Community Participatory Mindfulness™

I (tree turtle also known as Cleis Abeni) am the author of this article and the copyright and trademark owner of community participatory mindfulness™. I suggest the following citation using Chicago Manual of Style:

Cleis Abeni (tree turtle), "Community Participatory Mindfulness™," September 2019, https://treeturtle.com/mindfulness

Numbers in brackets throughout this article denote footnotes to sources listed at the end of this web page.

This web page describes a system for holistic, culturally responsive, community-focused mindfulness practice that I created over 30 years ago and actively use everyday in my work with youth and families. 

This system is called Community Participatory Mindfulness™.

Community Participatory Mindfulness fuels the approach to de-escalation (a calm heuristic for violence prevention) that I share within Wisdom Projects and all of the organizations and groups that I lead or co-lead.

"Culturally responsive" refers to practices that align, honor, and integrate with the worldviews and life-ways of specific communities and populations.

This practice is a key vehicle for credible messaging for peace and nonviolence. My work is part of a movement of practitioners who have been integrating mindfulness into anti-oppressive education and health services for the last fifty-plus years.[1]  

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was one of the first educators to introduce mindfulness into public schools, after-school programs, hospitals, jails, prisons, and juvenile carceral facilities in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. 

Since then I have built on my healing training and experiences, as well as techniques drawn from multifarious mindful literature to develop and strengthen community participatory mindfulness™ practice. (See the literature cited at the end of this web-page.)

Community participatory mindfulness™ flows from six tenets. 

1. Mindfulness gains true efficacy when well-integrated into all educational and health practice, and not only marginalized to a moment or separate spaces and times (like "calm classrooms"--all classrooms must blend calm and excitement as well as much more). The broad-based, integrated experience of mindfulness is well represented within both ancient and contemporary evidence.[2]
2. Mindfulness is more than breath control, encompassing a whole-person and whole-community program for nonviolent calm, focus, and awareness with techniques for managing fear, anger, impulses, and anxiety and developing empathy.[3] Researchers found that implementing five minutes of mindfulness to bolster empathy in a program had no measurable effect.[4]  Yet, when mindfulness was broadly integrated into a program to bolster empathy, the practice's efficacy was high.[5]  Adjunct periods of mindfulness may still be beneficial, but mindfulness' effectiveness is more impactful when it is profoundly actualized across and within multiple experiences. These findings support my emphasis on broad-based, integrative mindfulness education (as opposed to shallow, marginalized engagement).
3. Mindfulness eschews high-stakes endeavor typified by disaffirming, over-corrective engagement, favoring affirmational, inspirational techniques drawn from restorative justice.[6]
4. Mindfulness (as an ancient contemplative system created by people-of-color in the Asian, African, Indigenous, and Middle Eastern Diasporas and as contemporary practice adapted by 20th and 21st century Black and Brown practitioners) empowers communities-of-color through culturally-responsive engagement that is adaptive and attentive to the experiences of historically marginalized people.[7] We must share and adapt mindfulness in culturally responsive and sensitive ways without diluting or distorting ancient and contemporary mindfulness practices. Listen to community members. Guide and empower them to embrace mindfulness concepts and practices accurately while adapting and integrating this work into their cultures as well as pinpointing the ways that their culture already includes mindfulness.  
5. Mindfulness gains true efficacy through our attention to how we deliver and guide techniques and strategies for contemplative practice. Shallow, superficial, rushed, or poorly trained practice may undo mindful outcomes for consistent, deep peacemaking.[8]
6. Mindfulness gains true efficacy when practiced within equitable societal structures and systems, and must therefore be aligned with equity, justice, healing, and civic advocacy. That is why it is important to integrate discussions of the cultural history of peace practices into mindfulness work (especially areas of study like civil rights, environmentalism, and progressive politics).

In the lessons and engagement that I have pioneered, mindfulness is more than breath control and more than one tradition (like yoga). 

It encompasses broad, deep, radically healing, selective, tactically applied, and ongoing peace-building that constitutes an everyday life course. 

Integrative mindfulness that cultivates these six tenets are incorporated into every aspect of community-building and movement-organizing for peace. 

This integrative mindfulness also constitutes trauma-informed and disability-sensitive preventative and interventional strategies for ongoing wellness. 

The following established forms of insight (vipassana) and calming (samatha) meditative practices are integrated into community participatory mindfulness™:

• Active breathing.
• Loving-kindness contemplation. 
• Body scanning. 
• Noting. 
• Restful awareness. 
• Skillful focusing.
• Reflective tracking.
• Sound bathing, sound guiding, and other forms of sound healing. 
• Mantras. 
• Mudras. 
• And various forms of ancient and contemporary mindful movement. 

All of these forms of mindfulness can be viewed as means to attune our consciousness (meaning, our inner mental, emotional, and intellectual sensing and experiencing) to become the most powerful agents for peaceful, empathetic, benevolent, and enlightened engagement. This agency helps create the mental stability (or homeostasis) that we need to feel well, act decisively, and relate well with others. The efficacy of broad-based, integrated mindfulness for homeostatic behavioral health is well represented within both ancient and contemporary evidence.[9]  

Not every form is appropriate for all occasions and the lessons, talk circles, training, and peer support groups that I lead strategically select the best forms to apply to shifting occasions. 

At its root, mindfulness is about pausing to breathe deeply, to focus, to find calm, and to build awareness to end suffering, trauma, stress, anxiety, and escalated feelings.[10] 

A life-course of mindfulness is at the core of trauma-informed care (TIC).  TIC is a system of embodied healing and coping strategies involving, in my model, consciously affirmative nonviolent communication and expression in tandem with immersive mindfulness and peacemaking practices that help people avoid re-traumatization while mitigating symptoms of PTSD, CPTSD, and co-morbid mental health experiences like stress, anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, impulse control disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder. TIC helps youth and adults regulate emotions and see the world in a fact-based, environmentally-conscious, and civic-aware manner. TIC uplifts wise, calm decision-making, empowerment, safety, collaboration, and trusted relationships. 

Mindfulness cultivates enlightenment and a recognition of forces beyond our own personality and ego. This practice helps us develop good character.  

"Character" refers to a healthy, optimal sense of self. Helping community members develop these 10 concepts of character is very challenging. Yet, we must not retreat from the challenge. We must scale our character development work for different ages, contexts, and situations.

1. Accountability: Creating conscious measures to ensure responsibility for the impact and effects of decisions and actions.
2. Conscientiousness: Consistently executing acts thoroughly, decisively, and diligently.
3. Consequentiality: Cultivating an awareness of the natural (rather than imposed) effects, consequences, or impact of decisions and actions.
4. Clarity: The quality of being coherent, intelligible, transparent, and specific.
5. Interdependence: Mutually depending on others and the environment to share and uplift collective good. 
6. Magnanimity: The quality of being open to difference, generous, compassionate, and forbearing.
7. Proportionality: A consistent sense of fairness that never makes an action or a decision more extreme or deficient than is necessary.
8. Reasonability: Exhibiting good judgement that is neither deficient or extreme.
9. Reliability: The quality of being trustworthy, fully present, and performing consistently well.
10. Responsibility: The state of having a duty to deal with, care for, and honor something or someone.

Mindfulness must ground within our cultivation of 25 Affirmations (click here for an even fuller overview about these affirmations).

1. Acknowledge: Admit truth with kindness. 
2. Accept: Make favorable; bestow unequivocal regard.
3. Advise: Care enough to recommend the best path in a kind, supportive way.
4. Approve: Say "yes" to safe, beneficial matters to boost esteem.
5. Clarify: Explain to dispel confusion in a kind, supportive way.
6. Consent: Offer approval that emphasizes that it is safe to proceed.
7. Console: Express solace and comfort in the wake of loss or trauma.
8. Encourage: Recommend a "can do" sensibility to promote good work.
9. Help: Offer tangible forms of assistance.
10. Give: Present someone with something tangible that represents deep care.
11. Inspire: Ignite a "can do" spirit that boosts a sense of promise in someone's abilities.
12. Listen: Care enough to pay careful attention while being sensitive and empathetic.
13. Motivate: Provide a reason to do well or better.
14. Offer: Provide aid before someone asks for it while being deeply sensitive to another's need.
15. Reassure: Restore and boost confidence that one is one the right path while relieving anxiety.
16. Receive: Accept someone else's offerings in a way that honors their goodwill.
17. Recognize: Honor another's presence, efforts, or contributions.
18. Soothe: Make calm, give comfort, and de-escalate in the wake of anger, frustration, or anxiety.
19. Support: Demonstrate loyalty, reliability, and dependability that engenders trust.
20. Praise: Call out the things that are done well.
21. Protect: Ensure that someone is safe, healthy, and defended from harm.
22. Thank: Express appreciation for beneficial acts.
23. Validate: Confirm or corroborate high regard and great worth.
24. Value: Express high importance and great significance.
25. Welcome: Actively include someone and give great opportunities.

Over the years, I have integrated mindfulness with peer counseling, support group services, case management, and healing practices like conflict management, de-escalation, and restorative justice. 

It is not enough to have collective lessons and engagement emphasizing group learning. 

We must also blend collective practice with individualized practice so that people learn multiple pathways to reflect, interrogate, and share mindfulness for themselves and with each other. 

Fostering constant individual and collective buy-in and involvement is why I call this work “community participatory mindfulness practice." 

In our implementation of this work of integrative mindfulness, we continually guide community members to develop a caring, interdependent culture in which peaceful healing, self-care, community-care, and scientific exploration all flow from contemplation and compassion.

I aim for community members to use their voices to speak out about the promise of this work as they adopt and adapt it for their own benefit. 

I hope for community members to become practitioners, ambassadors, and stewards of community participatory mindfulness practice so the work saturates every part of individual and collective consciousness, transforming the way everyone makes decisions and acts on behalf of themselves and others. 

Community Participatory Mindfulness envisions a cycle of de-escalation[11] to respond in the midst of conflicts, trauma, and stress. 

1. Stop and release: Try to do nothing except focus on how you are breathing with the intention to make your inhalations and exhalations as regularly paced as possible. Regular breathing usually contains around 15 deep cycles of inhalation and exhalation per minute.
2. Calm and ground. Shake it off. Find stillness. Extend the release and talk to yourself encouragingly within your mind, saying such phrases as, "I am going make this okay. I am going to remain calm. I am going to control my reactions. I am going to remain clear-headed."
3. Tell the story. Walk through the who, what, where, when, how, and why of the conflict or the trauma with which you are contending. Step back and try to see the various components of the story as if you are the "reader" of the story instead of only a character in the story.
4. Evaluate the story. Assess whether the conflict is worth the actions or reactions in the story. Who is being harmed? Who benefits? How can the situation be resolved. Prompt your mind to think-through the story instead of only reacting emotionally.
5. What are the triggers? What are the signals, words, or actions that bother you, irritate you, or seem to prompt you to feel agitated, stressed, or escalated? How do these triggers factor into the story? Is it worth it to react to the triggers? What other ways can you respond to the triggers that are not stressful or escalating?
6. Stop and release. Keep stopping and releasing. This step in the cycle can and should be repeated anywhere and often.
7. Calm and ground. Keep calming and grounding. This step in the cycle can and should be repeated anywhere and often.

There is a growing body of evidence that documents the benefits of mindfulness in healing bipolar disorder and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Here are a few key sources. 

Bipolar Disorder

The effectiveness of mindfulness in mitigating bipolar disorder is documented in the research of Jonathan P. Strange in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice; David Lovas and Zev Schuman-Olivier in the Journal of Affective Disorders; Sasha D. Strong in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology; and Francisco A. Burgos-Julián in the Journal of Empirical Research in Psychology. Also see the overview concerning mindfulness and bipolar disorder in Mindful Health Solutions. 

Schizophrenia

The effectiveness of mindfulness in healing schizophrenia spectrum disorders is documented in research by Jia‐Ling Sheng in CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics; Michel Sabé in Schizophrenia Research; and Jiali Dai in BMC Psychiatry. Also see the following overview entitled "How meditation can help sufferers of schizophrenia." 

[1] See, for example, Beth Berila, Integrating Mindfulness into Anti-Oppression Pedagogy: Social Justice in Higher Education (New York: Routledge, 2015); Rhea V. Almeida, Liberation Based Healing Practices (Somerset: Institute for Family Services, 2018); Lillian Comas-Díaz and Edil Torres Rivera, Liberation Psychology: Theory, Method, Practice, and Social Justice (American Psychological Association, 2020); Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman, Toward Psychologies of Liberation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); and Manuel Riemer, et al., Community Psychology: In Pursuit of Liberation and Well-Being (New York: Springer, 2020).

[2] The originating 2,500-plus-year-old mindfulness sutta (or scriptures) delineate the ways that meditative strategies for whole person and whole community mindfulness extend far beyond breath control to form practices that can be integrated into everyday experiences of human challenge. These sutta are the Anapanasati, Satipatthana, Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna, Saṅkhitta Dhamma Sutta, Kayagatasati, Dhātu Vibhaṅga, Titth’ayatana, Maha Hatthi,padapama, Bahu Dhātuka, Girimananda, Indriya Bhāvanā, Amba, Latthika Rahulovada, Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekka, and Saṅkhitta Dhamma. English translations are widely available online, including at https://suttacentral.net. 

Some comprehensive, recent, English language, contemporary overviews of the efficacy of broad-based, deep, global applications of mindfulness, mindful movement, and meditative gestures (or mudras) are Amanda le, Christelle T. Ngnoumen, et al., The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); Martha Eddy, Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action (Bristol:  Intellect Ltd, 2017); Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl and Robert W. Roeser, Handbook of Mindfulness in Education: Integrating Theory and Research Into Practice (New York: Springer, 2017); and Itai Ivtzan, Handbook of Mindfulness-Based Programmes: Mindfulness Interventions from Education to Health and Therapy (New York: Routledge, 2020).

There are 43 ancient mudras for hand gestures, head gestures, locking gestures, perineal gestures, and whole-body postures and these meditative actions are overviewed in Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha (Bihar: Yoga Publications Trust, 2015).

On nature-centered and eco-mindfulness, see, most recently, Briony Morgan and Nicole Albrecht, "Nature-based Mindfulness Lessons for Children: A Content Analysis, Paper Presented at the Mindfulness and Nature Based Education Summit," 2020; Elizabeth E. Meacham, Earth Spirit Dreaming: Shamanic Ecotherapy Practices (Dyke Moray: Findhorn Press, 2020); Cheryl Fisher, Mindfulness and Nature-Based Therapeutic Techniques for Children: Creative Activities for Emotion Regulation, Resilience and Connectedness (Eau Claire: Pesi Publishing and Media, 2019); Briony Morgan, Nicole Albrecht, and Patricia Albrecht, "The Importance of Nature Based Mindfulness," Online Journal of Complementary & Alternative Medicine, Issue 2644-2957 (October 31, 2019); William Van Gordon, et al., "Mindfulness and Nature," Mindfulness v9, n5 (2018): 1655-1658; Michael Huppertz and Verena Schatanek, Mindfulness in Nature: 84 Nature-Oriented Exercises and Theoretical Foundations (Berlin: Junfermann, 2017). For a classic investigation on this topic, see Mark Coleman, Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery (Novato: New World Library, 2006); and Potter Gift and Annie Davidson, How to Be More Tree: Essential Life Lessons for Perennial Happiness (New York City: Clarkson Potter/Penguin Random House, 2020).

Some comprehensive, recent, English language, contemporary overviews of the efficacy of broad-based, deep, global applications of mindfulness, mindful movement, and meditative gestures (or mudras) are Amanda le, Christelle T. Ngnoumen, et al., The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); Martha Eddy, Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action (Bristol:  Intellect Ltd, 2017); Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl and Robert W. Roeser, Handbook of Mindfulness in Education: Integrating Theory and Research Into Practice (New York: Springer, 2017); and Itai Ivtzan, Handbook of Mindfulness-Based Programmes: Mindfulness Interventions from Education to Health and Therapy (New York: Routledge, 2020).

There are 43 ancient mudras for hand gestures, head gestures, locking gestures, perineal gestures, and whole-body postures and these meditative actions are overviewed in Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha (Bihar: Yoga Publications Trust, 2015).

[3] On mindfulness and managing fear, see Thich Nhat Hanh Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm (New York: HarperOne, 2014); on managing anger, see Stephen Dansiger, Mindfulness for Anger Management: Transformative Skills for Overcoming Anger and Managing Powerful Emotions (San Antonio: Althea Press, 2018); on managing impulses see Clemente Franco et al., “Effect of a Mindfulness Training Program on the Impulsivity and Aggression Levels of Adolescents with Behavioral Problems in the Classroom,” Frontiers in Psychology, 22 (September 2016), https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01385/full; and on community-based mindfulness interventions to mitigate anxiety and co-occurring experiences, see Brian Galla, et al., “Community-Based Mindfulness Program for Disease Prevention and Health Promotion: Targeting Stress Reduction,” American Journal of Health Promotion, v30, n1 (September-October 2015): 36-41.

[4] See Anna Ridderinkhof et al., “Does mindfulness meditation increase empathy? An experiment.” Self and Identity, v16, n3, (2017):  251-269).

[5] See Susanne Jones et al., “The Impact of Mindfulness on Empathy, Active Listening, and Perceived Provisions of Emotional Support,” Communication Research v46, n6 (February 2016): 1-28.

[6] See the literature and field sources cited in Upāsikā tree turtle, "Affirmation: Strategies and Sources," A Baltimore Wisdom Project Resource, November 2020, https://treeturtle.com/affirmation. Also see the following on restorative practices: Nicholas Burnett and Margaret Thorsborne, Restorative Practice and Special Needs: A Practical Guide to Working Restoratively with Young People (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2015); Vernon Kelly and Margaret Thorsborne, The Psychology of Emotion in Restorative Practice: How Affect Script Psychology Explains How and Why Restorative Practice Works (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2014); and Bob Costello et al., The Restorative Practices Handbook for Teachers, Disciplinarians and Administrators (Bethlehem: International Institute for Restorative Practice, 2013).

[7] See Alice Pettiway, "Mindful of Equity: Practices That Help Students Control their Impulses Can Also Mask Systemic Failures," Teaching Tolerance, n57 (Fall 2017), https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/fall-2017/mindful-of-equity.

[8] The aforementioned sutta are the textual basis for practical meditative techniques. Individuals who trained within Buddhist temples over multiple years within exacting ordination programs or analogous curricula may well be the most advanced and efficacious mindfulness educators because of the precision, credibility, and depth of their training. Often these educators augment their mindfulness training with medical and clinical training and certifications. Philosophers, doctors, and workers in many established fields never allow unqualified people to theorize and practice. But, when it comes to mindfulness, the very people who dedicate their lives to the direct, deep, and broad practice of mindfulness are often implicitly or explicitly excluded when this work is implemented into programs, communities, and institutions. This is a grave error that often results in shallow, unqualified ideas and execution instead of profound and extensive practices and ways of knowing.

[9] Again, some of the most comprehensive contemporary overviews of the efficacy of broad-based, deep, global applications of mindfulness are The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Mindfulness ; Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action; Handbook of Mindfulness in Education: Integrating Theory and Research Into Practice; and Handbook of Mindfulness-Based Programmes: Mindfulness Interventions from Education to Health and Therapy.

[10] See, for example, David A. Treleave, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018); and Rick Hanson, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, 2009). 

[11] See the following author's books:

• Brendan King, The 15 Fundamental Laws of De-escalation: How To Put Out Fires, Not Start Them (Crisis Consultant Group, Inc., 2020) and Calm Every Storm: Preventing Aggressive Behavior With Your Words (Crisis Consultant Group, Inc., 2021).
• Micere Keels, Marcela Cartagena, et al., Trauma Responsive De-escalation: Evidence-based Strategies That Work in the Classroom (Tapir Educational Press, 2022).
• Carol Buehrens, De-escalation Field Guide: Practical Techniques for Building Empathy & Trust in Opioid Use Disorder Crisis Situations (MCH Press, 2024).
• Joseph Santiago, Navigating Life's Conflicts: Strategies for Effective De-Escalation and Communication (Santiago Ink, 2024).
• Amy Brustuen, Gentle Yet Strong: A Handbook of De-escalation Tools for Teens and Those Who Teach Them (Amy Brustuen, 2024).