Resources
Explore our free resources and start learning what mindfulness can do for you. No appointment necessary.
Mindfulness Education
Knowledge is a key ingredient for psychological freedom and overall wellbeing.
One of our core values is making mindfulness accessible to anyone and everyone. We believe mindfulness is a key part of living fully and meaningfully, and we aim to make these tools available to anyone who wants to learn them. While Austin Mindfulness Center is primarily a counseling center, it is at the core of our mission to provide education to the community whether they are being seen by an AMC therapist or just interested in learning about mindfulness.
More and more people want tools that help them be more flexible, present, and less reactive. Our resources will help you to do just that. We have a range of options, including free guided meditations, as well as one-on-one meditation coaching, an online mindfulness course, and workshops that can be tailored to fit any organization.
What is Mindfulness
Guided Meditations
Meditation Coaching
Mindfulness Podcast
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is paying attention, moment to moment, to the present without judgment and with an open and curious intention. It is a way of cultivating a part of your brain that can observe without reactivity or the need to avoid or escape what is there in the present moment.
We have been conditioned to operate in the doing mode of mind, where our minds tend to feel more useful. It’s familiar and allows our minds to run on autopilot for a lot of our lives. This leads to a number of problems. If you are on autopilot, you are probably functioning “okay” on the outside in order to get things done, but you are not present for it. Instead, you may be in the past or in the future. This isn’t always “bad.” But when the past is filled with regret or pain and the future is filled with fear or anxiety, we tend to experience these things as if they were happening now. But they aren’t. And this leads to suffering.
On the other hand, the “being” mode of mind simply observes, but also disengages the brain activity that elicits emotional reactivity, worry, panic, hopelessness, depression, and many other negative patterns of your mental life. By engaging the being mode of mind, you create psychological flexibility and thus, more options, and more freedom.
Benefits of Mindfulness
Regular mindfulness practice has been shown to provide the following benefits:
- Less stress
- Increased working memory
- Better focus and attention span
- Lower anxiety and depression
- Less emotional reactivity
- More cognitive flexibility
- Positive affect (good mood)
- Quicker recovery following fight/flight response
- Increased immune functioning
- Increased capacity for empathy
Mindfulness for Beginners
Want to learn the fundamentals of mindfulness in three simple steps? There are many ways to do so — and there is no one right way — but here is one good approach:
- Watch this 1993 video
- Watch this 2011 video
- Read this 2016 book
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Guided Meditations
You may listen to these audio tracks here or you can download them for free onto your mobile device to listen to anywhere, anytime. Feel free to share these tracks with your loved ones!
Listen from Anywhere!
Just tap a play button below to listen.
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About the Podcast
Are you in therapy and looking for help with integrating mindfulness in between your sessions? Are you a therapist wanting to learn more about how to help your clients in their journey toward healing?
We wanted to create a resource to help therapists and their clients (or anyone else) with integrating mindfulness into their daily lives.
Our podcast is called Mindfulness Off the Cushion because we believe that most of the work that needs to be done is in between our therapy sessions — simply observing our thoughts and behaviors and taking note of them.
Let’s be honest. Mindfulness is a simple idea, but it can be very challenging to pull off in our daily lives, moment by moment. We totally get it. Perhaps more than most. As a mental health counseling center, we know it’s hard and we’re here to help.
We explore the common struggles of living mindfully and try to do so in a way that carefully balances playful and serious. We’re all carrying a lot these days, and we hope the podcast offers a little help along the way. You can listen below, or find us wherever you already listen to your favorite podcasts.
Or listen on one of these popular podcast platforms:
Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout, Castbox, Castro, Deezer, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, iTunes, Listen Notes, Overcast, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Podcast Index, Podchaser, Podfriend, RSS, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn