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my Inner Inmate says just because I like chocolate doesn't mean I have to hate vanilla
Hello <<First Name>>
If you care too, PAUSE for a moment and notice where your mind is...what's on your mind, who's on your mind, who's minding your Mind. Thank You.
Thank you for all the sincere and heartfelt comments on my last newsletter. I appreciate you taking the time to read it and reply. In that newsletter, I mentioned how I am usually not someone that at New Year reviews the previous year or talks about my intentions and hopes for the upcoming year. However, because this New Year’s heralded the end and start of new decades and the last ten years were when I started and evolved my “mindfulness career,” I could not help reflecting deeply on my journey and life. This inspired me to write what I did - how mindfulness affected me personally and our community at large during the last decade.
Now, for whatever reason, I feel the impulse to share a few of what I see as trends in the world of mindfulness for the coming years. Disclaimer: what follows are my views, my hopes, and to some extent, my fears, of what mindfulness may bring and be like in the coming decade.
To begin with, I strongly feel that mindfulness is “here to stay,” at least for the foreseeable future. Mindfulness is a foundational way of relating to the world. And being an innate capacity that all humans have, it applies to everyone. As such, it has permeated all parts of our society. Additionally, mindfulness is known to be an antidote for the stresses, distractions, mental health issues, and the general dissatisfactions of modern life - things that will likely continue, possibly worsen in the next decade. And for better or worse, it is a multi-billion dollar industry.
So here are some of the trends that I see & hope to see for the next ten years:
- Because high rates of job-related stress and burnout are expected to continue, mindfulness will increase its way more and more into the healthcare and corporate arenas (stress has been dubbed the “Health Epidemic of the 21st Century” by the World Health Organization).
- Mindfulness will become more accepted and prescribed by physicians and other healthcare practitioners. It will no longer be thought of as a woo-woo or an alternative medicine treatment. It will become standard of care (as an adjuvant) for some chronic conditions.
- Mindfulness based programs will be increasingly used for substance use disorders, smoking cessation, and process addictions (shopping, food, gambling) as research and experience confirm its effectiveness. Mindfulness based peer-led recovery meetings will continue to proliferate (e.g., Recovery Dharma, Refuge Recovery)
- As a corollary, mindfulness will be increasingly offered to chronic pain patients not only because it helps with the pain but also in mitigating opioid misuse, something that contributed to the current opioid crisis.
- Precision Mindfulness: up until now, mindfulness interventions have generally been applied as a one size fits all to medical and mental health conditions. Following the trend of Precision Medicine (an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person), mindfulness based intervention’s effectiveness will be markedly improved by the advancement to a more targeted, personal approach. This allows for greater precision in applying mindfulness to clinical conditions and non-clinical situations.
- Similarly, and because of the universality and fundamental nature of attention and awareness, mindfulness can and will be tailored to meet the needs and challenges of specific Professions and groups – physicians, medical students, lawyers, Veterans, First Responders, Law Enforcement, Teachers, Judges.
- Mindfulness research will have to be more rigorous, making it more challenging to do. But this will lead to more specific and applicable results. As laid out in the seminal 2017 publication, “Mind The Hype,” in the next decade, researchers will need to offer more nuanced and precise definitions of mindfulness. Also, to be published, research protocols will have to include appropriate, preferably active control groups to compare their mindfulness interventions with and systematically look at potential adverse effects of mindfulness.
- Mindfulness in education will be more rigorously critiqued and criticized. But it is likely to become more available as school districts, administrators and educators figure out where mindfulness can fit, how it will work, and what is needed to bring it in.
- Mindfulness teacher training and certification programs will proliferate--buyer beware!
- Social Mindfulness: there will a growing trend toward social mindfulness as we find we can be happier and less stressed if we organized around collective resources. By placing the whole, rather than the self at the center, social mindfulness can bring forth lasting systemic transformation. Also, by building community as we engage with others to change our political and economic systems, social mindfulness practices and programs can function as a vehicle for the higher good. But we need to be attentive to not devolve into using mindfulness to benefit only the wants and whims of “my tribe”-- we don’t need more Social JustUs Warriors!
- The mindfulness backlash will continue – it is the cost of popularity. Some of the criticism will be dismissed as better research and better-trained teachers come forth. However, to the extent that mindfulness programs continue to emphasize only individual-level stress reduction, and don’t take into account the systemic and structural problems that are causing the epidemic of stress in the first place, the criticism and backlash will continue and be deserved, particularly if the commercialization/commodification of mindfulness remains unbridled.
- Spiritual Mindfulness: connecting us to a greater purpose will be a priority in the new decade. Our current challenges can be seen to be products of greed, ill-will, idiocy, power-itis, and corruption. Problems such as climate change, income inequality, discrimination, and Government and corporate accountability/transparency can be framed as a spiritual crisis arising from our sense of separateness. Interdependence, a core feature of mindfulness, leads us to recognize that we are inter-related and part of the environment.
- Home Depot (D.I.Y.) Mindfulness: digital therapeutics, apps, wearables, personal neurofeedback gear, mindfulness seats on airplane…on and on.
- And here is a unique trend -- millennials are seeking mindfulness in LEGOs to escape the troubles of modern life. Not surprising given the popularity of adult coloring books for mindfulness craze of a few years ago.
These are some of the mindfulness trends that I am looking for, hoping for and hoping 'not for.' Thanks for letting me share. I welcome your thoughts, predictions, and concerns.
Finally, the last decade is over and the future decade is not yet, so it’s never not NOW...making it never too late or too early to (re)start your practice. Please join us at one of the many offerings listed below!
“Work diligently. Diligently. Work patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently. And you’re bound to be successful. Bound to be successful.” S. N. Goenka
One more thing, in case these trends get a little out of hand, I am offering MBBSR (Mindfulness Based Bull Shit Reduction) to teach people the benefits of practicing mindfulness over offering nonsense.
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MINDFULNESS for SLEEP & PAIN
a 5-week mindfulness course taught by UMASS Medical School certified MBSR teachers,Gus Castellanos, MD & Mary Beth Stern,
Gus is a retired neurologist that specialized in pain & sleep disorders
Mary Beth is an MBSR/mindfulness teacher who specializes in the Unwinding Anxiety program pioneered by Brown University’s Judson Brewer MD PhD
Thursdays, Feb 13 - Mar 12, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
CANASI MEDICAL INSTITUTE
Palm Beach Gardens
info/register: Mary Beth Stern - mbfstern@gmail.com/561-346-7225
Gus - gus@18mind.com/561-222-1928
FLYER HERE
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MBSR/mindfulness classes open for enrollment:
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Gus Castellanos MBSR classes still accepting:
- Saturdays, Jan 25 - Mar 14, 2020, 10am - 12:30pm with UM Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Miami. CEs available. Link to register
- Wednesdays, Jan 29 -Mar 18, 5:30-8pm with Sari Center at Good Samaritan Medical Center, West Palm Beach. CEs available, Partial scholarships offered to anyone in need of financial assistance. Flyer HERE contact gus@18mind.com for info/to register
Valerie York-Zimmerman 8 week MBSR Thursdays, Jan. 23 – Mar 12, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m., Garden Sanctuary, South Miami. Link HERE Orientation: Jan 16, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Valerie MBSR Practicum Leading to Teacher Certification with UCSD. Practicum students attend the MBSR Program for the public on Thursdays, Jan. 23 – Mar 12, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. and meet for Practicum classes, Saturdays, Jan 25 – Mar 14, 10:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Link HERE
Calcagnini Center For Mindfulness MBSR classes for 2020 listed for Winter and Spring 2020 link HERE
Mindful Kids Miami offers 8-week MBSR classes on:
*Saturdays, 10am-12:30pm, 1/18 – 3/14 with Martha Holmes at Mindful Kids Miami office, South Miami LINK HERE
*Wednesdays, 3:oo-5:30pm, 1/22 - 3/11 with Olivier de Lavalette at Flagler Elementary School, Miami. LINK HERE
*Thursdays, 3-5:30pm, 1/23 - 3/12 with Dorlie Banbanaste at Palm Lakes Elementary, Hialeah. LINK HERE
*Saturdays, 10am-12:30pm, 1/25 - 3/14 with Scott May at Barry University. LINK HERE
Patricia Isis, Ph.D. 8 week Mindful Self Compassion Mondays, 6:30-9:00PM, Jan 27 - Mar 16 at Mindful Kids Miami office, South Miami LINK HERE free orientation Monday, Jan 13, 6:30 - 8pm
Rebecca Justo, 8 week Mindful Self Compassion Saturdays 1pm-3:30pm, Jan 25 - March 14 at Barry University, North Miami. Link Here. Free Orientation Monday, Jan 13, 6:30-8pm at Mindful Kids Miami South Miami office.
Toni Saul MBSR Tuesdays, Jan 21 - Mar 17, 6-8:30pm, Coral Gables Congregational Church. Link HERE Free orientation Jan 21 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Flyer HERE
South Florida Center for Mindfulness
MBSR classes
LINK HERE FOR THESE CLASSES
Thursdays, 1/23 to 3/12, 6 - 8:30 pm at Boca Raton Physical Therapy with Piero
Saturdays, 1/25 to 3/14, 10:30 - 1 pm at Boca Raton Physical Therapy with Piero
Sacred Treehouse offers:
Link for info/to register HERE
*MBSR Wednesdays, Jan 22 - Mar 11, 6-8:30 PM in Boca Raton with Nicole Davis.
*MBSR Fridays, Jan 24 - Mar 13, 10 AM - 12:30 PM in Jupiter with Nicole Davis.
*8 week Mindful Self Compassion Fridays, Jan 24 - Mar 13, 10am-12:30pm in Delray Beach with Patty Shutt, PsyD
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