My name is Christine Carson. I have been practising mindfulness for nearly seven years. In this time I have completed a Masters degree in mindfulness (MSc) with Aberdeen University and teacher training to teach both an eight week mindfulness course (MBLC) and an eight week compassion course (CBLC) with the Mindfulness Association. http://www.mindfulnessassociation.org/
I am also trained to delive
r the .b mindfulness in schools course for 11-18 year olds. https://mindfulnessinschools.org/
I am a member of the Mindfulness Association (M.A.) and will be on the newly created UK listings of mindfulness Teachers at the end of the year. Mindfulness is a training not a therapy. For me, the training and continual practice is one that allows me to live more fully, enjoyably and with a greater degree of kindness to oneself as well as others. Our world, more and more, is being perceived and experienced as increasingly complex and overwhelming. This sense of
overload can prevent us from really living and enjoying life. Mindfulness training can bring perspective as we learn how the mind works and how to work with the mind. Essential, however is an attitude of kindness and open curiosity. The mind can be like an unruly puppy and will only respond well to kindness, care and constant nurture. My research focussed on the impact of mindfulness and compassion training in the primary school classroom. I discovered how quickly and effectively very young children, if resourced, can gain insight into their own processes. This was shown not just in terms of their health and well being, but also in relation to their learning processes. Carol Dweck and her work on "Growth mindset" has laid the ground in Scottish Education for an understanding of the brain's plasticity. No longer do we need to believe that the brain or our intelligence is set in stone. The brain's natural plasticity means It can be shaped and reshaped. As Dweck discovered, mindset is key to whether that change may happen. Mind may indeed be the block for change to happen. In education we want brains to be fully developed, however we seldom teach about how to develop the mind, the key to shaping the brain. Mindfulness training offers a way of beginning to work with the mind that shapes the brain. The .b mindfulness in schools course is an introduction to the mind and how it works for young people. It is fun, interactive and engages the young people with games, experiments and inquiry. Paul Gilbert (2010) Talks of us having three emotional regulatory systems.
1. Flight or flight (red cushion). We need this system to keep us safe in times of danger.
2. Drive system (Yellow cushion). We need this to get what we need physically as well as emotionally. It keeps us wanting to survive.
3. Self-soothing system (blue cushion). This system calms us and keeps everything in balance. The world we live in often finds us going between feeling overwhelmed and anxious ( flight/fight) or seeking happiness or contentment in 'being better', 'better than others or 'getting more' (drive). As a culture we often confuse the self-soothing system with the other two by instead finding refuge in 'keeping safe' or 'wanting something more'. The drive and the flight/fight systems release hormones and natural chemicals that keep us in a constant state of stress or dissatisfaction. Gilbert (2010) states that it is only the self-soothing system that can truly bring us into balance. Blue cushion therefore represents training that works with the self-soothing systems we have in our bodies. This has shown to have many benefits e.g. better immune systems, less lapses into depression and enhanced experience of living. In terms of education this training has impacted positively on executive functioning, self-regulation, deep learning, creativity, better transfer of skills from one area of the curriculum to the next. For further information contact me on:- [email protected]
