SHIFT Lab

Real Mindfulness 10 Week Workshop & Mentor Program

Learning around:

What is Real Mindfulness?

Zen and the art of Flourishing and Flow

Intuition

Right thinking CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)

Visualisation and Journeying to remove blockages

Breath & Meditation Outcomes for Individuals:

Being more present in the moment

More open to receiving & giving

More effective in daily decision making

Being able to experience FLOW states on a daily basis

Allowing toxic stress events or changes to wash away…just letting go

Understanding the emotions need to be felt, like sorrow, fear, anger, but not allowing them to control you.

Experiencing more joy & happiness on a daily basis

Being more effective, engaged and productive in work and life

Creating better Work outcomes

Building resilience, helping avoid ‘burnouts’

Developing clarity on what’s important on a daily basis

Program Structure Week 1 Workshop 1 Introduction Session

At the introduction session we can introduce some assessments for the participants to check their level of current Mindfulness, which provides each participant certain areas of life, which if focused on in their work, as well as outside, will improve their level of flourishing.

These results can be used by mentor and participant as a guide over the course of 10 weeks,

Initial one on one meeting to gauge participants’ current state and discover what they hope to gain from the program.

A workshop will then be held to introduce the topics & expectations outlined above.

Week 2-9 8 Weekly Mentoring Sessions over phone, video or f2f.

Individual One to One mentoring tailored to each participant. Week 10 Workshop 2

A final workshop providing the skills necessary for participants to be able to monitor their own progress after the programs completion.

One last mentor session to check for understanding, to make sure that participants have gained what they had hoped to gain from the program and to receive feedback.

Program Content

What is Real Mindfulness?

A proper (even basic) understanding of where the concept of Mindfulness has come from.

Sometimes people feel that nothing is happening. This is because they have not been taught about why Mindfulness should be practiced.

There is no contradiction between having goals and Mindfulness, it is just that knowing that what really helps one to become content, to flourish is inside ourselves.

Participants will be able to start from a place of knowing that everything they want, they already have: so fulfilling their dreams becomes a bonus (not a stressful thing to crave).

Zen and the Art of Flow and Flourishing.

Here we can introduce participants to two happy side effects of Mindfulness: Flow and Flourishing.

Flow is a term from Positive Psychology that describes the state that one enters when one is working to the limits of one’s capabilities, doing something that one loves (see Mihály Csíkszentmihályi).

To bring more Flow into participant’s lives, we can use the answers to the Flourishing Assessment mentioned above to help them to bring the desired qualities, as much as possible, into their work and lives. For instance, someone who has a love of Beauty as one of their qualities could be mindful of every opportunity to make their work more aesthetically pleasing. Someone with a love of learning might start to look for new ways to do simple tasks at their work, by researching or taking courses.

Intuition.

Another happy side effect of Mindfulness is becoming more intuitive (Enlightened people were constantly having magical acts ascribed to them, most of which can be put down to being more Intuitive and “in the flow”).

Areas at work and home in which Intuition can help can be explored through a short introduction to how to contact that part of ourselves, which is usually (unless one is Mindful) too quiet to be heard.

Right thinking (CBT).

The skills taught in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy have been shown to help with depression and anxiety, especially where stress is a major component across our work and daily life.

These skills help to alleviate what are known as “Cognitive Distortions” such as:

- Having a ‘mental filter’ (only seeing negative things) - Disqualifying the positive - All or Nothing thinking - Overgeneralisation - Jumping to conclusions - Magnifying or Minimising (Catastrophising) - Personalisation - Shoulds and Oughts - Emotional Reasoning - Labelling

Learning the skills to avoid these types of thinking can help to make Mindfulness easier and provide more focus for flow and flourishing.

Visualisation & Journeying.

For any participants who feel that they have something in the way of their flow: that keeps them from being able to be mindful and intuitive, guided visualisation & meditation can be a powerful tool.

Participants can be guided to set up a “Sanctuary” inside themselves in which they will feel the protection, safety and quiet necessary to locate any blockages and remove them in a safe manner.

This form of psychology, known as trans-personal psychology can be a very quick way to deal with issues that mainstream psychology may take weeks or months to deal with (if at all).

Breath & Meditation

Developing daily habits around breath and just ‘being’

Learning mediation as a daily tool around Mindfulness.

Connecting to the ‘inner most you’

Experiencing more love, connectedness, compassion, empathy & joy in your daily life.

Building resilience around stress