Mindfulness for young people

[Nibzy]

I am combining two questions here today as I found myself mindfully caught up in a documentary on BBC Three last night (29th July) which was about the NHS failing young people with mental health issues. Part of this programme showed that mindfulness is an accepted treatment plan for depression and anxiety, yet is very rarely used or prescribed. The young people in the programme attended a weekend mindfulness course and this was seen to be a success for many of the people on the TV programme. So my question is twofold.
How do "we" increase/introduce this into primary and secondary schools and young people's lives (as per a twitter question) and why is mindfulness so difficult for people (particularly young people) to access?

[ I do have some of these answers and solutions on my recent blog- I am really interested in your feedback and solutions fellow peers ]

[JonW]

Hi Nibzy.
Some progress is being made in this direction with the Mindfulness For Schools Project. http://mindfulnessinschools.org
Here in Brighton, we have a primary school that is centred around mindfulness practice. http://www.dharmaschool.co.uk
As with the NHS, introducing mindfulness into schools is a slow process, but it's good to see that we're heading in the right direction.
Cheers, Jon

[Gareth]

Hi Cath,

I was going to suggest the same site that Jon has. Why don't you get in touch with them and see if they want to hook into the work that we are doing here? I am in the middle of undertaking a piece of work where I am trying to catalogue all the mindfulness resources I am finding out there on the Internet, so that we can present them as links on the site. Of the sites that I have seen, this one caught my eye the most.

[Nibzy]

Jon, Gareth,
I am aware of .b from my therapist friends and hopefully I will be contacting all and any resources to try and promote this in schools.
The only downside is I am integrating mindfulness it into my cyber trauma workshops and will not be able to devote enough of my time outside of normal work to currently promote this in schools.
I am looking forward to the days when this is more mainstream and I believe it will have a direct effect on the developing minds of young people for the better. However that may affect my job
I will follow those suggested routes and you never know...
Take care x

[Ponder]

Consumerism & money talks ... the poison tastes so good and as long as the nation is selling it ... mindfulness will remain tainted like some kind of eastern rip off being sold to the masses. The smart kids become depressed, while the others feed themselves with what's on offer.

Either the Nation changes the menu, or it continues to consume itself. Just so many choices ... fairy magic, mystical angles, dark shadows, astro travel, esp, spirit readings, talking with the dead, looking for ghosts, The Big Secret, The Law of Attraction, Metaphysics, Philosophical debates, YouTube comments, Yahoo and rar rar rar rarrrr ... This is the way, you are wrong, I am right ... sign up here, read my blog and I give you a thousand likes, subscribe if you like me ... lets keep connected, you need me, I need you, lets all be one happy family, The world is going to End, what's wrong, I have anxiety, I have depression, I have Bi-polar, I have ... wait let me look it up, Oh yea I have that too, what am I going to do ... help me, help me ... let's get creative and draw pictures of pain and suffering, cut ourselves and cry some more and meet people like ourselves and yadda yadda ... become a monk, start going on seminars, and preach to others how it's done ... bla bla bla ... sign up here, buy my book and on and on and on ...
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Forgive me for such a pessimistic view ... Unfortunately that is the mess for many kids today, whom are finding themselves without the kind of help many of us had the fortune to of had. Even with my hard luck story, strangers would at times come to give me a hand. I fear that is not the case for our society today. We are full of words ... we have our Blogs, forums, phones, tabulates, tutorials, how to guides, ebooks, websites, and a gazillion other mobile devices all with the intent to connect, assimilate ones likes, dislikes, with flash backs based on hype designed to inflate lest one be incomplete and on the outer ... all designed to keep one dependent whilst feeding lines of independence that never seem to come or just around the corner ...

Because like so many other shiny promises ... mindfulness too ... is but just viewed as some kind of commodity ... best practices with words, draped in white cloth and mixed with a touch of Yoga. Perhaps they are sick of the glossy magazines that depict perfect examples of happy smiling faces ... much like some religious magazine

... Hell, Mindfulness is very much still in it's infancy ... going by examples ... whilst the west taints what left of the east, the east struggle to protect whats left. As for the so professed mass awakening ... LOL ... It's a nice story that many kids thinking people with too much money and time ... like an approach Winfrey audience giving review on Echkart latest snippet to be found on YouTube ... but wait ... sign up here for more! ....................... hence the taint ...... The information may be true ... but the way in which it's given ........... undermines the very nature to which we are losing with our continued preaching and consuming.
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I think it's us older ones that are more confused and having ourselves on ... Once we get out act together, then might be the time to ask why the kids are not so take with the answer we so profess to know. Maybe we should ask more questions of ourselves instead of telling ourselves what we think we know.

I don't really know ... but I do know when people preach independence, yet discourage it by example ... "Oh man that tastes so good, but be warned ... eating this will kill you ... Your choice" come on ... what a joke! Here is the answer ... Loading ... loading ... expiry date ... sign up here!

It's really no wonder ... People want uplifting Joy without the Pain ... Bigger and Better ... all smiles with happy families cars and things ... holidays, plain trips and rar rar rar ... throw on the robes sign in and it's all bliss ........
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Society is just not there yet ... Best one can do for their kids or others they care about, is teach them how to swim. That's what I try to do for mine ... and let them stay as long as they need ... it's not exactly a nice world for the majority ... but alls the fame to you and yours if your walking tall, paying the payments and giving your due ... or whatever it is that we have to do these day to breath.

If you want kids to sit down all straight and take it in ... giving them fresh air without obligation would be a good start.

see me as you will ............ I'll wake up on the same side when I get up.
Happy G ...

[Ponder]

Allow me to explain further of the mess I spill from my board:

Hmmmm ... double edge sword - social media. So many of us think it to be the worlds answer ... but surely many of us can see the addiction it feeds. For all the predictions and positive advocates of the internet ... The affluence is yet to be seen (the more it's measured in money, cans of baked beans, thongs and slippers - the deeper the problem)... In fact more and more reports on negative implications are costing quite a bit in those parts of the world that rule the rest... with countries with much slower bandwidth all the better for it. Perhaps not so literal, but with less addiction and reliance on their sole being revolving around it. (Slaves/addicts)

The more we advance our interaction, to be permanently hooked as we go from A to B ... the more mindless we become.

Soon we'll be in our automated transport vehicles, twitching our eyes to flip a screen ... looking to purchase the latest bling whilst the chip in the front of our head - is doing business to pay the bills ... the destination to pick up our fly by meal, whilst still simultaneously the chip in the back of our head is lounging about in spacebook connect. When we get home ... we plug into the surrogate chairs and do our Yoga thing.

“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
― Albert Einstein

I'm not trying to be bitter about all this or carry on as some self loathing pessimistic ... Cynic ... I'm just trying to make sense like lost kids ... Most people don't listen to me, cause I stutter, take pills, am fat, where old clothes or whatever ... most people make themselves out to be something other. Again ... not trying to be the marter ... however that's spelled ... It's just a damn shame we seemed to of lost much of ourselves along the way. Best of luck with whatever works for you ... If it's working then try help another ... take the log out of my eye or however it goes. Sweet as .. now I'm done.

No offense intended and sorry for my stereotyping ... I'm not the best of looking in a non judgmental way ... but I am trying. PEACE OUT

[JonW]

Hi Ponder.
Yup, that's all arising, sure as hell it is.
Happily, there are those who will be drawn to mindfulness and find their lives transformed in small, medium or large ways through the simple, compassionate practice of meditation.
We're not trying to change the world here. Just doing our best to nudge it ever so gently into a better world for some.
Good things, Jon

[Ponder]

Sounds like a plan sometimes I talk too much. Sorry.

[FeeHutch]

Please don't apologise for joining in and sharing in the world nudging

[westmoquette]

I just put this up in a new post before properly reading down some of these great previous posts. Definitely recommend watching this great TED talk about the .be programme. Great speaker Richard Burnett,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mlk6xD_xAQ