Psychological & MindfulnessTraining in the Workplace
I offer tailor made online and in person workplace mindfulness, mental health and psychological resilience training. My main focus has been delivering high quality, engaged, interactive and experiential 4 – 8 week online mindfulness and wellbeing trainings in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Mindful Self Compassion and Positive Neuroplasticity as well as tailored psycho-educational programmes. These include in person and online 8 week programmes for staff in Hospitals. There has been an increased demand by government departments to support mental health and wellbeing through Covid and working from home, I was asked to deliver a number of tailored 4-6 week online programmes for Dept of Foreign Affairs, Dept. of Public Expenditure and Procurement, Ombudsman for Children, Jobs.ie etc., as well as the Dept of Social Welfare who had 200- 300 staff nationally online with chat functions using the Webex platform. I have also worked with a lot of the big tech and pharma companies offering regular 6 week programmes such as Oracle Digital, Pfizer and Google.
An example of a 4-week tailor made Online Workplace programme
This programme offers participants an opportunity to engage in mental training and develop emotional resilience. Each week we will explore a theme and will do a practice. Themes will include, Automatic Pilot, developing compassion, learning ways to support your mental and physical health, Cultivating Inner Strength. There will also be the opportunity to do a daily guided practice, in between the weekly sessions, with free resources offered by Fiona on Youtube and Soundcloud. A great way to build resilience, concentration and some space to pause.
Session 1, Automatic Pilot & Mindfulness Introduction
In this session, we will recap on what mindfulness is and focus on the theme of Automatic Pilot and the Wandering Mind. Whether you have done training with Fiona before or are completely new, this session will give you a chance to learn or deepen your understanding of these key themes that we can return to again and again. We will be learning to become a little more present in the moments of our day which can have great benefits for our mood, mental health, body, immune system and concentration.
Session 2, Self Compassion Practice & working with the Inner Critic
We will be exploring some gentle practices of self-compassion which can be a new way of working with the mind and our bodies. There has been a huge increase in self-compassion research linked to Wellbeing (Zessin, Dickhauser & Garbadee, 2015) showing reductions in negative mind states anxiety, depression, stress, rumination, shame, perfectionism and thought suppression. As well as, increases in positive mind states such as life satisfaction, self-confidence, optimism, curiosity, happiness, connectedness and gratitude. Other health benefits include better coping with chronic health conditions (Sirois, 2015).
Session 3, How Can I Best Take Care of Myself
In this session, we explore what nourishes and depletes us in our day. Often we are so busy, we haven’t had time to stop and check this out. Are there some things you used to enjoy doing, that you haven’t done in a while. We will also look at ways to prevent moving into exhaustion and learn ways to nourish the mind, body and nervous system more in our day and in our lives.
Session 4, Building Inner Strength in a changing environment
In this week we will explore our inner resources of strength and stability through a practice called the Mountain, which we have done in the previous programme, but it is great to return to this practice. We will also explore continuing the practice of coming to our anchors of the breath, the body and the senses when we notice the mind racing or notice internal or external stresses in our lives.
Research in Mindfulness Training
There has been a sizeable body of research carried out in the areas of MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) & MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) over the last 35 years which indicates that a regular mindfulness practice helps the body/ mind respond rather than react to stress, leaving valuable resources for taking care of our general health and well-being. Neuroscientific research has also shown the positive effects of the 8 Week Mindfulness Course on the prefrontal cortex in the brain. MBSR was created by Dr Jon Kabat Zinn in the USA for people with stress and chronic pain, and has been adapted by Dr Mark Williams in the UK for working with people with low mood and anxiety. The UK National Health Service now provides 8 Week MBCT programmes for people suffering with low mood/anxiety and depression.
The Outline of the 8 Week MBSR/MBCT Programme
In this 8 week evidenced based mindfulness programme, we learn skills which support us in developing this quality of attention, and the capacity to come back, again and again, to this present moment, with patience and compassion. The group meets once a week for 1 hour per week to do short formal meditations, psycho education exercises – the learning is a mix of experiential and taught. Participants are asked to do listen to a daily meditation in between the classes. This programme is not group therapy, although there can be healing, but is very practical, educational and teaches us to apply the art of mindfulness to our day to day lives. The programme promotes happiness, joy, stress reduction, improved attention, self-awareness, personal development and general well-being.