Nurturing mindful communities is about weaving mindfulness into the lives and work of a wider spectrum of society than ever before, working towards a critical mass of people who are more compassionate, kinder and fairer. But such developments mean we need to be innovative and creative in meeting people where they are and offering access to mindfulness in ways that fit in with people’s everyday lives.
Mindfulness Wales has offered a range of sessions exploring different aspects and approaches, balancing this with being true to the values and quality that underpin mindfulness. These reflect and contribute to wider discussions, summed up in the conversations held by Rebecca Crane and Ken Lunn at the 2023 Manchester Mindfulness Festival exploring the need to explore possibilities beyond of the traditional formal 8 week courses.
Here is a whistlestop tour of some of the sessions from our Archives – all available on our website.
Rebecca Crane and a team of researchers look at Widening the Vision and Benefits of Mindfulness Based Teaching. The team have also developed some useful resources (insert link to Pdf in Research section?)
From widening we move to Deepening Mindfulness by Exploring Feeling Tone with Mark Williams talking about his new course designed to follow on from an 8-week course, recognising the need for further exploration.
We know that mindfulness can make a significant contribution to health and wellbeing but also more specifically to pain and suffering. Vidyamala Burch talks about the work Breathworks has done to widen the accessibility and approach to include these in Mindfulness for Mind and Body.
More discussions about Mindfulness Developments within Welsh Health Services showed how several Health Boards are exploring how mindfulness can help staff and patients. Developments in Health and Social Care continue with Mindful Self Care for High Stress Environments.
Michael Chaskalson looks at developing Mindful Leadership and what considerations should be explored.
If you want to be challenged to think outside the box while still keeping true to mindfulness, try Iwan Brioc’s session called What if this is all there is? Where he talks about his new course Coming to Our Senses. He’s been trialling this with Health staff in several Health Boards as an 8-session course and is also providing a 3-day version.
Making mindfulness available in a flexible way which uses their own experiences is at the heart of Living in The Present, a course developed by Sarah Silverton and described in her talk Making Mindfulness Teaching Relevant.
We’ve also considered how we can help make mindfulness accessible to those who need it most. In our session Reducing Barriers to Mindfulness Richard Edwards talks about mindfulness in the area of homelessness, and Ceryl Davies tells us about her work making mindfulness accessible and appropriate for those in social care.
Tim Duerden provided practical insight into Integrating Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness into our mindfulness provision, setting out some considerations again helping make mindfulness accessible to those who need it most.
Recently Valleys Steps and Thriving Communities set out how they are putting Nurturing Mindful Communities into Action, making mindfulness available and relevant to communities across the South Wales Valleys.
We’re keen to ensure that there are appropriate resources available in Welsh and this will be a focus going forward. Gwenan Roberts explored this area in Mwy na Eiriau: Meddylgarwch yn y Gymraeg
These are just a few of our sessions, and there are a lot more to come. Bookmark https://mindfulness-wales.org and join our mailing list to be kept informed.