Zest Infusion Vision

Our vision is to provide professional psychology services to the wider community with high accessibility through flexible delivery of services.
With our vision we aim to provide psycho-education and skills in learning how to live a more meaningful, mindful, authentic life and to sustain wellness through proactive self-care and self-compassion.
We also hope to encourage the formation of a community supporting each other in maintaining these mindful practices.

Mindfulness Meditation

What is mindfulness meditation?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, who was one of the first medical practitioners in western culture to integrate mindfulness in his treatment, defines mindfulness like this:

Mindfulness is an ancient practice that dates back to 5,000 to 3,500 BCE where archaeologists discovered evidence of meditation in wall art found in the Indus Valley.  The wall art depict images of people sitting in what we know today as meditation postures.  There are many religions that adopted the basic concepts of meditation including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity to name but a few.

Over the last 30-40 years principles of mindfulness meditation has been integrated in western medicine and psychology. Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher internationally known for his work in bringing mindfulness practices, especially Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), into the mainstream of medicine and society.  His research between 1979 and 2002 focused on mind/body interactions for healing and on various clinical applications of mindfulness meditation training for management of chronic pain, stress-related disorders (including anxiety and depression), multicultural settings, and building resilience in various corporate settings and work environments (Puff, 2013).

Although pain is an inevitable part of life, we often find ourselves as part of an unconscious process striving to be ‘happy’ and avoid pain, which often increase our own suffering.  However, psychological happiness doesn’t equal the absence of negative emotions! Through mindful practices we can learn to carefully examine situations to help us understand how we create our own suffering. This then can help us to undo the conditions that create suffering. Becoming more aware of unconscious reflexes and drives in turn will help us to change them.

Mindfulness meditation tries to teach intentional focus on the present moment. When we drive our car, we intentionally want to focus on driving, when we eat we try to focus on eating etc. However, mindfulness asks for a specific way of focusing. It is not enough to just focus, we also need to focus non-judgmentally and with an open mind to allow any experience, no matter what it is, in the present moment. Being able to focus in such a mindful way is not something we often do or are encouraged to do in our culture. Too often we are too busy to pause and become present or try to avoid negative experiences as soon as they arise rather than looking at them with an open mind.

However, being able to be mindful can have a lot of benefits. A summary of research into the benefits of mindfulness on the website of the American Psychological Association (APA) shows mindfulness has been linked to reduce ruminations and stress, can boost working memory and help with better focus. Mindfulness practices have also shown to be helpful in better managing emotions and increasing cognitive flexibility. Research even found that people’s ability to be mindful has a positive effect on their relationship satisfaction. These research results show clearly that practicing mindfulness regularly can have a great positive effect on someone’s well-being and vitality.

At Zest Infusion we try to pass these benefits on to others by exploring in-depth what mindfulness is, increasing peoples insight and awareness of their ability to be mindful and teaching formal and informal mindfulness practices in our workshops.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

What is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)?

Acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT (said as one word, not as individual letters) is a relatively young therapeutic framework. The main aim of ACT is to help people become more flexible in their ability to behave and respond to their environment. Increased flexibility and learning to be in the present moment are focus points ACT and mindfulness both share and therefore these therapeutic approaches work very well together.

ACT and mindfulness approaches also believe in the benefit of holding our thoughts lightly, rather than buying into everything our mind tells us. Not giving too much credit to our mind, particularly when it becomes too negative or when we notice distressing thoughts is one way of staying more flexible.  In ACT therapy we try to help people understand when their mind is taking over too much control and teach people strategies to connect more with what really is here in the present moment, rather than getting caught up in worst case scenarios.

Additionally to present moment awareness and increased flexibility, ACT is very much interested in helping people identify and connect with their true values. ACT therapists believe that if people live in line with their values they are more likely to live a life that is filled with meaning and vitality. In ACT therapy we try to help people to learn strategies to manage distress, so that they can live their lives in line with their personal values, even if this means to face distress.

At Zest Infusion we believe strongly that to live a vital and values based life we need to be courageous. We would love to help our clients develop their courage, explore what is truly meaningful to them and to help them take the necessary steps towards their valued life direction with the help of mindfulness and ACT strategies.