Introduction to Mindfulness_349810_bookemon_ebook.pdf Coaching and Practising Mindfulness | Page 252

services. They did not exclude people taking methadone, very violent
offenders or people experiencing psychotic episodes.
As Alan Marlatt himself stated when questioned on this policy at the
workshop in Copenhagen: “My position is that anyone can benefit
from this. If they’re not getting anything out of it they can drop out.
They can always give it a try”
Overall, this was a very enjoyable experience for all of us who worked
on this program, and, by all accounts, for the participants themselves.
This is not an insignificant observation. We have heard reports of
patients in certain mindfulness courses who found the program very
“heavy going”. Basically, the aim of mindfulness is to open our minds
and hearts to an appreciation of the present, and to an experience of
gratitude for simply being alive at all. When I attend Plum Village, the
monastery of Thich Nhat Hahn in the south of France, what strikes
me is that this practice is one which gives people a sense of joy and
well being. And that if it doesn’t, one is probably trying too hard, or
simply approaching it with the wrong attitude.
It seems only logical that if we can present mindfulness training with
a lightness of touch, and with a sense of joy, in our courses, the
likelihood of sustained practice afterwards will be much greater.

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