Original Mindfulness (OM) is a secular, ethical framework to cultivate the radical attentional freedom of dharma-based mindfulness without the trappings of religious faith, spiritual beliefs, pseudo-science or new age woo-woo.
Have you ever been advised to do mindfulness, be mindful, let go, or live in the present?
Did you know what that meant, or how to do it, or, for that matter, why you should do it? Or be it? Did you try a few mindfulness or meditation techniques? Did those techniques help, but seem like add-ons, extra to your ‘real’ life?
Dr Ellen Langer
Harvard Professor / Psychologist
Perhaps you are habitually and compulsively reactive in ways that you don’t feel comfortable with; reactivity that sometimes results in regret, embarrassment, tension, conflict, or even harm to yourself or others?
Do you ruminate obsessively about the past, or worry excessively about the future?
ALL of our suffering—psychological and physical—is the direct or indirect effect of mindlessness.
Dr Ellen Langer
Harvard Professor / Psychologist
If mindfulness could significantly reduce compulsive, habitual reactivity, obsessive rumination and excessive worry, would you want a personal insight coach who could help you embody mindfulness so you become mindful?
My name is Freida Maverick. I live in Hamilton, New Zealand. My passion is mindfulness; I understand how it works and how to apply it. I have experienced mindfulness working in my own life and I have seen it work in other people’s lives. I can help you to apply mindfulness to your life in a way that it becomes embodied. Mindfulness may become a way of life for you.
I offer two mindfulness services: Personal Insight Coaching and Mindfulness Consulting. These services are offered online. Clients who live in Hamilton New Zealand may choose to meet with me online and/or in person.
Original Mindfulness is an integration of four mindfulness constructs: dharma, physiology, pragmatic and insight. By applying this integrated approach to mindfulness we experience freedom from compulsive, often destructive, forms of habit. We may come to realize the cultivation of a radical, attentional freedom to choose how we respond to anything we experience, and indeed, to choose our experiences.
If you think you might be interested in engaging my services, contact me for a conversation. I need to understand you and your needs in order for us to co-create a plan that will work for you. We can work together online (via zoom), or we can meet face-to-face if you are in Hamilton.
My influences and sources
Over the last two decades I have been influenced in particular by the following mindfulness experts, all of whom, to a greater or lesser degree, approach mindfulness and meditation from a secular perspective and standpoint, and, with the exception of Ellen Langer, were themselves influenced by the Buddha’s dharma.
- Stephen Batchelor – intellectual, scholar and former Buddhist monk. Stephen has been instrumental in introducing a secular dharma to the Western World.
- Sam Harris – neurologist and creator of the meditation app, Waking Up.
- Ellen Langer – the first woman to be tenured as a professor in Harvard University’s Psychology Department. Ellen spent 45 years studying both mindless and mindful behavior, making her the ‘mother of mindfulness’ to many.
- Martine Batchelor – a Buddhist nun in Korea for ten years, Martine studied Son Buddhism. Seon or Sŏn Buddhism is the Korean name for Chan Buddhism, a branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism commonly known in English as Zen Buddhism. Martine now teaches mindfulness and meditation.
- Roshi Joan Halifax – an American Zen Buddhist teacher, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, and hospice caregiver.
Mindfulness experts who have indirectly influenced me, and – knowingly or unknowingly – most people who have any interest in Western mindfulness and meditation, are Jon Kabat-Zinn and John Teasdale, psychologists and the founders of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. Out of this work, Zindel Segal, Mark Williams and John Teasdale developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, which has been particularly influential in bringing mindfulness to psychology. It is primarily from the work of these four scientists that much of the mindfulness phenomenon has risen to global popularity and ubiquity in the western/antipodes world.
These psychologists/cognitive scientists acknowledge and attribute the origins of mindfulness to Siddhartha Gotama, a 5th century BCE Indian/Nepalese man who conceived of and taught the dharma, and who became known as the Buddha.
A little more about me
I have studied mindfulness, mental health and wellbeing. I have a BA degree in psychology, a post-graduate diploma in adult teaching and learning, and a graduate diploma in sociology. I have a particular interest in social relationships, and how individuals navigate the pressures of cultural and societal norms.
By nature I am a critical thinker, a skeptic, and an atheist. One of my mantras is “I will check and challenge my beliefs regularly because I want to believe, as much as possible, only those things that are true and factual”. I do not believe in free will, and as a result of that I consider the qualities of kindness, compassion, wisdom, patience, curiosity and inquiry to be imperative if we are to have a world that is conducive to the wellbeing, and reduction of the suffering, of sentient beings.
I am often in meaningful and happy engagement with family, friends, and cats, and I prioritize this, along with mindfulness and meditation, as being crucial to my wellbeing.
