Humans are experts at making judgments. Our smart brains are always making decisions. 6.30 am- yes time to get up. Should I go to the gym - No, it’s too comfy in bed. Should I do some morework on that presentation? Yes, I’m worried others will be critical. What do I need to do to make it perfect it?
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We make judgments all of the time. Our lives depend on them. While they are an essential decision-making tool judgments can get out of control if used in unhelpful ways. I got it wrong, I'm such an idiot! What will they think of me…I  had better work non-stop! In our mindfulness practice, we attempt to cultivate a non-judging attitude. Why and what does this mean?

“Instead of fixating on the peaks of civilisation, we need to pay attention to the foothills’ ... Fans Wels, a Dutch biologist

Do you remember Week 4 in MBSR when we talked about how the design of our human brain  leaves us prone to stress?  In the compassion course, we go into more detail on our brain by learning about our 3 emotional regulation systems, the safety system, the drive system and the soothing system.  The course focuses on how we can can compassionately care for ourselves by getting to know all 3 systems and learn to intentionally activate the soothing system.
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But first a quick,  recap on the story of our 'Triune brain'…Our species evolved over millions of years, and much of the structure of our brain evolved in pre-human existence.  Our current brain  has  'old' reptilian and mammalian parts and a 'new' homo-sapien section.

"The richness of present-moment experience is the richness of life itself. Too often we let our thinking and our beliefs about what we “know” prevent us from seeing things as they really are. We tend to take the ordinary for granted and fail to grasp the extraordinariness of the ordinary"…Jon Kabbat-Zinn

Life is made of many moments, and if we miss the moments, we lose much of the richness in our lives. When I first learned to draw it took a long time to learn to unsee. My ideas of what a body looked like, a house looked like, and a tree looked like got in the way of seeing what was really there. I had to unlearn seeing.

To see with a beginners mind, is to see as if for the first time. When I began to do this, my drawings begin to reflect what was in front of me rather than the very flat and stereotyped representations that lived in my mind.

Compassion!  Who needs compassion? Why on earth would I want to do a course about compassion? This is a good question and is  we begin the Living Mindfully With Compassion course by asking, "What reasons can you come up with for ​not​ participating in compassion training?"

Some common responses are:

How many times have you made a New Year resolution not to keep it? How often do you think about something you’d like to change and you don't change it  or do and you don’t do it? How many times have you resolved to begin or maintain a regular meditation practice and not done it? Perhaps now is the time to book an MBSR course. This 8-week course allows you to start, get hesitant and start again. It offers the time, structure, teacher and group support needed to begin to develop a habit.
One of the writers I love who speaks about making the changes you want to make is a sassy presenter, Kelly Mc Gonnigal. She’s practical, funny, full of ideas and very entertaining. She’s good to watch and good to read.  

When you come to a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)  course, you learn many mindfulness practices that build on each other.

We begin with body practices (body scan, yoga and walking). What we learn in the body practices informs our breathing practice, and from there we move to an open awareness practice.

​It is important to experience all of these practices, to learn what they offer and to emerge from the course with a capacity to work wisely, choosing and mixing the different meditation practices to best "meet yourself at the moment". The meditation jargon calls this, "working with skilful means'.

Here are 8 Tips to be more skillful.