Ireland's Mister Mindfulness, Frank Liddy, becomes Zen chaplain to Belfast City Council

Image from Belfast Telegraph

If Ireland has a "Mister Mindfulness" his name is Frank Liddy and he's based in Belfast. If you're involved in mindfulness work you won't spend long in Belfast without hearing his name. He runs the Mindfulness Belfast website  along with David Cameron (no, not that one).

According to the Belfast Telegraph, he is now the first Zen chaplain to Belfast City Council "his role is to provide secular advice for the Lord Mayor, and he is also a mindfulness practitioner for Aware, the Northern Ireland based depression charity."

He was appointed as a local assistant to the Dalai Lama on the latter's two visits to Belfast.

I really like this quote from the Belfast Telegraph article:

"My Zen teacher told me that I had two lives. When I asked when I would get my second life he told me it was when I realised that I had only one. The idea is that only when you fully realise that you have one life is when you will live it to the full."

He is a member of the Black Mountain Zen Centre in Belfast.

The Meditation How website  has this interview with Frank Liddy about how he came to Zen via the trauma of the Troubles and his discovery of Transcendental Meditation.

Oh, and it you'd like to hear the Body Scan delivered in a Belfast accent, check this out.

Click for my free audios/resources and my courses.

Mindfulness help counsellors engage with clients

From PsychCentral: Virginia Tech University is using a progressive method to help train students to be emotionally present during therapy sessions.

The university is integrating mindfulness meditation into its Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) program curriculum.

According to Eric McCollum, professor of human development at the university, “Mindfulness meditation helps students improve their ability to be emotionally present in therapy sessions with clients. It helps beginners, who can sometimes feel overwhelmed, stop focusing on themselves and think more about others.”

To continue reading, go here to PsychCentral.com

Using mindfulness with schoolchildren

An elementary school at Oakland, California, has introduced a 5-week mindfulness programme for students with the help of a mindfulness coach. The programme seems to have improved discipline and self-esteem but some teachers remain sceptical.

Go here for a report entitled In the classroom, a new focus on quieting the mind, by insightflorida.org. The link opens a pdf file.

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Mindfulness for the Nursing Profession

From Exquisitemind's Blog: “Today’s healthcare environment is turbulent, rapidly presenting nurses with stimuli, interruptions, and competing priorities. The stakes of success are extraordinarily high; nurses in all roles must cope successfully with numerous demands to make timely, accurate decisions affecting human lives.” (Pipe et al., 2009)

Nursing professionals face enormous challenges. The work is difficult and demands full presence, energy, and commitment. Stress is a pervasive fact of the profession, and it affects institutions and individuals, and even the caring relationship itself. Stress can impair the health care provider’s ability to observe, to listen, and to understand the patient. To practice safely, healthfully, and with compassion, nurses need to effectively manage stress. Taken to an extreme, when acute stress becomes chronic, impairments can be seen in immune system and cognitive functioning. One research group rang a note of caution that “unfortunately, breakdowns in attention raise the risk of serious consequences such as symptom recognition, medication errors, and patient safety issues” (Pipe et al. 2009).

Mindfulness is a proven strategy that can help nurses to cope with the demands of their work and their lives (Baer 2003; Carmody et al., 2009; Grossman, 2004; Ludwig & Kabat-Zinn, 2008). Of the hundreds of clinical studies conducted on mindfulness-based interventions, 75% of them have been conducted in the past five years pointing to the mindfulness revolution sweeping health care.

To read the rest of this article go to Exquisite Mind's Blog.

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It’s midnight: Do you know where your mind is?

From the Vermont Digger: “I think, therefore I am”……worried, perplexed, agitated, confused, preoccupied…..and just plain stressed-out and unhappy. Forget Descartes: You may not know your own mind literally; and that’s the problem.

“Don’t worry, be happy” just won’t cut it!

“Yes, I admit I’ve got a thinking problem….” goes the country song.

If only there were AA for the mind—12 steps to end over-thinking, obsessing and self-preoccupation–over-thought and overwrought. But let’s face it, there’s a lot to be anxious, depressed, angry and concerned about here in 2010, with jobs, (if we have one), finances, relationships, health and the vicissitudes of life in general.

It may not be our lives but our minds that are driving us crazy, according to an ancient Buddhist practice called mindfulness, which examines how our minds work and how they can contribute to our misery.

To remedy the stress and emotional distress of mindless living, we may need to just stop living life as emotional automatons—going through the motions emotionally. “Having a great time, wish I were here,” writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at University of Massachusetts Medical School, in his book, “Coming to Our Senses.” It’s the “can’t remember driving the last 20 miles” school of living.

To read the rest of this article go to the Vermont Digger.

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Doctors using mindfulness to beat burnout

Doctors use mindfulness to beat burnout and to gain other side-effect benefits such as boosting empathy with patients according to this post on the Mindful Coaching blog.

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Introducing clients to mindfulness

As with any therapeutic tool, the issues of appropriateness and timing are crucial in introducing clients to mindfulness. It is very appropriate to introduce mindfulness to a client who is constantly buffeted by his or her own thoughts. On the other hand a mindfulness exercise may seem inappropriate as an intervention for a client who is trying to decide whether or not to take a promotion.

Similarly, it may or may not be right to introduce a mindfulness practice during the first session. The too early introduction of techniques can leave a client feeling unheard and unless the client feels heard the counselling is unlikely to work.

So you, as a mental health professional, must make a judgment as to whether, when and how to introduce mindfulness.

How to do it? I generally have a sheet on the table with a basic mindfulness exercise (the one at the top of this blog) and information on a couple of other practices. Then I might say something like, "I have an exercise here that many clients find helpful and that I use myself. Maybe you might like to try it out."

Then I briefly explain what mindfulness is and introduce them to the basic exercise. I point out that it can be done in 40 seconds or 40 minutes depending on their preference. I suggest they run through it on getting up in the morning, at odd intervals during the day and when they wake up in bed at night. Sometimes we both do the exercise together.

Here is the introduction on top of the sheet I give clients to take away:

"Mindfulness involves taking your attention away from the past and future and away from your imagination - and instead becoming aware of what is going on right now. You can do this as you go about your daily life. Notice with your senses: what you are seeing and hearing, that you are breathing, standing, walking or sitting or lying down, the feel of the air against your skin as you move along."

"Your mind will keep drifting out of the present so you need to keep bringing it back. It is bringing your mind back to the present that makes up the practice of mindfulness. Never criticise your mind for drifting away: just bring it back kindly and gently."

"Mindfulness has been used for thousands of years in the Buddhist tradition to improve people’s experience of life. It lowers anxiety and stress, provides an antidote to brooding (which can lead to, or maintain, depression). It also helps you to avoid endlessly repeating distressing or unhelpful thoughts, images and mental scenes. Exercises like those below have been used for centuries to help people practice mindfulness as they go about their daily life. The first two need only take a minute or so but will help you if you repeat them a few times a day."

Here are the three exercises as they appear on the sheet:

Awareness

From time to time, notice your breathing.

Notice your posture.

Notice the points of contact between your body and the chair, floor, ground.

Notice your clothes touching your body.

Notice sounds in the room; sounds outside the room; the furthest away sound you can hear.

Every time you drift into thinking, just return to noticing these sensations.

Mindfulness Cues

This involves using habitual behaviours to remind you to practice mindfulness. Choose one or two and then decide that when performing them you will maintain awareness of what you are doing, rather than daydreaming or getting caught up in fears or anxieties: Using the telephone ~ Going up or down stairs or steps ~ Using a computer mouse or keyboard ~ Tidying ~ Washing up ~ Showering.

Awareness of Breathing

As you go through your day, notice your breathing from time to time. All you need to do is notice your breathing: you don’t have to breathe in any special way. Are you breathing with your chest or your tummy (abdominal breathing is usually more relaxing)? As you breathe, can you feel movement in your diaphragm (between your ribs and your abdomen)? Can you feel the air entering and leaving your nostrils?