“I have noticed that all my mindfulness work builds connection between participants. This is particularly rewarding in the workplace and trainee situations, where mutual support and trust grows with the practices.”
(Dr Julia Wallond, GP)
Machynlleth based GP, Julia Wallond, has been incorporating formal and informal mindfulness teachings and practices into her work and life for the last 14 years. In this time, she has held various roles and has explored how best to introduce the practices to a diverse group of people.
Julia first trained in mindfulness based cognitive therapy at Exeter University in 2011 and followed this up with a teacher training retreat at Bangor University. Initially she taught MBCT for Cancer, MBSR and MBCT courses. Her participants included medical students, medical colleagues, the general public and patients. Later when Julia moved to Wales, she re-focussed on her medical career and started to incorporate mindfulness less formally into her GP role as well as including it in her involvement with local nature connection projects.
More recently Julia started working for the NHS in the Powys Teaching Health Board in the “Powys Living Well Service”. In this role she is learning to offer Acceptance and Commitment Therapy based approaches alongside medical support to people with persistent pain, fatigue or weight management needs. She also offers informal practice sessions to colleagues and is trialling compassion circles with medical colleagues and GP trainees which have been very positively received:
What I enjoyed about the compassion practice session was:
“Getting together.”
”Being able to talk openly with colleagues.”
“Having time to think about what can stop compassion and learn to work on that.”
“We opened up about different issues, felt everyone was in [the] same boat.’”
(Participants in the compassion circles training)
Alongside her medical profession, Julia trained to teach Insight Meditation retreats with Bodhi College (associated with Gaia House in Devon). This training has enabled her to offer multi-day mindfulness retreats to graduates of 8-week courses and mindfulness teachers online through the Mindfulness Network and the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation. Outside her secular mindfulness teacher role, she teaches on Insight Meditation retreats at Gaia House in Devon and with a local Machynlleth Meditation group.
Julia feels clear that her own practice has given her a powerful approach to meet the ups and downs of life with more compassion and clarity. She experiences it helping her to connect more fully with other people and with the natural world and sees how it has opened up possibilities and confidence to grow and develop in her life.
Find Julia at: