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  • Mindful Self-Compassion teacher training information session

    Mindful Self-Compassion teacher training information session

    20 April at 17:00 to 18:00

    Are you interested in teaching the eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion course? Or would you like to integrate mindfulness and self-compassion into your professional activity (i.e., psychotherapy, coaching, nursing, teaching, etc.)? Join this session to find out what’s involved.

    What’s included

    This session will provide all you need to know about the different steps leading to you being able to teach Mindful Self-Compassion. Zoe Shobbrook-Fisher, who is one of the trainers on the teacher training course, will be leading the session. The session will include a short overview, after which there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

    Book your place

    Book your place by emailing spft.smc@nhs.net and you will be sent a joining link.

    SMC

    Online

  • Mindful Self-Compassion teacher training information session

    Mindful Self-Compassion teacher training information session

    26 January at 17:00 to 18:00

    Are you interested in teaching the eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion course? Or would you like to integrate mindfulness and self-compassion into your professional activity (i.e., psychotherapy, coaching, nursing, teaching, etc.)? Join this session to find out what’s involved.

    What’s included

    This session will provide all you need to know about the different steps leading to you being able to teach Mindful Self-Compassion. Zoe Shobbrook-Fisher, who is one of the trainers on the teacher training course, will be leading the session. The session will include a short overview, after which there will be an opportunity to ask questions.

    Book your place

    Book your place by emailing spft.smc@nhs.net and you will be sent a joining link.

    SMC

    Online

  • Connection and community: Our end of year message

    Connection and community: Our end of year message

    As we approach the end of 2025, Robert Marx and Clara Strauss reflect on the value of real, authentic connections in a world where our value is often judged by what we do and bring.

    Are we becoming disconnected?

    There was a programme on the radio recently in which young people were talking about relationships. They were discussing dating apps, and the pros and cons of being in a romantic relationship. As it went on, the transactional nature of what they were describing became more unsettling, weighing advantages and disadvantages of a relationship, as if buying a kitchen appliance.

    If we approach life like a balance sheet, we will surely only ever get a sense of doing well or not so well. We will never get a sense of being well. A recent Office for National Statistics survey found that over one in four adults (27%) felt lonely at least some of the time . The detrimental effects of loneliness have been compared to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Haven’t we all seen, or maybe been, those people in restaurants sitting opposite each other and looking not at each other but at their phones, sometimes for most of the meal. Are we losing the art of conversation, of connecting?

    Isn’t connection what gives us meaning and satisfaction? And real connection cannot be transactional; it can only be without agenda. The Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber contrasted ‘I-Thou’ relating with ‘I-It’ relating. In ‘I-It’ relating, we are impersonal and top-down. We impose categories on raw experience – for example deciding a tree is an oak tree, not a beech tree, rather than really taking in its colours and shapes; or perhaps as a clinician, deciding someone has a ‘personality disorder’ instead of really being with them and allowing their humanity to unfold. ‘I-Thou’ relating allows ourselves and the other to be fully and authentically who we/they are without agendas. This is surely the foundation for any meaningful relating, whether as a partner or parent or colleague or therapist, or mindfulness teacher.

    Authentically present and connected

    Being authentically ourselves is a gift that invites others to also be authentically themselves and vice versa. When we sense someone’s sincerity and lack of agenda, we quickly feel safe and relaxed and that allows us to move towards being the same. Mindfulness is a wonderful foundation for being able to relate in this way. It teaches us a method for being with ourselves and each other and the world, that is simply present – with awareness and acceptance of whatever happens to be present – without getting caught up with the stories and labels our minds so readily provide. It doesn’t have an agenda, and helps us move from doing to being.

    Mindfulness need not be something we just use to turn in on ourselves to calmly steady ourselves, but, crucially, it can also be a way we open to the raw experience of the world, to relate and respond authentically.

    One sure way of not relating authentically is to become transactional: impersonal, task and performance-oriented behaviour. This approach pays insufficient attention to the networks of relationships that can take place at the individual, personal level and at the macro, global level. We are now well aware that in ecosystems, removing just one piece of the system can have disastrous effects on the rest of the system. When the wolves in Yellowstone Park were killed in the early 1990s, the elk population grew. They ate the willow and aspen trees, which destroyed the materials the beavers needed to build dams. This damaged the bird and fish populations that depended on beaver ponds. When wolves were reintroduced in 1995, elk numbers fell, vegetation recovered, beavers returned, and rivers stabilised again.

    More than the sum of their parts

    There is an equivalent story to be told in organisations where people form intricate and cherished relationships with each other that offer far more than the sum of the tasks that they perform. These relationships are often the principal source of enjoyment at work, and one of the main reasons that we stay in an organisation. We had to undertake a restructuring recently at the Sussex Mindfulness Centre that resulted in us losing a valued member of staff. This was a painful and difficult process for everyone and as we’re a small organisation, we all felt it. Most religions use the metaphor of the whole community being a body and how it is impossible to remove one part of the body without the rest of the body being affected. The body is made of the relational networks that make the system work, that make the communication effective and that maintain morale, meaning and connectedness.

    In our daily lives, we need trusting, safe points of real meeting and connection but we do not need all our connections to be big and deep. There are so many ways we can personally either connect or avoid connecting. It’s a choice we make many times every day. We could try really seeing the people we live or work with by bringing mindfulness into our daily lives more fully and bringing mindfulness practice from the cushion and out into the world. This would allow us to really see and connect with the people in our office, at the supermarket till or the people we walk past on the street and even the tree at the end of our road.

    As we come towards the end of another year, we invite you with us to renew our mindful opening to the people, ecosystems and world all around us and to see what happens.

    Clara Strauss and Robert Marx are co-leads at the Sussex Mindfulness Centre. Find out more about them here.

  • Writing ‘Mindfulness: The basics’ – the inside story

    Writing ‘Mindfulness: The basics’ – the inside story

    Taravajra shares the inside story of his experience and anguish co-writing ‘Mindfulness: The basics‘. Published by Routledge, the book provides a comprehensive introduction to what mindfulness is, how and why it’s useful, and guidance for practice.

    The writing team was formed

    In 2022, Rebecca Crane, the director of CMRP Bangor University at the time was asked by Routledge, a well known UK publisher if she could suggest potential authors for a book about mindfulness for the Basics series. My colleagues in the Bangor/Mindfulness Network teaching team Sophie Sansom, David Shannon and I responded to say we can do this! However, we are all busy people and many practical questions quickly emerged about writing this book.

    When we looked at other books in the Basics series we saw that they are not actually very basic. How do we write a readable basics book that is also academically respectable? What are the important topics to include? What do we want to say about mindfulness that has not already been said? Who is our audience?

    Taravajra with his book Mindfulness: The basics

    We decided that we wouldn’t be writing another general introduction as there are already many excellent examples available. We thought students of nursing, social work or counselling could benefit from a well referenced and rounded introduction to the subject. So that’s the audience we wrote for. However, I have been encouraged that a friend who is a very experienced mindfulness teacher found the book to be stimulating.

    Self-doubt creeps in

    We have different backgrounds and interests, and, as we discovered, different writing styles. Yikes, how will we coordinate all this? Overt time we learned how to do this with good humour, patience and many meetings over a long period. Writing, reviewing, discussing, it was a rich process.

    At one point I was remembering the challenge of writing a thesis 15 years ago. The pressure of limited time and deadlines (real or self-imposed) ‘I should be writing but I don’t want to!’ and ‘I want to do something else’. And then I don’t do the something else (walk, other work) and I don’t do any writing. Hmmm, this felt familiar and awkward. At some point I realised that I had developed an aversive reaction to writing. This also included a healthy dollop of self-doubt with questions like: Will my writing be any good? What will my two colleagues think about my writing?

    Naming the aversion helped

    In his book Deeper Mindfulness. Mark Williams suggests that each time we put a task off (aka procrastination) the task takes on a more unpleasant tinge (feeling tone/vedana). I felt resistance and some dislike of the project. Naming this aversion was the key first step that enabled me to work with the whole dynamic.

    In essence, I needed to cultivate greater friendliness towards the project. Drawing on my knowledge of mindfulness and Focusing (developed by Gene Gendlin) I was able to communicate with the parts of me that had difficulties with getting on with the writing. I did manage this sufficiently to finish my writing and record new audio practices which accompany the book. We all worked very hard, separately and together, to bring the book into the world.

    Taravajra has been part of the teaching and training team at the Sussex Mindfulness Centre since its beginning in 2010. He will be attending the conference on 15 May 2026 where he will be happy to sign copies of this book. The next Deeper Mindfulness course co-led by Taravajra, starts on 27 May 2026.

  • Opening my mind: experience of running a group for refugees

    Opening my mind: experience of running a group for refugees

    Robert Marx, the son of a refugee and Co-Lead of the Sussex Mindfulness Centre, describes his experience of running a mindfulness course for refugees and asylum seekers

    Faiths offer hand of friendship

    As we approach Christmas, and the start of both Channukah and Rajab, we can consider how the founders of three of the world’s religions were themselves refugees. Jesus and his parents fled Herod’s massacre and found safety in Egypt. Moses fled the persecution of Pharoah in Egypt and sought refuge in Midian. The Prophet Muhammad fled persecution in Mecca and sought protection in what was later called Medina.

    All these religions call for us to offer hospitality to strangers: “You shall love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Deut. 10:19); “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.” (Matthew 25:35); and the Qur’an instructs believers to offer protection to anyone who seeks it, even from an enemy group (Qur’an 9:6).

    Yet hate crimes send shock waves through communities

    And yet only weeks ago, I was deeply distressed to discover that the mosque round the corner from where I live in Peacehaven suffered an awful arson attack, just coming on the heels of the deaths at the Manchester synagogue. Antisemitism and Islamophobia have been on the rise. We live in a world in which people can be displaced thousands of miles from their families and homes through no fault of their own, and the way they are received is also affected by the reverberations from events thousands of miles away.

    Mindfulness for refugees

    It is into this context that we wanted to offer our mindfulness courses to refugees in the Brighton area. Last year, our Sussex Mindfulness Centre team, won a national award for this work. This year we’ve run two more of these 10-week courses using the curriculum devised by Ariana Faris and Sheila Webb, with money from the award and funds generated through other Sussex Mindfulness Centre work. I was fortunate enough to co-lead the last group which finished in September. This was a group like no other I had run in several ways.

    We held the group outside in the Secret Garden in Kemptown, Brighton, a beautiful and protected space. The location was so important. I have never run a group outside before so this was an interesting adjustment for me, having been trained to run groups with very particular kinds of set up and structure and always assumed to be inside, or more recently online. But people repeatedly referred to the beauty and peace of the garden as a key to their therapeutic progress. And indeed, more and more research is emerging to demonstrate the benefits of nature for mood and stress, and specifically for the benefits of sustaining mindfulness practice and improving attention.

    We also had a refreshment break during the sessions during which we provided snacks and drinks, offering a space for participants to chat. Again, this was a big departure for me from what I had been used to. My training has tended to discourage breaks in which people might go back into their discursive mind as a distraction from the work of learning to pay attention and drop the storyline. And yet, this too seemed so important for the connection they needed with each other in a normal way, that had been so deeply interrupted in their lives. At the end, some of the participants brought their own traditional foods to share and we were able to enjoy the richness of these varied cultures. We also enjoyed listening to Rumi’s famous ‘Guest House’ poem, much beloved by many mindfulness teachers, in the language it was written in – in Farsi. This created a beautiful full circle in which we were bringing teachings to people that had been brought to us from the cultures of some of those same people. Not only had the participants migrated but so had the content of the course.

    Sanctuary and safety amidst the hatred

    Probably the most important element running through the whole group was safety. In order to protect our participants, we tended to avoid asking about their histories and where they had come from. Some of this information emerged as the weeks went on, but organically, not from the kind of assessment I was used to doing prior to offering any kind of therapeutic intervention. That just wouldn’t have set the right tone here of welcome into a space that was safe: non medicalised, non-stigmatising and non-intrusive. And yet we knew our participants had experienced some awful and traumatic events and their very presence was evidence of having been dislocated from what they had once called home.

    Empowerment, sharing and reflections

    This group was also the first of the four we have run that included men, as well as women, and there were some concerns about how that might impact the sense of safety. However, our experience was that the men added a broader diversity to the group, and contributed to what might have been a new experience for some women of a safe, respectful, mixed space.

    In the final session, the participants talked about their experience of the course. Everyone shared what they would be taking away and how they would miss the sessions. People named different breathing practices they would use, time they would commit to take out for themselves from their caring duties, examples of empowerment they would draw on and how they had normalised their experiences for each other, rather than having them in lonely isolation.

    I found myself thinking back to my own father, who arrived in Littlehampton as a child refugee in 1939, barely speaking English, and the lifelong journey he had from then on to make a home here. I was only here myself thanks to the sanctuary he was given, and I wondered what he’d make of the attacks on the synagogue and mosque in the context of the welcome for which he always felt so deeply appreciative.

  • Mindfulness & cancer: Finding steadiness together

    Mindfulness & cancer: Finding steadiness together

    The Sussex Mindfulness Centre is offering two mindfulness courses for people affected by cancer: an eight-week online course for those living with cancer and their loved ones, and a one-day MBCT-Ca masterclass for mindfulness teachers. Two pathways, one focus — compassionate support.

    Living with cancer — whether during treatment, in remission, or beyond — brings not only physical challenges, but emotional and mental burdens too. Fear, uncertainty, fatigue, anxiety, and grief can thread their way into each part of life. What if there was a gentle, supportive way to learn to live alongside those experiences — not by fighting them, but by meeting them with kindness, awareness, and presence?

    The two mindfulness-based courses aim to do just that. They differ in approach and audience — but both share a commitment to offering space for people affected by cancer to reconnect with themselves, and with others.

    1. A deep dive into Mindfulness for Cancer: Teacher training masterclass

    A one-day masterclass on Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Cancer (MBCT-Ca) — a specially adapted version of mindfulness training designed for people who have had, or are living with, cancer.

    🗓️ Where & When

    The masterclass takes place on 12 March 2026, 09:30–16:30. It’s delivered online (via Zoom) — so it’s accessible from anywhere in the UK.

    This is a training day for mindfulness teachers or those in mindfulness-teaching training, rather than a class for people living with cancer themselves.

    What the masterclass covers

    Participants will explore the foundational themes and practices of MBCT-Ca, including:

    • The “Four Movements”: Intention, Coming Back, Turning Towards, and Kindness — a framework that helps guide how we bring awareness and compassion to moment-to-moment experience.
    • Working with the body: MBCT-Ca places extra emphasis on bodily sensations — honouring the body especially for people whose bodies may feel unfamiliar after illness or treatment.
    • Group process and embodied practices: Recognising that sharing with others who’ve had similar experiences can be deeply healing; and offering practices that are gentle and adapted to people living with or recovering from serious illness.
    • Brief everyday practices and gentle meditations — tools that participants can carry beyond the class into everyday life and, if trained, into their own teaching work.

    The masterclass is experiential — meaning participants will try out practices, reflect in small groups, and consider how to transfer learning into their own work or personal mindfulness.

    The lead facilitator is the well-known mindfulness teacher Trish Bartley — a highly experienced teacher in this field. She has worked with cancer patients for decades and is the author of several related books and MBCT-Ca materials.

    In a world where physical healing does not always equal emotional healing, this masterclass offers a way for teachers to bring mindful, compassionate support to people living with cancer — and to help create communities of care beyond the hospital and clinic walls.

    Find out more about our one-day online masterclass; Mindfulness for Cancer teacher training.

    2. A gentle, supportive journey: mindfulness for people living with cancer and loved ones

    For people living with or beyond a cancer diagnosis — as well as for their close supporters — the Sussex Mindfulness Centre is offering a specially tailored eight-week course: Mindfulness for living with cancer.

    🗓️ Where & When

    The course runs from Thursday 16 April to Thursday 4 June 2026, meeting weekly on Thursdays 18:30–21:00. There is an optional half-day retreat on Sunday 24 May 2026 (10:00–14:30) to deepen practice and reflection. The course is online (via Zoom) — making it accessible for participants across the UK.

    Who it’s for and what it covers

    This course is designed for people living with or beyond a cancer diagnosis, whether they were recently diagnosed or experienced cancer years ago. Importantly, it’s also open to partners, family members, carers or friends — so loved ones who’ve been part of the journey can be included too.
    It’s not therapy or counselling, but a skills-based programme built around mindfulness as a tool for self-care, resilience, emotional support, and living more fully.

    Before the course begins, each applicant has a 45-minute one-to-one meeting with the course tutor (Chris Barker), to talk through their current situation and hopes for taking part. This helps ensure the timing is right, and that the course can be supportive and safe for them. There are eight weekly sessions of 2.5 hours each, involving mindfulness practices, group discussion, and exercises. Daily home practice is encouraged — about 30 minutes per day, supported by guided audio recordings and weekly notes.

    The course offers a safe, compassionate group space: participants can share as much or as little as they like and are invited to explore mindfulness in a way that feels manageable, gentle, and grounded.

    For many, the journey of cancer doesn’t end when treatment does. There can be fear of recurrence, ongoing exhaustion, emotional upheaval, and a sense of “what now?” The compassionate structure of this course, and the presence of others who “get it,” offers a space to:

    • reconnect with the body and mind in a gentle, grounded way;
    • learn skills to manage anxiety, fear, stress, and the ongoing emotional fallout;
    • rebuild hope, presence and a sense of self beyond illness;
    • share and heal in community — not alone.

    Find out more about our eight-week online mindfulness course for people living with cancer.

    Why mindfulness matters in cancer care

    Mindfulness-based approaches such as MBCT and adapted courses like MBCT-Ca or the “Mindfulness for living with cancer” course have a growing evidence base for helping people with cancer and survivors — and studies so far suggest they can reduce stress, anxiety, depression, improve quality of life, and help people cope with the physical and emotional burdens of illness.

    Mindfulness offers presence, calm, a tool-box for emotional self-care, and a community of understanding. And sometimes, that support can make a profound difference in how people live — not just survive.