Coaching for Wellbeing through Mindfulness

Creative Workshop Exercises: Easy and Engaging Workshop Activities #18 Coaching for Wellbeing through Mindfulness

Impact: The beneficial effects of Mindful Activities on Awareness, Focus, Balance and Mood

Materials Needed: One pack of Positran Mindfulness Cards

Remember, should you decide to buy one or more packs of cards, you can get 10% off your first shop order with a newsletter subscription

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Professional Use: 

Who is Coaching for Wellbeing through Mindfulness for?

This exercise is for life, executive or other coaches, therapists and counsellors who want to help their clients experience the wellbeing benefits of greater mindfulness.

How does it help with Wellbeing ?

Mindfulness has been scientifically demonstrated to help with

Preparation

Pre-sort card pack by

1. Removing the six exercise cards that are for group work or that require a buddy
2. Sorting the remainder into their four groups
   1. Focused attention. These exercises are designed to help people learn to focus and savour.
   2. Open awareness. These exercises are designed to help people to become more aware of their surroundings.
   3. These exercises are aimed at helping people feel more balanced and calmer.
   4. Positive mindfulness. These exercises are designed to improve mood.

3. The exercises vary in length. Most only take a few minutes, but some can take up to 30 minutes, or run over days. You may want to put some aside as ‘homework’ assignments rather than exercises to run in the session.

For example, here we see the difference between ‘Mindful words’ and ‘Mindful cooking’ exercise in the Open Awareness pile. NOTE, the cards in the packs are not hole punched, these images were created using a demonstration pack.

How to run the exercise

Explain to your client the accredited benefits of mindfulness practice. Explore whether they already experience moments of mindfulness in other areas of their life. For example some physical practices such as yoga or Pilates can induce a mindful state.

It may also be appropriate to mention that some people experience a range of unpleasant emotions such as agitation, anxiety or discomfort when first practicing mindfulness. Coachees can be reassured that these initial reactions are normal and likely to pass after a few sessions.

Of course, should your coachee experience a very strong or overly persistent negative reaction to the exercise you should desist and switch to a restorative exercise, and also consider whether more in-depth psychological help such as counselling or therapy is indicated.

To do the exercise

1. Ask your coachee to first select the broad type of activity they feel would be most beneficial to them at this point e.g. feeling calmer, being more aware of their surroundings, improving their mood, or learning to focus and savour. In this instance we’ll imagine that the client choose ‘improving their mood.
2. Take the positive mindfulness pile and ask them to select a specific idea that appeals to them. In this instance we can imagine they were interested in seeing more beauty in the world.
3. Two cards relate to this. ‘Beauty all around you’ can be practiced then and there – just follow the instructions on the back of the cards. While ‘Capture the beauty around you’ can be set as a homework project

An alternative of the exercise

Knowing your client, you can pre-select an exercise for them, or indeed arrange a sequence of exercises to be undertaken over a series of sessions and as homework.

The Positran Mindfulness Card packs featured here are all available at the Positive Psychology Shop. A discount of 10% is available to new newsletter subscribers 

If you have any queries about the exercises as described, please contact Sarahlewis@acukltd.com. We will publish any queries and answers in the next newsletter to the benefit of all.

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