Congratulations Mindfulness Yoga Teacher Graduates!

CMI proudly congratulates 15 yoga teachers who graduated from Level I Mindfulness Yoga Teacher Training in June this year!

These teachers are now incorporating mindfulness into their yoga teaching and are preparing to take these new skills into areas beyond the normal yoga class.
The June retreat was highly interactive, engaged and practical, granting direct experience of expanding awareness, compassion and resourcefulness. CMI teachers generate four prime features in their programmes: compassion, focus, creativity and clarity through paying attention to the quality of their presence. Capacities for deeper listening, being available, being attentive and being interested in the needs of others and our world are all enhanced.

Mindfulness has been shown to significantly reduce stress and ageing, while increasing happiness, workdays and wellbeing. The Guardian – Zen and the art of keeping the NHS bill under control (April 2013) reports that Jon Kabat-Zinn has even sold mindfulness to Downing Street. As Kabat-Zinn says: “The ‘find it, fix it’ model of medicine doesn’t work any more… mindfulness has unlimited applicability to almost every healthcare issue we now face – and it’s cheap.”

Mindfulness Yoga graduates teach mindfulness in keeping with the foundations established in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) founded by Jon Kabat-Zinn and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) formulated by leading academics including Mark Williams, to target mental health. They are thus geared to meeting the demands of the health sector, policy makers and beyond. In fact, CMI Mindfulness teachers are trained to target schools, workplaces, private groups and a wide range of settings. They are tuned in to current research which alongside personal experience, generate an interest in bringing these teachings to others.

Neuroscience has amassed sufficient evidence to show that mindfulness changes our brains – we are able to groove new pathways that allow us to live with gentleness and with greater attention to health and wellbeing. But mindfulness also improves productivity and creativity which is why many workplaces are using it. As a July 2013 Huffington Post article reports in their headline: ‘Companies are using yoga and meditation to boost the bottom line’ a “healthy workforce is a productive workforce“. So mindfulness and yoga are fast becoming mainstreamed in a our world.

Mindfulness yoga teachers are well positioned in this mainstreaming. CMI teachers, well trained in working safely with the body and breath,  are now increasing their own mindfulness practices and expanding their reach through appealing to wider and wider audiences as more people become turned on to improving their wellbeing to live happier and more meaningful lives. CMI is proud of the dedication of these new Mindfulness Yoga teachers, and their commitment to bringing mindfulness to others, tailoring their delivery to suit different situations and locales.