Michael Sinclair is a consultant counselling psychologist, an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society and the clinical director of City Psychology Group in London. His clinical work is influenced by Contextual Behavioural Science and he has expertise in delivering a range of mindfulness-based interventions. He is an experienced practitioner of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and has taught mindfulness to hundreds of people over many years. He has been dedicated to his own mindfulness practice for over 12 years. Michael continues to provide the highest quality psychological therapy and coaching to individuals of all ages, couples and families.
He is the consultant to a number of corporate occupational health departments in the City of London, assisting with employees’ stress management and well-being. He delivers mindfulness-based workshops to corporate executives, as well as larger public audiences, and is actively involved in teaching mindfulness to practising psychologists and other health professionals. He is the author of a range of self-help books.
Michael has been inspired by the many people he has met through his work as a practitioner psychologist over the past 17 years. He has worked with children, those suffering with life-threatening medical diagnoses and illnesses (and their loved ones), celebrities and senior business leaders. He has become fascinated by the shared experience and common universal themes and psychological processes met in each of us and the human resilience to survive in the face of extreme adversity. He is privileged to have been able help hundreds of people to discover and tap into this resilience, sense of shared humanity and wisdom, to cultivate these incredible qualities and to find a genuine sense of well-being. He hopes that this book will go some way in doing the same for you.
Josie Seydel was first taught to meditate at the age of ten and remembers sitting in the car with her family silently reciting mantras. Given this experience, it is not surprising that she chose to become a psychologist and continue to work on understanding what the heck that was all about. At the age of 18, Josie learned mindfulness meditation, hung out with hippies, travelled about and discovered that to find herself (wherever she was) she needed only to breathe.
She became a chartered counselling psychologist in 2003 and is now also an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has worked in several different and diverse settings during her career, including: specialist eating disorders services, refugee and asylum seeker services, domestic violence services, women’s prisons, adolescent in-patient services and primary schools. Everywhere she has gone she has found real human beings, from the highest corporate lawyers to the most dejected and shunned murderers, all also able to breathe and find themselves (with a little help) and to see that we are not so very different after all.
She currently works as a clinical associate with City Psychology Group, in the City of London, providing mindfulness-based psychological therapy to people of all ages as well as pioneering mindfulness workshops to large public audiences. Josie is also the mother of two young children and so understands stress quite well. Through her compassionate and committed professional and personal dedication to practice she continues to marvel that mindfulness truly allows the heart to find ease. May you find this, too.
Emily Shaw is a chartered clinical psychologist, working as a clinical executive at City Psychology Group and also works in the NHS with people who experience complex mental health difficulties. When Emily first heard about mindfulness, many years ago, she was sceptical of how something so simple could be so beneficial to so many. She then met a number of people she admired who convinced her to give it a go. Being a very busy person herself, she found brief practices were a good place to start and now a day does not pass without many mindful moments, helping her to feel a greater sense of ease.
She is committed to a lifelong journey of mindfulness practice and is passionate about sharing her wisdom with the people she works with. She hopes this book inspires you to practise in a way that works for you, so that you may find kindness for yourself and all other beings.