The website has been updated! Now you can join a mailing list to receive updates from Holistic Education on events and information about its activities. You can also specify your interests, choosing from Mindfulness, Yoga, Holistic Therapies and Educational Psychology Services. if you’d like to join, please click on the picture or here for the sign up form. Best wishes, Bernadette
Hackney Learning Trust runs all the education services for the London Borough of Hackney.
It is responsible for schools, children’s centres, early years and adult education.
Last week, on 20th May, I held the third session of the Mindfulness Interest Group. It was heartening to see over twenty people, from Hackney Council and the Learning Trust, giving up their lunch break to learn about and practice mindfulness together.
I gave a short presentation on Mindfulness and Finding Peace in a Frantic World and we did the Raisin Exercise and a sitting mindfulness practice.
Overall, feedback was positive and I look forward to the next session on 17th June 2014. For more information about this, or if you’d like an introductory workshop on Mindfulness at your workplace, please contact me. Best wishes, Bernadette
Hackney Learning Trust runs all the education services for the London Borough of Hackney.
It is responsible for schools, children’s centres, early years and adult education.
On Thursday, 1st May, was the second meet-up of the Mindfulness Interest Group. It is a supportive and friendly group for those interested in mindfulness who are working for Hackney Council. The aim of the group is to meet up monthly, at the Hackney Learning Trust, to share about mindfulness-related events and projects in the borough and to do some mindfulness practice together.
Most of the group are completely new to practising mindfulness.. and the advantage is that this encourages coming to mindfulness with a “beginner’s mind”, a combination of openness, curiosity and healthy scepticism. To learn mindfulness, effort is needed. Although the practice itself is simple, it takes effort and self-encouragement to persevere with it. The Mindfulness Interest Group provides an opportunity to take a “breathing space” and practice tools needed to enhance well-being and resilience and reduce the effects of stress in the workplace.
The British Wheel of Yoga is the largest yoga membership organisation in the UK. It is committed to promoting a greater understanding of yoga and its safe practice through experience, education, study and training.
On Wednesday, 30 April, the new term began for the beginner and intermediate yoga classes that I run at the City of London Community Education Centre. I have been teaching in this context since September 2000. Over the last 5 years, these courses have been managed by Hackney Community College. If you would like to enhance your health and well-being and live or work close to or in the city, there are still a few places in the classes and you are welcome to join. if you are interested, call 020 7332 3918 or 020 7608 2753 or email adulteducation@cityoflondon.gov.uk.
These classes are a fantastic opportunity to learn about yoga with an emphasis on bringing mindfulness to the practice to develop awareness, balance, flexibility and strength. As a British Wheel of Yoga qualified teacher, I have experience and training in adapting the yoga practices to suit a broad range of age and ability.
This is the main shrine room at the London Buddhist Centre. There is much discussion about the role of ‘secular’ mindfulness and Buddhism.
Last Friday evening, after a day at work, I popped down to the London Buddhist Centre. Every Friday evening, from 7pm, there is a class. It is a time for a meditating in a group with minimal if any instruction. Essentially the evening involves one practice from 7:30pm to about 9:45pm. It is divided into three parts: two meditations and a Puja, a ritual to cultivate and express particular qualities, such as devotion, joy and compassion. Between each part is an optional short break of a few minutes, to stretch the legs.
On arrival, I had noticed the impact of having had a busy ending to a very busy week. Yet, through the practice, I noticed an overall deepening into ‘being’ and related unfolding ephemeral processes. It became easier to notice the arising and passing of mental events and beyond this, a contextualising quality of spacious, empty, unbounded, joyous awareness. On the journey home, in my thoughts arose a clear solution to work-related issue that I had been grappling with for months.
A new type of neuron–called a mirror neuron–could help explain how we learn through mimicry and why we empathize with others.
Consequently, this week I found myself reflecting on various aspects of mindfulness practice, including the benefits of group practice, the impact of the context in which one practices and the intention on brings to practising. Group practice provides support, encouraging and enhancing a richer, felt sense of being, possibly evoked by the mirror neurons in the brain, stimulated by still presence of others to replicate a deeper stillness within. Further to this is the meaning that the context brings, a symbolism that resonates throughout the practice itself. Overall, I concluded that the intention, whether expressed consciously or not, is key to influencing the direction of creative expression and that mindfulness practice is essentially a creative act.
“Finding Peace in a Frantic World – Teachers” is a new group on LinkedIn for those teaching the course.
There’s a new LInkedIn Group for those teaching the “Peace in a Frantic World” course. It’s only been recently that I trained to run this programme and it’s good to be connected to others who’ve been trained to run it too… so we can offer each other support, advice, tips and suggestions.
This course is an 8-week programme developed by Mark Williams and Chris Cullen. It’s based on the best-selling book, “Mindfulness: a guide to Finding Peace in A Frantic World”, which has sold nearly 200 000 copies and been translated into 19 different languages worldwide.
Svenja Schaper and Karin Kalbantner-Wernicke, founder of Samurai Shiatsu. They ran the first UK Samurai Shiatsu Practitioner training course for qualified Shiatsu practitioners, 11-13th April 2014, London.
Following three days of intensive training with other qualified Shiatsu therapists, I’ve become a Samurai Shiatsu Practitioner. It was inspirationally led by Karin Kalbantner-Wernicke, founder of the Samurai Shiatsu Programme, and Svenja Schaper, translator and UK co-ordinator. We left feeling confident to deliver the School Samurai Programme to children and older adults. This well-structured programme has been delivered extensively in Germany and Austria and is also available in France, Switzerland, Hungary and the Netherlands. This training was offered for the first time in the UK and if you would like information see the Samurai Shiatsu website or contact me.
I was looking at the website for finding Peace in a Frantic World, and found this great page that outlines the main benefits of practising mindfulness in a simple way. And another page with some recordings for those who may need them for practising. I’m putting these on the Resources page, to pull together some of the useful websites that I’ve found.
This morning, I was part of the team supporting an “Introduction to Mindfulness” session by Hackney and City Mind, in collaboration with the Mindfulness in Schools Project and Educational Psychology Services at Hackney Learning Trust. This was an opportunity for those working in schools to find out about how mindfulness can enhance the flourishing of well-being in professional lives, schools and classrooms.
Over thirty participants joined in mindfulness practices and were introduced to the evidence-base for teaching mindfulness in schools. It was well-received and many were interested in further training in mindfulness, such as the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. Contact Holistic Education for further information about Mindfulness Training in Schools and the .b programme.
There is a monthly Mindfulness Interest Group at the Hackney Learning Trust.
Today I ran the first Mindfulness Interest Group at the Hackney Learning Trust. It was brilliant to spend my lunch break discussing and sharing a few mindfulness practices with others. Some had no experience, and others had done an 8-week course. Overall, they were keen to have more opportunity to learn about mindfulness at work.
The next session is planned for Tuesday 29th April and the plan is to discuss how best to promote mindfulness in the work place. We will also explore material from the Peace in a Frantic World book.
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