“It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.” ― Ann Landers
I was asked “How would you do this?” which sparked a lively discussion. The first point is this…. You can not do mindfulness to people!
My concern was…. unless the teachers themselves are practicing mindfulness, how on earth are they expected to be able to teach it, or share the benefits with the pupils. Its like asking a maths teacher to teach art or visa versa.
The second point, I pointed out was that the idea of being able to share mindfulness practices in one day is possible – I have attended a one day taster course before as a mindfulness practitioner to help the programme leader by sharing best practices – but to really start on the journey, you have to either do the 8 week MBSR [Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction] programme, or something similar. You then have to start to practice it as often as you can, ideally for at least 15-30 minutes every day.
People come to mindfulness through many different routes; some through formal training; some through group work; some through activities at their work place or even, as in my case, following the Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world book written by Professor Mark Williams and Doctor Danny Penman. This is the same 8-week programme that is run at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre [run by Professor Williams and the programme that Ruby Wax did].
In my next post, I’ll share the examples we talked about.
Martin Summerhayes 