Mindfulness

Do you suffer with repeated episodes of depression or anxiety? Are you stressed by chronic health conditions, caring for, or parenting someone with mental ill health?

Many of us spend a lot of time brooding about the past, worrying about the future, and being hard on ourselves. These habits of mind are difficult to control and often leave us feeling stressed and low.

Mindfulness can help.

Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention to the present moment. When we’re tuned in to the present moment, the mind is less likely to get caught up in unhelpful patterns of thinking and feeling.

Mindfulness helps us become more aware of our thoughts and emotions and relate to them in a different way. We learn skills that can help us to:

  • become more focussed and steady
  • feel less overwhelmed
  • respond more wisely to difficulties and stress.

Mindfulness can also help us learn to be kinder to ourselves and more accepting of how things are.

Staying present is not easy. Especially when we’re feeling stressed, or miserable. With patience and practice we can all learn to be more mindful more often.

Meet our mindfulness team

Our mindfulness team are:

  • Frances Rippon
  • Elizabeth (Liz) Upward
  • Lesley Roberts

Our mindfulness course teachers are all improving access to psychological therapies professionals. They are experienced in delivering talking therapy, and registered with the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches.

Our courses

We are currently running courses online via Microsoft Teams. This is easy to use and we recommend using a laptop or tablet, but a phone also works if that is your only option. We will hopefully offer a mixture of online and face-to-face courses in the future to make courses even more accessible.

See details on our 2 mindfulness courses below. There are also some words from people who have benefited from our mindfulness service.

If you think mindfulness could support you, complete a self-referral form. Tell the therapist at your assessment appointment that you are interested in mindfulness.

Introduction to mindfulness

4 sessions of 90 minutes.

A first step in mindfulness for anyone who is suffering or has suffered with depression, anxiety, stress, long-term health conditions.

Course aims

  • Practical support and tips for practising mindfulness.
  • Learning ways to apply mindfulness skills to everyday life.
  • Practising the skills and attitudes of mindfulness, including training attention, responding more flexibly to challenges, self-compassion, patience and acceptance.

What to expect

  • Small online, interactive groups
  • Practising mindfulness together in a non-judgemental, welcoming environment.
  • Group discussions (learning together).
  • Opportunity to practise regularly at home with materials we provide.
  • Encouragement to participate in whatever way you feel able.
  • Be yourself, come as you are.

"We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now." Jon Kabat Zinn.

Mindfulness based cognitive behavioural therapy

9 sessions of 2 hours, 15 minutes.

A mindfulness based cognitive behavioural therapy course will deepen your experience of mindfulness. It combines mindfulness meditation practices with elements from cognitive therapy to help change the way we meet habitual negative patterns that characterise depression, anxiety and chronic stress.

Aims of the course

  • Developing and deepening the skills and attitudes of mindfulness.
  • Inquiring into the processes that are being uncovered to support new choices and responses that relieve suffering.
  • Deepening the application of mindfulness to your everyday life.
  • Support to establish a regular mindfulness practice for your future.

What to expect

  • Small online interactive groups.
  • Practising mindfulness together in a non-judgemental, welcoming environment.
  • Group discussions (learning together).
  • Opportunity to practise daily at home with materials we provide.
  • Therapist support throughout the course.
  • A handbook with session summaries, notes and space for your own journaling.
  • Encouragement to participate in whatever way you feel able.
  • Be yourself, come as you are.
  • Ongoing resources after the course finishes.

We strongly encourage a practice period of 30 minutes a day during this course.

"Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present. Inviting ourselves to interface in each moment with full awareness." Jon Kabat Zinn.

Patient experience

"Not like any other course of this nature I had been on before. Helped to implement techniques into daily life."

"A safe and peaceful environment that I looked forward to."

"Gave me a toolkit for life."

"Most helpful to attend the whole course."

"Being kinder to myself and recognising what I need."

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course."

"It’s made me see I can deal with the bad stuff. I have another way of looking at things now."

"I was in a position of panic, fear, self doubt and scared for the future. I can see the difference in myself. I am aware of my pattern of thinking and now have the skills to see things differently, to see the bigger picture. I don’t quite know how mindfulness has done that, but it has. The group support has been a major part of that."