If you are interested in teaching mindfulness, the Sussex Mindfulness Centre offers the eight-week mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) course, as a first step in the training pathway.

This skills-based course will help guide you through practices and exercises that can help you get more out of life, and manage the ups and downs more skilfully. We have been running this course for staff in the NHS for almost 20 years.

What is mindfulness and how can it help?

Mindfulness training helps us to be more present with our experience, with an attitude of kindness and curiosity. This enables us to be less at the mercy of strong emotions and compelling thoughts and more able to respond in ways that are beneficial for ourselves and those around us.

You will learn:

  • How to come out of autopilot so you are more able to respond to what is needed in the moment rather than react automatically in ways that might be harmful. 
  • Breathing Mindfulness practices to help you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and impulses and which bring you back to responding clearly, effectively and in accordance with your values. 
  • To recognise what triggers and maintains stress and to respond in ways that support greater self-compassion and well-being, rather than self-criticism and agitation. 
  • Ways of responding skilfully to difficulties, such as conflicts or tricky relationships in ways that support understanding and care.

Some of the benefits include: decreased incidents of depression, reduced anxiety and stress, and improvements to sleep, memory and wellbeing.

What happens in the sessions?

In the two-hour sessions there will be a mixture of formal and informal mindfulness practices, discussion and exercises to help you reflect on your own experiences, and learn skills that you can apply in everyday life.

Mindfulness practices to do at home

The course includes daily breath and meditation mindfulness practices. Your teacher will give you links to these to guide you at home. Participants discover that the more home practice they do, the more likely they will feel the benefits of mindfulness.

Eight week courses for you

You can access the course free of charge if you work for Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust or for any part of the NHS and local authority health and social care staff in Sussex, via the Staff in Mind programme. If you do the free eight-week course via the Sussex Partnership or the Staff in Mind programme, it still counts towards the eligibility criteria for training to teach mindfulness.   

For everybody, else please see details of the next course below. 

Eight week mindfulness course

The teacher is Ruth Sequeira, a BAMBA registered mindfulness teacher, supervisor & teacher trainer.

NB. Please note that if you need to access mindfulness training for serious mental health issues, you should talk to your GP about being referred to the appropriate clinical service.

For enquiries: smc@spft.nhs.uk