 Hello everyone, welcome to the first mindfulness session for the conference. My name is Kim Siew. I'm so feeling so pleased and privileged to be here. Firstly just to give you a heads up that sometimes my internet can be a little bit intermittent so if there's any disruption as a result of the internet do please bear with us. I would like to think though that it shouldn't happen and that this should not detract from your mindful experience of being here now. I want to first acknowledge that I'm delivering this session from the land of the Ghana people in Adelaide and that I recognise the importance of their connection to land, water, culture and community and that I respect their eldest past, present and emerging. Now in terms of the structure of this session, I would like to first take about 10 minutes to get us all on the same page on what mindfulness is. I'm sure most of you here would know what it is but I still think it's useful to get us all on the same page. I also think that it's good to bust some myths for some of you who think that you don't know how to practice mindfulness or you don't do it well and then I would also really like to share some research on the benefits of mindfulness. So for some of you this might be old news and if it is well sit back pretend you're 5 years old again and you're listening to your favourite bedtime story just relax. And then after that I will guide you through mindfulness practice. I do want to emphasise that please stay safe. So at any point during the guided mindfulness practice if you feel uncomfortable, there are strong emotions arising for you. Do please resource yourself and what I mean by that is if you have your eyes closed then do open your eyes and take in your surroundings and taking your surroundings sorry just checking on my internet and also and if you need to stand up go and get yourself a drink etc. I would like to think that this won't happen because the guided practice really I've I guess designed it to just help you feel more centred and spacious and hopefully even walking away feeling a little bit more uplifted. So let's get on the same page as to what is mindfulness. So I'm using John Kabat's definition which I'm sure many of you here are very familiar with which is that mindfulness is awareness cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way on purpose in the present moment and non-judgmentally. So when you look at that definition it really seems quite simple isn't it? It's really about cultivating our awareness paying attention to what's going on right here right now and not judging whether it's good or bad. So it seems simple but obviously it's not easy to practice and this is where I feel like busting some bits might be helpful. So because of the fact that we are so conditioned to for our mind to wonder all the time it has a tendency to think about what's just happened or you know worrying about the future it's good to have an anchor to anchor our mind to a certain object of focus so that we can pay attention to what's going on right here right now and so typically breaths are used otherwise it could be our five senses you know sight, listening to sounds, smelling, touch and of course we can also anchor our attention to sensations we feel in our body. So when you think about that then really we can practice mindfulness anywhere anytime and you know using our five senses when you're going for a walk, when we're eating tasting, smelling, looking at the food and also in terms of movement whether we're going to the gym whether we're practicing yoga or tai chi or qigong these all can be done very mindfully because we're just really paying attention to what's going on right here right now so I guess the myths or a lot of people have this misconception that they can't practice or they don't know how to practice mindfulness because their mind is busy all the time and really that is quite normal and the aim of mindfulness is really not about getting rid of thoughts it's really about being able to be with what is going on in this present moment and one meditation teacher I know actually says that he likes to define mindfulness as being intimate with this moment right here and using John Kabat-Zinn's work he also says that basically the attitude we want to cultivate and embrace during a mindfulness practice are these seven attitudes first it is with a beginner's mind so every moment we bring on that curiosity as if we're sensing our breath for the first time and it is the first time because it's a new fresh breath so the beginner's mind is one attitude it is that we're not judging so whatever that is going on in this present moment we allow it so we let it be, we accept we are not striving so we're not trying to achieve anything certainly not trying to achieve enlightenment we'll get there but the more we strive the more whatever we're trying to achieve is elusive and of course we want to be patient with ourselves and then trust, trust that we have the ability to do this to be present, to be mindful now in terms of sharing the research I was very very surprised when I looked into this that there are now more than 17,000 publications showing positive effects of mindfulness from improving our general well-being to reducing depression, anxiety, physical pain, stress and giving us better self-regulation so what's happening in our body when we practice mindfulness through starting with grounding and centering it activates our parasympathetic nervous system so what that means is our heart rate slows down, our blood pressure slows down and it also comes down that fight, flight, or freeze response part of our brain which is the amygdala and then what it does is it gives a chance for our prefrontal cortex to be activated so we can regulate our emotions, we can make better decisions and you know for everyone here who are mental health professionals the research actually shows that it could improve our therapeutic presence so in other words with the more mindfulness practices you do the more compassion, self entombment you'll be cultivating and also you get a better perspective on suffering whether it's your own suffering or your client's suffering which meant that you can then build a stronger therapeutic alliance with your client and there are evidence actually to show that basically patients show better improvements whether it's symptoms reduction or rate of change when they're treated with biomedical health professionals who meditate versus those who don't meditate there are just better results from those who meditate so the other thing I also want to clarify is what is mindfulness and what is meditation so meditation really is a formal form of mind training so it's the liberal training of attention and awareness so there's that combination of concentration and awareness that is in play when we practice meditation and there are of course many forms of meditation from mindfulness meditation which is what I'll give you an experience of and then loving kindness meditation which I'm sure many of you would have practiced before mantra visualization etc ultimately the aim of meditation and mindfulness is over time it gives us the we start to become aware of our conditioned habits of thinking our conditioned mind and we can also start to see especially through mindfulness meditation that nothing is permanent the pain we feel the emotions we feel it's not permanent and with regular practice it does cultivate that acceptance and openness and really increase our self-awareness as well as window of tolerance so I like what one meditation teacher says that really the practice of mindfulness is you can kind of relate it to as if we are trying to drink water in a cup when we put a table of salt into that cup of water we put a table of salt into that cup of water it's really quite un-drinkable because it's very salty but when we put a table of salt into a big pond you can still drink the water even though it might taste slightly saltier so this is what mindfulness really helps us to do it expand the capacity the openness of our mind so that we become large containers for whatever challenges that we face and this is where you know it's increasing that window of tolerance I also like what my teacher, my meditation teacher Jack Comfield says he says that we have within us unlimited capacities for joy for communion with life and for unshakable freedom and I think this is really what mindfulness gives to us is the fact that with regular practice we realize that we are much more spacious than we think we are we are able to make choices we are able to regulate our emotions so we have a choice we have a choice in terms of how we want to feel and we become much more comfortable in our own skin we don't judge others and most of all we don't judge ourselves because we're much more accepting so on that note I invite you to meditate do a mindfulness meditation with me for today because it's the first section I'm going to just take you through a grounding practice with your five senses then going into your breath and then into your body and I will also then guide you to become aware of your emotions I thought this might be a good practice especially in relation to this evening's panel of discussion where you'll be talking about complex case scenario and how you would respond so becoming comfortable with our emotions being there and open and accepting of whatever arises is a wonderful way for us to learn to regulate our emotions so that then we're not just reacting to situations but we're responding in a way that is deliberate and as I said before during the meditation if at any time you are feeling some intense emotions do just open your eyes and resource yourself so on that note please sit in a way that you're comfortable sitting and what I invite you first to do is to look around you and maybe look at one particular object and really take it in like what we said about the beginner's mind it could be even your fingers, your keyboard whatever that you see in front of you and seeing it for the first time what are you noticing about it that perhaps you haven't noticed before you to close your eyes if you're comfortable closing your eyes otherwise bring your gaze down towards the floor but what I'd like you to do now is to tune in to sounds around you what can you hear near or far to feel what can you feel perhaps it's the clothing on your body maybe it's your hands placed together your thighs on your chair what can you feel what can you smell and finally what can you taste now what I'd like you to do is bring your awareness to your breath and for the next few breaths I invite you to deepen the in-breath and deliberately slow down the out-breath as you slow down the out-breath you could almost imagine that whatever tension you might be feeling in your body is being released together with that out-breath into the earth into the ether you to just breathe naturally not changing the rhythm of your breath but again with that beginner's mind what can you notice about your breath perhaps just as a start where are you noticing your breath it's difficult to notice the breath you can always place your hands on your chest or on your belly embodied presence invite a sense of calm and ease to grow see how the breath is breathing itself the mind wanders as we said before that's very normal just like guiding a puppy to search bring your attention back to the breath to this anchor of being here now and you might even start to notice that there are other experiences sounds, sensations, images let them rise and fall like waves of the ocean around the breath I invite you to check in back with the body starting with the head relax your face maybe give yourself a little smile this allows the frown of your face to be ironed out maybe let your jaw drop a little to unclench the teeth so softening the face maybe slight tuck of the chin relaxing the tongue at the top of your mouth relax your shoulders let them roll down towards the spine just notice what are the sensations you're feeling around the arms the middle part of your body the heart beating perhaps as you're noticing the breath breathing into the lungs or sense rather the digestive system working acknowledging these amazing organs working on your own accord to keep you healthy attention to your pelvic area to your sit bones supported by the chair the back of your thighs so what feedback are you getting from that part of your body what sensations are you feeling we sense our knees, our shins your ankle and then your feet sense the ground supporting you as you become more present to your body I invite you to become mindful of any emotions that call your attention you can bring the same mindful loving awareness to them as you have to the breath and the body when an emotion arises let go of attention to the breath receive the emotion kindly it can be helpful to name it softly be feeling peaceful calm or maybe sad anxious bored so name them softly and then let them go as you attend to this emotion notice carefully where you feel in your body also notice that the emotion in your body is a constellation of sensations how does the emotion respond to kind awareness does it change all this spacious awareness can kindly notice the emotions as they come and go the breath is always there for you to come back to knowing whatever that is arising to just be like waves you are the gentle presence that is spacious and steady calm and steady witness acknowledging every moment as it arises but you now to just tune back into the body and the breath and again take some deep long inhale and some long and slow exhale and I shall complete the mindfulness meditation with three bells thank you everyone I hope that was a good practice for you my hope and vision is that one day we will all embrace mindfulness practice like we embrace brushing our teeth we wake up in the morning we brush our teeth we all don't think twice about whether we should how much time we have to brush our teeth we just do it because we know brushing our teeth is good for our teeth and there is now enough strong evidence to say if we practice mindfulness it's good for our mind it's good for us, it's good for our life and as mental health professionals we tend to look after others and not ourselves and so I ask that if you or encourage you that if you don't have a regular practice start with little bit you know maybe two minutes three minutes each time so there's this poem here that goes little by little I'll learn to know the trashed wisdom of long ago and one of these days perhaps we'll see that the world will be the better for me and do you not think that this simple plan made him a wise and useful man or woman so on that note I hope you've enjoyed the session I just want to mention that I do offer a free online meditation session every Wednesday from 7 to 7.30 am at the late time you can email me my email address is on the slide or you can also look up talks and blogs from me on my website cheetahlift.com I wish you all a wonderful evening thank you for your presence and thank you