More on The Deepening Course

More info in this post and how to ask questions in person

Online on Zoom and Podbean

For anyone that has any questions, join us at 7.30 pm (London Time) on Tuesday 21 December. (2.30 pm New York, 1.30 pm Chicago, 12.30 am Denver, 11.30 am San Francisco)

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More About The Deepening Course

In 2018 we did a retrospective review for the six-week mindfulness course.

My research contacted all of the Course Graduates, and along with some other questions, asked them what had they learned from the course that had benefited them the most. The most common response was "A new perspective".

The 'new perspective' that comes from a consistent meditation practice has already been identified by researchers into mindfulness and meditation and is well known. Academic researchers refer to this as equanimity.

Equanimity

Equanimity reduces our natural human tendency to view experiences as having a greater impact on our lives than they actually create. Equanimity brings a sense of proportion and a level of acceptance to life events. This then helps us to cope with adversity and leads to better outcomes for ourselves and for others.

A consistent practice gives us what we need to take this personal journey of transformational change.

The Deepening Course picks up where the six-week course leaves off.

Transformational change allows us to see the world in a new way that is better for our happiness, and the happiness of our loved ones

Transformational change happens when we can let go and move on from past events that are causing us suffering.

This process of emotional release is at the heart of the Deepening Course.

Alongside all of the other elements of the syllabus, we will maintain a thread of practice that enables us to process our life experiences, acknowledge, accept, release, and move on from the quagmire of intense thoughts and feelings that lie at the heart of the experience of the modern world.

We will apply three principles in our journey

• Occam's razor.
• First-principles thinking.
• Incremental improvement.

Occam's razor

If there are two or more possible solutions to a problem, the simplest is far more likely to be true. This 'principle of parsimony' as it is known, has guided and continues to guide, theoretical physicists in building an understanding of the nature of the natural world. This is a prime scientific principle.

First-principles thinking

Once we have In place a reliable foundation of knowledge about our lived experience, we need to consistently return to it to test any new ideas we have.

Incremental improvement

From the outside, science, technology, and innovation appear to be an inexorable process guided by geniuses to make ideal choices. In actual fact, it is a trial and error process and improvements are slow and gradual but consistent. Each understanding grows on the previous one. Once we have adopted an improvement, we simply maintain it as we find others to apply.

In time, with a process of incremental improvement, we can make huge changes to what we do and to our lives.

These are the three principles that we can rely on to help us grow as individuals and are at the heart of The Deepening Course process.

In The Deepening Course, although all these principles, pillars, and practices are in place, to the student, all there appears to be, is a consistent incremental process of making small changes that help us progress on our personal journeys of transformational change.