Running Your Group
My advice for running a community-building mindfulness group can be summed up in three words
“Keep everything simple”
The most complicated part of running the group was designing activities for the sessions and preparing the accompanying materials for them. But if you have a copy of this book, you don’t need to worry about this side of things.
In this volume you will find a complete set of materials and facilitating instructions for 10 sessions, plus a template that you can use to create future sessions for your group.
Mindfulness Together
You will see that the start and finish of the materials for each session contain sections titled “Welcoming the Group” and “Wrapping Up the Session.”
The middle portion of the materials is where you will find the real substance of the sessions. With the exception of the first two sessions, every session comprises the same activities: a meditation, a review of the homework assigned in the previous session, assignment of the homework activities to be reviewed in the next session, and a discussion of the session’s main topic.
The last main activity in each session is the discussion of the session’s main topic. You will find two sections in the materials that will guide you and your group members through this part of the session.