De-mystifying Mindfulness

Meditation, yoga and mindfulness have been things that I have always found interesting. I learned meditation, I have done yoga, but I had never really looked deep into mindfulness. It was just one of those things that were something I was going to do “some” day. But then I saw this course being offered on Coursera and decided that “some day” had just arrived.

This was a 6 week course.
In week one the question what mindfulness actually is came to the table.
In week two we learned what the main features are of mindfulness based interventions, we learned about different psychological and therapeutic approaches to mindfulness and we were taught about the therapeutic and clinical significance of mindfulness.
In week three we learned to compare different traditions of thought about mindfulness around the world. Analysing the meaning of mindfulness in different cultural, historical and conceptual contexts was discussed. The relevance and significance of different philosophical traditions of present day mindfulness practise was another topic that was discussed in week three.
In week 4 the following topics were discussed. Evaluating the social and political significance of mindfulness. The various claims about the ethics of mindfulness was discussed. And we learned to practise mindfulness meditation as an experiment. We also learned about the significance of the commercialisation and commodification of mindfulness.
In week five we learned about what options there are for future development and study and were asked to plan for our next steps.
Week 6 brought an end to the course and we were asked to design an original project for our community with mindfulness. We were also asked to relate our learning to a real-world situation. We were also asked to critique our own preconceptions, ideas and findings with regards to mindfulness.

I found the course really good. We had several speakers who had made mp3’s to listen to to relax and do a body scan and such. I have found those really helpful for relaxing. I think mindfulness is a really good technique to remain calm and become calm in difficult times. I have also learned how to use these kind of techniques for women in labour to stay focused and remain calm, which helps the birthing process along.