My Personal Background in Mindfulness Training

An Introduction

By George Shears

I'm a retired psychologist and psychotherapist living in the northwoods of Minnesota. My main mission in retirement is to live in harmony with Great Nature as fully as possible and to serve others in whatever ways I can.

I've been a student of Buddhist Psychology and have personally practiced mindfulness meditation since 1975.

Recognizing clearly that these disciplines are strongly complementary to Western psychology and psychotherapy, I incorporated them actively in helping my clients.

During the late 1970's, I learned that Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, MA was pursuing a similar path.

After participating in a week-long workshop with him and his colleague, Saki Santorelli, in 1992, I developed and taught the first hospital-based program in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Minnesota. I continued to teach this course until I retired in 1999.Since that time, similar courses have proliferated all over the world as mindfulness training has increasingly become mainstream.

In 2002, I collaborated with Laura Kimmes in carrying out a 6-week pilot program in mindfulness training with sixth-grade public school music students in Duluth, MN. This pioneer project, which showed modestly positive results, was a predecessor of many similar projects with school children throughout the U.S.

I'm strongly convinced, both through personal experience and from the impressive growing body of research on mindfulness training, that it's one of the most powerful interventions available in coping with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and the generalized high levels of stress that nearly everyone experiences in the modern world.

Especially exciting is the emerging neuroscientific research showing that the practice of mindfulness meditation tends to modify the brain positively in measurable ways. This blog will include up-to-date links to these research findings.

I remain highly dedicated, therefore, in helping others to develop this profoundly valuable skill.