Gold Dust! Spaces available on Leading Mindfulness Trainer Catherine Sutton’s courses

Gold Dust! Spaces available on Leading Mindfulness Trainer Catherine Sutton’s courses email csutton@lismore.info

Classes and courses:

With the current COVID restrictions likely to continue for the moment, I will be offering the two courses below on Zoom. So far, the feedback from the courses via zoom is encouraging. On the strength of this I will continue to offer in this format as long as it has value and until we can meet up again in person in a room.

Interpersonal Mindfulness Practice – mindfulness in relationship. Only one place left.

Starts: Tuesday 19^th January 2021 for 8 weeks from 6.30 to 9.00.

Cultivating greater awareness of how we relate to others – how we speak, the words we choose, how we listen and interact- is all practiced in these 8 weeks.

Our lives are webs of social relationships and communication where we find both joys and tensions. We often wish that things could be different, easier, more of this and less of that and all this brings stress, suffering and it effects how we interact.

Developing interpersonal mindfulness skills leads to being more fully present and caring with others and oneself. The outcome of this is clearer communication and greater understanding of the effect of all our interactions – those that pull us into stress and those that give joy.

The objectives of the course are:

• To enhance the practice of mindfulness meditation and to use it as a support in our interpersonal interactions.
• To learn and experience the six Interpersonal Mindfulness guidelines that will increase awareness as we interact with others
• To recognise habitual ways we react to stress and difficulties in relationship
• To cultivate wholesome mind states and actions that lead to more wholesome outcomes and to undermine the unskilful ones.
• To observe with interest the ways we want to be seen by others and what we do to construct an identity and, conversely, to see the ways in which we do not want to be seen and the challenges this presents.
• To learn ways of listening to ourselves and others more deeply, consciously, and respectfully.

It is necessary to have done an 8-week mindfulness course before taking this one.

Mindful Self-Compassion

Starts: Thursday 21^st January for 8 weeks from 7.00 to 9.30. Two or three places left.

Cultivating self-kindness rather than self-criticism, seeing connection where there is a feeling of isolation and nurturing mindful steadiness where there is a tendency to over-react are all starting places for greater self–compassion. We all know how to have compassion for others, to care for others – even strangers- yet we find it difficult to turn the same kindness towards ourselves especially when we are in difficulty. This very comprehensive course is a wonderful start to cultivating a more caring and kind inner voice that supports us rather than one that has high expectations of how we “should” be in the world by comparing, criticising and judging ourselves against others or our own standards.

This course is a lovely follow-on from a basic mindfulness course or can also be done without previous experience.