65: Janet Curry: Finding Joy Again Through Meditation and Mindfulness

“Letting go of the tendency we have to want things to be different, allowing things to be as they are and allowing yourself to be as you are…” Jon Kabat Zinn on the mindfulness.

 

Janet Curry is the founder of Stillpoint Counseling and Mindfulness Training in Durango Colorado. She is a certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher and licensed professional counselor. She has not one, but two masters degrees.: One in Mental Health Counseling from Seattle University and the second in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University. Janet is one of the first 130 (MBSR) teachers around the world who has been certified by the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness (CFM) in Medicine, Health Care, and Society. In 2017, she was one of 30 Certified MBSR teachers around the globe to complete the CFM’s year-long inaugural ‘Train the Trainer’ program. The CFM is where MBSR began, and is the oldest, largest, continually running MBSR clinic and teacher training organization in the world.  Also - she is a fully trained EMDR provider and has completed the Certificate Program in Traumatic Stress Studies with the Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute.  Trauma treatment is an area of personal passion and expertise.

 

In other words, Janet knows her stuff! And I’m so excited to have her on the show. We cover so much in this conversation.

• How does a meditation practice help us with our day to day anxieties?
• Why is it so powerful? Discuss the science)
• We take it further and look at it through trauma and depression.
• For those wondering what a practice looks like, she does a brief guided practice.
• Other ways to practice mindfulness if meditation just isn’t for you. 

 

I started a meditation practice almost two years ago. It’s helped me so much. I found a pattern where I waste my time thinking about the future and then look back on my life and think "Hey, have I been properly enjoying my life?" Every day I think and plan to the future - you know? What if I were able to actually enjoy this ordinary Tuesday for once and not start the day with a list of things longer than I can actually accomplish? and when I asked you guys what questions you had about meditation and mindfulness, the number one question I got was where to start so that’s where I started with Janet.  

With that, let’s listen in and gear up for what’s next.  

Where to find Janet:

• Stillpoint Mindfulness- to learn more about one on one counseling, group courses and CDs to purchase

 

Resources and Links:

• Full Catastrophe Living - by Jon Kabat Zinn
• Happiness is an Inside Job - By Sylvia Boorstein
• Kristin Neff - TedX Talk - The Space Between Self-Esteem