This document provides an overview of mindfulness, including what it is, how it can help people, mindfulness practices, and benefits. Mindfulness involves paying attention to the present moment in a non-judgmental way. It can help reduce stress and negative thoughts by shifting people from a "doing" to a "being" mode. Formal mindfulness practices include body scans and meditation. Research shows mindfulness can benefit those dealing with pain, depression, anxiety and other conditions.

1. MINDFULNESS
Dawn Dupree

2. Contents
What is Mindfulness?
How can it help us?
Mindfulness Practice
Benefits of Mindfulness
Mindfulness in Counselling and Psychotherapy
Guided Meditations Online
References and Resources

3. intimately familiar with yet are simultaneously complete strangers to.”
(Kabat-Zinn, 2012)
Mindfulness training involves cultivating a resource that is already ours by
learning how to inhabit an area of our mind we are often out of touch with
- a ‘being’ mode of mind.
Mindfulness starts with an act of stopping and being with our self. We are
usually lost in our thoughts of the past or future, and stopping allows us to
reconnect with the present moment through becoming conscious of the
here and now.
Whilst it is not a passive process, you are not trying to get anywhere or feel
anything special, just to stay where you already are. It does not involve
rejecting or suppressing thoughts or trying to control anything other than
the focus and direction of your attention.
Whilst the practice of Mindfulness begins with paying attention to our
breath and the body sensations occurring as we breathe in and out, it
progresses to observing the unfolding experience of other body sensations
and the activity in our minds, our thoughts or emotions arising from
moment to moment, the experience of sound, smell, taste, and sight.
Mindfulness is a way of being and can penetrate our daily lives through
walking, eating, listening and in offering our presence to others.

4. We are often in our past or our future, not our present
When you start to pay attention to where your mind is during the day, you may
find a lot of energy is spent clinging to memories, daydreaming or regretting
things that have already happened. Equally energy is expended in anticipating,
planning, worrying and fantasizing about the future and what you want or don’t
want to happen.
Incessant thoughts and feelings not only drain our energy, but serve as obstacles
to experiencing brief moments of stillness and contentment. When our minds are
dominated by dissatisfaction and unawareness, it can be difficult to feel calm and
relaxed, leaving us feeling fragmented and driven.

5. DOING Vs BEING MODE
Over doing it! - All of us - including counsellors or clients can have days
when we rush around mindlessly as if on ‘auto-pilot’ with our ‘to do’ lists
and our brains concentrating on several things at once.
This unawareness keeps us disconnected from our bodies, often missing
important signals and messages. With the pressures of modern life and the
unrealistic expectations we place on ourselves, this can result in our minds
and bodies becoming overloaded and prone to stress and illness.
“If we are not careful, it is all too easy to fall into becoming a human doing
than a human being”.
Mindfulness can remind us to shift from doing mode to being mode through
increasing our awareness, so our doing can come out of our being and be
more integrated and effective. This can enable us to stay focussed on what
we are choosing to do and be fully aware of our choices
We cease to exhaust ourselves so much as we inhabit our bodies in each
moment.

6. HOW CAN IT HELP US?
Mindfulness can act as an anchor in the stormy seas of
life - during challenging emotional and physical times

7. Mindfulness can create a safe place to go - It can reduce fear of thoughts and
emotions and help us feel more grounded.
Helps us to feel calmer - Practicing Meditation decreases levels of the stress
causing hormone Cortisol.
Mindfulness can distract the mind from habitual preoccupations and addictive
behaviours.
Jon Kabat-Zinn (2005) points out how by introducing Mindfulness, it can
facilitate the body/mind/world connection for clients. He notes that ‘the
quality of connections within us and between us and the outside world
determine our capacity for self-regulation and healing.’
Mindfulness practice expands the field of awareness, allowing for improved
monitoring of somatic and affective experiencing, and thereby enhancing the
capacity for self regulation of arousal, affect and behavior. It facilitates the
development of embodiment and the capacity to tolerate and accept painful
experience. It promotes the self-monitoring and decontextualization of
automatic thoughts that serve to sustain pathological structures. Mindfulness
also facilitates the development of inner resources that help stabilize affect and
reduce impulsivity.

8. Getting Started - “It is the quality of your motivation that sets the
tone for your openness to experiencing whatever it is that arises”. To create a
robust mindfulness practice, Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests the following:
Find a time and place that is sacrosanct: to practice one
meditation each day where you will not be disturbed.
Treat it as an experiment: Allow yourself 6 months of daily
practice whether you feel like it or not.
• Do it as if your life depended on it.
Do it for yourself, for the love of your life: Rather than
to “improve yourself” or be a “better” person.
Give yourself over to the present moment.
FORMAL PRACTICE

9. •Four Recommendations:
Posture - Adopt a posture that embodies wakefulness, dignity and presence,
Sitting on a cushion or a chair.
What to do with your eyes - Eyes can be open or closed. If open allow
your gaze to be still and relaxed and fall 3-4 feet away on the floor or on a wall.
Sleepiness - Morning practice can alleviate the problem of feeling sleepy.
Protecting this time - Turn off computer/phone Make sure you will not be
interrupted.

10. •MINDFULNESS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY
Mindfulness based Stress reduction (MBSR) - Intensive experiential training over 8
weeks that enables participants to access own resources for responding more
effectively to stress, pain and illness - developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Mindfulness based Cognitive therapy (MBCT) - based on MBSR. Segal, Williams
and Teasdale have further developed MBCT as an approach to prevent relapse in
depression. The practice of Mindfulness enabled clients to disengage from their
ruminations and relate to negative thoughts in a new way.
Mindfulness techniques and practice can be used to support clients engaged in any
type of Psychotherapy or Counselling including Face to Face, Telephone or Online.
Self development - Mindfulness can benefit therapists and keep them emotionally
healthy as well as increase acceptance and empathy in the therapeutic relationship.

11. •RESEARCH
More and more evidence is emerging to show how mindfulness techniques and
practices can benefit people dealing with challenging emotional and physical
conditions.
Research shows that Meditation can have greater pain effects than medication. It is
thought that meditation reduces activity in the parts of the brain processing pain and
increases activity where the brain stores its experience of pain and develops coping
mechanisms.
A recent study found increased neuron connectivity during meditation in the parts
of the brain that is important for regulating emotional behaviour and dealing with
conflict.
Evidence based research shows MBSR to be effective in helping chronic pain and
fatigue, depression, anxiety, stress, cancer, MS,

12. Guided Meditations
• 10 min Guided Body Scan
• Mindfulness Meditations
• Guided Meditations
• 10 Best Guided Meditations
• More Free Meditations
• Mindfulness Exercises
• Meditation Podcast

13. References
• Baer, R. A. (2006) Mindfulness-Based Treatment Approaches: Clinician's Guide to Evidence Base and Applications. London: Elsevier.
• Crane, R. (2009) Mindfulness-Based Cosnitive Therapv. London: Routledge.
• Hanh, T. N. (2008) The Miracle of Mindfulness: The Classic Guide to Meditation bv the World's Most Revered Master. London: Rider, Ebury
Publishing, Random House Company. (latest imprint)
• Kabat-Zinn, Jon. (1994) Wherever You Go, There You Are, Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday. Hyperion, New York
• Kabat -Zinn, Jon. (2012) Mindfulness for Beginners. Sounds True. Colorado
• Nanda, J. (jan 09) Mindfulness: A lived Experience of Existential-
• Segal, Z.V, Williams, J.M.G,Teasdale J.D. (2002) Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. Guildford Press. New York
•
Mindfulness and counselling 2015 - http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/4745/mindfulness-and-counselling/
• Mindfulness in therapy 2014 - http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/4131/mindfulness-in-therapy/
• Mindfulness for mental wellbeing - http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/mindfulness.aspx
• Mindfulness in practice - http://www.therapytoday.net/article/show/3382/from-the-archive/

14. Further resources
• Websites:
• www.bemindful.com
• www.mindfulexperience.org
• MeditationApps:
• https://www.headspace.com
• http://buddhify.com
• http://www.calm.com