Learning MBSR: fifth evening of the course - the value of "difficult" practice sessions & of "concentration"
28th October 2011
Yesterday evening was the fifth session of the MBSR course that I'm attending. I'd missed the fourth session because of my wife's birthday, but I did jot down some thoughts last week in the blog post "Learning MBSR: ... body scan, Damasio on identity, and informal practice". There were seven …
A better way to measure mindfulness: a short form of the five facet questionnaire
25th October 2011
A short 24-item version of the Five facet mindfulness questionnaire - the FFMQ-SF - is downloadable both as a Word doc and in PDF format. Mindfulness is currently a real focus for research, therapy and general interest. To help discussion be constructive it's very important that we're clear what we're …
Learning MBSR: fourth evening of the course - body scan, Damasio on identity, and informal practice
21st October 2011
I wrote last week about the third evening of this eight session MBSR course. The fourth session was yesterday evening and I missed it. It was my wife's birthday and I'd told the course teacher when I enrolled that I wouldn't get to this fourth meeting ... or to the …
Peer groups: Scottish Mixed Group – final morning
19th October 2011
The final morning of the group. Still strong feelings settling from the evening before. Caring for each other. Re-strengthening the group "container". We wobbled a good deal later on on Sunday, but I think everyone can feel good about "keeping the show on the road". Potentially very helpful learning. And …
Peer groups: Scottish Mixed Group – second full day: bumps, maintaining the group, emotions & cognitive processing
18th October 2011
I wrote in the last blog post about the first part of the second full day at Glassie. Later on in the afternoon we moved into a more "bumpy" phase of the group. Often in these more difficult interactions there is the richest learning for everyone involved if one has …
Peer groups: Scottish Mixed Group – second full day: emotional ‘cooking’ in the group, and personal work too
17th October 2011
I wrote yesterday about the first full day of this "long weekend" residential peer group. The second day of the weekend was particularly rich - very nourishing or a bit too much depending partly on one's digestion. So after the usual walks, talks, meditations, long chatty breakfasts, we began again …
Peer groups: Scottish Mixed Group – first full day: small support & full group work, gender ‘fishbowls’
16th October 2011
Again it's a little before 6.30am. Pitch black outside. I wrote yesterday morning about the first evening of this group. We then went on to the first full day. How was it? Well it seemed to me that we've begun to find our feet well. The morning began with people …
Peer groups: Scottish Mixed Group – beginning, initial thoughts, exciting & edgy
15th October 2011
About 6.30 in the morning. The lights of Aberfeldy shining through the dark from down in the valley. We're at Glassie Farm Bunkhouse - fourteen of us staying here for three days. I've written about this kind of peer group residential on a whole series of occasions on this blog …
Learning MBSR: third evening of the course - the surprising importance of practising mindfulness during movement
14th October 2011
Well last night was the third session of this MBSR course. I wrote last week about the second evening and also about mindfulness during daily activities. We packed a lot into this session - there were four practical meditation exercises involving attending to sounds, breath & body awareness, mindfulness during …
Mindfulness during daily activities: is it helpful to vary the proportions of the five facets?
11th October 2011
"If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things, this is the best season of your life." Wu-men This is one of a series of blog posts triggered by attending a MBSR training - see for example the recent "Learning mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR): second evening of the course". A key …