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Mindful minutes with Myplace

Myplace, is the Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Lancashire Care Foundation Trusts ecotherapy project. Weekly sessions or ‘hubs’ are organised around Preston, Chorley, West and East Lancashire. The ecotherapy activities on offer are based around five key themes; practical conservation work, wildlife walks, mindful environments, growing projects and bush craft.

Over the coming weeks we will be focusing on each of the key themes, this week, its mindful environments and we are encouraging our participants to practice ‘mindful minutes’.

Rhoda Wilkinson, Myplace Senior Project Officer explains…
“This week, although our groups are out and involved in an array of exciting ecotherapy activities across our hubs, we will be getting everyone involved in trying out a ‘mindful minute’. 

The minutes can happen at any time during the course of the activities, but involve people slowing down and doing what they are doing mindfully. We’ll be asking them to take a minute to really concentrate on everything about the action (from planting a tree, to having a brew and a biscuit) and for a whole mindful minute to be conscious of what they are seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, and touching, and to be aware of any feelings that they notice.

During this time, we also ask them to avoid judging or trying to correct any observations that they make. Just that they are conscious and step away from auto pilot mode. To begin to practice a little Mindfulness on a regular basis is one way to start to give yourself the gift of time.”

Already this week, Myplace participants at Astley Park took part in mindful painting. Individuals were asked to focus on the activity for a minute in silence, to enjoy the actual process of applying paint to wood.

Whilst in South Chorley, a mindful minute was spent listening to sounds from nature and noting how many different bird songs were heard.

During an evening session at Brockholes, one of our Myplace groups took on the challenge and spent a minute practicing their mindful skills while looking at the world from a different perspective. Some of our participants decided to climb a tree to survey the dusky woodland ground below them, others took to lying on their back, looking up at the starry sky.

They took this opportunity to experience in that moment, what they could see, what could they hear and what could they feel (both physically and emotionally). They all did fantastically well and agreed that they were going to use their new mindful minute skills to help them practice mindfulness during their day to day life.  

Mindful environments are just one of our five key themes, the outcomes of which we hope will empower people to take action for communities, wildlife and their own wellbeing.