FE298 Unleash Personal Potential

This course will change each time it runs as students are welcome to bring their own goals to class. We may spend a great deal of time on each lecture framed in terms of dog sports or in terms of life. No matter! All students at all levels will benefit, as will their animal partners!

This syllabus will likely change even before the course begins - so keep your eyes on this page!

Week One - Mindfulness - what is it? Historically? Practically? What are the four agreements? This week's activity will help you explore meditation and awareness.

Week Two - Values will be the topic of the lecture and activity - identifying yours - finding connections to the things that matter to you to goal set, and dream. (And why and how these things can help you train your dog!)

Week Three - Learning and creating (mindfully) will be the focus of the lecture and activity for this week. How to implement creativity in our training and life and how to maintain that sense of being a curious learner will be covered. What is Flow? What is a growth mindset? How can each help us navigate our dog, and other world, lives?

Week Four- Practicing meaningful reflection - how to do it and why it matters will be the lecture/activity focus - (you might like to think of it as enriching your record-keeping).

Week Five - Checking in on self-care and self-compassion while reviewing the notion of being impeccable - EVEN TO YOURSELF is where we will spend time this week.

and

Week Six - We'll explore the issues you want and make sure you have practical ways to implement the various learning and activities in your life!

Welcome to a sample lecture for UPP – aka Unleash Personal Potential

This lecture is an early one – it is the first lecture after the class starts – after a preamble lecture when you sign up

A Short Treatise on Mindfulness

Mindfulness is comprised of presence. Being conscious of our thoughts, physicality, awareness of surroundings and those around us all combine to increase our awareness of ourselves. Or at least that’s the theory!

Mindfulness is often espoused as a path to peace, calm and serenity. Often the term meditation is used nearly interchangeably with mindfulness but to my way of looking at it meditation is only one component of being mindful – and one that many people struggle with – one can be mindful without embracing, or even engaging in meditation. (though you might decide to test meditation or work on your practice of it – it certainly is NOT required in this class!)

If we go back to the Buddhist roots of mindfulness you will hear reference to the seven steps to enlightenment. Much of the work you can do through this course is rooted in these tenants in some way. The classes you have taken with me delve into many aspects of mindfulness -if you chose to head down that path.

Physicality – this includes the notion that you can ground yourself, breathe for calmness and clarity that your body is connected to your mind and where we must pay some attention.

Mindfulness of Emotions – This can be uncomfortable – this is the chain of consciousness work – where thoughts are followed and explored – through dialogue and reflection what can be discovered?

Mindfulness of Thoughts – this connects to and extends the concept you have worked with before – that thoughts are not you – they are guests in your body.

Mindfulness of Effort – when we work here we look at motivation, goal setting, planning we are including effort as an aspect we must develop.

You will also perhaps recognize other wisdom in the work we have done. My training and interests are diverse and that is reflected in my approach to education, counselling, and facilitation.

The Four Agreements influenced my thinking, teaching, and counselling long before I read Ruiz’s book.

They resonate with me to this day – and some are very difficult to practice daily! (although interestingly enough different elements are difficult for different people and are hard at different times – when I ask people to participate in public speaking on this – the groups are more often than not quite equally divided on which element is the hardest to put into practice!)

There are positive physical and mental benefits to practicing mindfulness and the four agreements but if you’ve ever seen or heard my self-help rant

My Self Help Rant

You know that I don’t rely on “proper” mindfulness practice as being a panacea for everything or even as a tool for all people. I will not tell you to meditate and all your answers will come to you – I promise!

The reason I appreciate these two concepts is that they give us markers or goalposts to aim for. Some of the many strategies I have in my toolbox to suggest and help you test come from mindfulness and the four agreements so it would be remiss not to review them here.

This course is yours, as all of my courses are. There is a weekly lecture on each of the following topics to explore together values, learn mindfully, reflection, self-care, gratitude, and forgiveness.

The way you use this course is up to you. People have used my courses for a wide variety of purposes including:

· tweaking training or competition plans,

· to be held to account for actions,

· to peak performance for major events,

· to goal set,

· to work on relationships with any species

· getting a new job

· deciding what open door to walk through

· processing grief

· exploring change

· investigating aspects of character that make training challenging.

Homework:

Considering the earlier homework and your goals for this class how much attention do you want to pay to these broad principles? Have you worked with them formally at all? Is there any specific subject mentioned that you would like more information about?

How does this lecture change, build or support the goal you have for this class?

Resources you may find helpful/interesting/informative:

https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/ (meditation as mindfulness)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cui-bono/201012/agreeing-the-four-agreements (an article about the Ruiz book)

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/30-simple-mindfulness-practices-to-help-you-focus-and-be-present/ (ways to embed mindfulness into life routines)

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/5-beliefs-anxiety-can-actually-cause-anxiety/ (anxiety and mindfulness)