Humanity’s future may depend upon strengthening our agency.
Multiple interconnected crises call for skilful response on a global scale - but our capacity for intentional action in our collective best interest is underdeveloped and increasingly undermined.
This discussion paper opens a dialogue on the contribution of evidence-based mindfulness training to individual and collective agency.
Beyond a ‘nice to have’ wellbeing benefit in the workplace or an alternative to prescription drugs, we’ll discuss how cultivating the innate capacity of mindfulness and its essential qualities such as attention regulation, receptivity, meta-cognition, cognitive flexibility, embodiment, emotion regulation and kindness could be foundational in responding to the complex challenges of the 21st Century.
"Magnificent! Mindfulness: Developing Agency in Urgent Times is a tour de force." - Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn
PRINT VERSION: World of Books (£6.29 UK) / Amazon UK / Amazon US
ONLINE VERSION: DOWNLOAD PDF (Doesn't work in Firefox)
Writing: Jamie Bristow & Rosie Bell
Research: Jamie Bristow, Rosie Bell & Dan Nixon
"This is full of gold insights. If anyone wanted a thoughtful introduction to the importance of inner change to the problems of the world, this is it." - Ronan Harrington, founder of Alter Ego, a global network of progressive leaders exploring the connection between personal, cultural and political renewal.
"I consider Mindfulness: Developing Agency in Urgent Times to be the most important document in this field in the last decade. As a clinician, mindfulness trainer and director of a non-profit all orientated towards waking up, healing, understanding and compassion in a complex, systemic context I resonate so deeply with it. It was like reading a beautifully crafted and articulate reflection of my own seen and hidden highest thoughts and feelings." - Dr Simon Whitesman MBChB, Programme Director: Certificate Training in Mindfulness-Based Interventions, Stellenbosch University Faculty of Medicine & Health Science & Chairperson: Institute for Mindfulness South Africa