Mindfulness for Mental Wellness and Cultivating Inner Peace

Having peace within yourself allows you to remain composed regardless of external circumstances, or what life has to offer you at any given moment.

In this opening video, your instructor, Kain Ramsay presents this Mindfulness for Mental Health, Personal Growth and Inner Peace training course, explaining how the course is structured, and also how you can benefit from it the most.

During this video, Kain asks you to respond to the question, "what might it look like to be fully alive?" The more reflective you are, the more you will gain from your response.

It is easy to get stuck in the past or the present without a vision for our future. Kain unpacks the characteristics of fully functioning people: open to experience, lives existentially, self-aware, creative expression, fulfilment and peace.

To gain even more benefit from this online training experience beyond just watching the pre-recorded instructional videos, here are some of the different ways you can achieve this. Access 100's of articles, 100's more FREE video tutorials, and browse the inspiring Achology Quotes website!

This brief onboarding article offers basic course instructions and directs you to Udemy Support for any questions or issues you might encounter while using the Udemy website.

We are often told to be ourselves, but this can be challenging if we don't know who we are. As explained in this video, the full-cycle Model of mindfulness consists of 3 parts.

Mindfully aware doesn't mean you're at peace with everyone; it means you're aware of your biases. Kain asks questions in each factor of the model that helps us understand ourselves more thoroughly and consequentially, live our lives better.

What is your default behavioural setting? Self-awareness or autopilot? Using autopilot is the epitome of mindlessness - it's an automatic, mindless way of thinking. Kain proposes living life intentionally in a more conscious way.

Mindful awareness involves considering the costs of decisions before making them. Having explored every possibility in advance will give us peace when making decisions.

A common mistake that individuals make is over-evaluating themselves when they are working on developing self-awareness (when taken too far, this can lead to an unhelpful downward spiral that doesn't always end well).

In this lesson, you will learn that Self-reflection is good, but it's crucial to always maintain a wise and objective perspective.

'Growing in Self-Awareness' Downloadable Resource

In this video, Kain introduces a resource that you can access and download via the additional course materials section - use this resource to develop your ability to reflect and grow in self-awareness.

The purpose of this video is to introduce you to the idea of Self-Sabotage, and to discuss how our thinking helps us make decisions and contributes to or undermines our hopes, goals, and intentions in life. Whether we like it or not, any decision we make will have a consequence - for better or for worse.

People tend to take four main attitudes toward living their lives. As a term, consciousness refers to your awareness of your physical and mental experiences. Self-awareness does not look the same for everyone.

Human consciousness comprises several states and a variety of factors can impact these states. i.e. i.e. A person's readiness to grow, develop, and mature.

Many of us are capable of much more than we accomplish, and often do not live up to our potential. By learning how to identify roadblocks to personal growth, we are able to avoid self-defeating behaviours.

In this video, Kain identifies seven roadblocks to personal growth: learned helplessness, unidentified opportunity, undeveloped vocabulary, a state of comparison, and a destiny attitude.

In essence, mindfulness is self-awareness. There is nothing magical, or religious about it. This video offers a framework for bringing order to your thoughts and learning to identify what's useful from someone else's agenda.

Kain outlines Mindfulness's fundamental attitudes: non-judging, patience, beginner's mind, trust, non-entitlement, non-striving, self-Acceptance, acceptance of things, acceptance of others, and learning how just to let things be as they are.

This video is part 1 of 2.

In essence, mindfulness is self-awareness. There is nothing magical, or religious about it. This video offers a framework for bringing order to your thoughts and learning to identify what's useful from someone else's agenda.

Kain outlines Mindfulness's fundamental attitudes: non-judging, patience, beginner's mind, trust, non-entitlement, non-striving, self-Acceptance, acceptance of things, acceptance of others, and learning how just to let things be as they are.

This video is part 2 of 2.

Contrastive Analysis: Mindfulness Vs. Meditation

Western culture is starting to take on Eastern ideas. Westerners are using words like mindfulness and meditation all the time, but they don't mean the same thing.

Meditation and mindfulness are often used in similar contexts, and there are a lot of ways to define, describe, and practice both. Both mindfulness and meditation have similarities, but they're not the same thing. Let's explore further.

Meditation and mindfulness have been gaining popularity, but many people are still a little confused about what they're all about.

While some people would say that Mindfulness is about stopping thinking, living carefree and escaping from life this isn't true, Mindfulness involves living in the present moment; committing to introspection and learning to discipline the mind.

As part of spiritual development, a man goes through 7 stages of awakening and revolution, each of which is marked by specific characteristics.

In this video, Kain explains how recognizing these characteristics can help all of us achieve superior levels of 'living life', thus leading to greater self-awareness and accelerated personal growth.

Self-Reflection Exercise: Questions

Reflecting on oneself is similar to looking into a mirror and explaining what you see. It is a way of evaluating yourself, your ways of operating, and how you think.

As a rule, 'reflection' refers to the process of considering something (typically an idea). In this video, Kain introduces you to a series of questions to help you mindfully reflect on your past, present, and future.

Truth is objective, and there is no such thing as unobjective truth. An individual's subjective truth is nothing more than an opinion. It is not reality itself that is true, but the factual content of our cognition.

During this video, Kain explains ten truths worthy of reflection and what it means to self-reflect (or contemplate). It is reflecting on the truth that leads to all levels of insight, knowledge, and understanding.

End of Section One Check-In: Learning Evaluation

As part of this video, Kain offers a series of self-reflection questions that you can use to reflect on the central ideas and teachings that you've uncovered so far in this section of the training course.

The majority of us are taught self-discipline is a skill that will lead us to success in the future. It is common for people to look to the wisdom of their parents, society, and the world for guidance concerning the truths of life.

The truth is that we possess all the answers we require within ourselves. In this video, Kain presents an analogy to unpack this concept further.

Humans are both brilliant and flawed, sensitive and savage, exquisitely caring yet painfully indifferent, remarkably creative yet highly destructive.

Some aspects of our human experience are undeniable by all. It is common for some to use the term "mind" while others may use "brain". We can benefit from creating a vocabulary to describe our human experiences. Let's explore what it means to be human.

The brain is a physical organ separate from the mind. Wisdom is usually defined as a combination of emotional and rational intelligence.

In order to grow wise in our thinking, we need to consider both emotion and rationale. This video discusses the differences between the logical, reasonable, and emotional parts of our minds. The wise mind is accessed best when we have a silent mind.

How we perceive things influences how we feel, which in turn influences our actions and results. It is possible to control how we feel.

The emotional life can be controlled. Most importantly, we can learn the mental strategies that help us navigate through life with a little more ease. This video guides you into being mindfully aware by asking questions to bring you into the present moment.

Recognizing the problems that distraction creates is half the battle. As for the other half, it involves developing strategies to overcome it and identifying ways to improve focus.

In order to overcome distractions, it is first necessary to identify them. As Kain discusses in this video, self-awareness is essential to developing the kind of self-discipline needed to remain centred and focused.

In order to live mindfully and maturely, individuals must be able to discern between the brain and the mind. The mind is the set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena.

Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will and sensation. In this video, we make a thorough evaluation of the human mind.

The quality of our lives depends on the attitude we adopt toward ourselves, other people, and our growth in general.

While some people are capable of building positive connections with others (and growing), others stay closed and hard-hearted until their readiness to mature surpasses their desire to remain the same. In this video, Kain explains the four distinct conditions of the human heart.

Assessing yourself is like walking on a path of mental progress. When you evaluate yourself as a person, you find your strengths and weaknesses. Life is about finding your weaknesses, accepting them, and working on them.

Comparison thinking is pervasive. By gauging our progress inaccurately, we can end up over-inflating ourselves, or even undermining ourselves unintentionally. Here, Kain poses questions and outlines an exercise to help you think about how you evaluate yourself?

Identifying ourselves by what we do makes our identity dependent on our performance (and our ability to 'deliver the goods').

There are many ways in which people define themselves that limit their potential for growth and expansion, which negatively affects their self-esteem and self-confidence. Throughout this video, Kain offers a framework for appropriate, positive, and unrestrictive self-identification.

Self-Examination Exercise. Even though we all want to be honest, transparent and authentic with the other people in our lives, low self-esteem and low confidence can sometimes undermine our best intentions.

There is great importance to developing a set of strong foundations for authentically defining yourself, and in this video, Kain offers a self-examination exercise to help you accomplish this.

Truth can sometimes be difficult to discern. By understanding people's intentions behind their words and actions, we can become wiser because we do not make automatic assumptions.

People often use generalized words that can be confusing, so it's vital to learn how to discern what is true from what is merely a generalization. During this video, Kain discusses this idea in greater detail.

Identifying ourselves by what we do makes our identity dependent on our performance. There are many ways in which people define themselves that limit their potential for growth and expansion, which negatively affects their self-esteem and self-confidence.

The point of this video is to offer a framework for identifying with one's special characteristics in a positive, unrestrictive, and helpful way.

The actual self refers to how individuals perceive themselves realistically, whereas the ideal self refers to how people would like to see themselves or how they would like to appear.

This video discusses a teaching in which Kain provides differentiation between our actual selves (who we are currently) and our ideal selves (the person we hope to become in the future).

Evaluate Your Mindset: Quiz: We should never underestimate the power of our mindset, as it can either build us up or destroy us. As Kain outlines in this video, there are a number of questions that you can ask to assess the health of your current mindset and how effectively it is serving you.

Humans have a tendency to fear the unknown. More than ever before, we are creatures of comfort and luxury. Leaving our comfort zone to explore, experiment, and experience requires a lot of effort.

When we examine the meaning we have placed on our life events, we gain insight and understanding into who we are. Past experiences can have a stronghold on people. With this video, Kain shares his timeline and explains how valuable and clarifying it can be to ‘piece together’ our life experiences.

The past is not the present. Your past is just your past. Your past shapes you as you are today, but it doesn't define how you need to go forward.

Instead of dwelling on regrets, learn from your mistakes and move on. We all have the final say on whether we want to take our histories forward. Kain outlines an exercise to help you uncover how prevalent your past is currently in your life.

By telling the story of your life, you can be able to better understand what has happened in your life, and also understand how these events shaped you into the person you are today.

In this video, Kain shares the biography of his journey of progress and change. All of us can experience those changes when we commit to the journey of understanding ourselves, growing in maturity, and character.

You are the sum of all the experiences you have had leading up to this point in your life. The story of your life is perhaps one of the most valuable assets that you possess. In this video, Kain introduces a homework exercise to help you examine your own story: your past, present, and future.

Establishing Your Unique Reference Point

Typically, a reference point is something that is used as a basis for judging or interpreting another object. Defining a unique reference point for our future gives us something to focus on and helps us to move on from our past.

During the following video, Kain highlights the most helpful way in which we can identify and how this will serve as a reference point for the rest of our lives.

In this video, Kain outlines a series of self-reflection questions that you can ask yourself to consider the main ideas and lessons you've learned throughout this section.

A misconception about 'spiritual growth' is that it involves taking up a religious doctrine. Spiritual growth comes from self-awareness and developing a genuine appreciation of life.

In this video, Kain discusses how 'spiritual growth' means to become aware of your inner consciousness or being, which transcends your mind and your inner 'ego' to realize the person you are.

Reframing is a skill that helps us become more mature, resilient individuals. We naturally become more enlightened and self-aware when we change our perspective on a situation. Our lives can be enriched through reframing to become more enlightened in our thinking. The more we develop our minds, the more accomplished we become in life - the more mindfully aware we become.

As soon as we focus our attention on anything (internal or external to us), we automatically attribute meaning to it, and whatever that meaning is - automatically produces an emotion. We act on the basis of emotion. In life, our focus will be directed in whatever direction we choose -past, present, or future. As Kain explains in this video, we will feel whatever we focus on (as an emotion).

Mindlessness is defined by an inability to distinguish between the past and present. Because of a rigid perspective, people who lack mindfulness cannot see how meaning changes with context.

People's main life problems are usually caused by their thinking patterns. This video describes eight ways we can be influenced by irrational thinking.

This video is part 1 of 2.

Mindlessness is defined by an inability to distinguish between the past and present. Because of a rigid perspective, people who lack mindfulness cannot see how meaning changes with context.

People's main life problems are usually caused by their thinking patterns. This video describes eight ways we can be influenced by irrational thinking.

This video is part 2 of 2.

Upon searching for the term internal adversary, you might read, "An internal adversary is an attacker from within who has access to secret materials established before deployment."

We all have an internal adversary we may refer to as self-defeatism, negativity, doubt, or fear. Negativity, fear, and self-defeatism undermine our best intentions at every opportunity. As Kain explains in the video, our internal adversaries (unhelpful mindsets and attitudes) outrun us.

This video is part 1 of 2.

Upon searching for the term internal adversary, you might read, "An internal adversary is an attacker from within who has access to secret materials established before deployment."

We all have an internal adversary we may refer to as self-defeatism, negativity, doubt, or fear. Negativity, fear, and self-defeatism undermine our best intentions at every opportunity. As Kain explains in the video, our internal adversaries (unhelpful mindsets and attitudes) outrun us.

This video is part 2 of 2.

Self-regulation and self-control are two very similar concepts. Self-control is about inhibiting impulses; self-regulation is about identifying the causes, reducing intensity, and then resisting them when necessary. In this video, Kain unpacks both of these concepts and describes a process that we can use to become better at self-regulating.

Stress is an emotional or physical tension. Feelings of frustration, anger, and nervousness can be triggered by any event or thought. Stress is a physical reaction to a challenge or a demand. Stress is not a conclusion in itself - it comes from somewhere. Kain discusses the stress theory in this video, unpacking where stress comes from and how we can most effectively reduce stress in our lives.

Intuitive, paralyzing analysis, half-hearted, logical, informed, emotional, what is the common denominator among all these words and phrases? One thing they have in common is that they describe characteristics commonly associated with decision-making. When we choose to do one thing, we will sacrifice something else. This video offers a basis for sensible decision making.

Self-reflection is simply taking the time to evaluate your behaviours, thoughts, attitudes, motivations, and desires, and giving them serious consideration. It’s the process of diving into your thoughts, emotions and motivations and determining ‘why’ they all exist. In this video, Kain asks a series of questions to help you reflect on how you can begin making wiser and more informed decisions today.

People tend to prioritize happiness before truth in life, not understanding that it is only through embracing the truth of one's existence that one can begin to experience inner peace and contentment (which are much more fulfilling than temporary happiness - which always disappears tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day). In this video, we discuss the value in becoming a student of truth.

By becoming more mindful, we are more likely to become aware of the intentions underlying our words, actions, and behaviors. People tend to believe that just having goals is enough to achieve them. The idea is untrue. In order to achieve our goals and achieve success (in general), we must prioritize positively framed goals over negatively framed ones. Kain explains throughout this video.

Throughout this video, Kain outlines a series of self-reflection questions that you can ask yourself to help you consider the main ideas and lessons that you've learned during this section of the course.

In this final video of this Mindfulness for Mental Health, Personal Growth and Inner Peace training course, Kain makes a few recommendations in this course for further reading and suggests some additional options for continued study and self-improvement.

It's always exciting to complete a course and take the first steps towards mastering new skills. However, learning is an ongoing process, and there is always more knowledge to gain and ways to apply it. Here are some possible next steps you can take after completing this course: