Active Pause

This conversation is part of an ongoing exploration of stress, resilience, and mindfulness. Here, we talk about stress, how it comes about, and how it can be a gateway for growth. This is part of an invitation to all of us to explore this Mindful Place.

Mette Mouritsen is living in Denmark. She has been working as a medical doctor for 26 years and the past 15 years as a general practitioner. Due to stress she started practising mindfulness, which brought her further on to a psychotherapeutic study. The combination of these studies, together with a daily mindfulness practise and a rather sudden shift in consciousness brought her a further understanding of how body and mind are interconnected, which she uses in her new position as a holistic doctor, public speaker and author. She is the mother of three adult children, enjoys daily meditation, regularly exercise, writing and the many moments of stillness in nature and in everyday life.

Download PDF of Stress: A possibility to unite body, mind and spirit by Mette Mouritsen

Published January 2016

What next? An invitation for all of us to explore this Mindful Place:

Says Mette:

“It is really a deepfelt wish to create a space for applied mindfulness. A kind of compassionate “playground” mostly for adults and eventually teens. It could as well be named authentic relating, It is about presence. To be present within while being in contact without. A way to strengthen our ability to sense our selves, to know our limitation and go beyond them in full awareness. And utilise the strength in the common field of compassionate awareness.”

“The intention is to return to all that is here and now, each time we are caught by the stories we are retelling and recalling. It is a way to become more presence in life, and in our many relations in daily living, right there where we easily may loose the balance. It is a possibility to connect and be inspired, in stead of using our safe and well known avoiding strategy.”

“This place could also offer different awareness training like, painting, yoga, singing, music, silent nature walk, besides mindfulness. All what possibly could support our many different ways in becoming more aware. Then the group meetings will be the place to apply our mindful way of being. Like bringing the being into the doing, before walking out into the ‘bigger world’ ”.

Mette Mouritsen

Greg Madison, PhD, is an existential psychologist and psychotherapist active in various academic and professional communities across Europe and internationally. He has written the books, The End of Belonging and Existential Migration and co-edited three books on Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy and Existential Therapy. He continues to write articles on contemporary topics related to experiential-existential psychotherapy, participatory democracy, psychology and society. He founded The London Focusing Institute and is co-editor of Existential Analysis.

See: www.gregmadison.net and www.londonfocusing.com

Published: January 2016. See printable PDF transcript.

Modernity has been structured around fracture lines, like the mind-body problem, the nature nurture problem, free will versus determinism, and secularism or faith. We explore these issues with George Makari.

Historian and psychiatrist George Makari is the author of the widely acclaimed Revolution in Mind: the Creation of Psychoanalysis, which received the Gradiva Prize and was called the best history of its kind by Harold Bloom. The book has received over eighty reviews worldwide and has been the focus of numerous international conferences. His second book, Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind, was just published in November and was called “brilliant, compendious…essential reading” in the Wall Street Journal.

Director of the DeWitt Wallace Institute for the History of Psychiatry, Dr. Makari is Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and Adjunct Professor at Rockefeller University and the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. His essays have won numerous honors and have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Time, and The Lancet. For more information, go to GeorgeMakari.com.

Published January 2016

In this conversation, Sonia Sequeira talks about mindfulness, with a special focus on sound meditation.

Sonia Sequeira, PhD is a neuroscientist and clinical researcher. She manages the investigational drug development program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in NYC and leads the Institute for Meditation Sciences in cutting edge research on meditation practices. She created the Advances in Meditation Research Conference Series, which are scientific meetings open to the public, to increase awareness and establish guidelines for quality in the field. At MSKCC, she spearheads the meditation program in the pediatrics department, for nursing staff and patients. Sonia currently teaches at Naam Yoga NYC, the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Sciences and at MSKCC.

Published December 2015

In this conversation, we explore Suzanne’s experience in dealing with difficult feelings and transforming them. This is a short conversation (7 minutes), also available as PDF transcript illustrated with drawings by Suzanne.

Get printable PDF transcript.

See also: I realized what I wanted to kill was my feelings, not myself, by Suzanne Noel.

Suzanne Noel is a Certifying Focusing Coordinator. She developed Recovery Focusing and the H.O.W. We Heal model for group work. She lives in the central valley of Costa Rica. Her favorite quote is “I met what came, left behind my sorrows, and am traveling still.” (Movie, Restoration). Her websites are www.RecoveryFocusing.com and suzannelnoel.com

Published December 2015

Dr. Linda Carlson holds the Enbridge Research Chair in Psychosocial Oncology and is Full Professor in Psychosocial Oncology in the Department of Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary. She has published over 150 research papers and book chapters in the area of psycho-oncology. In 2010, she published a patient manual with Michael Speca, Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery. She received the Kawano New Investigator Award from the International Psycho-Oncology Society in 2006; the William E. Rawls Prize in cancer control from the National Cancer Institute of Canada/Canadian Cancer Society in 2007; a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Psychological Association Health Section in 2009, the inaugural Research Excellence award from the Canadian Association of Psychosocial Oncology in 2010, the Arete Award for Research Excellence from the Department of Oncology at the University of Calgary in 2012.

See also: Harnessing the power of the placebo effect

Published December 2015

Feeling At Home, by Ifat Eckstein

A chapter from the upcoming book, What Sustains Me.

Free download. Note: The PDF takes a moment to come up.

Read this PDF on your computer, phone, or tablet. Here’s how to read it on your iPad.

With more than 20 years experience of working as a couple & family therapist, for the last 10 years I enjoy bringing the world of FOT to the therapeutic space, giving workshops, teaching various courses and coordinating workshops. My desire is to bring an awareness of our interconnectedness through the felt sense, to bring back our sense of Oneness, our shared journey in this life. This process involves writing as a channel of expression. Through it I explore and try to find ways to bring this expanded perspective to daily life, to bring us back to our natural roots.

To all these endeavors I bring experience and insight from couple and family therapy, group leading and teaching, my meetings with patients and colleagues. Inspired by the worlds of Judaism, Buddhism, the philosophy behind Focusing, Indigenous traditions and more, my personal journey and professional work is nourished and enriched.

Published December 2015

In this conversation, we explore what it is that predisposes us to experiencing a sense of shared connection in a group, and relate it to the mammalian brain, and the synchronization of mammals.

About Roberto Larios Aguilar: Originally he was a Medical Doctor in the area of General Surgery, he quit and, as he began to feel the ‘lack of connection’ with other people, that reason and his own struggles made him began a Masters degree in Psychotherapy. There he was immediately attracted to the experiential theory of E. Gendlin. He is a certified Focusing Trainer and Wholebody Focusing coordinator. He loves mountain climbing and long remote trekkings. Actually he devotes his time to the clinical practice in the area of experiential psychotherapy, and recently very interesed in exploring “the shared Field” and the role of Wholebody Focusing, Touch and Consciousness in healing physical and emotional issues.

Published November 2015

Michelle Lee Weldon blends Yoga, Psychotherapy and Neurosculpting® to help her clients create sustainable change by re-wiring new patterns and habits into their daily routines.  She is a guest lecturer in several Yoga Teacher Trainings across the country, a national presenter in the field of mindfulness and is the co-creator of Neurosculpting® Yoga. In addition to teaching yoga classes and providing individual coaching and psychotherapy sessions, Michelle provides professional mentorship to therapists and coaches interested in creating a successful practice integrating yoga, meditation and psychotherapy.

Michelle is a Licensed Professional Counselor, an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher and a Certified Neurosculpting Fellow based in Denver, Colorado.  In her spare time she dabbles in social entrepreneurship and writing and loves the ocean, world travel and being generally ridiculous. See her website.

Published November 2015

Dirk Marivoet is the director of the Institute for Bodymind Integration in Ghent (Belgium). He studied Core-Energetics under John C. Pierrakos, MD; Postural Integration®, Energetic Integration and Pelvic-Heart Integration under Jack Painter, PhD (and has been a certified trainer/supervisor since 1999). He has also worked extensively with native shamanism both in Europe and North America. Earlier in the 80s and 90s he was adjunct faculty Psychomotor Therapy at Leuven University, where he still teaches.

Published November 2015. See printable PDF transcript. See also conversation with Dirk Marivoet about ethics and about what sustains him.