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Chantek McNeilage

 
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Chantek Mary McNeilage a registered Craniosacral Therapist, fascilitates Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction courses, and related work within this context. Chantek has practised in complementary health for more than thirty years. The courses are offered at the Kailash Centre in St. John’s Wood , London, Saffron Walden, Essex and at the Body Psychotherapy Centre in Cambridge.


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Address18 De Bohun Court
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden CB10 2BA
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Website http://www.becomingmindful.co.uk



Welcome to
Chantek McNeilage Therapies


MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION COURSES

LONDON - CAMBRIDGE - SAFFRON WALDEN - DANA RETREATS MENORCA SPAIN


About Us

Becoming mindful means becoming less anxious and allows you to live in a calmer more empowered way when you find yourself facing the turmoil and chaos of modern day living.

By becoming mindful you begin to develop an inner kindness, an inner compassion to yourself and others, releasing you from the constraints of judgements and criticism.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction courses can significantly change and enhance your life. You can develop the skills to deal with the stress, anxiety and difficult emotions you encounter, leaving you clearer, less overwhelmed and more able to inhabit a sense of wellbeing and fulfilment.

Becoming Mindful is open and accessible to us all, irrespective of our experience, background, culture, beliefs or religious ways.

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What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness may be described as the capacity to bring non-judgmental awareness to the moment to moment experience of your life; a way to bring inner kindness to yourself. It can be cultivated with practice, and through it there is the opportunity to learn directly about the nature of who you are and the experiences of stress so common to our lives.

Mindfulness brings you more 'in the moment' and enables you to be less caught up in the experiences of the past or the imaginations of the future. It allows you to manage your time better and become clearer and more able to make stronger choices.

Mindfulness does not claim to rid you of illness or difficulty yet it can help you adopt a more helpful, kind and accepting attitude towards the difficulties you face. As you bring more mindfulness into your life, you also begin to see how your negative habitual reactions often complicate things further and block yourself off from a more fulfilling life.

Mindfulness has a way of opening you up to new possibilities, of seeing that you are not defined by your situation alone, and that you can, amidst the hurly-burly of your life, quickly and simply access the massive reservoir of internal resources that we all have at our disposal.

Mindfulness practice is ideal for cultivating greater awareness of the unity of mind and body, as well as of the ways the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and behaviours can undermine emotional, physical and spiritual health.

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Who is it for?

Most of us experience stress, anxiety, pain, suffering and struggle at some time or another. We embark on mindfulness classes for many reasons. Often we hope to learn how to deal with stress more effectively, and to develop our ability to deal with particular conditions such as:
  • Stress: work, family, relationships, financial difficulties
  • Tension, anxiety, irritability and worries
  • A sense of overwhelm, exhaustion and depletion
  • Low self-esteem, lack of confidence, self-doubt
  • High blood pressure, physical symptoms of stress
  • Mood swings, lack of motivation, recurring depression
  • Insomnia, an inability to relax or switch off
  • Fatigue, illness and chronic pain
  • Bereavement, loss, disorientation
  • Loss of direction, loss of meaning
  • Children, teenagers and young adults experiencing difficulties with relationships, with exams or changes in their lives.

Some of you may have an interest in meditation, a wish to deepen into or recover your own practice. These courses are of great value to those who have had some experience of meditation and to those who have no experience at all.

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About Our Courses

Course Content
Mindfulness is a lifetime engagement - not to get somewhere else, but to be where and as you actually are in this very moment, whether the experience is pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

Through an eight-week process of self-development that includes daily home assignments, you will learn to mobilize your deep inner resources for learning, growing, and healing, and for taking care of yourself and making positive sustained changes in health attitudes and behaviors.
  • Courses are experiential, practice based and participatory. You are asked to attend all sessions and in addition are guided and encouraged to develop a daily practice at home. You will be supported at your own pace.

  • The courses are of great value and benefit, either if you have experience in meditation or if you are new to meditation.

  • Different practices include self-awareness, meditation, walking meditation, yoga and mindful moving. These practices allow you to begin to accept yourself, to be just as you are, without continually striving for a right way of doing things.

  • Guidance notes will be given every week. Practice CD's will be provided. The sessions give you an opportunity, with support, to allow your curiosity, understanding and process of inner enquiry to deepen.

  • Lightness and Laughter permeate the courses as we work together with other like-minded people, bringing to balance a sense of the depths and the lightness of our lives.

In summary, the program's primary aim is the development of one's inherent, internal resources and the acquiring of skills that can be flexibly applied in everyday life as a means of coping more effectively with stress, pain, and illness, and that can be utilized by you far beyond your completion of the course.

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About Chantek Mary McNeilage

I have been practicing meditation and yoga for over 30 years.

I have found the Mindfulness courses to be enormously beneficial, helpful and life enhancing, giving me renewed and fresh perspectives. Like many others, I have lived my own share of self-judgement and resistances to change. These experiences enable me to feel deeply empathic and supportive to all to come to the Mindfulness practices.

My background in Mindfulness training is both with the MBCT and MBSR programmes through practice and study with John Teasdale, Vanessa Hope MA and the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, Bangor University. I run the MBSR/CT groups and individual one to one courses in London, Cambridge, and Saffron Walden as well as residential groups at Dana Retreats on the island of Menorca.

I have been a practitioner in complementary health since 1977. I am currently a registered Craniosacral therapist, a Prenatal, Birth & Family therapist and a holistic Aromatherapist. My work has included teaching as a senior tutor with the London School of Aromatherapy, working with special need children plus work in Europe and America. In my private practice I offer Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, meditation and support around spiritual and inner enquiry.

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Mindfulness Retreat Menorca

The Mindfulness Retreat is a taught 5 day/6 night course & holiday covering the content of the 8 week Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation (MBSR course) as taught by Jon Kabat Zin and others. It is a great retreat for those wishing to be introduced to Mindfulness practice while also having a chance of enjoying some holiday time on the beautiful island of Menorca.

During the retreat your Mindfulness sessions will be guided by one of our compassionate Bangor University trained practitioners. The DANA Mindfulness Retreat provides you with an experiential understanding of Mindfulness meditation & aims to teach you the tools that will enable you to incorporate this practice into your daily life.

The Mindfulness Retreat includes:

  • Morning and Afternoon Mindfulness training
  • Buffet Breakfast & Mediterranean Lunch & Dinner
  • Access to a Private Pool & 500 acres of private land
  • Quality accomodation in beautiful farmhouse, with four-poster beds & marble bathrooms
  • Delicious Mediterranean Food
  • Mindfulness Theory Hand-outs and Reference Sheet
  • 15 minute private sessions with your teacher
  • Guided Walks & optional town expedition
  • Optional end of week group boat trip and Horse-riding or Sea-Kayaking trips

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Course Feedback

"What has been most meaningful for me on the course has been learning to be kind to myself, learning not to judge others and learning from others and sharing."

"Loved the course, admired the tutor's serenity, good value for money. I have really appreciated the intro week at the beginning. Thank you very much."

"I loved learning ways to be with stillness and silence and myself. I feel that reinforcing kindness to myself and other made everything have meaning for me. The pace has been good. I have benefitted from the direct sharing and Chantek's encouragement. Thank you it has been a special experience for me and your presence has been central to it."

"I have valued the acceptance of myself, that has been encouraged throughout - the exploration and getting in touch with my kinder self (which has actually been fairly ignored for the past fifty or so years!) Thank you for this teaching - it is already beginning to be a part of me."

"Some of the benefits I have found most meaningful for me have been the ability to sit quietly with myself, with my mind being relatively still, learning the different meditation techniques and gathering a range of tools to use on different occasions. The mindful movement gave me and my back immediate ease. I really benefitted having the workbook and the CD's, I will use these in the future to help me continue the mindfulness practices and I will be doing a yoga course as I have found the impact on my body so helpful."

"What I will take most from this course is the kindliness of Chantek, how she imbues this and encourages me to do the same for myself. This attitude of kindliness I feel is the most important precursor to meditation and I will try to keep a sense of in the coming weeks, months and years."

"I am extremely grateful for the workbook and CD's as an aid. I have now to maintain this practice. I can't express how glad I am to have done this course, particularly given all the prevaricating I did beforehand. Thank you so much. This is a tremendous gift."

"Knowing I can find inner stillness in a variety of ways and not needing to beat myself up or make judgments about 'success' or 'failure'! You have offered an excellent course, Chantek. Your calm rhythm, pace, way of being, provides a wonderful example. Thank you!"

"I found the support of having lots of group practice on the night of the course always deepened my practice. I loved the readings and the poems in the workbook. The surprise of being kept on an even keel when my father became ill and my mother was struggling. I think I would have been overwhelmed without it. I am very grateful for this teaching, thank you."


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Service Categories
Craniosacral Therapy, Meditation

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