8 Week MBSR with Niamh Barrett

​Course Information

​“The challenge of mindfulness is to realise that “this is it.” Right now is my life. The question is, what is my relationship to it going to be? . . Is there any waking moment of your life that would not be richer and more alive for you if you were more fully awake while it was happening?”

​- Jon Kabat Zinn

​Practicing mindfulness helps us to develop inner resources such as clarity,  stability and self-compassion, which we can then draw upon through the ups and downs of life.  It can ‘wake us up’ to our everyday experience which we miss when we are perpetually caught up in our thoughts. Mindfulness enables us to be really present for the good times, and it makes us aware of what support or interventions might be needed when times are tough. Over time and with practice we become better equipped to be present to life as it is, and to respond with more kindness and wisdom to whatever it brings.

​The eight- week programme of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction was developed by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in 1979. The course is suitable for those with prior meditation experience as well as those who have none. It introduces participants to different forms of mindfulness practice including sitting meditation, body awareness and gentle mindful movement. The classes also explore what we mean by the term ‘stress’, how it manifests in our lives and how mindfulness can support us in responding to it. As the emphasis is on bringing mindful awareness into everyday life, a commitment to daily home practice of thirty to forty minutes is required.

​Research has shown that committed participation in an eight-week mindfulness course can have lasting positive effects on health and well-being.

​The course includes 8 x 2-hr & 45 min classes, a half day retreat (5th December) , recordings of mindfulness practices and a hardcopy course workbook which is posted to you in advance.