Mindfulness: Developing Agency in Urgent Times

A ground-breaking discussion paper from The Mindfulness Initiative a world-leading policy institute that grew out of a training programme for politicians in the British Parliament and which clerks the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness. The publication has been described as seminal and very important by social change experts. It lays out a new narrative and framework for understanding how mindfulness underpins intentional action and why it will be crucial for meeting the converging crises of the 21st Century.- -Humanitys future may depend upon strengthening our agency.Multiple interconnected crises call for skilful response on a global scale - but our capacity for intentional action in our collective best interest is underdeveloped and increasingly undermined.This paper opens a dialogue on the contribution of evidence-based mindfulness training to individual and collective agency.Beyond a nice to have wellbeing benefit in the workplace or an alternative to prescription drugs well discuss how cultivating the innate capacity of mindfulness and its essential qualities such as attention regulation receptivity meta-cognition cognitive flexibility embodiment emotion regulation and kindness could be foundational in responding to the complex challenges of the 21st Century.