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Non-judging - why is this such a key part of mindfulness?

26/1/2019

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"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom"   ...Victor Frankyl
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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?


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Watch a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course on ABC Catalyst, Feb 19, 2019.

22/1/2019

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Have you ever wondered what an MBSR course is really liked?  Contemplated booking in but not been certain about it?

ABC Catalyst have filmed an MBSR course. This screens next week on February 19. Our next course starts the week after. So watch and be inspired.

The course was filmed in late 2018. Fourteen people with diverse backgrounds and life experience  bravely signed up to be filmed on their journey through the course. I met the Catalyst MBSR class in week 3 of their course when I filled in for their wonderful teacher Timothea Goddard and will be witting with them as they watch the screening.


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Compassion & our 3 emotional regulation systems.

15/1/2019

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“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.


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A mindful mind is a beginners mind.

31/12/2018

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"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.


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Compassion: Who needs it?

21/12/2018

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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:


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How mindfulness can stop you procrastinating and help you keep your new years resolutions

20/12/2018

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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.  

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She has a useful book called ,”The willpower instinct”. She dispenses with words like procrastination and speaks about “willpower challenges”. Try this on! Say to yourself, “I’m a chronic procrastinator” and feel into the impact on you. Now say, “I’m facing a willpower challenge”. Which is the more empowering. For me, it feels like there is definitely more possibility of dealing with a will power challenge.

In 2018, I wrote a 5 week willpower course based on her work for procrastinating university students . The course combined her tips with procrastination, heaps of entertaining research antidotes, bits of procrastination brain science and a weekly short mindfulness practice.


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Meditation: 8 tips to guide your practice?

10/12/2018

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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.


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Living Mindfully With Compassion- a follow up course to complete MBSR

21/11/2018

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For the last 2 years, I  have run a February follow-up course to MBSR - a compassion course. In the first year, 15 people came along. Last year, six of those fifteen came back for the second time and some have said they will do it as a yearly event. So why do people come back? 

There’s a Zen saying: “Kindness is the fruition of awareness, and awareness is the foundation of kindness.” The group consensus is that this course  adds to MBSR which has an explicit focus on awareness, by bringing an equally explicit focus of kindness to the fore!

The Dutch founders of the course, Eric van der Brink and Frits Koster thought that MBSR/CT was too short for many people. They felt that this was particularly so for those of us who are either experts at being self-critical, perfectionistic, prone to being driven (striving), or uncomfortably familiar with shame. Almost everyone really!

Recent research adds credence to their decision with self-compassion practices being being increasingly documented as having many benefits. I'll speak more about these in future newsletters.


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Just be patient!

2/11/2018

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In this world of interconnectivity and instant results, cultivating patience can feel almost antithetical. 

I was talking to an impatient new mum yesterday and remembering how many stages my son went through as a baby and how each step seemed to persist for a very long time. The crying at 1.00am seemed to go on forever. In reality, it was probably over in less than 12 weeks.  The throwing food on the floor stage lasted …, well a few months. 

In retrospect, I would like to say to the younger me, "relax, be patient, enjoy".  "Whatever you do, however you respond, these stages will pass, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly."


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Quote me on mindfulness!

10/10/2018

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“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness.  Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.” 
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Quotes! A good quote can capture a key idea in just a few words. It can stay with you and nurture you. Read on for a compilation of quotes by Jon Kabat-Zinn the founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction that I've put together to reflect on how mindfulness adds to daily life.
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The importance of paying attention to small moments
Mindfulness is a way of learning to pay attention. When we pay attention and we are not on automatic pilot we get to notice the texture of life- whatever that may be. JKZ says, ​​“The little things? The little moments? They aren't little.”  The more mindful we are the more we catch the small moments that make up life.


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    Author

    Tienne Simons is a therapist and the founder of HeadRest Mindfulness training. She did her training in MBSR when she became convinced that the program was not only a useful add on to therapy for many but sometimes a more appropriate way to support people than counselling. She has had a mindfulness practice for about 30 years- well nearly!

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