Last week, Mindfulness practitioner, Lenora Fitzpatrick, gave an enlightening talk to parents as part of our teenage wellbeing and parenting programme. Over the years, she has run numerous mindfulness courses and tasters, and she’s clearly passionate about bringing mindfulness into our communities for children and adults to support our health and wellbeing. In this session, Lenora explained the importance of parents looking after their own health and wellbeing to help enable them to support, communicate with and care for others, especially their children.
Together as a group, ‘being mindful’ was defined as experiencing the present moment – rather than being on auto-pilot or focusing on the past or future which is our natural tendency. Mindfulness practice – which was explored within the session – is about strengthening the muscle of attention to help step back from the distractions and achieve clarity of the present situation.
The omnipresence of technology – mobile phones, social media, FaceTime, internet and so on – was highlighted as one of life’s key distractions, especially for young people. A poignant video, ‘Can we auto correct humanity?’ summed this up, which you can view here:
The core message: we all need to work hard to focus on what really matters, to be aware of life’s distractions and to make real connections with those around us. In today’s world, this requires practice and simple mindfulness techniques can help us refocus on what’s really important.
Here are some recommended resources for practising and learning more about Mindfulness:
BOOKS
Mark Williams and Danny Penman .Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World
Jon Kabit-Zinn. Wherever You go, There You Are.
Michael Chaskalson: Mindfulness in Eight Weeks
Teasdale, Williams and Segal: The Mindful Way Workbook
WEBSITES
www.bangorac.uk/mindfulness/audio
www.chrisgermer.com/meditations
www.gonoodle (Mindfulness and Movement for Children )
APPS
Headspace
Oxford Mindfulness MBCT
Calm
The Now
