Coaching Practiced

34 Mindfulness in coaching: A model for coaching practice

Jonathan Passmore

Abstract

This is the first in a series of papers to look at mindfulness coaching as an approach suitable for use with coaching clients. This paper presents a brief overview of mindfulness for readers who are less familiar with the approach and highlights other sources for a fuller account of mindfulness coaching. The paper sets the scene for a subsequent series of papers. Each of these subsequent techniques papers presents a short description of a technique grounded in mindfulness that can be used with clients or by coaching psychologists to enhance their own presence, resilience and empathy.

Keywords

Coaching, coaching psychology, mindfulness coaching, contemplation, reflection and meditation.

Original publication details: Passmore, J. (2017, June). Mindfulness in coaching: A model for coaching practice. The Coaching Psychologist, 13(1), 27–30. Reproduced with permission of The British Psychological Society.

THE BACKGROUND – MINDFULNESS COACHING

The term mindfulness has its origins in the term ‘Sati’. ‘Sati’ originally means to remember. The term combines remembering with a sense of non-judgemental acceptance, kindness and friendliness.

At a more formal level, a range of writers within the Buddhist tradition have offered definitions of mindfulness over the past 2500 years. Bhikkhu suggested that at its most simple, mindfulness could be considered to be ‘reflective awareness’ (Bhikkhu, 1998, p.47). ...