Mindful Monkey.

“Google’s head of mindfulness training, says that it opens the doorway to loving kindness, which is at the heart of business success” – Well, we do hope it will one day…

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“Chade-Meng Tan’s job description would never get past most companies’ human resources departments. As the head of mindfulness training at Google, his role is to enlighten minds, open hearts and create world peace.”

Here is the full article: Google’s ‘Head of Mindfulness’ Speaks Out | NewsFactor Business.

“But he hopes that one day, his role will become commonplace. A growing awareness of the importance of our emotional fitness, he says, is mirroring the same journey of acceptance that physical exercise took in the last century. And he believes that scientific evidence of the benefits of the Buddhist practice of mindfulness will be instrumental into catapulting it into the very heart of the business world.”

Contrast this with the heart breaking story of the horrors of slave labour in the the prawn industry as reported recently in the Guardian . And here are some ideas on what we can do about that.

Is it too much to hope that we can work together so that one day human beings can live in a world where kindness and fellowship are the norm?

Really Listening…

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Do you ever get that thing where you remember something you did in the past and cringe? There is a reason why this might be such a universal experience: we are wiser now than we were then.

One thing that makes us wiser (we hope!) as we get older is that we’ve had more opportunities to make mistakes. And mistakes are a powerful way to learn. One of the standout things for me is about learning to really listen.

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It seems to me that often when we miss an opportunity or get things wrong, it is when we weren’t listening well enough. What kind of listening are we talking about?

The common way of listening is through the filters of what we already know, of what is already important. If we are able to listen to our experience with fresh eyes, fresh ears, open heart, we can see new possibilities and learn new things.

This is one of the big secrets of living and communicating with others.  How can we cultivate this? In connection with meditation we sometimes come across the phrase “seeing things as they really are”. It sounds wise but we are not so sure what it means. As we spend a bit of time practicing we notice this ability to experience things in a spacious, open way, beginning to unfold…

Will mindfulness one day become mainstream?

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An article in the Guardian sums up what some have called the Mindfulness Revolution:

“Mindfulness is selling millions of books and apps, it appears on the front cover of Time magazine, pops up in the Financial Times and is used by all kinds of people from corporate executives and nurses to sportsmen and primary school children. Once a poorly understood New Age fad, it has moved from the margins to the mainstream. Nothing demonstrates that better than the launch of an all-party parliamentary group on mindfulness…

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While reflecting the rapid expansion of the applications of Mindfulness, the article points out a couple of potential concerns. In becoming this popular might some of the depth of it’s message be lost. Secondly as it spreads far and wide there are issues of quality control in the way that it is delivered. So it is worth taking some care when choosing a mindfulness course.

The article ends with the following words:

“The point is that, diligently practised, it very quietly and slowly revolutionises lives in multiple ways – sometimes small, sometimes big. And when you start noticing that process of change – both in yourself and in others – it is quite simply astonishing.”

I will be running a one day Introduction to Mindfulness in Nottingham on the 8th of July. And we will be starting a 10 week mindfulness course in Leicester on the 13th of July. Watch this space or get in touch to let us know if you want to be on the list to attend.

Click the link below to read the rest of this well informed article.

Why we will come to see mindfulness as mandatory | Madeleine Bunting | Comment is free | The Guardian.

A one day workshop on Mindfulness

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On Wednesday the 2nd of April I will be facilitating a workshop at Leicester University on Mindfulness. This workshop is part of the Foundation Degree that I teach on and a few places are open to the public.

The day is about the application of this approach with groups and in individual counselling work. The course has a strong experiential element, interspersed with some discussion on applications.

The accepted idea in mindfulness work these days is that in order to use it with clients, we need to have established a period of personal practice. So one of the aims of this day will be to set things up so that participants can begin this journey. You will be provided with a CD of guided mindfulness recordings and a handout with background information and further reading to get you started. If you have already been practicing then the day is a chance to take things further.

If you do attend then wear comfortable clothes and bring something to lie down on. The majority of the time will be spent on practicing guided meditation.

This Flyer tells you how to book a place.

If you can’t make the 2nd of April then note that I will be delivering this again on the 8th of July in Nottingham which will have the same purpose. Click Here for further information.

Look forward to seeing you.

Privatising Probation: The Consolidation of the Risk Agenda

This looks like it might be an interesting lecture. It is free and open to all. Click Here for the poster.

The next Scarman Lecture on Wednesday 26 March at 5:15pm at the Frank and Katherine May Lecture Theatre in the Henry Wellcome building at Leicester University.

As with the other lectures in the Scarman series, this lecture is free, open to all and a wine reception will be held after the lecture to give you an opportunity to talk to the guest speaker, Professor John Lea.

If you would like to attend please contact Russell Knifton at: rk191@le.ac.uk  with your name (and the names of anyone else that you would like to bring with you). Places are limited.

The Top 10 Drug Policy Stories of 2013

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An article in the Huffington Post does a good job of pointing out some important trends in drug policy and what might be on the horizon, in particular the tide may be turning away from the ‘War on Drugs’. What is interesting is the overall optimistic outlook, that things might be moving in a more progressive direction.

Even though the issues highlighted here relate to the USA, they are very relevant to what happens in the rest of the world.

One thing that caught my eye in particular was the US Attorney General Eric Holder criticising the policy of putting people in prison for drug offences:

 

“The path we are currently on is far from sustainable,” said Holder. “As we speak, roughly one out of every 100 American adults is behind bars. Although the United States comprises just five percent of the world’s population, we incarcerate almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners… It carries both human and moral costs that are too much to bear. And it results in far too many Americans serving too much time in too many prisons – and beyond the point of serving any good law enforcement reason.”

Yes that really does say 1 in a 100 of the population in prison!

In case you wanted to take a look at the article here is the link: The Beginning of the End: The Top 10 Drug Policy Stories of 2013 | Tony Newman.

In the June 2011 an article in the New England Journal of Medicine* pointed to some of the implications of this policy of incarceration: that in the past 50 years the US government policies “… have shifted the burden of care for addiction and mental illness to prisons” and goes on the show how prisons are in no position to deal with these issues in any way that we would regard humane.

I am pretty sure that people working the substance use field in this country will recognise this situation and hope that things will change at some point. If policy makers remember that prison actually costs more that most treatments, they might realise the value of doing the right thing, which is to invest in treatment rather than chasing people around with a stick.

 

Reference: *The New England Journal of Medicine June 2011 364:22 pp 2081-2083

Uruguay legalises production and sale of cannabis

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Uruguay Government experiment reaches new heights as it attempts to regulate marijuana business and find alternative to war on drug

Here is a quote from the Guardian Newspaper:

Before the passage of the bill, president José Mujica called on the international community to assist in what he admitted was an experiment aimed at finding an alternative to the deadly and unsuccessful war on drugs.”We are asking the world to help us with this experience, which will allow the adoption of a social and political experiment to face a serious problem – drug trafficking,” he said earlier this month. “The effects of drug trafficking are worse than those of the drugs themselves.”

via Uruguay legalises production and sale of cannabis | World news | The Guardian.

Mindfulness Practice – Free Downloads

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You can now get all the Guided Mindfulness recordings you need to get going with your practice. Just click on ‘Downloads’ in the menu at the top of the screen.

The idea is that you start with CD1 and progress to CD2 and then CD3.

These tracks were recorded during a weekly mindfulness session I run and are not studio quality; they work just fine if you want to use them to guide your practice. Feel free to download them and I hope you find them helpful.

My earlier Blogs gave some information about these recordings which you can read by clicking on the links below:

The Breathing Space

New Mindfulness Practice Recordings

Another set of Mindfulness practice recordings

Two Longer Mindfulness Practices

An update on the lecture by Professor David Nutt: Putting Science at the Heart of Drug Policy

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David Nutt wins international recognition for “Standing up for Science”

The John Maddox Prize has been awarded to the ISCD’s founder and chair for his “his continued courage and commitment to rational debate, despite opposition and public criticism”

Click Here to see a short YouTube clip about the award

So, it is fantastic to have him come to Leicester to deliver a public lecture. The details and how to book are below.

Click Here to download the Dave Nutt Lecture Poster

Here is an update on the details:

 Date: Wednesday 20th of November

Time: 5:15pm

Venue: Frank and Katherine May lecture theatre at the Henry Wellcome building, Lancaster Road Leicester, LE1 9HN

The event is free but places are limited so you need to register your

attendance. Please contact: Russell Knifton, t: 0116 252 5780 · e: rk191@le.ac.uk

A Public Lecture with Professor David Nutt – ‘Putting Science at the Heart of Drug Policy’

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We at the Foundation Degree in Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Counselling teamed up with the Criminology Department and invited Professor Nutt to come to and speak in Leicester.

He will be coming to speak at a Public Lecture on Wednesday 20th of November, at Leicester University. The title of his talk is:

‘Putting Science at the Heart of Drug Policy’

Watch this space for time, venue and booking details.

In case you didn’t know here is a bit of background on Professor Nutt:

He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Academy of Medical Sciences. He holds visiting professorships in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. He is a past president of the British Association of 2012-05-30-DrugsWithoutHotAirPsychopharmacology and of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is currently the president of the British Neuroscience Association and vice-president of the European Brain Council. He is currently chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. (This CV carries on, you get the idea, he is very eminent!)

He was Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). One paper he co-authored, was published in the Lancet (2007 Volume 369, pp 1047-53) under the title “Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse”. This was part of a continuing critique of the current drug classification system according to the Misuse of Drugs Act. Proposing a more rational way of classifying drugs according to their potential harm and pointing out the inconsistencies in the current system.

This made him a bit unpopular and in 2009 got him sacked by the Home Secretary as Chair of the ACMD. He went on to found the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs. In 2012 wrote a book on the topic of drug policy: “Drugs without the Hot Air”

Why We Created This Space

Over the years we came across lots of people who resonated with some of our ideas. So we decided to find a way to continue our dialogue.

A growing community of people have been coming to the same conclusions: That having more ‘things’ does not correlate well with fulfilment. Instead mindful living, positive relationships and being involved in activities that contribute to the well-being of others seem to help us feel better about ourselves and the world.

This seems to be pointing to something essential. Wellbeing stems from our connection with ourselves, other people and the natural world. We want to be one small voice that adds to this discussion. Mindful-monkey is a space to find ideas and resources, so stay in touch by subscribing to our newsletter or by 'liking' our Facebook page below. Read more about us.

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