Deepening Mindful Communication / Interpersonal Mindfulness (English spoken)

Discover methods for staying present with others while remaining centered in yourself, respecting the needs of others while honoring your own, and asserting yourself with both kindness and confidence.

Do you have a desire to further develop with mindful attention? Do you want to learn to apply mindfulness in your life? Do you want to learn to be mindful in your interactions with others?

In the Interpersonal Mindfulness training, you deepen your mindful attention practice and expand your skills to include interactions with others. There is a focus on authenticity and deepening connections.

The training consists of four pillars:
1. Deepening and broadening your mindfulness skills;
2. Bringing mindfulness into communication;
3. Increasing and deepening your body awareness (interoception);
4. Strengthening your calming system.

Over 5 sessions, your toolbox will be expanded with, among other things:

• Calm meditation to develop calmness and concentration from which clarity, wisdom, and creativity can arise.
• Various meditations to increase our body awareness, helping with further stress reduction and connecting with others.
• Kindness meditation to become more gentle and friendly towards ourselves and others.
• Yoga nidra (sleep yoga) to tap into the subconscious and reflect on your values and probably also Yin yoga, an accessible form of yoga that helps relax the entire body/mind system
• Value-based meditation to give more direction to our lives and live more in line with our values.

Mindful communication
We explore how, through practical communication guidelines, we can deepen and improve the relationship with ourselves and others step by step. We will do this through various (interactive) exercises, shedding light on different perspectives each week. Topics include attentive listening, mindful speaking, conscious responding, and communicating in conflict situations. We examine our own roles and states of mind in connection and how we can communicate more in line with our needs.

As a result, communication becomes more compassionate, sincere, and engaging. Life may become lighter, and our connections with others more pleasant and aligned. The exercises draw from existing methods such as interpersonal mindfulness, nonviolent communication, and deep listening.

Neuroception, Compassion Focused and Polyvagal Theory
We delve deeper into the workings of the brain in relation to stress and learn about our emotion regulation and motivation systems, which largely determine our behavior and well-being. We discover how various elements of mindfulness and mindful communication contribute to balancing these systems, helping us be more relaxed and present, both with ourselves and with others.

We train our parasympathetic nervous system, the part of the nervous system associated with calmness. In addition to theory, we will of course practice with it. This way, we work on increasing our inner calm and our ability to activate the calming system.

Practical information:
The training consists of 5 online sessions Friday evenings in autumn from 7-9.30 pm  

Online with zoom for the special price of 225 euros, including a workbook and audio files.

The training is conducted by me, Birgitte Belen also certified mindfulness and compassion trainer and certified for this specific training by those who developed it initially, Zohair Elabd, Frits Koster, and Lidewij Severins.

Hope you’ll join me in Autumn 2024 –  7 pm online!