From Mindful People Community CIC.
Meet the teacher, Rachele Smith BSc RYT QMT.
We offer the opportunity to put anxieties and clutter of the mind to one side and the tools to put you in control of your thoughts, instead of your thoughts controlling you.
All that is required is that you attend with an open heart, a willingness to move your body, a desire to connect and the courage to perhaps have a little fun.
Mindful yoga, mindful movement & mindful meditation is a way of life and a way of living more fully and mindfully where each student learns how to bring themselves to a greater place of balance and ease.
We’re not all built the same, we all have unique conditioning and needs and mindfulness embraces and celebrates these differences, we specialise in teaching you how to empower yourself using mindful movement tools.
Classes utilise restorative breath and meditative movement as a means of empowering individuals to create a practice that best serves you! In each class, mindful techniques address the fluctuating needs of daily life, by teaching you how to meet yourself where you are and how to adapt your own practice, to work gentle or strong, to create greater balance and ease as you need it most.
Classes are appropriate for both beginners and seasoned practitioners.
Most classes are especially helpful for those living with chronic health conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and chronic stress or anxiety. Discover how to use mindfulness tools to live more fully and mindfully, both on and off the mat!
My diagnosis today is that I suffer from myelopathy, arthritis, degenerative spinal disease, nerve damage and fibromyalgia.
I believe mindful yoga, mindful movement & mindful meditation offer a counter culture narrative, a future and a pathway for myself and others enduring the unseen experiences of lives lived with chronic pain and other illnesses''.
I began to fall over in 2012. This quickly became coupled with inexplicable pain and fatigue. It has taken years for a diagnosis, I’m unsure of how this condition will progress, but as soon as I felt the changes occur in my body I sought out a pathway to maintain some physical ability.
I was working for the Government of Andalucia, and living in Spain when the symptoms became apparent. I knew straight away that I wouldn’t be able to continue in regular employment and looked for an alternative career. After teaching in schools and colleges for almost twenty years, I needed something that would allow me to focus on maintaining my physical ability as well as providing for my children. I trained for three years under Alberto SanJuan in Iyengar Yoga, but eventually I could no longer continue as the practice was too strong and my body just not capable. I discovered Mindful Yoga and my teacher Kathy Ward at the The Mindful Academy International. This practice saved me and I trained and qualified as a Registered Mindful Yoga Teacher (RYT). I began delivering my own classes, giving me the opportunity to practice regular and gentle movement daily as well as working and maintaining a sustainable lifestyle.
My interest in Mindfulness grew from here, I developed my own Mindful Meditation practice and began to experience the real benefits of bringing awareness to my pain. With the incredible support of my teacher Kathy Ward, I was able to complete all of the Mindfulness training over the following years and gain Qualified Mindfulness Teacher status (QMT). I returned to the UK in 2016 and began working with Mindful People Community. I truly believe in the approach of awareness in movement and meditation not only for increasing mobility but also for stress and anxiety.
Before I left the UK I was able to retrieve medical notes from Alder Hey Children’s Hospital where I had spent a prolific amount of time. In 1979 my notes state that I was suffering ankle, knee, neck and generalized joint pains with some swelling. In 1981 I was diagnosed with ‘growing pains’. In 1982 I was admitted with swollen and painful wrists, elbows, hips and generalized joint pain coupled with a rash and suffering three gran mal convulsions then diagnosed with Henoch Shurnlein Purpera. I lost the use of my legs and learned to walk again over a five year period. I spent some time in a wheelchair and returned to the final year of junior school with a walking frame. The last medical note I have is from 1983 which discharges me from the hospital.
I don’t have much memory of 1979 -1983 but I went on to live a pretty regular, active life and I have three children. I was busy and if I was suffering any pain during those years I was far too occupied to pay any attention.
I’m not too occupied now to ignore the awareness of stressors that lead to anxiety or physical pressure and injury. I have experienced a couple of car crashes in my life, I was assaulted by police officers and sprayed in my eyes with CS gas during a peaceful protest in the 90’s and in 2017 I experienced a further assault .
My mindfulness practice allows me to be with all of these incidents rather than pushing them away. I can manage my pain and my condition with the tools that I have learned and that I continue to develop in my work and I am expanding my awareness of the qualities in silence and evolving in my own meditation practice at the Manchester Triratna Buddhist Centre.
I also discovered the Mindfulness Breathworks organisation here. It was specifically the Mindfulness for Health course that interested me and I was fortunate enough to be awarded a bursary to complete teacher training in mindfulness for chronic pain and long term health conditions. This course is particularly beneficial to me personally and I love sharing these mindfulness tools with others. I continue to work with mindful people community as a Breathworks teacher and encourage the work of Jon Kabat Zinn, with the message of creating opportunity and choice for ourselves as human beings - to step away from ‘auto-pilot’ and gently and kindly become open to what presents itself in each moment.
I am listed with Mindful People Community CIC at The Mindful Directory and BAMBA, The British Association of Mindfulness Based Approaches, meeting the UK good practice guidance for mindfulness-based teachers, suitably trained, committed to continuous professional development and holding appropriate insurance. We fully adhere to good practice guidelines for teaching mindfulness-based courses and continue to develop teaching skills through a supervised pathway with the Mindful Academy International, Valencia.
I am also affiliated to Yoga Alliance Professionals U.K. Veriditas Labyrinth Society and Breathworks Mindfulness Professionals.