Course Description

Mindfulness of Breath & Introduction to Mindfulness

We begin with exploring together what Mindfulness is... and what it isn't! We do some simple experiential exercises to bring you in to direct contact with the felt experience of your breath. You will learn techniques for connecting to the breath and grounding and calming the mind. There are many misconceptions about Mindfulness due to its rise in mainstream popularity in our culture in the last decade. Many of us are familiar with the word Mindfulness. In our culture we tend to make everything about the thinking mind. We habitually treat our body as simply a means to transport our brain around. The word Mindfulness can therefore mis-lead us, making it seem like another thing to be approached with our heads. But Mindfulness is about developing embodied presence. Deeply connecting to our body, heart, and mind and bringing these in to closer relationship with each other. It is about living more freely, more heartfully, and more bodyfully.

Mindfulness of Body & Introduction to Embodied Presence

Next we delve in to Mindfulness of body, turning our conception of body away from body-as-thing or body-as-vehicle-to-drive-mind-around to body-as-experience. How does our relationship to our body and to ourselves change when we make our primary reference point how it feels to be in this body? In this way we learn to find freedom from externalising who we are and rather to rest in to our own experiential body. These practices can be deeply enjoyable and surprising, to find out how deeply pleasant it can be to just be, to sense what the body is sensing without the mind adding eighteen layers of interpretation or distraction! Though profound, these practices are short, simple and easy to learn and bring in to your daily life.

Mindfulness of Three Habitual Ways of Meeting Experience: Like (Demand), Don't Like (Defend), and Uninterested (Distract)

Once you have established a good base in Mindfulness of breath and body, we begin to look at how it is that humans habitually meet experience: We like it, we don't like it, or we aren't interested in it. We will look in to our own unique experiences of this way of being in the world. The importance of seeing our preferences in the form of this 'feeling tone' of experience is that this is the foundation for how we interact with and build our world. We demand more of what we like, we defend against what we don't like, and we distract from what is not interesting. When we begin to see this pattern of reactivity in our lives it can be a shock to notice how much of our life is spent demanding, defending or distracting ourselves: We are never really quite here. We are removed from the nourishment and joy of simple direct experience. We feel disconnected, stressed, overwhelmed, detached, as if something is missing. We will look at what happens when we turn our attention to noticing this pushing and pulling with experience, and learn simple Mindfulness techniques to bring us back in to direct contact with our sensate experience. We will take time to notice what this does to how we feel and how much resource we feel we have to meet our life. We can become more fully awake, alive, and present in the midst of our lives, deeply inhabiting our experience and unearthing a profound sense of belonging and connection.

Cultivating a Loving Presence & Working Skilfully with what Obscures our Kindness and Love

Finally, we will go in to the territory of the heart. While this can be beautiful, it is also a clearing practice. We will be cultivating a loving presence and kindness through gaining an understanding experientially of what it is that may be blocking our capacity to open our hearts. Through experiential Mindful exercises including meditation we will explore your own unique heart patterning, and learn to work skilfully with these patterns, helping you to clear what obscures your natural and inbuilt kindness and love.