{"id":1993,"date":"2017-08-13T18:12:18","date_gmt":"2017-08-13T18:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vickygooden.com\/?p=1993"},"modified":"2018-03-03T19:23:01","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T19:23:01","slug":"practice-makes-8-week-course-mindfulness-taught","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vickygooden.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/13\/practice-makes-8-week-course-mindfulness-taught\/","title":{"rendered":"What an 8 week course in Mindfulness has taught me"},"content":{"rendered":"

So last week the Government announced more commitment to mental health services.<\/span><\/p>\n

Good.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’ll probably still fall really short of what’s required. But it’s a start.<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s only really in the last year that I’ve been intrigued by my own mind. Just how much does it influence my body, health and confidence? Am I limiting my own potential by clinging on to the tail of big bulky worries or negative thoughts? Am I tiring myself out unnecessarily by the constant barrage of thoughts? Am I putting the wrong vibes out to the universe?<\/span><\/p>\n

Last weekend I finished an 8 week course on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at The Mindfulness Project in London. I signed up just after my ectopic pregnancy at the end of April. The course began in June as I returned to work. <\/span><\/p>\n

It cost just over \u00a3300 and took place for two hours every Tuesday evening plus a 6 hour silent day retreat which was just last Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

I cannot tell you how great the course was. But i\u2019ll give it a good go.<\/span><\/p>\n

The course leader was a guy called Doug Vaughn and he is brilliant. What a brilliant, brilliant man.<\/span><\/p>\n

Every week we’d meet at a townhouse in Fitzroy Square, take our shoes off, abandon our phones and step into the light room with chairs set out in a circle. There were I think, 11 of us in the beginning, 4 being men.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you come along to a course like this thinking it’s going to be easy think again. By the end of the course we’d lost half of the students, which by the way is no reflection on the course material or delivery. Mindfulness can be tough going. In fact before I found The Mindfulness Project I was searching for a course local to where I live for convenience. I found one and it was due to start early May. The course leader asked my reasons for wanting to attend. I divulged some truths about the ectopic\/miscarriage and she warmly suggested that I didn’t start that particular course. She was concerned about my emotional state. <\/span><\/p>\n

Mindfulness can crack you open to such a level of awareness to the traffic in your head that it can be overwhelming. Back in the seventies when Jon Kabat-Zinn started treating chronically ill people by teaching them to meditate (which some people scoffed at), they would break down in tears as they started to become aware and still. The reality of what you might be putting yourself through, the weight you add to your own shoulders every single day, multiple times a minute even, can make you feel really…sorry for yourself. Is it a mental form of self harm? Perhaps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some people can\u2019t help but fall asleep each and every time they lay down to meditate, therefore not really consciously practicing. Others just cannot fathom how to fit it in to their lives every day. Because that, as Doug taught us, is the key. To practice every single day. To do so you are challenging yourself. Because every time you’re aware of thoughts darting in and ricocheting around your head, every time they manifest in physical responses in your body, you are challenged to notice them, non judgementally. To gather awareness around them, almost separating yourself into a more observational role and then drawing your attention elsewhere. To your breathing or sounds or a particular body part.<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you still with me?<\/span><\/p>\n

Who can be arsed you might be thinking? This sounds new age and weird and unless I’m gonna levitate I ain’t interested.<\/span><\/p>\n

Well let me tell you this my friend. Why on earth would you dare not <\/i>to invest in your mental wellbeing? <\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless of your emotional state, even if you think you’re pretty together and stable, becoming more mindful makes life that bit more wonderful. You get inner triggers that ask you if you really<\/i> need to check your phone this minute. Or to lift your head and look at what’s really going on around you, just now, in this moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Autopilot transforms into a truly engaged, aware and tuned in pilot. I know who I\u2019d feel safer flying with.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mindfulness is not about switching off as many people assume. It’s about, as Doug puts it, falling awake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each week we would be guided through a number of mindfulness practices by Doug, discussing our own individual experiences of them afterwards. Practices like the half hour body scan, seated meditation, a quick check in with our bodies and thoughts (called the 3 Step Breathing Space), mindful movement, mindful eating, sound meditation. Doug would share thought provoking readings with us and gently explain some mindfulness theory. <\/span><\/p>\n

As we shared our own experiences of the practices with the group, Doug would be so tuned into what we were saying that he would quite often expand on our own accounts with words and explanations that surely we should’ve been speaking. He absolutely got it. He would build on our own stories in such a way that would rationalise them and make them completely OK. Phew, not crazy then. Just swirly whirly busy minds in need of a calming influence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mindfulness Project course was timed just right for me. Coinciding with my return to work and finishing weeks before I tread the fertility assistance path again.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of my key takeouts from the course were:<\/span><\/p>\n