A Journey in Mindfulness Practice and the 8-Week MBCT

Dear friends of the Beijing Mindfulness Centre,

It’s a great pleasure for me to be launching together with BMC an eight-week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (8-Week MBCT) that will provide you with a structured way to develop your mindfulness practice whether you are a beginner to mindfulness or an existing practitioner.

What’s mindfulness practice?

First things first. Mindfulness practice is a process through which we can become more self-aware of our life experience by focusing on the present moment with attention and non-judgmentally. Seems easy. But most of the time we are not in this mode of thinking. Often our minds may be wandering, or we may be worrying about something. Often, we do this uncontrollably. This is called ‘automatic pilot’ and according to some research we are in automatic pilot 47% of the time. In this automatic mode of thinking it is easy to become ‘reactive’ to life and this leads to feelings of lack of control and stress.

Why did I start mindfulness practice?

It was because of this constant feeling of stress that I started to practice mindfulness. I was beginning in my career and always had this feeling that I had to ‘make it’. With this though came a growing sense of ‘unease’. It didn’t bring me the clarity that I was hoping for, nor the depth of relationships that I was longing for; particularly the relationship with myself. Then one day I picked up a book called ‘The Three Pillars of Zen’ by Philip Kapleau. I felt immediately drawn to the practice; when I practiced the sitting mediation that he described, I felt an immediate sense of ‘coming home’, a relaxation and a groundedness that I really enjoyed. My first sit was probably only a couple of minutes, but I enjoyed the practice so much that I have persisted over the last 20 years.

Why the 8-Week MBCT?

The 8-week MBCT marks the culmination of my 20 years of experience with mindfulness practice. I am currently on the teaching pathway at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and will complete the teaching certification by delivering the 8-week MBCT under supervision. As such I am able to offer the course together with the BMC at a discounted price to participants.

The course provides a framework for getting to where I got to faster. It is a structured, research-based programme which combines mindfulness practice with elements of cognitive therapy. This combination provides participants with the tools to become more self-aware of their life experience and to recognise the patterns in their life that may be holding them back. It is a course that I wish I had taken when I was younger.

The research shows that by completing mindfulness-based programmes like the 8-week MBCT you can:

reduce stress
reduce anxiety
increase empathy and compassion
increase attention
increase your sense of well-being

Mindfulness practice has been ‘the key tool’ that has helped me to live a clearer more self-aware life. You can look around for years trying to find ‘the way out’ of suffering through status, money, or some addiction, but being mindful really does drive home that ‘the answer’ is within yourself. I look forward to helping you with your journey.