Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

A personal Journey – Training to become a mindfulness teacher

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My personal mindfulness teacher training journey and becoming a mindfulness teacher.

My Story

 Kirsty shares her own personal journey into holistic healing

“It took time for me to come to terms with my need to leave the NHS, but once the decision was made, I knew the shackles were off in terms of limiting my scope to only cover nourishment of the body. I could learn to teach others how to also nourish their minds.”

 By – Kirsty Dobson

As a dietitian for 23 years, I was NHS ward-trained in the traditional hierarchical medical model of managing ill health. I’ve helped people with a myriad of health challenges, teaching them to self-manage their chronic illnesses, through a range of evidence-based dietary and lifestyle approaches. I enjoy supporting patients with complex digestive complaints so the irrefutable link between brain and gut meant that I fought for longer duration appointments to gain the full picture of overall health and wellbeing, previous medical or drug history, their work and family life, and degree of social support. The stark revelation that so many sufferers of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) also had diagnoses of Anxiety or Depression and were frequently on anti-depressants, and yet were often still symptomatic, led me to research evidence of alternative ways to support wellbeing. On hearing that mindfulness could be valuable in IBS, I experimented myself by using Headspace and discovered after just 2-3 weeks of ten minutes daily my sleep quality improved, I felt more in control at work with greater clarity of thought and in spoken word. Likewise, my clients who embraced mindfulness achieved greater gut symptom control and weathered the storm of life without triggering relapse. Mindfulness improved confidence in managing their own chronic condition. The diagnosis was no longer impacting their quality of life.

Then covid hit. The demands placed upon me in my role leading an acute team of, frankly terrified, acute dietitians through a pandemic when the explosion in intensive care bed numbers required me to return to a frontline clinical role alongside leadership responsibilities, meant I totally abandoned self-care practices and just got on with the job at hand. Unsurprisingly 18 months in I had my own mental health breakdown. I had a period of sick leave and a 6-month spell on anti-depressants during which time I re-discovered the healing power of mindfulness. Daily meditation, positive intelligence practices and cultivating compassion enabled me to properly challenge self-harming automatic thoughts and negative behaviours. It has led to a deep emotional healing, somewhat akin to a ‘spring clean’ of the considerable detritus which had accumulated during the first four decades of my life.

It took time for me to come to terms with my need to leave the NHS, but once the decision was made, I knew the shackles were off in terms of limiting my scope to only cover nourishment of the body. I could learn to teach others how to also nourish their minds. The therapy-based, secular nature of the Mindfulness Now course and the thought of a week immersed mindfully in beautiful Devon without the role of boss, wife or mother was decision made. I felt so grateful to experience the magic of Tawstock Court as the summer turned into autumn this year with Nick and Maddy expertly guiding us through the program. Through daily practices we grew and bonded together in our teaching cohort. Integrating mindfulness as a tool alongside dietary / lifestyle measures and targeted supplementation seems to me to be a much more powerful and holistic approach to long-lasting healing than I was able to previously offer patients in my old role so I cannot wait to share it with the world!

 

About the author –

Kirsty Dobson is a holistic brain health & wellbeing educator/coach based in Brighton www.clarity-and.com / kirsty@clarity-and.com / https://www.instagram.com/clarity_and/

Article written for The Breathing Space Journal Winter 2024

 

 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Training – ACT for Anxiety – FULLY BOOKED

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By Nick Cooke

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) certified professional training with a key focus on assisting those with anxiety

"… irrespective of the number of symptoms we have, or how serious those are, provided that we respond to them in a mindful way we will feel happier and better able to function. Unwanted symptoms do ‘miraculously’ tend to reduce, even though this is not the primary aim!"

It was Sigmund Freud who famously described anxiety as ‘fear spread thinly. What a lot of sense this continues to make in our present day and age. However, Freud’s belief about the causes of anxiety and his method of treatment varies widely from present day understanding and treatment. Freud’s work was predicated on theories of how sufferers would have ‘repressed’ (hidden from conscious awareness) the causes of symptoms, including anxiety, and that repressed memories connected to the originating causes would be released and brought to conscious awareness, understanding and release through his famous ‘talking cure’, psychoanalysis. We discuss this approach in our Mindfulness Based Clinical Hypnosis (MBCH) training. www.mbch.org.uk

Scientific evidence since the 1980s has shown that many talking therapies including clinical hypnosis, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness-based therapies, can be effective in dealing with the symptoms of anxiety. One of the most successful approaches is ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which is pronounced as the word ‘act’ for good reason. It’s about taking action. It was developed in the USA by psychologist Steve Hayes, along with his colleagues Kelly Wilson and Kirk Strosahl. The original body of work has been further developed and expanded by others, including Dr Russ Harris who has authored a number of well-respected books including the self-help guide ‘The Happiness Trap’.

Steve Hayes, describes ACT as an ‘oddly counterintuitive model of work’. It can be engaging and playful and teaches us skills to handle unwanted and painful thoughts and feelings in a way in which they have far less significance or negative affect. This is where mindfulness skills are brought into play. It also takes the view that, irrespective of the number of symptoms we have, or how serious those are, provided that we respond to them in a mindful way we will feel happier and better able to function. Unwanted symptoms do ‘miraculously’ tend to reduce, even though this is not the primary aim!

ACT has been scientifically researched and proven to be effective in helping people with a wide range of issues including: anxiety, depression and chronic pain. Even those with severe psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia have gained remarkable benefit. It has also produced similarly high levels of success with some of the less serious conditions which we may encounter in our day-to-day work, such as smoking cessation, weight reduction and reducing stress. The high level of supporting scientific evidence has ensured that ACT has grown in popularity as a form of psychological treatment around the world.

30 years in the making

It’s taken a while to get there. The original development of ACT was around 30 years ago and yet it was not until nearer to 10 years ago when it began to find its current high level of popularity. There are a number of reasons for this delayed enthusiasm:

• 30 years ago ACT seemed to fly in the face of conventional psychological theory in the sense that most approaches aimed to reduce unwanted symptoms. ACT takes a very different approach and one that is much more focussed on the idea that quality of life is primarily dependent upon mindful, values-guided action
• ACT is a mindfulness based intervention and 30 years ago these were in their infancy and seen as a little way out!
• The original writings on ACT were peer reviewed as being ‘overly complex’. Heavy on rather complicated theory but light on practicalities

The ACT acronym

ACT is sometimes seen as a rather large model but the real beauty of it is the way that it can be simplified and easily explainable to clients. I favour this very simple acronym which sums it up neatly.

A = Accept your thoughts and feelings and be present.

C = Choose a valued direction

D = Take action!

Key themes of ACT include developing psychological flexibility, encouraging self-awareness and examining beliefs and values. Here we encourage our clients, rather like we would in a coaching exercise, to explore their innermost beliefs and values. What would they live and die for? What would they say is their life purpose? Translating this into a behavioural context, what qualities of ongoing action matter? How do clients want to behave on an ongoing basis?

Clients are taught how to ‘defuse’, or separate from their unwanted thoughts, emotions and mental pictures. They learn how to observe them more passively or step back and view them from a distance, rather like clouds passing by in the sky. ACT employs a number of different styles of metaphor, which are often a great way of teaching clients in an indirect and more acceptable manner.

Nick Cooke is presenting a one-day CPD training on ACT for Anxiety on Saturday 24th May 2024. Being presented in a live, interactive format on Zoom, timings are 10.00 AM to 5.00 PM. The fee is £130 to NCH members and £160 to non-members. Places are strictly limited so please book early by contacting Rachel at Mindfulness Now (CEC) on 0121 444 1110 or emailing info@mindfulnessnow.org.uk

Mini-retirement – What’s it all about

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This little article contains my personal perspective on a, so called, mini-retirement – what’s it all about, the differences between it and a full retirement and between it and a holiday. Why should we do it? – are there rules for it? Is it a requirement to be old? Lastly some tips from someone who’s done it.

I originally trained in marketing and environmental science and took my first mini-retirement of 4 weeks after selling my share in a garment hanger reuse and recycling business which colleagues and I set up in my 30s to help M&S to meet its environmental obligations. The work was hugely stressful, and I was very glad of some down time.

Since then, I’ve come to really appreciate the value of the mini-retirement, of at least a few weeks, hopefully at least once a year. As I entered my 60s, with a successful practice in wellbeing and education, including my own clinic and training centre, I naturally considered retirement. However, I decided that, as long as I was well enough and loved my work, there was no point. In fact, I’ve known a number of others who have deeply regretted their retirement and not fared well with it.

In my case I’ve been fortunate enough to streamline my practice, partly due to the COVID lockdown, including selling my clinic and training centre and transitioning into the world of hybrid working, with a combination of online and in-person work.

Being part of a team makes the concept of mini-retirements more workable although, for those of us self-employed, we have to accept that other than any residual income, our mini-retirement will cost us financially. The financial loss will be fully compensated for by a period of freedom, rest and recharge, along with hopefully some new learning.

To me, holidays are normally very brief breaks and easy to arrange. They don’t get in the way of my client schedules. Mini-retirements, by contrast are much more of a challenge and require the cooperation and understanding of clients/participants and colleagues.

I strongly suggest that we don’t fall into the trap of believing that because we are fortunate to love what we do, that it is not real work and therefore we don’t need breaks. I have to admit that sometimes, over the years, I have been absolutely rubbish at taking breaks and I’m pretty sure that, on more than one occasion, it has had a serious negative impact upon my health.

Of course, these days there are numerous holidays which are advertised as ‘mindful’ holidays – whether that’s painting, river cruising or writing. Personally, I think that any holiday can be a mindful one as long as we stay with the experience of it.  One of my colleagues tells me that he is brave enough for he and his partner to go to the airport with only passports and credit cards and then select a departure destination from the announcement board and buy tickets! As he said to me ‘the worst that can happen is that we end up going back home, and at its best we find an exciting new adventure’.

This same friend was horrified when I told him that I normally take my laptop computer on holiday with me (well surely it deserves a holiday too?). Sometimes I enjoy spending some time writing and find that being in a fresh, enjoyable location can inspire some creativity (my grandchildren are not at all impressed with this)! So, I think that the rule should be… not to have rules. Let nobody tell us what we should or should not do, and just see what happens.

Good luck with taking your breaks, however they happen and, you never know, maybe see you on the beach sometime! I’ll probably be the only one with a laptop computer as well as an ice cream!!

www.mindfulnessnow.org.uk

Why I Love Blue Monday

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Yes, today is the, so called, ‘Blue Monday’, the third Monday of January, which in 2019 is the 21st of the month and I’m told by certain ‘experts’ that I’m likely to be miserable, worried and possibly depressed, for a number of reasons.

 

I will have failed my New Year resolutions by now. I’m maxed out on my credit cards after the big Christmas spend. The nights are long, the days are short. I’m not getting enough daylight. I’m feeling cold and I most likely have a cold that doesn’t seem to go away. My diet has failed and I put weight on over the past month. My holidays seem to be as long away as they could be. My clients are too ill to make the journey to come and see me. What else could possibly go wrong?

 

Hang on a mo!! – I’m sitting in the Bryant Room at the beautiful Midland’s Arts Centre in Birmingham, overlooking the lakes and the park. It’s very early and the sun is rising and the sky has a blueish tinge. The ducks and geese are tuning up their voices. This is the start of my ‘Blue Monday’. I’m setting up training manuals, pads and pens, looking at my list of participants and feeling a deep sense of gratitude – eagerly anticipating greeting my fellow trainers, Rachel and Aston and all of our new trainees.

 

Mindfulness is a way of life that I’m very privileged to enjoy, to teach, and to train others how to teach. Our training has come a very long way from a humble beginning, 6 years ago to now being internationally recognised, attracting students from 11 countries, externally accredited and probably the most successful training course in the UK, training in 7 different locations. Teachers who have graduated from the Mindfulness Now programme work in many diverse environments including within the NHS, who have funded many students places. Others work in the charity sector, in schools and in commercial organisations. Many are therapists who wish to increase their range of skills.

 

Not gloating or being complacent, or taking anything for granted. Just a sense of amazement really and an immense amount of gratitude. Mind you – I do have a cold!

 

Happy Blue Monday

 

Nick Cooke

Take the Leisure Track to Learning to become a Mindfulness Teacher

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Due to popular demand, our Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training course is now going to be running on a weekend basis starting in the Autumn.

Mindfulness Meditation is the most popular course that Central England College runs and we’re frequently having to add people to the waiting lists so this will be a welcome addition to the college’s timetable! The course content is exactly the same as the Monday to Friday version but taught over the course of 3 weekends, each separated by a month.

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