"Accepting emotions has saved me years of chronic tension. Thank You." P

Discover the ACT based Mindfulness approach to handling stressful thoughts and feelings and also learn how to create a richer more fulfilling life through mindful value based living. 

"Before trying ACT, I had done everything: CBT, Psychoanalysis, Coaching, etc. Nothing really helped, and I had decided, not to give therapy a chance anymore and to be better off listening to the free advice of my friends. Then, through Mervyn, I came in contact with ACT. Through the sessions, I have not only learnt, how to accept my uncomfortable thoughts and feelings as something natural (before I HATED them!), but also, how to live with them in a healthy way. For example: although my anxiety has not completely dissapeared, I have learned not to be completely ruled by it anymore. Mervyn has also helped me to look at my values (and also goals) in my life. I feel very empowered and I will keep on doing ACT, I guess for the rest of my life. It is just amazing! ACT is not a therapy, It's a life journey. " A

".....then I came across ACT and on the night of the first session my anxiety levels came down significantly, so much so that I was able to drink four glasses of water in a two hour period (before I was so scared water would go down my windpipe that if I had one glass of water for the whole day I would consider myself lucky). The following day my anxiety went back to normal, but then I started accepting every emotion that each panic attack produced and within a month I had improved so much that I was off my tablets.A few months after that, I started doing things that I wasn’t really able to do before started ACT e.g. driving the car, going to shops." T

My Mindfulness and Coaching training/experience:

I have been meditating for over twenty five years. I started my meditation journey when I was eighteen at University and  became interested in Mindfulness meditation when I was thirty-five. I have completed the Foundation Diploma in Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behaviour Therapies (which included modules on ACT,MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) and TIR (Trauma Incidence Reduction.). I have also completed an advanced ACT course with Dr Russ Harris - Russ  is an International ACT trainer. I have also completed intermediate level ACT courses with Martin Brooks who is on of the leading ACT trainers in the UK. I  have the ITOL Diploma in Coaching Excellence. I am also a fully qualified Science teacher.

How stress becomes distressing and how panic attacks arise:

How to learn more about ACT?

There are a number of self-help books listed on my website (http://artofmindfulliving.org/useful-books-and-articles)  that can give you an excellent introduction to ACT. The resources section also has some FREE audio recordings of ACT based Mindfulness exercises that can help to reduce the impact of stressful feelings and thoughts. One example of the type of ACT based Mindfulness Exercise is shown below:

If you want to learn step-by-step how to skilfully use  mindfulness, acceptance and diffusion techniques to : -

 • reduce excessive stress and worry

• surf anxiety and panic waves without getting drowned by them

• handle painful thoughts and feelings more effectively

• loosen the hold negative thinking and self-judgements have on your life

• improve your work and build more satisfying relationships

• connect with your values and create a richer more fulfilling life

Then please join the group - it's free to join !

Feedback from more people who have tried ACT Mindfulness Exercises:

 "If you are at a stage where you are truly ready and you've had enough of your anxiety and or panic attacks/ condition etc, then ACT could revolutionise your thinking and state of being if you embrace its principles. I think different people connect with different approaches to varying degrees and this one works for me so maybe it could work for you. It is definitely worth knowing about. ” N

"Although I came into the ACT sessions with the expectation of learning just a different approach, I definitely gained much more than what I initially thought. In a nutshell I think I now have a whole new perspective about life. If you are tired of trying to change yourself then ACT might work for you as it did for me." V

"Mervyn and ACT allowed me to come out of what probably was the scariest period of my life. After having to deal with some very difficult issues I started having panic attacks. The more I was resisting and fighting my anxiety, the more I feared that another panic attack was coming, the more difficult the fight was becoming. I thought my life was falling apart. A scared my mind can become a very irrational mind very easily. High levels of adrenalin can easily turn every small perceived risk into an illusionary monster that your own mind starts feeding to grow bigger. The monster that my mind was feeding was that I was developing a condition of having regular panic attacks.

This was leading to me losing my job, others having to take care of me and my life falling apart, I thought. I was terrified of becoming a total mess and even losing my mind. What ACT with Mervyn’s guidance allowed me to do was to learn riding my anxiety instead of fighting it. I like comparing anxiety to a wild stallion. Both can get uncontrollable and really dangerous if one tries to fight them. What one has to do instead is to learn to become a whisperer to one’s anxiety, to become friends with it and to learn to ride it. Now that ACT has allowed me to become much better at these things, I am even enjoying riding my anxiety. When I get anxious now instead of getting unsettled by a thought of another panic attack coming I use my anxiety to become more concentrated, energized and even more courageous to do the things I want to do.

What ACT allowed me to do was to reclaim my life from anxiety and to ride it like a wild stallion with a sense of excitement instead of dread. For all these things I am especially grateful to Mervyn, whose very compassionate, supportive and competent approach were crucial to finding a way to the other side of my fears." E

Books worth reading to find out more about Mindful Living:



1) “Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” by Steven Hayes (Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada).

2) “The Worry Trap: How to Free Yourself from Worry and Anxiety Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy” by Chad Lejeune (Clinical Psychologist).

3)”The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living” Dr. Russ Harris.

4)”Full Catastrophe Living” John Kabat-Zinn (Mndfulness Based Stress Reduction ,MBSR)

5) To get an excellent overview of how ACT and Mindfulness applies to anxiety related conditions you can read a few chapters from the book by Dr Georg H. Eifert and Dr John P. Forsyth:(The link takes you to Google book preview.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=_SI1gOtSxM0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Disclaimer:

This meetup group is to help learn Mindfulness skills to help reduce the impact of stressful feelings and thoughts. It is also about discovering ways to create a richer more rewarding life for ourselves and the people we care about. This support group is NOT suitable if you are currently experiencing SEVERE emotional or psychological distress . Mindfulness is NOT a method to get rid of panic attacks or high anxiety it’s to help us BE with these feelings in a new way so that they have less impact on our lives. Sometimes the high anxiety or panic gets less thorough practising Mindfulness sometimes it does not.