Adult Education

MINDFULNESS FOR WELLBEING

Portmarnock Community School Adult Education Programme:

Mindfulness is paying attention, non-judgmentally, in the present moment.

In this 8 week course we will be learning to pay attention to various anchors such as the breath, the body, sounds, thoughts and emotions. The attention we bring is a kind and interested attention to our full experience of each moment. During the practice you may experience moments of peace and ease as your mind begins to settle and clear. We will also learn how to bring mindfulness into our everyday life as we pause in the midst of our lives, releasing tension from the body and bringing awareness to how we are in the moment, opening up to the world around us, truly knowing what it is to be fully alive. The final 3 weeks of the course is dedicated to mindful compassion practices, where we learn meditations to offer ourselves compassion in moments of suffering.

No previous experience is required. We will be doing some gentle yoga on week 3 of the course so please bring a mat for this week. Participants should bring a mat if they would like to lie down for the body scan in weeks 1 and 2.

There have been hundreds of studies done on the benefits of mindfulness, some of the results are as follows:
-Reduced stress
-Increased resilience
-Increase in positive emotions
-Improvement in cognitive function
-Enhanced creativity
-Increased clarity and focus
-Improved memory
-Greater self- awareness and insight
-Improved physical and mental health

Starts Tuesday 14th January 2025

Cost: €88 Term: 8 weeks 7:30 – 9:00pm

About the Tutor: Mairead O’Keeffe, Mindfulness Facilitator

Mairead completed the 8 week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction)course in 2010 and found it changed her life. She has been practising meditation ever since, attending weekly drop-in meditation classes and going on retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, a leader in the area of Mindfulness. In her own life she has found Mindfulness very helpful for dealing with anxiety and an active mind.

In January 2016 Mairead resigned as a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (her former profession) and commenced teacher training with The Institute for Mindfulness-Based Approaches, where she qualified as an MBSR teacher in June 2017. There was a huge emphasis in the course on the teacher’s personal practice which Mairead finds challenging at times but essential for the teaching of Mindfulness. Mairead facilitates Mindfulness courses in both Malahide and Portmarnock Community Schools and a weekly hour of mindfulness in Highfield Healthcare Group. She also facilitates mindfulness sessions, both online and in person, for The Sanctuary meditation centre in Smithfield. She is a former director of the Mindfulness Teachers Association of Ireland clg. Mairead is married with 3 children aged from 30 to 25.