This is an introduction to Mindfulness and John Kabat-Zinns Nine Attitudes.

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glynkerr@btiinternet.com
An introduction to Mindfulness

2. The introduction to Mindfulness
• What is Automatic Pilot Mode
• A brief explanation of where mindfulness has come from
• How mindfulness can help us in our lives
• The nine attitudes of mindfulness
• Summary
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3. What is automatic Pilot
• Automatic Pilot is normally used in
a car or a plane.
• Normally we would push a button
and from then on, the car or
areophane would drive itself.
• So it is quite similar when we are
going through life when we are
always stressed and without
thinking we go into automatic pilot
mode.
• But with our automatic pilot we do
not have to push a button.

4. Lots and lots of thoughts
Automatic Pilot is
guided by our
thoughts
70 thousand
thoughts each day
many of them are
negative our
unhelpful

5. Auto Pilot means being lost in thought out of touch with the here and now

6. With Auto Pilot
Our life can be so caught up in
these events we are missing our
own life show.
We are not being present enough
to discover our true self

7. Automatic Pilot mode means
• We have lost the off switch and
living in the reality of our
thoughts
• Continually ruminating about
the past the future, it can
change the way we Think, Feel
and Act
• We are often responding
negatively with a critical voice.
• Both internal and external

8. Auto Pilot Examples – The Car Journy
• We don’t remember the journey
we have travelled when we:
• Turn left
• Turn right
• What lights you stopped at
• The islands you traveled around
• Its safe

9. Searching the Internet
• Started looking
• Going from one site to another
• Where you have ended up and
forgot what you are looking for.
• That’s automatic pilot not being
aware.

10. Now what did I come in here for
Ever walked into a room and cant
remember why you were in there

11. Useful Auto Pilot Activities

12. But if we are not mindful
• The automatic pilot can take
over our life
• we start to live everything in our
head, rather than the real world.
• It can influence the way we
think, feel and how we respond
to others.
• Self talk

13. What is self talk.

14. Without being mindful we can be on a journey without a destination.
We can find ourselves on a journey
to somewhere we don’t want to
be.
Following old patterns of behaviour
Increasing our feelings from I am
OK to I am not OK.

15. It is our job to turn the automatic pilot off

16. We can break
the cycle!!!!

18. What is mindfulness-
where did it come from.

19. A short History of Mindfulness
• The history of mindfulness can be linked
to the yogic practices of the Hindu
people.
• The Hindu religion is believed to have
begun somewhere between 2300BC and
1500BC.
• It then proceeded to Buddhism some
2500 years ago
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20. Introduced to the West by Jon Kabat Zin in 1979

21. Scientific Evidence has shown.

22. The Scientific Evidence
• The health Service use it as part
of supporting people with MH
• To get the benefits of
mindfulness you have to do a bit
each day.
• Building self awareness of what
is going on inside of you.
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23. Building Mental Muscle and Resilience
• By using mindfulness daily, we
develop and train the brain.
• Learning to switch off the auto
pilot
• Emotional Regulation
• Attention
• Focus
• Awareness
• Balance
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24. Bringing Mindfulness into your life
• Mindfulness is not something
we must squeeze into our daily
life. working, raising children,
caring for a home.
• Making mindfulness part of your
life is more like a game of
connect the dots, or like a paint-
by-numbers kit.
• Just a small area is a start.
• Answering the phone, answering
the door, going to the bathroom
at work etc etc.
• So the point of Mindfuness
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Formal and Informal
John Kabat-Zinn and the Nine Attitudes of Mindfulness

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Two types of mindfulness to colour or picture

27. When things are not going right, or we are stressed
SLOWING THINGS DOWN
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Learn to simply drop in on
ourselves
With full awareness as we are
actually doing it.
JKZ states that Being fully present,
as best you can, moment by
moment, for the unfolding of our
life.”

28. • This is cultivating a willingness to
see things as if for the first time.
Each moment is fresh because
we have never been here before.
• Mindfulness is about trying to
leave our old judgements behind
that cloud the present moment.
• If we can take that wonder into
our day- to-day lives' we can
start to see things differently
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29. Beginners mind seeing things with openness and curiosity
• To see a child, discover new
things, such as shapes smells.
• They are completely in the
present moment.
• How they look at things
• A child will examine shapes and
looks at them carefully smell
them, and if were not careful eat
them.
• Seeing things with curiosity and
openness
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30. With Beginners Mind
• If we walk into the garden at
night, and it’s not cloudy with a
beginners mind we can see the
millions of stars.
• We can start looking with a fresh
mind and open mind,
• and we soon begin to realize how
we have been taking things for
granted.
• HAS ANYTHING SUPPRISED YOU
THAT YOU
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31. • So by incorporating
a Beginners mind
into our life we can
start to see things
from a different
perspective.
• In mediation we can
start to see
beginners mind that
every mediation is
new, and every
breath is new.
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32. • Noticing the urge to categorise or
label thoughts that arise in mind
• Making judgements good bad and
Neutral
• Judgements about people when we
meet them.
• This way of thinking can become
embedded in our mind.
• I like this I don’t like that.
• Our mind becomes like a lawyer
reading the contract for “my life,”
always looking for flaws or contract
violations.
• The Shopping Queue
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33. Developing mindfulness and a, non- judging mind
• We don’t get hooked into I like this,
but I don’t like that, or what we do
on automatic pilot.
• We can start to see things more
clearly with gentleness and
accuracy.
• With a non-judging mind we are
not pushing things away but
accepting them as they are.
• Not getting hooked into old
patterns.
• In fact we can give the lawyer mind
a day off
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34. Slowing down instead of Free Falling
• The daily practice of mindful
meditation can help this. When
meditating instead of getting
caught up in thoughts, we can
learn not to judge them.
• By having a non-judging mind can
develop our wise mind so we don’t
get caught up in dreams dictated
by our own imagination.
• Bring in the past old events –
judged the person when it was my
problem because it was in my
head.
• Relax as it is
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35. • Acknowledging things as they are
instead of what we think they
should be.
• Acceptance is the opposite of
resistance.
• Rather than trying to nail things
down.
• But Acceptance does not also
mean having passive resignation.
• But with patience, trust and a
beginners mind we can work to
change things.
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36. Acceptance and the Welcome Mat
• Jon Kabat Zinn talked about
acceptance while working with
people who suffered with chronic
pain.
• He found that once they began to put
out the welcome mat rather than
pushing it away, they were able to
work with the pain more.
• This in turn reduced their anxiety or
depression starting a cycle of events
to lead a more meaning full life.
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37. Acceptance that life is not always a straight road
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Acknowledging things as they are instead of what we think they should be.

38. • Releasing attachment to
experiences, whether good or bad
being simply an observer.
• The mind inherently sees things as
black and white.
• In fact, it judges every experience
this is good this is bad, I like this, I
don’t like that
• I want this, I don’t want that.
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39. Letting Go
• This happens in relationships by
holding onto believes or values
• “I am like this; you are like that”
and the more we grasp at our
viewpoints the more harm it
does to ourselves and others.
• So Letting go is just about letting
our emotions simply be.
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40. Nature is a good example
• Nature is a good example of
letting go. Throughout the four
seasons, we see trees letting go
of their fruits, and seeds so they
can go and germinate to grow
again.
• Animals let go of their young so
they can go and fend for
themselves, and we see birds
letting go of their nests and
branches so they can learn to fly.
• In our day to day life nature can
remind us of letting go.
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41. Letting go is the essence of meditation
• By meditating for a short period
each day, we can start to learn to
let go of our opinions, emotions,
and sensations that are no
longer serving us.
• As a thought comes into our
mind, we can simply let it go.
• This then transfers into our
informal mindfulness, therefore,
releasing the grip of Auto Pilot
further
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Being confident in our intuition
and our own authority even if we
make mistakes along the way we
are our best guide.
Trusting mindfulness is an
important part of our practice as
the journey develops over time.

43. As Jon Kabit Zinn states
perhaps, we could
experiment with trusting
the present moment.
Accepting whatever we feel
or think or see in this
moment because this is
what is present now.
Trust the journey and as
mindfulness develops, we
will become more attentive
to the needs of our life
journey.
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44. The building blocks of trust in mindfulness
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Like any relationship trust takes
time to develop because we need
to see how people behave, and
what they say.
Then with that growing trust
relationships deepen and mature
becoming more meaningful.

45. But through mindfulness we trust ourselves
to navigate any road. Just like acceptance
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46. • Patience is the opposite of
aggression and impatience – by
developing patience we are
resisting the desire to jump in
and follow old patterns that
have not worked for us in the
past..
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47. Patience and the emerging butterfly
• A child may try to help a butterfly
to emerge by breaking open its
chrysalis.
• Usually, the butterfly doesn’t
benefit from this. Any adult
knows that the butterfly can only
emerge in its own time, that the
process cannot be hurried.”
• So, we treat ourselves like an
emerging butterfly.
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48. Patience time and trust.
• To be patient is simply to be
completely open to each
moment, accepting it in its
fullness, knowing that, like the
butterfly, things can only unfold
in their own time.”
• Trusting in our practice and we
will get the results we will need
in your own time.
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49. Patience and meditation
• This patience can then be
transferred into our day to day
living through formal and
informal mindfulness.
• Patience and trust are closely
linked.
• Patience the dot will join and the
block will keep building.
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50. • Being yourself always without
pushing to achieve anything
else.
• We have so many things we are
trying to juggle and we keep on
taking more and more.
• Jon Kabit Zin explains that non
striving or non-doing is taking
the unusual position of not
trying to get anywhere but
letting things unfold in their own
time.
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51. It is like we are sat on a busy road wondering what to chase next
• We have so many agendas by
trying to get to somewhere else
to a better moment, a better job
a better car, a future event or
striving to escape something in
the past our minds are always
busy.
• But with Non-Striving if we can
imagine ourselves not jumping
into the traffic and chasing the
cars
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Relaxed
Confused
Tired
Lazy

52. Non-Striving – Cool Boredom
• So, by non-doing, We mean
using the time to let go of
excessively thinking about the
past or worrying about the
future - to softly reside in the
here and now.
• Cool Boredom – Letting things
unfold in their own time.
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Expressing appreciation and
maintaining a sense of wonder for
life’s unfolding mysteries
Jon Kabit Zinn describes gratitude
as having a sense of wonder to the
world
We are breathing, that our eyes
our ears work, our body and mind
can take us to different place’s
whether it be on foot or in our
imagination

54. Gratitude
• Coming back to the
rose in the garden by
recognizing gratitude I
see the wonder that is
all around me.
• The rose in the garden
and gratitude that it
existed. The millions
of stars and having
gratitude they are
there.
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55. • A mindful way of appreciating gratitude to bring us into the here and
now and we can use the following phrases
• I can appreciate my breath right now?
• I can appreciate my feet right now?
• I can appreciate this body right now?
• I can appreciate me hearing right now
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56. The Gratitude Journal
• By writing a little each day in a
practice journal it can be a
powerful motivator.
• Increases positivity
• Can help reduce stress
• Daily Meditation and using the
breath we can develop the skill
of letting go of negative
thoughts and replace them with
thoughts of gratitude
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57. • Giving time, energy and attention to others while practicing self-
compassion always.
• Jon Kabat Zinn suggests that by practicing
• our enthusiasm,
• our vitality,
• our spirit, your trust,
• our openness,
• Above all, our presence then we are making the most of generosity.
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58. Generosity
• By mindfully reflecting on generosity, we can
reflect on the following
• We experience joy at the beginning by
forming the intention of generosity in our
mind.
• We experience joy in remembering that we
have given.
• The receiver experiences joy when they have
received.
• And as stated by Gandhi
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59. GENEROSTIY
• “The fragrance remains in
the hand that gives a
rose”.
• That Generosity does not
have to be anything big it
can be a glass of water.
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60. Generosity in Meditation
• During meditation when we find
our mind wondering rather than
using the critical voice and
beating ourselves up
• We use generous compassion
with a soft voice and come back
to the breath again and again.
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61. Working on
one will
rapidly lead to
the other
attitudes
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In Summary the Nine Attitudes.

62. Paint by numbers
• So, coming back to the paint by
numbers
• We introduce both formal and
informal mindfulness.
• We work with the nine attitudes
• We start to fill in the blank
spaces.
• We begin to lead a more
meaningful life.
• We have less stress, less anxiety
and a better picture of what we
want from life.
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63. Rediscovering the Here and Now
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For more information contact Glyn
glynkerr@btiinternet.com

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