We use a range of mindfulness techniques currently with children and some of these can be used with adults too just changing the delivery. Again, you need to consider your audience, find out about who it is you are delivering to and consider what might be helpful and appropriate to them.

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This technique is also known as grounding theory. The idea is to use this when you need to refocus your mind. For example, teachers may find this useful to decompress at the end of the working day when their minds are full of their to do list. Sitting somewhere comfortable, ask everyone to find in and around the space you’re in: 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste. Ask them to look for the things that aren’t obvious, like the way the light plays across the table rather than the table, listen out for sounds they might not normally hear etc. This should take a good few minutes and makes you refocus on the present and what is around you.

Rain Shower.

The brain gets very busy. Maybe you fall asleep thinking about work, wake up thinking about work. Not healthy. Eyes closed. Imagine all your thoughts are sticking to your skin like dust. Go out into a warm pleasant rain. It’s washing all of the dust, thoughts drain away. Sun comes out and dries the skin and your clothes. Three mindful breaths.

Listening 

Using listening to still the mind can be really useful. Ask everyone to get into a comfortable sitting position (this can be done on chairs rather than mats if people prefer). Explain that we will be focussing on using our listening to the sounds around us that we might not normally take notice of. Get everyone to gently close their eyes and time out 1 minute of quiet listening. At the end of the minute ask everyone to open their eyes and see if anyone is willing to share what they noticed.

Counting Thoughts 

This is a good way to introduce how to meditate. Again sitting comfortably, give everyone a pile of pom poms to one side of them (or anything else small that are nice to pick up and you can get plenty of). A mistake a lot of people make when they ‘try to meditate’ is trying to push thoughts away that come. This won’t work and leads to a cycle of then thinking about trying not to think! So instead. we’re going to practice allowing thoughts to pass through our mind. Just allow them to drift through. Every time you have a thought simply move one of the pom poms from one side to the other with eyes still closed and carry on. Do this for one minute and then get everyone to gently open their eyes and see how many pom poms they have moved. Is it more or less than they thought they would and thought there would be? The more you practice this, the less thoughts you should have and the space between them will increase. They could be given the pom poms to take away and asked to practice this regularly and look to see if there is a change.

Encourage your group to think about how they could fit some mindfulness into your day. ‘I know how busy you all are, but self-care is important. It doesn’t have to take long. Just before you go to sleep? In the car driving to work? Make that little bit of time for yourself.’