Seven sessions will explore stress, becoming more physically present, health aware, focusing on emotional, spiritual feelings and becoming alert to the aims of the ego

Sessions will be every Saturday beginning on Saturday 17th October 2020 and will run from 11:30am - 1:00 pm for seven weeks

Please note: Session 6 on Saturday 14th November 2020 will from 6:00pm-7:30pm and not at the usual time

The course will be run by:

Dr Majid Khan is a GP in the midlands in Uk. He teaches mindful practice to Gp trainees in the midlands and across the uk. He is a honorary clinical fellow at Warwick Medical School where he teaches mindful medical practice ( as developed by Ronald Epstein and Mick Krasner). He has interests in Buddhism and Sufism

Hamid Lea has worked in the voluntary sector in Birmingham for many years developing and running employment support and community health education programmes. He is also a community researcher and health coach and has delivered a wide range of Sufi education courses

The cost for all 7 sessions is £60 for those who work and £30 for those who don't. All proceeds from the ticket sales will go to the Zawiya for future community based projects and all the organisers / presenters are volunteers.

Below is a summary of each session:

(Each session will last approximately 90 minutes)

Session 1: Mindfulness and gratitude :

• Almost all negative states can be challenged by remembering how much we have to be grateful for
• The aim in this session is to develop a deep understanding of what gratitude is and how this phenomenon can affect our mental state
• Are we grateful ?
• Is gratitude something we can cultivate ?
• Why does Allah mention ‘Those who are grateful’ so many times in the Quran
• Why is gratitude important ?

Session 2: Mindfulness and thoughts :

• Shakespeare said ‘Our minds are gardens, our wills are gardeners’
• What are we planting in our minds ?
• Are our thoughts there for our betterment ?
• To what extent are we aware of our lack of awareness? And to what extent do we have our thoughts versus our thoughts having us?
• What is the nature of our thoughts ?
• Can we distinguish between happy / sad thoughts ?
• We will do a short practical exercise to illustrate these reflections

Session 3: Mindfulness and posture :

• It has been said that it is impossible to be completely aware of and present in the body and at the same time feel stress
• Why is the body so important in meditative practice ?
• To what extent are we ‘in the body’ versus ‘in our heads’
• Are we aware of our posture during salat ?
• What were the prophet’s ( peace be upon him ) recommendations for the body posture during the prayer / during eating etc
• Meditative exercise : body awareness

Session 4: Mindfulness and invocation

• At its core, Islam is grounded on a relationship with Allah . Invocation is how we relate to Allah
• From a mindful perspective, what does invocation mean ?
• Can we be mindful during invocation. ?
• Demonstration from Fuqara of the practice of invocation.

Session 5: mindfulness and nutrition

• ‘We are what we eat’:
• What were the prophets ( peace be upon him ) recommendations for eating?
• Quantity / timing / posture during eating
• Mindfulness exercise will be mindful eating

Session 6: Mindfulness and emotions/ communication

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS SESSION WILL START AT 6.00PM UK TIME TO ACCOUNT FOR THE TIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN UK AND USA

• Have we ever experienced our emotions ? Rather than just letting them experience us !
• What is our bodily experience of anger / sadness / joy ?
• We will aim in this session to experience our emotions more deeply and observe how this experience affects our interaction with others
• The prophet( peace be upon him) said when experiencing anger, to sit if we are standing, and to lie down if we are sitting
• How do we do this ?
• He also said the strongest of us was he who could control his anger
• Nura Laird is Dean, faculty member and chair of the department of peace-making at the university of spiritual healing and Sufism in California . She will give a talk and offer some small group exercises on mindfully communicating and speaking from a place of love rather than a place of anger

Session 7: Mindfulness and stress

• Stress affects everybody
• In this session we will aim to bring more awareness to our stresses and to explore the role we may unwittingly be playing in its development ( and therefore to put in place mechanisms to avoid / reduce it )
• In what ways are we directly or indirectly contributing to our stresses? What can we do to attenuate this?
• There will be discussion on 'The exhaustion funnel' and 'Sustainers and Drainers'

The Zoom Link with instructions and password will be sent to all before the session begins