me, intrinsically, to be aware of the mother that I am (not the mother that I thought I would be), to accept myself as the mum I am (not the perfect parent but I am good enough) and I have enough tools in my self-compassion toolkit to look after myself and be kind to myself when I need to be.
And mindfulness has helped me to support my daughter to explore and understand her feelings, to teach her tools to regulate herself, and also to have the tools for us to connect with each other, even when times are tough. I often use sound to help regulate mine and her nervous systems.
It took 12 months for her to cuddle me at bedtime, and 3 years for her to start to be secure in the knowledge that I am not leaving her. The milestones take a long time to come around, but they are big when they do, and I am thankful for the attitude of patience which helps me to keep going.
Adopted children are warriors. They deserve all the support, kindness and understanding that they can get.
If you are a parent-carer and need some support, then our Compassionate Mindful Resilience course that I teach could be just right for you, visit MindfulnessUK for more information.
by Helen Potts | Oct 12, 2021 | All Blog Posts
Being part of a Mindfulness community is wonderful, nurturing and supportive. It’s somewhere to connect with others and belong. It’s natural to seek out safe spaces and like minded people, we are in truth predisposed in our wish to have these families or associations. It’s also a creative way to grow and develop our mindfulness practice and vision.
I first arrived at the weekly MindfulnessUK meditation session a little fragile. My father had died at the beginning of the pandemic and Zoom held the sad memory of parting from him. It felt at first a strangely distant experience looking into the faces of fellow meditators, without the usual communal presence of body and breath. There was such warmth though, an open generosity, a collectively intimate experience and the pleasure of being skilfully guided by Andy Wistreich, who leads the practice.
Over the weeks and months I developed a joyful bond with this group, changing faces welcomed alongside regular returners. Teachers, students, new meditators intermingle without difference or status. The internet creates the possibility of International members and northerners, like myself, joining from wherever they are based.
Andy has a gentle, wise presence, leading us through an exploration of posture and breath and into a contemplation of the elements: earth, fire, water, air, space, consciousness. Who knows where he will guide us next after his recent retreat break. I know we all wish him well, hoping he returns rested and renewed.
For anyone unsure of the experience of meditating in this way, I’d say… try it you may be surprised. I would never have considered the connectivity, support and community that could be built on a digital platform. We have all had to dig deep and delve into unknown places to flourish and engage within the pandemic. There have been a few unexpected bonuses!
For myself it was the beginning of a journey with MindfulnessUK as I decided to enrol on the Integrating Mindfulness and Compassion qualification in April 2021. Whilst I have been part of a mindfulness practice for many years, the element of compassion has never been so truly embedded as on this course. Not simply as a learnt experience but as a felt one. It runs profoundly through all the teaching.
I really don’t want the course to end, to no longer have the kinship and security of class. But the world is a big place and embracing our multiplicity helps to develop our understanding, cooperation and kindness to others. Mindfulness can provide an opportunity to feel the joys of engaging with difference, taking us from our perceived comfort and safety, to sharing and learning from others.
I however feel great encouragement and solace knowing that the Wednesday meditation session will provide a thread of connection which I can return to again and again.
Maybe I will see you there?
by Steph Unthank | Jul 14, 2021 | All Blog Posts, Mindfulness at work
Research to support the benefits of creating a mindful workplace culture is growing. At MindfulnessUK At Work, we want more people to understand and learn the power of mindfulness and how to consider creating a thriving mindful workplace.
In our previous blogs ‘Mindfulness and how it can support today’s leadership challenges’ and Team mindfulness and the importance of taking it seriously’, we highlighted more about the effectiveness and impact on the workplace that comes from the implementation of mindful leadership and team mindfulness.
In this blog, we explore ways of creating a mindful workplace culture and how, if this is developed, an organisation could look and feel positively different, reaping the benefits in the longer term.
How the Approach to Wellbeing in the Workplace is Changing.
The approach to workplace wellbeing has shifted significantly, particularly since the start of the pandemic. Organisations are beginning to think more broadly about employee wellbeing, moving away from the traditional approach of one-off sessions that focus on specific wellbeing-based themes like nutrition, exercise, or mental health to a more holistic approach. This latter approach starts to touch on changes in organisational culture to accommodate changing employees’ expectations of the workplace.
Of course, organisational culture is a very broad term. Edgar Schein’s[1] classic definition talks about a shared pattern of assumptions that guide organisationally accepted behaviour in the face of internal and external organisationally relevant problems. We know that organisational culture is acquired over time and is often based on a set of principles (written and assumed) that is present at the businesses’ foundations. However, if the culture and behaviours within the organisation are no longer fit for purpose, can mindfulness practice help to shift it to a place where the culture helps organisation and employees to thrive?
The Benefit of Mindfulness in an Organisation.
Use of mindfulness in organisational context has been extensively researched for the past two decades. Having already explored the effectiveness of team mindfulness over individual practice, we can safely infer that making mindfulness part of the culture and strategic focus of the organisation is likely to reap benefits in the future. It will allow the organisation to stay dynamic, fluid, constantly evolving and enabling organic alignment with the changing times, where employees’ needs are recognised and met.
Essentially mindfulness can become the key ingredient in the “secret sauce” of culture that keeps employees motivated and engaged. How as Peter Drucker allegedly once said “culture eats strategy for breakfast” so how can we implement mindful organisational culture with real changes without it becoming a token gesture towards a popular trend?
The importance of informal mindfulness practices.
Mindfulness at organisational level is not about availability of training courses and meditation rooms, if the workload and stress remain the same. It is often about what we call ‘informal mindfulness practices’ where we practice on the job, moulding the principles and practices into an organisation’s culture.
Sometimes it is easier said than done and as Dr Jutta Tobias noted in her research on organisational mindfulness, a systematic formula for ‘making an organisation mindful’ does not and cannot exist[1] because each organisational culture is unique and first we need to develop a better understanding of it before bringing the changes. However, we can talk about a few elements that we believe can play an important role in creating a mindful workplace culture such as communication, trust, and empathy. Let’s look at each one in detail.
Key Ingredients for Creation of Mindful Organisation.
Communication:
How we communicate, both in and out of work influences our lives, relationships, happiness and even our levels of success. At an organisational level, mindful communication must be honest, open and transparent. It is key to consider the reader and how they will be affected in receiving the content.
The pandemic has meant that many employees have been living in a world of uncertainty for long periods of time. Communication with employees from a place of mindfulness should aim to reassure, be consistent in message and tone and would do well to reflect the thoughts and experiences of employees across the matrix.
Achievers.com talks about the four elements of mindful communication that can support and develop a mindful culture in the workplace:
- Is the message truthful?
- Will the message be beneficial for the person or the situation? If not, how can you effectively communicate to ensure a positive outcome?
- Can your message be organised to not disturb the mind and emotions of the recipient?
- Can your messaging be structured so that it is pleasing to the recipient?
Communication in the context of mindfulness is of course wider than that as it brings everybody onboard, raises awareness of mindful approach. We communicate our aligned values and vision and constantly bring attention back to ensure that short term objectives are in line with that vision and there is a clear feedback mechanism between organisational structures and individual employees. Mindful and compassionate interaction that stays attentive in the present moment without judgement will ensure that conflicts either do not arise or are swiftly resolved, leaving more time for productive and creative work.
Cultivating trust among employees:
In communicating well, trust can be cultivated. Strong storytelling, which is underpinned by supporting mechanisms and developing capability of employees, can help to shape the picture of a changing culture and in turn build trust among the employees.
It is described that trust can sometimes be seen as the bridge between “the known” and “the unknown” (Boser 2018). Trust is to believe despite uncertainty (Misztal, 1998) and given the amount of uncertainty we have had to cope with since early 2020, we cannot underestimate how important building trust is for employees in terms of achieving organisational effectiveness.
One of the biggest challenges during the pandemic is the fact that a lack of face to face interaction in a live physical environment can diminish trust as we lose the connectivity at a human level beyond the working context (remember those famous conversations at the coffee machine). Now, we need to work harder at our social interactions so that trust is re-gained, particularly in the context of leadership
Ultimately, individuals follow good leaders when they can be supported to feel safe (Sinek, 2009). Trust in a leader is a follower’s belief that a leader can and will act on the basis of the leader’s words, actions, and decisions (McAllister, 2005). In mindful organisations it becomes collective leadership where people share collective responsibility because they trust each other knowing that their backs are covered.
Ability, integrity, and benevolence are all important factors of building trust with employees and can contribute to creating a mindful workplace culture. Trust is all about interconnection, working within individual teams and across an organisation without boundaries, creating an environment where people experience appreciative joy at work.
Empathy
One way we can create a mindful workplace culture is to practice empathy. What is empathy? In simple terms it’s about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, but this isn’t easy. How can we begin to even comprehend what someone else is going through?
We have a strong belief that our experience is our experience, and no one will ever know what it’s like to experience ”inner me”. Let’s face it, there are thousands of reasons why we all behave the way we do, from past experiences, childhood upbringing, engrained values, and behaviours so it can seem like an impossible task. To this end, is empathy for others really achievable?
Even though building empathy for others might feel difficult, we have to try and find ways to build relationships in order to build trust and to empathise with colleagues to the best of our human ability. If we take a moment to listen well, learn to understand, build compassion and empathy we will in turn build trust and create a more mindful culture at work.
Empathy is important to those leaders working to cultivate mindful skills in their approach to leading and managing others. A simple moment of carving time out of your day as a leader to intentionally get to know a member of your team on a personal level without agenda or work-related discussion sneaking in, can be a good place to start. Letting an employee know that you are as interested in their wellbeing (genuinely) as much as their ability to meet objectives is vital during this covid-19 period and for that matter, in the long term.
But ultimately building empathy will help to cultivate cultural diversity which is a paramount ingredient in building a mindful culture. It will help to dimmish the cultural and cognitive biases and avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication because you show up at each interaction being in the present moment with beginner’s mind (both are key tenets of mindfulness practice)
Mindfulness in the Workplace is More than a Nice to Have.
To finish the series of our blogs we would like to stress that mindfulness practices in workplace cannot be just a nice to have. We have shown the benefits of mindfulness to individuals that extends into team mindfulness, but ultimately, we would like to see the change in culture. This progression will lead to more organisations that are open, honest, authentic, and true to their vision and values. Those that are able to learn and grow stronger when faced with challenges, which of course will lead to employee satisfaction and a positive effect on the bottom line.
If you are interested in working with us, please reach out to Steph and Vera (vera.dubrovina@mindfulnessuk.com and stephanie@mindfulnessuk.com.) to work with you on your journey.
www.mindfulnessuk.com
[1] a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture
