SESSIONS EVERY WEEKDAY
CPD Workshop: Deepening Inquiry in the Mindfulness-based Group
2 Day Workshop
Description
The Deepening Inquiry training will offer an opportunity to immerse ourselves in the subtle craft of inquiry and learn out of our direct experience as teacher and as participant. We will explore ways of leading inquiries that involve the group in normalising and validating experience, and in building safe, diverse and inclusive communities of practice and learning.
Inquiry is widely viewed as the most challenging of the mindfulness teacher’s practice. Many of us come with transferable skills that help to bring warm relational qualities to inquiry – however these only take us so far. Inquiry practice asks us to inhabit a space of open curiosity and ‘not knowing’, which can feel unsettling to hold. Alongside this, we are encouraged to lean into session themes, artfully drawing them out as we lead inquiries. How to manage both?! Many of us fall back on tried and tested techniques, such as ‘reflecting back’, which are often helpful, but can become repetitive and predictable – which can reduce the group’s engagement.
We will look at ways of keeping the group involved during the inquiry. Most of us tend to focus on how individual participants are doing. This training will help us facilitate inquiries that relate to the group as a whole – each with its own character, needs and challenges. This enables the group to be the context where rich learning can take place. This not only deepens individual benefit but also supports future connections that move out beyond the mindfulness group sessions.
The key text for this workshop is: Bartley, T., & Griffith, G., (2022). Teaching Mindfulness-Based Groups. Pavilion Publications
Training days:
- Friday 31st May and Saturday 1st June 2024
- 08:00 – 15:00 pm (UK Time)
The OMF provides Confirmation of Attendance letters to all participants who attend and take part in all aspects of 100% of the training event, including break out rooms, with their camera on.
What will I do on this course?
The training is predominantly experiential in nature. Much of the learning will come from personal practice; experience of leading inquiries and being led by peers and the workshop leader, Trish Bartley; and through reflections and discussions.- There will be lots of opportunities to learn alongside and from your peers in practicing inquiry, discussion, reflection, and mindfulness practice in small breakout groups and the large group process.
- Brief accessible practices will be introduced that actively sustain the mindful embodying of the teacher and offer ways of supporting the group within inquiry / and in and out of sessions.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the training, participants will have had an opportunity to look at:- Different dimensions of the inquiry process that deepen learning and insight.
- Ways of reading, holding, and responding to what is happening in the group in order to keep active levels of engagement during inquiry - and sustain the mindful embodying of the teacher.
- Understanding and practicing horizontal inquiry, which can offer normalising and including – and understanding the difference to ‘popcorn’, which generates a list of different experiences.
- Exploring vertical inquiry and finding ways of deepening into the embodied sensations experienced, whilst involving the group in holding the process, when deep feelings may be present
- As mindfulness teacher, learning how to stay grounded during inquiry when not sure where to go next.
- Finding kind but effective ways to manage participants who tend to dominate inquiries.
- Learning how to facilitate endings, moving on, and the overall pace of inquiry that seems to suit the group.
About the Teacher
Trish Bartley
I am a mindfulness teacher trainer and author - and have been involved in mindfulness since 1999 and the beginning of MBCT. I have two special interests within the mindfulness field – one is in relation to work with people with cancer – and the other is concerned with groupwork practice. I adapted a specialist MBCT programme for people with cancer (MBCT-Ca) and published two books on the subject in 2012 and 2017 – the first for teachers and second for people with cancer themselves. I have recently co-authored Teaching Mindfulness-Based Groups. I am one of the founder members of the CMRP core training team and train for the Mindfulness Network. I have a background in community development and have worked in rural development with local people in an ex-‘homeland’ area in South Africa. From 2001 - 2020, I taught regular 8-week MBCT programmes to people with cancer, within a North Wales oncology unit. I now work with a few people with advanced cancer one to one online. I train on the Mindfulness Network (MN) teacher’s training pathway and taught for 15 years on the Bangor University Mindfulness Masters programme until 2020. I supervise teachers from different parts of the world, lead workshops and train mindfulness teachers in Europe and occasionally further afield, and I offer brief mindfulness interventions to UK health professionals through Mayfly https://mayfly.org.uk I am also grandmother to 4 fast-growing young, gardener, border collie companion, and keen listener to music.
