A Clinician's Guide to Teaching Mindfulness: The Comprehensive Session-by-Session Program for Mental Health Professionals and Health Care Providers

metaphor we sometimes use to describe this experience of things perhaps getting worse before they get better is the silt in a lake. In the beginning, you don’t see anything at all, as the waters of the lake are opaque. As you move into the beginning phase of your practice, the silt begins to settle. This can be exciting, but you can also start to s

“I just wanted to turn it all off,” an appropriate response from a facilitator might be simply, “Ah…a judgment?” The advanced participant would immediately recognize the judgment, the trying to change things, the lack of acceptance of the present moment, and know how wanting things to be different is itself the mind’s manifestation of a struggle no

Non-Doing vs. Doing

Teaching Tip: For wise discernment, it helps to give the classic example of tuning a lute (or any string instrument): If the strings are either too tight or too loose there will be no sound. Only if the strings are balanced just right will the lute sound beautifully.

Group Process

A typical twenty- to thirty-minute staff in-service training might include a number of elements such as a brief definition of mindfulness, a short introductory practice, a brief review of relevant research, an immediately usable self-care practice, and some questions and answers.

Practicing Self-Compassion with Ease

The meditation master Ajahn Chah says, “If you believe that sitting motionless for long times brings you closer to

All the main mindfulness practices in this book can be categorized into these four foundations. Mindfulness of the body: Mindfulness of the body is the first foundation of mindfulness. It is our starting point and our anchor to the present moment. We practice this first foundation with the Body Scan, Mindful Eating, Mindfulness of Breathing, Mindfu