A Background to Mindfulness |
The first component of mindfulness involves the self-regulating of attention so that it is maintained on immediate experience, thereby allowing for increased recognition of mental events in the present moment.
The second component involves adopting a particular orientation towards one's experiences in the present moment, an orientation that is characterised by curiosity, openness and acceptance Bishop et al 2004 It is often difficult to describe what mindfulness, as defined above, could actually mean in our lives. Because, although the principles and techniques of the training of attention are deceptively simple, it is an experiential practice. A practice rooted in ways of responding to ourselves and our world that are fundamentally different from those that most of us are familiar with and take for granted in our habitual reactions. Regular practice is required to support learners in their understanding of the techniques and then for them to master and consolidate those techniques over the course of a full programme. Below are some links to videos that convey something of the flavour of this subject so that it is possible to explore the activity of a few of the popular current researchers and teachers who have made their work on mindfulness available on the internet. I have selected a small but wide-ranging sample which includes scientists, psychologists, a comedian, a Buddhist monk, an engineer and a yoga teacher who each approach the topic from their own unique vantage point. They represent only a tiny part of this ever expanding field but can serve as jumping-off points for further investigation into the depth and diversity offered by the mindfulness practitioners, commentators, bloggers, authors, teachers and scholars found on the web today. |
Video Links |
Dr Rick Hanson is a neuropsychologist who has his own very practical and helpful web site called Just One Thing. This is a link to his video library on that website where he gives a 4 minute introduction to the topic of mindfulness and how it works in the brain (scroll down to the 7th video called How to Change the Brain). Dr Hanson comes to NZ and runs training courses in some of the mindfulness techniques that he has pioneered. He has written many very useful and easy to read books.
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Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn was originally a molecular biologist when he became the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine at Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. He has written many inspiring books on mindfulness including the classic Full Catastrophe Living in 1990 and he continues to travel the world training and promoting the MBSR programme he originated. In this short talk he gives a good introduction and summary of mindfulness training.
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Chade-Meng Tan was an engineer at Google when he set about creating an in-house business and personal development programme for that organisation. This is a nearly one hour lecture he gave to Google staff in 2012. His book Search Inside Yourself is a great introduction to mindfulness for those with a more "engineer" type of mind or those interested in work/career/business applications of mindfulness. His collaborator Daniel Goleman is the pioneering author of the famous book Emotional Intelligence who also has a number of YouTube talks on mindfulness in communication.
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Matthieu Ricard is a French scientist who became a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition. He has been dubbed the happiest man in the world and has been the subject of many scientific fMRI scans to study his brain during various mind-states. In this 20 minute TED Talk he addresses the question of what happiness or well-being actually is.
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Ruby Wax is a popular comedian who went to Oxford University to study mindfulness after she found it helped her with her depression. She has recently written a book called A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled that is currently available in Taupo book stores. This is a stand-up comedy routine in which she talks about her personal journey with mindfulness.
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Dr Mark Williams is a professor of Clinical Psychology at Oxford University (and a mentor of Ruby Wax!) He is also a key figure in the worldwide Action for Happiness movement, whose patron is H H Dalai Lama (www.actionforhappiness.org) - which initiates and supports community actions in support of well-being. In this inspiring hour long public lecture he gives a good introduction to the breadth and depth of mindfulness, the impact of destructive emotions and much more.
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Dr Kelly McGonigal is a young woman who is a professor of psychology and yoga teacher at Stanford University and here she talks about her personal journey as a student, dealing with her chronic headaches, willpower and other research and education initiates she is involved in developing. This is an informal and personal 13 minute interview but it introduces many of the topics she teaches on in the mindfulness area. Her TED Talk on her stress research is a very interesting one and she has talks which go into the neuroscience of mindfulness in some depth.
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Dr Jill Bolte Taylor was a leading-edge neuro-anatomist at Harvard Medical School when she suffered a devastating brain haemorrhage and began a long journey of rehabilitation back from the edge of death. In this moving TED Talk she speaks about her experience and reveals how she felt as different regions of her brain ceased to function and the huge impact this has had on how she now understands her brain and the new ways she chooses to live her life as a result. Her book My Stroke of Insight is a fascinating account of this journey.
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Dr Ellen Langer has been called the Mother of Mindfulness and has accumulated many decades of mindfulness research during her academic career. In this 20 minute TED talk she challenges some of our beliefs about our old habits of thinking and acting and asks the fascinating question of what is mindlessness. She has 40 years of research on mindfulness and has many interesting observations about creative/entrepenureal behaviour and limiting attitides that can impact on our health.
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Dr Kristin Neff is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas Austin and has been a pioneer of the most recent research into mindfulness and self-compassion. She has developed the Self-compassion Scale and in support of the value of mindfulness training she has created the Mindful Self-Compassion training programme (which is taught at some places in NZ). In this talk she gives an overview of her findings into the vital importance of self-compassion. Her website contains the Self-compassion Rating Scale where you can check your own levels of self-compassion.
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