for Teachers of Mindfulness

A strong motivation for teaching mindfulness to others might be to share the gifts of our own practice. These might include benefits to our physical and mental wellbeing, improved relationships, a stronger sense of purpose and clarity, an increased ability to be present with our experience in a non-judgmental way, and perhaps a growing capacity to recognise and open up to moments of joy.

But, as Professor Paul Gilbert points out, living a life as a human being often means inhabiting complexity on many levels – physical, emotional, social and so on. Experience of trauma can have an array of devastating effects on our minds, bodies, brains as well as our relationships, communities and even societies. And so, despite our best intentions as mindfulness teachers, without insight, wisdom and understanding of how trauma may affect human beings and how it may manifest, we may be inadvertently contributing to deepening someone’s wounds.

David Treleaven, a therapist with lived experience of trauma, offers a framework – the 4 Rs – that may be helpful to consider for those wishing to teach mindfulness in a trauma-informed way:

1. Realise – this is about having that understanding about what trauma is, the different types of traumas, and how these impacts the human body, brain and mind, but also what effects it may have beyond the individual (e.g. intergenerational trauma, racial trauma etc.,).
2. Recognise – being able to recognise signs of trauma manifesting in the space where you are teaching. Some of these signs will be non-verbal.
3. Respond – knowing what to do and employing skilful means within one’s scope of practice to respond in a way that is likely to be supportive and helpful to an individual that is possibly struggling with trauma-related difficulties in the context of mindfulness teaching. This may also include referring on to a trauma specialist or mental health professional that works in a trauma-informed way.
4. (Avoid) Re-traumatisation – according to Treleaven, this is an overarching ethical principle of avoiding doing harm and can encompass all aspects of mindfulness practice/teaching e.g. using trauma-sensitive, inclusive language; considering the layout of the room and props available; thinking about structure and length of practices, adapting classes, practices and materials for the needs of a particular group (trauma-sensitive mindfulness) and so on.

Underlying all of these are also the main qualities of a mindfulness teacher – embodied, grounded and genuine presence, a sense of gentle, non-judgmental curiosity and compassion. As human beings we have the innate capacity to recognise and react to another’s suffering, and so it is not uncommon that mindfulness teachers can find themselves being affected by the suffering (including trauma-related issues) in their students. It is therefore essential that those teaching mindfulness are able to offer themselves unconditional support and know when and where to go for any additional support – as this constitutes part of our commitment to ethical and compassionate practice.

Our Trauma Informed Mindfulness for Teachers will be held at Samye Ling and Online 18-20 October 2024, led by Choden and Natasha Micharin

Trauma Informed Mindfulness for Teachers of Mindfulness (Samye Ling and Online)

After going to Jacky Seery’s wonderful Mindful Movement course I have reflected alot on her talk about pies!

There are mince pies, pork pies, meat and potato pies, apple pies….and there is a life pie.  This is the pie that we feel like we have been served by Life the Universe and Everything.  And the thing about this pie is that it looks exactly how we think it will look!

Neuro-science and evolutionary psychology tell us that are brains were not developed for happiness but for survival and for procreation.  We are wired to see threat and react rather than appreciate and enjoy the good things we have.  Rick Hanson says we need to think about something good for around 20 seconds in order for it to make an imprint on the brain – this is not so with something bad.

Jacky gave a really interesting example on the Mindful Movement course: she was teaching a group of new yoga teachers in Sweden, and after the course they got together to evaluate their progress.  They were all enthusiastic with their new studios and their new classes, but one teacher thought she might give up because the feedback from her class was “not good”.  Apparently, at the end of her first class of 30 people, a woman came up to her and said  that she would not be coming again because she did not like the class, it was not for her.  One woman in a class of 30 said the class was not for her, but the teacher singled this out and thought she must be no good at teaching yoga!  How many of us have had one piece of poor feedback, or been given some criticism, or had a job rejection, or a brush-off and gone away thinking that we therefore must be rubbish?

What has this got to do with pies? Well when this teacher came with her tale of woe she had made this one bad piece of feedback into her whole yoga teacher pie!  It had to be pointed out to her that one bad feedback meant 29 good ones! So suddenly the pie was divided into 30 with just one small segment being poor feedback.

Thinking about our own habits  we in the UK do like a good moan:  We have a lovely day out but what do we talk about? The downpour walking back to the car at the end, or the one shop assistant who was rude, or the ice-cream that fell on the floor.  It is so easy – and it is part of being human – to make the one bad thing the whole pie, when if we actually stopped for a few seconds and divided our pie properly we find that the bad thing is just one small segment in a good day.

It is very easy to do this in our lives too – especially when we are having a tough time.  Last year was a really tough year for our family: with serious illness in the family, bereavement, major operations, flooding, major building works, money issues – the lot! It was tempting to wonder what we had done to deserve all this stuff. Life could be very bleak.  It was tempting to allow myself to be wrapped in this bleak and awful time – to allow all this difficult stuff to be the whole pie.  I had to work really hard to take out my pie and slicer and recognise the context of this year: a life, full and interesting with its ups and downs like everyone else, a home, good food, the love and companionship of family and friends, the sunset over the hills each night, the sound of the birds and the rain, the beauty of mountains, trees and flowers.  So so much I have. So so much life I have had. However hard my life was – and it was hard – I recognised each day that I also lived in the midst of many good things that came to me DAILY.  When I sliced up my pie mindfully, I could see that this difficulty was a segment of a well lived life.  When I sliced up my pie mindfully I found joy even on the most difficult of days – because something good was always there alongside the bad.

We are all human and our human lives are filled with joy and sorrow, we have good times and difficult times, and sometimes we have good and difficult times running together! With our human minds primed for threat it is so easy for us to see the whole pie of our life as bad.  It is so easy to focus on the difficulty and pain to the extent we blot out from our consciousness the good people and things we have in our lives.  It can be so easy to wrap the cloak of fear, of pain, of anger or grief around ourselves so it becomes who we are, it becomes part of our identity.  When we do this we only increase our suffering as it envelopes us, blotting out what is good.

It is my belief that grief, sorrow, pain, fear, anger, hate, and suffering need not have the last word in our lives or the world’s. We may call it ‘taking in the good’ or ‘gratitude’ or ‘thanksgiving, but our daily practice is to reach for the pie slice, to recognise within our lives both the difficulty but also the blessing. We must make a point of seeing the sunset or sunrise, make a point of hearing the birds sing, listening to the rain.  It is making a point of being with friends and remembering together the joy of good company and good times now and in the past.  It is making a point of gathering daily or each week with others to reinforce our practice of gratitude or thanksgiving.

Filled with good things we can find we nourish ourselves, and may then have enough good to offer to others. Filled with good things we can be generous in heart and mind, we can find joy in the small things in the midst of suffering, and show kindness to others suffering, or simply doing their best.  Life with the pie slicer can bring joy to oneself and others!

And so our first step today, right now, is to get out the slicer and cut up the pie of our day, savouring and giving thanks for all the good things we have, filling ourselves up with all that is good.  Filled with good things we face our humanity with courage.

Friends, May you be happy, May you have joy without needing a cause, may you  be filled with fun and laughter, generosity and awe, May you know the deep peace of acceptance and be content.

Ruth Weston

The Level 1 course begins with a standalone introductory weekend at Samye Ling or 4 evening sessions online. Some of the in-person weekends may have a theme such as Mindfulness and Movement, Mindfulness in Nature, Mindfulness and Poetry or Mindfulness and Stress. After the introductory module participants are invited to complete the Level 1 course by attending 3 further modules.  My observation is that often the participants have completed the course before. Second time around they seem to enjoy attending again with their ‘beginners mind’ and a sense of curiosity with an opportunity to spend a weekend or evening just practicing with others.

I have particularly found Mindfulness in Nature very transformative for participants.  At Samye Ling we have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the beautiful natural surroundings which is a mindful practice just by its very essence. Research tells us that Mindfulness with Nature is proving to be more beneficial than Mindfulness alone.

The feedback we receive from participants about the course never fails to touch my heart. And every time I hear how Mindfulness has transformed a life in some way, whether it is reducing anxiety and stress, taking a calmer approach to life, or reacting less, it reinforces my joy and commitment to teaching the course.  It also makes me realise, that for me personally, it is the best job in the world, and I feel very fortunate in being able to share Mindfulness through the Level 1 Course.

A very important aspect of the Mindfulness Association Courses is Compassion. The idea of being kind and compassionate towards ourselves is introduced very early on in the course. The definition of Mindfulness that we use on the course comes from Rob Nairn, who was integral to the development of the course. He says “Mindfulness is knowing what is happening while it is happening, whatever it is”.  The more we become mindful the more we notice about ourselves and how we react. It’s a bit like turning up the dimmer switch in a room and suddenly noticing the rubbish swept into the corners.  Therefore, it is quite important for us as part of the training to cultivate an attitude of kindness and acceptance towards ourselves. This takes time of course, but from experience I have noticed that the process of the course is proven and works, and that most participants achieve this in varying degrees by the end of the course.

A typical Mindfulness course has the following practices within it: a body scan, observing the breath and noticing thoughts. We include compassion practices such as self-compassion break, which was developed by Kristin Neff and the Loving Kindness practice. Research conducted by Kok and Singer revealed evidence of the impact of each of these practices individually.

[Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations. Kok, Singer, 2016 p.9]

As you can see each of these practices is likely to lead to a decreased tendency to be distracted by thoughts.  Mindfulness helps us to train the mind to notice thoughts and come back to our present moment experience using sound, breath, movement, or the feel of the body. We also begin to notice that the stream of thoughts we call the undercurrent, can actually affect how we live our lives without us realising. So noticing thoughts is very important part of the process, so we have less tendency to get lost in thoughts and begin to over think. We can also see from the research that the compassion practice of Loving Kindness is a key practice towards increasing positive thoughts and begins to give us a sense of common humanity.  This is a positive breakthrough as once we begin to positively link thoughts of self and other we realise we are not alone in our suffering or problems.

Near the end of the course we introduce the RAIN practice which was made popular by Tara Brach.  So far in the course we have learned to notice what the mind does and where it goes.  We then use techniques to help calm the mind and bring it back to the present moment and notice how we are often on auto pilot. This helps us to regain some control of our minds and cultivate a sense of kindness for ourselves just for being human, and finally reach a point of acceptance.  We use the Rumi poem – The Guesthouse to introduce the practice of RAIN (which stands for Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Non identification). During the practice we notice something difficult such as a thought, emotion or pain and pay it some deep attention so we can understand how it is affecting us and whether we are allowing it to define us in any way. I can remember wearing some of my difficulties in life like a cloak, and notice others doing the same.

THE GUEST HOUSE

“This being human is a guesthouse.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.“
RUMI

As we find out more about any of these guests which manifest as thoughts and feelings, we can begin the process of learning to accept.  In that comes a sigh of relief that we don’t need to invest so much time and energy and suffering battling with them.

As you can see from the following feedback from various Level 1 Courses, participants talk of transformation and found they were able to reach a place of acceptance.

Feedback on the Mindfulness Level 1 Course:

“I scaled it back to its barest truth and that was purely to accept myself. In this recognition a huge shift took place and acceptance happened automatically, it was so beautifully obvious”.

“I’ve never devoted so much to being mindful and this deepened myself understanding. I began to see through the layers of conditioning and personality which have caused me problems and held me back from peace. On Sunday evening I was literally looking for my previous problems and anxieties and couldn’t see them”.

“Reminder about the importance of living life in the moment and looking after yourself”.

“its transformational”

“The Mindfulness course is a pathway to knowing yourself more. Learning the practices has a calming effect and are a pathway to getting a handle on habitual thinking and a deeper sense of self beyond the mind”.

“It’s a really good introduction to this amazing practice”.

“I love how experiential the course is, and the way in which we are told that we can’t get it wrong etc. I find really helpful”.

“The sessions were relaxed and fun and encouraged you to think about mindfulness in different ways”.

“By the end of the course I was able to incorporate mindfulness practice into my daily routine”.

“It goes deeper into mindfulness practice than using an app and the focus on compassion is beautiful and necessary”.

The journey towards acceptance might feel like a long one, but with practice we can begin to gain an insight into its benefits.

Rob Nairn shares his thoughts on the importance of our progress towards a state of acceptance in this video.

Once a Mindfulness practice is established from the Level 1 course, some people feel so inspired at their insights that they decide they’d like to teach to share the benefits with others.  Others are inspired to deepen their practice with a more in-depth dive into Compassion, and continue the journey, through Insight and Wisdom.

My personal experience is that Mindfulness alone isn’t enough. I need a sustained and continuous journey.  I also find it’s a bit like a game of snakes and ladders. For a while I might feel I am doing well and climb up various ladders only to find I slide back to the beginning on a long slippery snake.  And Mindfulness has taught me that that’s ok too. It’s all part of the magical journey of Mindfulness.

The next opportunity to train in Mindfulness are combined with a nature element at Samye Ling 15-17 September and our new venue – Cascades Gardens 23-24 September. Following that the next Mindfulness course starts online in the evenings on 28^th September.

Jacky Seery

Modern sage, Gabor Mate, describes trauma a wound to our psyche that manifests in two ways. Firstly, it is an open wound that has never healed and each time it is touched we flinch in pain. So much of the time what shows up in the present moment are pains and losses we experienced in the past.  These are held in our body in the form of an open wound. For example, if we suffered abandonment and loss of love as a child, whenever we experience separation now – even routine events like our loved one going on a business trip – we might overreact and have inexplicable feelings of loss and abandonment that might show up in the form of hypervigilance or numbness.

Secondly, this open wound is covered over by scar tissue that is hard and inflexible. Scar tissue does not grow and it does not feel. Similarly, the protective defences against trauma numb our feelings of wellbeing and vitality. We end up living joyless lives, but we still feel the pain of trauma just beneath the surface of the skin.

Gabor Mate goes on to say that the real tragedy of trauma is not what happened to us in the past; these things are bad in themselves – like abuse or neglect or abandonment. The real issue is the disconnection from self. We lose touch with our sense of inner authenticity – knowing and feeling who we really are. For many of us there was an intolerable tension between our core needs of attachment and authenticity when we were young. We depended on the love of our parents to survive, and if we were given the message that certain feelings like anger were not okay, we shut down these feelings.

But anger is a valuable emotion because it is a way of asserting what is okay and what is not okay – establishing the boundaries of our inner world. But, when there is a toss-up between attachment and authenticity, the former always prevails because it is such a core survival instinct. We need our caregivers in order to survive. But it comes at a great cost, namely the surrender and shut down of our intrinsic felt sense of who we are. This often manifests later in life as the inability to say No.

This surrender of authenticity in favour of attachment is summed up by a line from a song by Elvis Presley: ‘I will be anything you want me to be, just hold me’

Mindfulness is a very effective way of approaching the core wound of disconnection in our being and gradually removing the scar tissue so that it can heal. But mindfulness on its own is not enough; it needs to be accompanied by acceptance and self-compassion.

Something that is also very important when practising mindfulness is that we stay within our widow of tolerance. If mindfulness is practised without an awareness of trauma it can deepen the wound and result in strong feelings of numbing and hypervigilance. Moreover, if we overdo it, it can even re-traumatise us.

But if we practice mindfulness, acceptance and self-compassion within a trauma informed context, and with an awareness of our own personal history of trauma, it can be an extraordinary method for healing and transformation. It can be the route back to the wholeness and freedom of our true nature. It is like the curse is lifted from Sleeping Beauty and she can begin to smile again.

On the weekend of 8 – 10 September this year at Samye Ling, Natasha and Choden will offer a context for understanding trauma and coming to our unique understanding of how it has impacted on our lives. From this place we can begin to practice mindfulness in a way that heals and liberates us rather than deepening the wound of disconnection. Natasha will focus on providing the psychological context of trauma and Choden will offer mindfulness, acceptance and self-compassion skills.

The journey starts by coming face to face with the unruly and unsettled nature of our mind that jumps from one experience to another causing us all manner of stress and confusion. We all know what it is like to be tossed and turned by the ups and downs of life, feeling agitated and reactive, whilst lacking a firm anchor of stability within – like a rudderless vessel adrift in the wild and windy sea.

In the Level One: Being Present module of the mindfulness training we teach you how gradually to gain mastery over your attention whilst also learning to accept your changing states of mind and body. It is very empowering when you realise that you can choose the emotions, thought patterns and beliefs you want to nurture within you, and you can craft the life you want to live. There is also a balance between sitting meditation practice and learning how to consciously bring mindfulness into daily life.

The Level Two: Responding with Compassion training builds on the practice of acceptance by offering important skills for learning to face and befriend our inner tormentor, the self-critic, whilst also learning to take care of the vulnerable feelings within that it is trying so hard to protect. This is the birth of self-compassion – learning to become our own best friend – that is so important for so many people. This matures into a genuine, lasting compassion for other people, animals and the environment using the Buddhist model of the 4 Limitless Qualities: loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity. This includes the practice of tonglen – taking and sending – which is a powerful method for transforming difficult feelings into the healing energy of compassion.

The Level Three Insight module (Seeing Deeply) builds on the compassion training and goes deeper by uncovering and transforming the powerful habit patterns that rule our lives. Many of these habits operate unseen within us at a subliminal level of mind. A key principle of this module is ‘the seeing is the doing’. When we recognise unhelpful patterns within us, the simple act of seeing them clearly is itself the beginning of becoming free of them. We also learn to tame our strong negative emotions, like anger, craving and jealousy, and uncover the wisdom energy that lies within them. For example, when we face anger instead of being seduced into its destructive stories and projections, we uncover a source of vitality, energy and clarity that cuts to the root of confusion and is a strong ally in navigating life’s ups and downs.

The Level Four wisdom module is the crown jewel of the 4 year training. Here we discover the part of us that was always completely undamaged, free and at peace no matter what traumas or difficulties befell us in our lives. Sometimes this goes by the name of ‘Buddha Nature’ – an inner source of joy and perfection that lies waiting to be discovered within us. When we touch this part of ourselves everything changes. We go about our lives with more lightness and joy and we navigate the difficulties that life throws up with grace and ease. In the wisdom module we work both with imagination practices and deepening insight practices. This stage of the training can bring deep and lasting change but it is very important to do the preliminary modules of mindfulness, compassion and insight. They create the conditions for the flowering of wisdom in our hearts and minds.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Join us for free relaxed guided meditation sessions each day at 10.30am and 7pm (Monday – Friday) UK GMT. No need to sign up, see you there? Follow this link > DAILY GUIDED MEDITATION