A testimonial from the June 2018 Mindfulness Course.

For anyone that’s curious the basic idea of mindfulness is about focusing your awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting your feelings, thoughts and sensations without judgement. So what can you expect in a class? How can it benefit you? I recently spoke to Paul, one of the service users at The Stress Project, about his experience of both the drop-in class and the eight week course.

What attracted you to the mindfulness course?
For the first few weeks I just came there (The Stress Project) and relaxed. I thought it was a nice space and felt comfortable in the surroundings and with the people. It wasn’t really about the mindfulness to start with. Then I started learning things from the drop-in class. I put mindfulness meditations on my phone and started using it at home. It just started working for me. A guy who was in the class had been on the eight week course and recommended it.

How does the course differ to the drop-in class?
The drop-in is one hour and the course is a two hour session. With the course you do a meditation and discuss it afterwards and you get handouts. There was subject matter like letting go and there was loads of meditations for different things. The course is quite structured, it gave a bit more understanding and was very thorough basically. It’s quite deep but you can take what you like out of it.

How have you incorporated it into your life?
Usually, I do it about twice a day. The other day I decided to do a 3 minute breathing meditation. I just did it to relax but I realised a bit later that it set me up nicely for the day. Rather than the idea of I’m stressed let’s meditate. The breathing meditation is the one that really works for me. I’ve done that one at the bus stop. There’s no set pattern just do what you need to do when you need to do it. It’s quite freeing really.

How has it benefited you?
I can feel the changes, I wasn’t sleeping and was constantly stressed. I’ve made a definite decision that it works for me, therefore I make the effort and make the time. One of the basic concepts is about living in the moment, not worrying about the past or the future, I found that very useful. I can do a meditation and live in the moment, I’m quite happy doing that.

If you would like to experience mindfulness for yourself,
There are 3 courses per year. In Autumn, Spring and New Year.
The next eight week Mindfulness Course coming up from the 19th September to the 7th November. 
​Please contact us |stressproject@hng.org.uk for more details.