Improving Mindfulness Course

This course teaches participants about cognition and emotion and how they fit into being self aware and mindful of others.

Course Outline

What is mindfulness? The concept comes from Buddhism, where one learns to quiet the internal chatter and pay attention to the present. One aspect of mindfulness is bare attention; this means attention which is free of judgment or elaboration.

Practicing mindfulness. There are four aspects to practicing mindfulness, to pay attention in the present moment, to accept things as they are without judgment. The purpose of emotions is to psychologically recognise something that is happening, it can be as basic as the fight/flight response or a more complicated emotion.

Some emotions help us function better at work, these are emotions such as; enthusiasm, tenacity, confidence and optimism. Cognitive distortion. This has a large impact on mindfulness.

Basically your brain filters information in the wrong way. Somebody says they like your dress but the flowers on your dress would not suit them, and you filter that information incorrectly and arrive at the wrong conclusion: The person who spoke to you does not like your dress.

In the workshop we discuss all the elements of cognitive distortion and the brain process or the psychological process. This includes dichotomous reasoning, jumping to conclusions, magnification and minimisation, destructive labelling and blaming. Mindfulness based cognitive therapy.

This is behavioural therapy aimed at changing your behaviour. You can change your thinking process from a distorted one to a positively functional one focusing on the mental modes. Gratitude.

The relationship between mindfulness and gratitude is an important one. We examine the definition, and teach participants how to make gratitude a habit. Cultivating High Performance Emotions. All emotions have three components that work together.

First is cognition which is conscious awareness of the emotion and the ability to define it correctly. Second is how strongly we feel about that emotion. Lastly is your reaction to an emotion.

Mood management involves using your cognition to develop better strategies for reacting to emotions.In this way you can teach yourself and others how to cultivate enthusiasm, tenacity and confidence.TIP: An example of a distorted thinking pattern is blaming.

Blaming is more about identifying someone to punish than it is about finding a solution to a problem. Taking responsibility is different from blaming someone. When someone is responsible they are able to change a situation rather than being at fault in a situation which nobody can fix.

We round off our very intense and comprehensive workshop on mindfulness by looking at mindfulness in customer services. The last aspect but probably one of the most important of the workshop. We learn about individual focus, active listening and building a rapport.

Introduction

• Workshop Objectives

Defining Mindfulness

• Buddhist concept
• Bare Attention
• Psychological concept of mindfulness
• Memory
• Case study

Practicing Mindfulness

• Attention
• Acceptance
• Mindfulness Meditation
• Scanning
• Case study

Emotional Intelligence

• The purpose of emotions
• High performance emotions
• Swing Emotions
• Blue emotions
• Case study

Cognitive Distortion (1)

• Dichotomous reasoning
• Magnification and minimisation
• Filtering
• Jumping to conclusions
• Case study

Cognitive Distortion (2)

• Destructive labelling
• Personalising
• Blaming
• The tyranny of the should
• Case study

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy

• Mental modes
• Doing mode
• Being mode
• Metacognitive Awareness
• Case study

Mindfulness and Gratitude

• Defining gratitude
• Gratitude journal
• Exercise in mindfulness and gratitude
• Forming a habit
• Case study

Cultivating the High Performance Emotions

• The Emotion-Cognition-Behaviour Triangle
• Enthusiasm
• Confidence
• Tenacity
• Case study

Mindfulness in Customer Service

• Individually focused
• Active Listening
• Building a rapport
• Timing
• Case Study

Mindfulness and Leadership

• Mental resilience
• Focus
• Compassion
• Creativity
• Case study

Topics not Discussed

• Lessons learned
• Post workshop overview

Course Duration

1 day/s

Who should Attend

This is a self-enrichment course for anyone who wants to improve their mindfulness.