Workshop 13/12/12

1. MINDFULNESS WITH JO MENSINGA
“YOU SEE, NOW, WHILE I AM TALKING TO YOU, I CAN FEEL THE
ENDS OF MY TOES. ISN’T THAT AN AMAZING THING?”
( P A G I S , 2 0 0 9 )

2. Small group
brainstorm
YOUR
DEFINITION
Large group
feedback Choose a
Personal
review of
Definition feeling now ..
Take a pose
session
Pair work .. In
the chosen
Self pose
Body Repeat with
In Review sculpture what feeling
would you
practice exercise – like to have
Acknowled-
ging country
Mindfulness
Overview of the
session
Reflective
Small group
Bit about me
Input re the General
discussion discussion in literature
research
small group
What was
the Work done
experience with Robyn
like?
Did it get you
from a) to My thesis
b)?
Revisiting
A
body Small group
meditative discussion
sculpturing
experience
Sit/stand
exercise
comfortably Back to body
sculpture
Experience How do you
get from a)
to b)

3. Acknowledging
country
Overview of
Mindfulness the session
Bit about me
and why
mindfulness

4. Acknowledging
country
Overview of
the session
* Experiential/ Interactive
* Some input
Bit about
me and …
* Yoga (since 14)
* Practitioner(15yrs.)/academic(15yrs.)

5. MINDFULNESS IN THE WORKPLACE
… why
mindfulness
Thousands of studies The skills taught enable
reveal that mindfulness you to:
training:
• Enhances focus and • Listen more attentively
attention • Be more emotionally alert
• Increases self- • Communicate more
awareness and the clearly
awareness of others • Direct your thoughts more
• Raises levels of appropriately
resilience and • Focus more consistently
emotional intelligence • Empathise more readily
• Strengthens cognitive • Renew yourself
effectiveness effectively
© Michael Chaskalson 2012

6. YOUR
DEFINITION
Small group
brainstorm
Definition
Large group
feedback

7. Write your own definition
Tell a friend (or two)
Tell us all

8. AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT
CHAPTERS
(NELSON, 1993:2-3)
Chapter One Chapter Three
I walk down the street. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the There is a deep hole in the
sidewalk. sidewalk.
I fall in. I see it there.
I am lost…I am helpless. I still fall…it’s a habit…but,
It isn’t my fault… my eyes are open.
It takes forever to find a way out. I know where I am.
It is my fault.
Chapter Two I get out immediately.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole on the Chapter Four
sidewalk. I walk down the same street.
I pretend I don’t see it. There is a deep hole in the
I fall in again. sidewalk.
I can’t believe I am in the same place. I walk around it.
But it isn’t my fault.
It takes a long time to get out. Chapter Five
I walk down another street.

9. Choose a feeling
now .. Take a
pose
Body Pair work .. In the
chosen pose
sculpture
exercise –
Repeat with what
feeling would you
like to have

10. BODY SCULPTING EXERCISE
What does it feel like to be What would this feeling
a social worker right now? look like in your body?
(cool-smileys.com)
(photaki.com)

11. HOW WOULD YOUR FEELING IMPACT
YOUR WORK WITH A …
Service user?
• In pairs….
• Take turns talking to each other while in the
position you chose before
• Discuss what effect it had
• Did you expect this? Why/? Why not?
Colleague?
• In pairs….
• Take turns talking to each other while in the
position you chose before
• Discuss what effect it had
• Did you expect this? Why/? Why not?

12. BODY SCULPTING EXERCISE (PT. 2)
What would you like to feel What would this feeling
like as a social worker look like in your body?
right now?
(photaki.com)

13. HOW WOULD YOUR FEELING IMPACT
YOUR WORK WITH A …
Service user?
• In pairs….
• Take turns talking to each other while in the
position you chose before
• Discuss what effect it had
• Did you expect this? Why/? Why not?
Colleague?
• In pairs….
• Take turns talking to each other while in the
position you chose before
• Discuss what effect it had
• Did you expect this? Why/? Why not?

14. General
literature
Work done
with Robyn
Input re the Lynn
research
My thesis

15. My General
interest  literature
Kabat-Zinn
(1994, 4) describes
Mindfulness as
„paying attention in a
particular way: on
purpose, in the
present moment, and
non-judgementally‟.
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
• Website for materials: http://www.mindfulnesscds.com/author.html
• Work being done in Australia…. Monash medical school, RMIT

16. General
literature

17. The Role of Mindfulness in Social Work
General
literature
(Hick, 2009, p. 24)

18. General
literature
Table (Hick and Furlotte, 2009, p. 12)

19. Work done
with Robyn Beth
Lynn
and Jo
Beth Tinning
Robyn
Blank tree
available at
this website

20. Student asked: ‘Is the use of mindfulness in a
Work done
way that does not explicitly acknowledge the
with Robyn
spiritual aspect actually inappropriate or even
Lynn
unethical for social workers?’
and
Beth Tinning • She „described‟ the use of mindfulness as
„colonisation, fragmentation and commodification‟
Is Mindfulness value free?
We began to ask: ‘How did the student’s own spiritual narrative
and training as a social worker contribute to this analysis?’
• Is this Eastern colonisation by Buddhism?
• Is this a coming together of different world views and cultures?

21. We wanted to know:
•What is known about the effective use of
Work done mindfulness in social work?
with Robyn •What do social worker’s know about mindfulness?
Lynn •What knowledge is essential for using mindfulness?
•Who produces knowledge about mindfulness in
social work?
How do practitioners use
How do practitioners use
mindfulness in in their practice?
mindfulness their practice?
The stories revealed:
• Participants‟ knowledge and understanding of mindfulness largely evolved from
their own personal experiences including:
• exposure to other cultures,
• physical challenges and/or their
• own interest in developing spiritual practices within traditional religious
contexts.
• The use of contemplative practices have remained a secret story on the
professional landscape. (Not surprising… Healy)
• Participants began to articulate the legitimacy of this emerging approach and
to question how it can be shared, with whom and whether their needs to be
any ethical guidelines

22. How does an embodied practice like yoga
support social workers efforts to take care of
themselves and facilitate improved
outcomes for their clients?
… given the importance of reflection and self-
awareness in social work and increasing evidence
that when the body‟s somatic map is ignored or
misunderstood it can supersede critical thinking
and impede reflective practice …it may be time
for Human services to consider the affective
nature of embodied struggles.
(Mensinga, 2011)
somewhat akin to choosing whether to react to an
itch on the skin or not, yoga practitioners
understand that the more familiar they are with
their own body and embodied responses, the more
likely they are to make an informed choice as to My thesis
how to react in any given situation.
(Mensinga, 2011)

23. “About a couple of months ago I was sitting in a meeting and I
realised that my legs were completely tied up, crossed,
underneath the table, like . . . unbelievable! I noticed I was
feeling very tense and had to remind myself “you‟re just sitting
in a meeting!”. I got myself to uncross my legs and put them
down on the floor, but 10 minutes later I found myself in exactly
the same position. This time I just thought “wow! I do this all the
time”. Even though I knew there was no physical danger, my
body seemed to be telling me “well yes there is”. It was then
that I realised that my mind was coming up with all these ideas
like “you know you‟re not supported” and “they don‟t really
want you” and I also found myself becoming all oppositional
saying to myself things like “it‟s me against them”. It felt like I
was living in my own world and I noticed that I wasn‟t sure
which story was true. Since then I‟ve been wondering why am I
prone to this, you know, prone to kind of being, hyper vigilant or
anxious or whatever?”
SUE … SOCIAL WORKER INTERVIEWED AUGUST 2010

24. …That‟s the question I took with me on to the yoga mat
“why am I prone to this,
you know, prone to kind
of being, hyper vigilant
or anxious or
whatever?”
dailycupofyoga.com
… and in the last month I‟ve worked out “if you train yourself like
that, this is what the outcome is!”.
SUE … SOCIAL WORKER INTERVIEWED AUGUST 2010

25. You see, I‟ve been an athlete for most of my life. I must have started running
at about the age of nine. Back then I used a different body to prepare
myself for a race. I would purposely turn on my sympathetic nervous
system and just “hype! hype! hype! hype! hype!”. I would get myself really
nervous, not nervous so that I was out of control, but nervous so that I had
this energy, this inner energy that I just had to do something with. I knew
when I was ready for the race because I used to get the runs. I‟d
perfected the technique over the years. As long as I had diarrhoea the
day before the race, I knew that I was ready for the race and found that I
would do really well. That was great while I was doing athletics and even
though I didn‟t train as much as anybody else, I seemed to be able to do
it, you know, just compete. But it‟s been absolutely awful in my job, in my
profession, it just doesn‟t translate across. I know all about the hyping up
and have developed this sympathetic nervous system that works on a
hairline trigger but, I don‟t get to do the running. Now when I get in
situations and I perceive them as dangerous I know that while my body
may experience it as that and that my mind will make up stories to try and
make sense of the feeling, I can choose what story I want to run with or
whether it would even be helpful to run with any. I guess I just have a bit
more choice now.
SUE … SOCIAL WORKER INTERVIEWED AUGUST 2010

26. Small group
discussion
Revisiting Back to body
body sculpture
sculpturing
exercise
How do you
get from a) to
b)

27. This is a
mindfulness
What was useful from the input? exercise in
itself 
Recall your body positions….
What „things‟ would help you to change shape?

28. A
meditative Sit/stand
experience comfortably
Experience

29. Small
group
discussion
What was
Reflective the
discussion in experience
like?
small group
Did it get
you from
a) to b)?

30. Review of
session
Review - Self
- In
practice

31. Definition
Body
Review sculpture
exercise –
Mindfulness
Reflective
discussion Input re the
in small research
group
Revisiting
A
body
meditative
sculpturing
experience
exercise