MBCT- Mindfulness Based Cognitive therapy
Week 1: Foundation	Proven effective for Anxiety and depression.
	For those who find themselves with low moods, nagging unhappiness, periods of feeling blue,
	feeling despair, demoralized, sheer joylessness.
Root of depression and emotional problems:	1) the tendency to over think, ruminate, or worry too much about some things, coupled with
	2) a tendency to avoid, suppress, or push away other things
Mindfulness training is to:	Give control back to you attention, moment to moment without harsh self-critical judgement
	Daily practice reduces tendency to brood and worry about everything
	Learn to respond wisely and compassionately to people and events that affect you
Depression, Unhappiness and Emotional Distress	Unhappiness is part of the human condition, a natural response to certain situations.
	Left alone, it will pass on its own good time. We often feel we have to do something,
	which only gets us more stuck in ever-deepening unhappiness.
	Unhappy moods bring up negative thinking patterns, feelings, memories- makes up more unhappy.
	Depression brings about moods and feelings like- dejected, depressed, despondent, sad.
	How you feel about yourself: a failure, inadequate, a loser, pathetic.
	When down, mind takes over with negative thinking: sad mood followed by negative thinking.
	Feelings of anxiety can reawaken worrisome patterns of thinking as well, creating more worry and fears.
	moods and feelings can trigger “matching” patterns of thinking, memory and attention,
	which then make the feelings even more intense and persistent.
	The doing mode needs to keep in mind the gap between the kind of person we want to be
	and the kind of person we are.
Driven-doing mind: aversion and attachment	Driven-doing mind is where we feel we just cannot let go of trying to get what we want and
	trying to get rid of what we don’t want. AKA attachment and aversion.
	Ruminative Worry is just one form of Driven-doing, the mind doubles its efforts.
	Rumination tries to fix sadness and unhappiness to try to fit things done in the external world.
Skill:	Respond more skillfully:
	1) recognize ruminative worry and driven-doing as they arise moment to moment as they are
	2) Cultivating an alternative mode of mind that allows us to respond more skillfully to sadness,
	unhappiness, and other unpleasant emotions.
Doing, Being, and Mindfulness	Doing is one of many the modes the mind can work.
	We can free ourselves from any problem the doing mode creates by shifting mental gears.
	Being: the mode of bring is the alternative to the doing mind. Many unfamiliar with being.
	MBCT is to look at both being and doing, and balance both.
Automatic pilot vs Conscious awareness	Doing mode is almost automatic like driving, walking, eating without clear awareness.
	Being mode the “reinhabit”  the present moment and become fully conscious of our lives.
thought vs direct sensing	Doing mode works on ideas, the world, ego, thoughts, sensations, thinking that fills the mind.
	Being mode, we connect with life directly, sense, experience, and taste the richness.
Dwelling on past/future vs present moment	Doing mode: mental time travel, we easily wind up ruminating on the past of future, pain. Loss, failure.
	Being mode the mind is gathered here, now, in this moment, fully present, open to the universe.
Needing to avoid unpleasant vs approaching	In doing: we tend to avoid unpleasant experiences, aversion.
	In being we are open to all experience whether pleasant or unpleasant.
Needing thing different vs all things to be	In doing we are trying to make change, that we are “not good enough”, unsatisfactory, self-judgement.
	Being: we allow  ourselves to experience, and be content with ourselves.
Seeing thoughts as real vs seeing them as mental event	In Doing: seeing thoughts as real and true
	In being, we experience thought as part of flow of life, thoughts as thoughts, enter and leave mind.
Prioritizing goals vs Sensitive to wider needs	Doing mode we are relentless to demanding goals and plans, feeling drained and exhausted.
	Being: we are sensitive to the wider picture, quality of the moment, health and well being concern.
	Mindfulness means we can know our mode of mind and if we are in Doing or Being mode.
Getting Ready	40 minutes 7 days a week or 1 hour a day.
	Try to meditate same place, same time, everyday.
	Let others know you are unavailable at that time.
	Protect your practice time.
	If you are having acute depression or things are chaotic, wait until life gets better before doing MBCT.
Part II: MBCT. Week 1- Beyond Automatic Pilot	Automatic pilot is a Doing Mode.
	Raisin exercise- see it, ridges, thoughts, touch, smell, taste, eat, swallow
Body Scan meditation	Body scan daily- release tension from head to toe.
Directing attention	direct attention to where you want it to be. engage
Sustaining attention	sustain attention so that it remains in place for the time you want it to stay (stay and explore)
Shifting attention	shift attention away when you want to (disengage).
Bring awareness to routine activities	waking up, drying your body, taking out garbage, making coffee, washing the dishes, etc.
Mindful Eating	Eat mindfully and take note of sight, smell, taste, sounds, etc.
Week 2: Another way of Knowing.	The thinking of the doing mind underlies the rumination of depression,
	the worry of anxiety, and the stressed out state.
Two ways of knowing:	1) Thinking about. Thee is no need to control your thinking in any way, just let thinking unfold
	naturally. Take your time.
	2) Tuning in directly. Allow awareness to sink into and feel from the inside and out.
Know about	In doing mode we know about our experience only indirectly, through thought. Rumination occurs.
	Through mindfulness we discover another kind of knowing- quieter, wiser, not drowned by noise.
	In direct relating to experience we re simply aware of our experience in the moment,
	the knowing is in the awareness of itself.
	Practice and get lost in your thoughts, then reconnect with the body, shift from living in your head
	to directly sensing your body. Understand the liberating power from that shift of knowing
	to another.
The hidden power of thinking, thoughts, and feelings	If we wave at a friend across the street and they don’t wave back, we might feel:
	they are ignoring us , we might have done something wrong, feel upset.
	they are deliberately ignoring us, feel angry.
	The person may be preoccupied with his own worries, we feel concern.
	Often we are unaware of our interpretations and mindfulness can help us respond differently.
	Our emotional reactions reflect the interpretations we give to situations rather than the
	situations themselves. Our interpretations of events reflect what we bring to them
	just as much as the reality of the events themselves.
	The thoughts are our interpretations and the conclusions we draw, often based on
	preconceived notions and prior experience, so they shape our influences.
	Thoughts are not facts they are mental events.
	Our moods affect how we interpret events in a ways that keep the moods going.
	The spirals in which thoughts and moods feed off each other are what lock us up into
	emotional distress and depression, our thinking gets us stuck. We can step out of the thinking patterns
	that keep us gripped in painful emotions by switching our way of knowing. From being lost
	in our head, to knowing and sensing our body directly, mindfully.
Mindfulness of breathing	Sitting meditation
	Sit comfortable- settle into body, bring awareness to any physical sensations.
	Notice any changing physical sensations in the abdomen with breathing.
	Do not try to control breathing, just be a watcher of the rising and falling of the breathing.
	mind may wander off, that is ok, gently change awareness back to the physical breathing.
	Be kind, gently, and patience with your experience.
	Practice for 10 minutes daily.
Pleasant and unpleasant experiences	Keep a journal of when you experience pleasant and unpleasant experiences this week.
Week 3: coming home to the present	Gathering the scattered mind
	Mental time travel: the DOING mind has a way of going back in time or anticipating the future.
	This is a distraction to the HERE and NOW state of being.
	Ruminating about the past can cause anger and depression, worry about future causes anxiety.
	We feel burdened, exhausted, and stressed when anticipate things we have to do.
	Use the breath to return to the ” here and now” , mindfulness of the body in motion.
	Settle the active doing mind to experience calm and peace. 3 minute breathing space practice.
Stretch and breathing meditaiton	1) bring hands over head with mindfulness breathing
(has some features of Ba duan jin)	2) bring hands out to the side with mindfulness breathing, pushing hands out laterally.
	3) Raise on hand to the sky, alternate the arms, mindful breathing
	4) bending side to side with arms over head.
	5) shoulders raise and low, front circles and back circles with mindful breathing.
	6) head left and right, up and down, side to side, gentle rolling with mindful breathing.
Sitting meditation (10-20 minutes)	1) feel body as a whole while you breath.
	2) Notice any sensations going on in your body.
	3) If mind wanders off go back to the breathing, take note of where you mind went.
	4) Keep mind on any sensations in the body from moment to moment.
	5) If sensations are pleasant or unpleasant keep a non-judgmental mind.
	6) Re-gather yourself each time your mind drifts off. Come back into the body with breathing.
	7) close with breathing at the belly several times, cultivate present awareness and gratitude.
Mind Wandering	It is not a mistake or failure, it is what the mind does. It is not to prevent wandering.
	1) Recognize without judgement mind is wandering.
	2) Pause- enough to know where the mind is.
	3) Let go- of whatever the mind was thinking of.
	4) Gently and kindly- bring attention back to the breath.
Mindful movement (floor yoga)	Sivasana
	stretch up over head
	Knees up and press low back into floor
	Knees to chest stretch back
	One knee to chest stretch (both sides)
	Cat Cow
	Opposite hand and leg stretch from Cat/cow position
	On back: raise hips up.
	On back: twist side to side
	On back: raise leg stretch
	On side: lift leg up (both sides)
	Sivasana on stomach
	Lotus one leg raise (both sides)
	Cobra pose
	End with Sivasana on the back
3 minute breathing space (MBCT most important method)	Mini meditation 3 times per day: sit and breath
	1 minute: Observe thoughts. Acknowledge any mental events without judgement.
	Observe any feelings. Acknowledge any pleasant or unpleasant feelings without judgment.
	Scan your body from head to toe and search and release any tension.
	1 minute: focus on the physical sensation of the breath, rising and falling of abdomen.
	use the breath to anchor your mind. Go back to breath when mind wanders off.
	Final minute: Expand the breathing to the entire body, posture, and facial expression.
	If any discomfort or tension, take your breath to that place, exhale the tension.
Unpleasant experience Calendar	Log and journal any unpleasant experiences as it is happening.
	Write down your thoughts and how you experienced them.
	Sensations in detail, moods, thoughts then and thoughts now.
	At the end of the week reflect on the experience.
Week 4: Recognizing Aversion	Reacting to pleasant and unpleasant feeling in different ways.
	Aversion is a deeply ingrained habit. It is the drive to avoid, escape, get rid-of, numb out or
	destroy things we think as unpleasant.
Freeze-Framing Aversion	1. unpleasant feeling arises
	2. mind reacts to unpleasant feeling by trying to avoid the feeling.
	Release the behavior to aversion to the negative feeling and try to acknowledge it.
	When depressed many have negative thoughts, those change with mood, and when looking back when not
	depressed, you may be surprised on the negative thought you may have had.
	Negative thoughts are a feature of clinical depression state and not really us.
	Belief in thought can change with mood.
Depression features	Tired, apathetic, no longer interested in events or activities you once enjoyed, lack of concentration
	unable to make decisions, sad, worthless, self-criticism, irritable, quick to anger. Weight gain/loss.
	changes in appetite and sleep.
Daily practice:	meditation in choiceless awareness, 3 minute breathing space, mindful walking.
	Focus attentin on breath
	Attention expands, to a more spacious sense of the whole body, then sounds and space around you
	Finally spacious choiceless awareness.
Focused and Spacious attention	focused attention– gathers the mind to stay present in the face of unpleasant experience.
	It helps you connect to the here and now when mind taking you to past or future to unawareness.
	Spacious awareness: helps you be aware of the bigger picture, not just unpleasant awareness
	but also to how you are relating to the experience and see if there is aversion.
	Spacious attention counteracts the contracting effects of aversion on body and mind to expansion.
	Creating a balanced view. In aversion, we narrow our attention to the unpleasant. All experience
	becomes a problem. Widening the experience to the body allows what is problematic to be
	held together with what is ok, we can see more that everything is not a problem.
Practicing with Intense sensations of physical discomfort	Physical discomfort provides a opportunity to relate to all unwanted experience even emotional.
	Depression, anxiety, stress can be freed this way. Become aware of the physical discomfort.
	Bring attention to the location that is most intense, use gentle attention to the sensations.
	You reverse aversion by going directly to it. Shifting awareness to the problem.
Skillful response to aversion	1, Recognize it
	2. Name it
	3. Treat it with respect, willing allow it to be present
	4. With gentle awareness see how it affects your body.
3 minute breathing space (MBCT most important method)	take extra time in this method this week to notice unpleasant feelings, tightening body, overwhelmed,
	or knocked off balance. Acknowledge strong emotions. Without judgement anchor the breath.
	Use grounded spacious awareness of the body as a whole. Position the mind to respond mindfully not react.
	Use the breathing space method to not react to situations with aversion.
Week 5: Allowing things to be as they already are	Reacting to unpleasant feeling leads to aversion, which will most likely escalate.
	Unhappiness, stress , and depression will be stuck.
	Our relationship to what is difficult and unpleasant that keeps us stuck in suffering,
	not the unpleasant feelings and sensations themselves.
Letting Be	Holding something gently in awareness is an affirmation that we can face it, name it, and work with it.
	Shifting our basic stance toward experience, from one of “not wanting” to one of “opening”,
	allows the chain of basic habitual automatic reactions to be broken at first link.
	All unpleasant feelings pass of their own accord if we do not force them.
	There is a kind of peace and contentment we can experience even in the presence of unpleasant feelings.
Work with difficulties-	Use a gentle and kind awareness and how it relates to the body, be interested and friendly to difficulties.
	Investigate them with gentle curiosity.
	We disempower aversion by intentionally bringing to all experience a basic sense of kindness
	allowing the experience to be, just as it is, without judgement or trying to make it different.
	From clear seeing, we can choose what, if anything, needs to change.
	Allowing and letting be frees us from the contraction of aversion.
	It creates a space where the difficult can be held more kindly with less struggle.
	Very often, letting be will not immediately remove the original unpleasant feelings.
Week 6: seeing thoughts as thoughts	Our interpretation of events reflect what we bring to them as much as or more than, what is actually there.
	Thoughts are not facts.
	Moods and feelings are are powerful influences shaping our frame of mind. The lens in which we see the world.
	In moods, thinking patterns often echo themes similar to the feelings that shaped them.
	Hopeless feelings lead to hopeless thoughts, kind feeling lead to benevolent thoughts.
	Feelings give birth to related thinking patterns.
	When themes of feelings and thoughts mesh in this way, those thinning patterns re-create the feelings
	that shaped them in the first place. As well as keeping the feelings going, the close link between
	feelings and thoughts make the thoughts seem real.
	When thoughts and moods mesh, thoughts can be very compelling and hard to see as thoughts.
Meditation	See thoughts as thoughts and not as you. They are not true self.
	when mind drifts into thoughts, pause and say “thinking” and gently and kindly return to the breath.
	You can view the thoughts like a movie screen, or birds passing by or leaves down a stream.
Train of association	We do not need to fight with thoughts or judge them.
	We can choose not to follow them once they have arisen.
	When we lose ourself in thoughts, our self identification is strong. Thoughts sweep the mind and carry it away.
Mindfulness	Mindfulness invites us to see thoughts as part of a whole package. We focus directly on the feeling
	that gives birth to the thought, rather than getting tangled in thoughts themselves. Mindfully, gently
	we investigate, ” What am I feeling in this moment?”
	As always, kindness is the foundation of skillful practice.
	Kindness to your thoughts mean gently reminding yourself that thoughts are not enemies.
	Allow thoughts to be here, holding them in a friendly, interested awareness.
	Kindness to yourself means allowing them to be here, holding them in a friendly, interested awareness.
	Kindness to yourself means allowing yourself to be just as you are already are in this moment.
Set up a early warning system	MBCT is to prevent relapse of depression.
	Your actions will be most effective if you can respond as early as possible to signs that your mood is worsening.
	Notice any signs that tell you your mood is spiraling down: sleeping less, not getting exercise,
	fatigue, negative thoughts, irritable, eating more, putting things off.
Week 7: Kindness in Action	Think of your daily activities. Which ones lift your mood and which ones dampen your mood?
	What you do affects how you feel. Most important: You can change how you feel by changing what you do.
	You can turn activity into something that can raise our mood and increase well-being.
Activities that help mood	Pleasurable: calling a friend, taking a warm bath, going for walk.
	Accomplishment:  writing a letter, mowing the yard, doing something that was put off.
	Even when you are depressed, you can take advantage of the link between mood and mastery and
	pleasant activities. With Care, you can tip the balance of the two-way relationship so that these
	activities will improve mood.
	Engage in mastery and pleasure activities as an act of kindness to yourself.
	When you feel low in spirit, drained, with al your energy going, take time to ask yourself:
	“How can I best take care of myself right now?”
Sustainable mindfulness practice:	Honor daily practice despite time constraints, change up your practice daily and on weekend.
	work on mindful sitting,, body scans, mindful walking, 3-minute breathing and sustain it.
	No need to force yourself, but plan little and attainable goals.
	What you need at times of difficulty is no different from what you have already practiced in this course.
	If you feel overwhelmed, you need to make a small shift in the quality of the moment, it will affect the next.
Week 8. Now what? The rest of your life	Aim 1: to help you recognize earlier and respond more skillfully to the habitual pattern of mind.
	Mind that creates emotional distress and entangles you in a endless pattern of suffering and discontent.
	Aim 2: Cultivate new ways of being”
	A way of being less like to be triggered with destructive behavior.
	A way of being that allow you to live life with greater well-being, ease and satisfaction.
	A way of being that is more ready to trust the mind’s inner wisdom to guide you with kindness through turmoil.
Why is MBCT so helpful	Help you recognize early warning signs to what may pull you down.
	Learn new ways to step out of negative thought patterns and feelings.
	Stepping away from negative thought patterns as not the true you.
	Being kinder and less crtical of yourself.
	Value yourself more.
	Which chapters in the course helped you the most? Reflect on it.
	By reflecting on the benefits you have gained from mindfulness, you sow the seeds of good intention
	that will support your practice in the future.
	Give yourself a positive reason to sustain mindfulness practice, link it to something you care deeply about.
Meditation on a question	“What is the most important to me in my life that the practice might help with?”
	If you discover a reason to practice mindfulness that connects with something about which you care deeply,
	use it to remind, reinspire, and reconnect you with your heartfelt reason to practice.
	Clear intention is what carries us through, so that we practice whether we feel like it or not.
	Not by forcing ourselves, but by reminding us of what we truly value.
	Every time we are truly mindful, we nourish the precious intention to care for ourselves and other people.
Tips:	Do some practice everyday no matter how  brief.
	Practice the same time and same place daily.
	view the practice like caring for a baby.
	See practice as a way o nourish yourself, not as a chore.
	Find was to inspire you to practic3e.
	Explore ways to practice with other people.
	Keep a beginners mind, you can always start again.
	Start the day with attention to breath.
	Notice changes in your posture.
	Be mindful of sounds around you
	slow down on eating and cherish the moment.
	notice your body when you walk and stand.
	Be aware of tightness in your body.
	Wherever waiting pay attention to body, posture, breathing, stress.
	when doing simple activities like brushing teeth or cleaning, use mindfulness.
	Before bed take time to watch breathing.
3 minute breathing space responsiveness.	Sit in a erect and dignified posture
	Recognize and acknowledge thoughts, feelings, emotions, body sensations
	Gather attention with the breathing at the belly,
	Expand awareness to the body as a whole, then to all present experience.
	Mentally re-enter the original situation with a new mode of mind in place.
	Body- bring open friendly awareness to body sensations linked to difficulty.
	thoughts- consciously approach any negative thinking patterns as mental events.
	Action- take care of yourself with pleasure, mastery, or mindful action.

Sample Playlist readings from “The mindful Way workbook” with John Teasdale, Mark Williams, Zindel Segal, and forward by Jon Kabat-Zinn.