Would you like to improve your performance, reduce feelings of stress and increase your satisfaction with life and work? These are the three key benefits offered by mindfulness practice, and are well supported by scientific evidence. Mindfulness practice has exploded in popularity. Major tech companies offer mindfulness training. For instance, Search Inside Yourself (SIY) was developed at Google along with some of the world’s leading neuroscientists. The benefits of meditation are taught and studied in academic institutions across Australia and are the subject of ever more articles and think pieces.
In late September last year the Brisbane ACT Centre’s own founder & director, Dr. Rob Purssey, presented at QLD TAFE Brisbane’s inaugural TAFE Services conference. Rob presented a warmly received talk to over 200 attendees with the title “Where’s Your Head At? Connecting to the Here and Now to Focus On What’s Important”. You can download the slides here.
The conference was held for TAFE’s education and business staff with a theme of ‘Making Connections’ – connections with students, educators, colleagues, industry partners and community. To make a genuine and authentic connection to someone we have to be present, we have to pay attention – and to be mindful. Rob’s talk aimed to give participants the tools they need to practice mindfulness in their professional & personal lives.
The slides above show the progress of the talk, Rob starts with an explanation of mindfulness and mindfulness practice and moves into using the ACT matrix as a simple and effective framework for noticing our own behaviour more purposefully.
Here’s some highlights:
Slide 3: “Mindfulness is the ability to know what’s happening in your head at any given moment without getting carried away by it.”
Slide 6: Benefits of Mindfulness in Life + Work
- improve focus and concentration
- increase self-awareness
- reduce the impact of stressful thoughts and feelings
- build better relationships
- catch self-defeating behaviours, and do more effective ones
- be aware of self-defeating thought processes, and ‘let them go’
3 KEY BENEFITS: improve performance, reduce stress, and more satisfaction in work and life. (c/- ACT Mindfully training by Russ Harris)
Slide 8: “Consciously bringing simple awareness to your here-and-now experience, with openness, interest and receptiveness.” (The Happiness Trap – Russ Harris)
Slide 14: Mindfulness (& meditation) isn’t about relaxation. It can be boring, frustrating, anxiety inducing – which is normal and ok – just notice and refocus. Simply focus on something (eg the breath), when you notice that you’ve wandered bring the focus back. It’s a skill, like anything else.
Why is breathing so often used? Convenience, simplicity & cuts down distraction.
Slide 25: Introducing the ACT Matrix
The ACT Matrix is a tool, a simple point of view, used to help you to be the person you want to be more often, even when you’re under stressful situations. You can use the matrix point of view to notice and sort your behaviour into the matrix. Simply pause and notice then sort your behaviour into 4 quadrants – values and purpose, hooks that are showing up, towards moves that are moving you towards the kind of person you want to be, and away moves that are normal actions to avoid painful stimuli – but which we can overdo.
Slide 30: Mindfulness (be here now)
+ Values (know what matters)
+ Action (do what works) = Psychological Flexibility
(living your life more freely, fully, and effectively)
Being where you are and
doing what’s important… to YOU!
Conclusion
Mindfulness & ACT are valuable tools to help you be the person you want to be more often. By taking just a little bit of time to focus on the here and now you can get some fantastic benefits. If you’re interested in learning more, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly staff at the Brisbane ACT Centre.