Hollywood stars swear by it, companies like Google, Target and General Mills train staff in it, and schools are developing ways to teach it. Mindfulness is a hot topic these days and with studies showing that the benefits can enhance just about every aspect of your life, it’s no wonder everyone wants to give it a go.
Two people who are on a mission to make mindfulness mainstream are Alexa Frey and Autumn Totton. The pair met while studying and they went on to form The Mindfulness Project, a social enterprise which combines Totton’s business expertise and Frey’s experience in mindfulness, some years later.
Now, at their beautiful centre for mindfulness in Central London, the duo offer regular 8-week mindfulness based stress reduction courses, plus drop-in meditation classes, workshops, and seminars on mindful-living topics to help support everyone from new parents, to stressed out business people to those who are dealing with illness or bereavement. We hope you enjoy the interview. ~ Rachel
Autumn Totton (L) and Alexa Frey (R), Co-founders of The Mindfulness Project, believe that mindfulness has the capacity to change the world from the inside out
1. How are you ‘doing what you love’?
AF: I am truly grateful to be able to help spread mindfulness. This wonderful practice has truly transformed my life to the better and I wish for nothing more but sharing it with as many people as I can. A big bonus is that I get to work with Autumn and everyone else at The Mindfulness Project! I also love that every day at The Mindfulness Project is different and none of us ever gets bored. We also laugh a lot.
AT: Being able to share mindfulness with others who might really benefit from it in the way that we have is so satisfying. Also getting to work with Alexa and the rest of The Mindfulness Project team brings me so much joy and inspiration – I feel so lucky to be able to this with these people in particular. We all have a shared passion and complementary skills that we’re bringing together to build something great.
2. What inspired you to launch the Mindfulness Project – how did this venture come about and what was the motivati
on behind it?
AF: I’m naturally a bit of an over-thinker and mindfulness really helped me to become more present. Today I enjoy life a lot more then I used to before I started practising mindfulness. I always wished there was a dedicated space for secular mindfulness in London, where fellow minds could meet and practice mindfulness together – and since no one did it, I just figured that I just had to set one up myself!
AT: Alexa and I went to university together years ago and reconnected around the time she was getting serious about starting a Centre for Mindfulness in London. I was looking to learn more about mindfulness and she was looking for some help with the business plan, so we started working together and eventually ended up with a shared vision. My personal motivation was really to use my business skills and knowledge to do something good. Learning mindfulness really changed my life and the opportunity to continue working with Alexa to realise the plans has been the perfect way to do that.
Image credit: Health Central
3. Tell us about your background; what did you do before this and how did you juggle full-time careers with building a business?
AF: After studying Social Sciences and History I found meditation and immediately knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. After a three-month stay in an Ashram in India, I decided to move to London to study Psychology. After that degree I worked as a freelance journalist for a German teenage magazine, writing about mindfulness and compassion and taught mindfulness to individual clients until I had the idea to start up The Mindfulness Project.
AT: I always had dreams of building a business parallel to my full-time career, but to be honest in the midst of trying to be amazing at my day job, I found it hard to make the space to figure out what I really wanted to be doing, let alone pursue it at the same time. I found it really hard to have a healthy work-life balance. It took quitting my job all together and dabbling in other things to find what I really wanted to be doing. And in the end, even that kind of found me. But only after I found mindfulness (with Alexa’s help!) and started to really embrace the opportunities that presented themselves to me.
4. Why should people connect with you?
AF: I think mindfulness is important for everyone human being. Because our brains make us think all day – we’re programmed to do so and that can get out of control. Add the daily business and pressures in 2015 and we can end up rushing around all day, being lost in our heads. Mindfulness trains us to reconnect with the present moment. To pay attention to the blue sky above us, to really listen to the friend that we meet for lunch and to notice the beautiful tree outside of our window and…. breathe.
AT: Mindfulness can really help keep people stay sane. It can also improve our ability to relate to others and really connect with our own values. In the midst of our busy lives this can help us find and maintain a sense of balance, so we can wholeheartedly do what we love in life. Our courses and workshops help people build mindfulness skills that they can take with them beyond the course and into so many different aspects of their lives.
Welcome board in The Mindfulness Project work space
5. Starting your own successful not-for-profit organisation is an amazing achievement. What has been the highlight?
AF: My personal highlight is the drop-ins I run every week at our space. I give a little talk on a mindfulness related topic and we all meditate together. It’s so wonderful to be able to connect with people and speak about things that really matter. Other than that, I just love to work with Autumn and Emily in the office every day. The three of us have a very similar humor and we giggle a lot. Also, I usually set my gratitude alarm for every two hours and when it rings we all pause for 20 seconds and think of something we’re grateful for. Other than that, I just love to spend time with the whole The Mindfulness Project team – we’re all pretty awesome and get along well.
AT: There have been so many! One thing we’re always really moved by is the stories and feedback from the participants in our courses who’ve really been helped by mindfulness. It’s such a great reminder of why we are doing this. We are also so lucky to be working with an amazing group of teachers and advisors, who inspire us and breathe life into the project.
6. What has been your biggest challenge so far?
AF: Starting up a business is a rollercoaster ride. One day is great, the next one everything seems to fall apart. Fortunately, mindfulness helps to surf those waves. In the beginning, it has also been hard for me to spend so much time at work. I used to be a social butterfly. My diary used to be full with electro parties, gigs, dinners with friends etc. Now I spend many evenings in front of my computer. But to be honest, it’s totally worth it!
7. What advice would you give other women who dream of starting their own business?
AF: Give your best to keep up with your work-life balance and be prepared to lose it for a while. In the first year of setting up the business our work days were very busy and long. We did meditate every day together and practised a lot of informal mindfulness too. But there was not much time left for anything else. This might work for a couple of months, but not for forever.
AT: Start practicing mindfulness first. Sometimes we feel incredibly discontented in our jobs/careers, but if we can really connect with the root of what’s really holding us back or making things difficult, it can completely change our perspective. That might mean not leaving a job or pursuing a career that you hadn’t considered.
8. We love the book you’ve written together, I am here now. How did this creative project come about and what can people expect from it?
AT: We were approached by a lovely commissioning editor from Ebury Press with a vision for making a creative book about mindfulness. The idea really resonated with us and we just went for it.
Arianna Huffington describes I am here now as: “An essential guide to mindfulness, filled with tools and practices that can enhance our well-being”
9. How did you come up with all the fun exercises? Talk us through your creative process…
AF: Since we’ve started practising mindfulness seven years ago, we tried to apply it to every possible aspect of our lives. This book is a result of this process. The above mentioned gratitude alarm for example inspired two exercises from the book (Gratitude a to z & Gratitude Alarm). Many exercises are also about connecting with nature. These came to me on some of our daily walks through Regent’s Park to our office in Fitzrovia. We would each have our ideas and throw them out to each other. If they resonated with both of us (sometimes in different ways), we would sit down together and work through the design ideas. We would then lay it all out for the illustrators to replicate and refine. Slowly, but surely it all came together.
10. Describe a typical day in your life…
AT: Given that most of our courses run in the evenings, our work day tends to start around mid-day and run until 10pm. When we’re both together in London, we’ll usually meet at our space in Fitzrovia, where we may have a couple meetings with our teachers or other organisations we’re collaborating with. We work closely with our space manager to make sure all of our courses are running smoothly and we’re staying in touch with our participants. In general, I tend to focus on the business management things and Alexa does a lot of content management and outreach to new teachers.
11. What’s your philosophy on life and is there a quote that you try and live by?
AF: I have been practising a lot of gratitude in the last two years and this has enriched my life to an extent I would have never anticipated. I wish that when I am old and look back at my life that I will feel overwhelmed with gratitude every morning I wake up and every evening I go to bed.
AT: Practicing acceptance. The Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.
12. What’s the big dream for you personally, and for The Mindfulness Project?
AT & AF: We would like for us to continue to grow together as leaders and make The Mindfulness Project an international brand for teaching and raising awareness of mindfulness.
13. Finally, would you share 10 top tips to help us all be more mindful in every day life…
- Meditate, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
- Slow down and tune into your body and senses.
- Don’t argue with reality. It is what it is.
- Pay attention to people, especially your loved ones.
- Think of one thing you’re grateful for before going to bed.
- Go easy on and be kind to yourself, even when you blow it.
- When good things happen, pause and notice how it feels.
- When not so good things happen, pause. Notice how it feels.
- Upon stressing out, take three deep breaths.
- Connect with nature at least once a day.
For more information about The Mindfulness Project visit www.londonmindful.com or www.twitter.com/londonmindful. For more information about Alexandra & Autumn’s book, I am here now, visit www.iamherenow.com or www.twitter.com/iamherenow
