Bringing Mindfulness to Life
In my work at the PACT: Helping Children with Special Needs program, I’ve been guiding twenty staff through a SHINE program. Our goal is to integrate mindful awareness practices into the work of this group of diverse and dedicated clinicians. As a way of learning and practicing mindful listening and speaking, we share and use these Native American Council Guidelines in each of our SHINE sessions.
Mindfulness is not just a fad or a trend. It has been around for more than 2500 years. … Over thirty years of research has documented the benefits of this “inner technology” that helps us to deal with life’s challenges. … You may be curious about how this work translates from academic presentations and research projects into the lives of real people. My own work in Baltimore has continued to focus on this very practical question, as I bring mindfulness to under-served populations. Here’s a story about a young mother who participated in one of our programs last year.
It’s so easy to compare and judge, thinking that YOUR mind is the least focused one around. You know – forgetting words, losing things, wondering why you’ve just gone upstairs, jumping from thought to thought. A question I hear in EVERY SHINE session is, “How can I keep my mind from wandering?”
Here’s how we teach this in SHINE, using awareness of the breath as the anchor for attention.
