In this lesson I share my decade-long journey with chronic pain. From spiraling downward into despair and depression whilst navigating the labyrinth of specialists and treatments, to discovering the transformative power of mindfulness and ultimately spiraling back up on the road to recovery and healing.

In this lesson we look at the origins and benefits of mindfulness, and how it helps us recognise the conditions for happiness that are already present in our lives. Discover how this innate faculty can be trained, cultivated and applied to great effect in your journey with chronic pain. The lesson ends with a short guided practice called the three step breathing space that brings to life many of the concepts covered in class.

In this lesson we explore the second arrow of suffering, the one we shoot ourselves whenever faced with difficulty or discomfort, the arrow that compounds our primary suffering with fear, self-criticism, guilt and shame. Learn how mindfulness offers us a powerful alternative way of knowing and training the mind so we can stop before shooting the arrow of reactivity.

Chronic pain disconnects us from our body, causing us to lose trust and confidence in its natural ability to heal and carry us through life. In this lesson we learn the importance of restoring the mind body connection, and how mindfulness helps us become embodied and whole once more.

In this lesson we explore the realization that mindfulness helps us build mental strength and resilience, both of which are integral to managing and living well with chronic pain and stress. We also look at modes of mind, and learn how cultivating awareness of “being” and “doing” modes, as well as the ability to traverse between them, has a profound impact on our health and wellbeing.

This is the first of two lessons on the realization that mindfulness helps us break the stress reaction cycle. Stress plays a fundamental role in life, and our awareness of how it shapes our health and wellbeing is vital if we are to take back control from our hardwired reactions and live better in the face of pain and all the other sources of stress in our lives.

In this second lesson on stress reactivity you’ll learn how mindfulness stops the cycle dead in its tracks. The mindful stress response still works with many of the same brain regions and systems in the body as the automatic stress reaction, but with profoundly different results. And it all hinges on bringing awareness to stress reactivity moment by moment. This lesson includes a short grounding meditation to practice initiating the mindful stress response.

This lesson is the first on the realization that our attitudes toward pain, difficulty, well being, and life in general, matter more than we can imagine. We explore four of the nine “attitudinal foundations” that create fertile soil for the cultivation of mindfulness: Beginner's Mind; Non Judging; Trust and Patience.

In this lesson you’ll learn about the remaining five core attitudes for cultivating mindfulness: Non Striving; Acceptance; Letting Go; Gratitude and Generosity. The beauty of the nine attitudes is that you don't need to remember them all. They are so deeply interconnected that each is contained within the other, so by embodying one, you are able to harness the power of all nine..

In this final lesson we recap on the realizations covered so far, and see how they all add up to create a stable base for change. The end of course is really just the end of the beginning. What matters now is where you go from here, how you carry forward and implement what you’ve learned on the path to greater wellbeing.