Friends of mine from Baltimore were presenting a program on mindfulness and yoga for at-risk youth a few weeks ago, and I attended for several days. What struck me most was the sharpness and the dedication of the school teachers (K-12), social workers, and caregivers who took part. One of them was from humble Hagerstown, Maryland. (You know the sort of place: people say, “I think I’ve heard of that” or “I drove through there once.”) I know Hagerstown. I grew up in an even smaller town nearby. There are plenty of at-risk youth there, to be sure.
Meeting the teacher from Hagerstown, and others like her, told me that mindfulness is reaching beyond the big cities now and into the towns and villages, and it’s being delivered by people who care a lot about the health and well-being of our communities—in every dimension: bodily health, mental health, education, social cohesion, and more.
At Mindful magazine and in mindful.org, it’s our mission to present mindfulness, awareness, kindness, and compassion to a wider audience, and we’ve been hard at work doing that. So, I’ve been so delighted that we’re able to search out stories of people bringing mindfulness into every corner of society, and share them with a wider world. When I hear from a would-be-father who saw our piece on Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting and gained a new appreciation for the significant event he’s about to enter into, I know we’re having an impact. The fact that we can tell the story of the first police department in America to systematically introduce mindfulness into their training means we are breaking new ground. On mindful.org, users can get a window into all the help that’s available for someone who wants to work more effectively with the overwhelming stressors in their personal lives and in their organizations.
We would like to go one step further, though, in sharing the stories and the work going on in the world of mindfulness and related practices. We want to add sound and moving pictures. I want our growing audience—community really—to make face-to-face contact on their computers and smartphones with people just like them (You are not alone!) and people who are role models for making a little bit go a long way.
When I look at the little video of my friends Ali and Atman in Baltimore, the mindfulness and yoga folks I mentioned above, I’m struck by how much of a difference it can make when I’m able to see someone and hear what they have to say—with all the intonations and facial expressions (and sometimes animated graphics) that go along with that. Likewise, I’m struck with how powerful four minutes with Frank Ostaseski talking about Finding a Place to Rest in the Middle of Things can be, or Jon Kabat-Zinn on the Benefits of Meditation.
Doing a lot more of this kind of storytelling is a key part of our business plan. Internet TV is powerful. It’s arresting. And it reaches more people because, for one thing, you can get a whole lot in a short time and you can access it anywhere. Adding another channel for these important stories, advice, and instruction is a way to leverage more change. It also creates a rich archive of the pioneers of this movement. We need to record in moving (in both senses of the term) images more of what the people in the mindfulness world have to offer and deliver it to an ever-widening audience. That’s why we’re starting mindfulTV.
Your support for mindfulTV not only helps us innovate, it also supports Mindful’s ongoing work and helps us reach sustainability. For more information on our mindfulTV initiative, and to learn about our crowdfunding campaign that’s taking Mindful to the next level, go here.
This post originally appeared on the UCSD Center for Mindfulness website. View the original post.
The UCSD Center for Mindfulness and Professional Training Institute fully support Barry’s vision and mindfulTV. They are generously encouraging their networks and partners to donate now to help mindfulTV take advantage of the 1440 Foundation’s matching funds.
