A mindful government?

“Breathe and let be”. Jon Kabat-Zinn

I should imagine being an MP can be quite a stressful job and the Houses of Parliament a high pressured environment.

I think it’s fantastic therefore that politicians are being taught mindfulness techniques to allow them to stop ruminating and find a calm space within which allows them to focus on important issues with enhanced clarity.

An 8 week mindfulness course devised by Jon Kabat-Zinn is planned for February 2014. There has been great interest from MP’s eager to join the 50 who have already attended previous sessions.

Chris Ruane, the parliament’s leading advocate of mindfulness describes it as “the breath that allows us to anchor ourselves in the present”. Chris, a former primary school teacher, hopes that there will be a steady increase in MP’s incorporating mindfulness into their daily lives. “The more we can develop mindfulness in the heart of parliament and in the heart of government the more mindful policies we can develop”.

With Mindfulness being approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for treating stress and depression it definitely has a legitimate place within the corporate setting. 

Ruane sums up perfectly “The whole pace of life has speeded up. We are all on a hedonic treadmill. You get on it in the morning and you’re on it all day long. How fast do you want to go on a treadmill? Have you got the means and mechanisms to slow yourself down or step off? I think mindfulness can help. It’s helped for me. And those MPs and Lords speak about rebalancing their lives, re-prioritising, deciding what’s important”.

If you are interested in the 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course devised by Jon Kabat-Zinn please contact me for dates and prices of our next intake (please note this is also available over Skype and on a 1-1 basis).