About Just Being Center for Mindfulness and Presence LLP | Just Being Center

About Just Being Center for Mindfulness and Presence LLP

One of the leading institutions in India doing path-breaking work in the field of applied mindfulness and presence-oriented approach since 2011

Providing a sense of wholeness

Just Being provides trainings, programs and initiatives that facilitate a recognition of an inner alive stillness and wholeness that is always present. We encourage and support access to this sense of `wholeness’ through the practice of mindfulness, deep listening, compassion and inquiry.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a pathway to presence

It is a practice that comes from Buddhist Philosophy and that has been widely researched in the fields of neuroscience and mental health. Mindfulness is the awareness that we begin to touch into when we practice a moment-to-moment attention to internal or external phenomena with an attitude of kindness, non-judgment and curiosity. We believe that Mindfulness is a pathway to deep Presence.

What is presence?

Unconditioned sense of Self

We can understand ‘Presence’ as a more unconditioned sense of self that is ever present and has the qualities of deep wisdom, clear knowing, love and compassion.

Our Vision

Universality of the mind and heart while honouring the individual process

Just Being is an initiative that began in 2011 to encourage inhabiting ‘beingness' and to allow action to emerge from this space. It inquires into what it means to be fully human using awareness, love and wisdom both as the field as well as the tools. Learning, living and serving based on mindfulness, compassion and wisdom is the main offering. We hold a stance that is non-divisive and integrated, where all aspects of experience are met and honored from a sense of Presence and through a bodily felt-sense. Thus we include the philosophical, psychological, spiritual and socio-cultural aspects and hold it in unison. Our approach is one that holds the universality of the mind and heart while honoring the individual process. Thus all wisdom traditions are welcomed as well as human experiences and expressions of that unifying wisdom in a secular way.

High quality training programs

We aim to offer high quality training programs in Mindfulness, Presence, Compassion and Listening for mental health professionals or for those who wish to hold deeper spaces of listening and care.

Psychotherapy and counseling

Presence, Mindfulness, Compassion and Wisdom are the cornerstones of our approach in Counseling and Psychotherpy. We seek to fine-tune processes that allow for a natural unfolding of inherent wisdom in the relational field that the therapist or counselor can deeply be attuned and listen to.

Relational mindfulness

We bring in mindfulness in relationships through retreats, workshops and online courses for individuals, families, teenagers and couples. These are opportunities to deepen into the practice and lived experience of mindful awareness and kindness in relationships.

Bringing mindfulness in social organizations

We seek to offer opportunities for organizations and communities to collectively grow in awareness, love and wisdom. We look at systematically working with organizations at all levels - individual, relational, collective. We work with social development organizations, schools and colleges as well as the corporate sector.

Mindfulness and deep listening practice circles.

We provide practice circles for communities to deepen in the essence of Mindfulness and its application in everyday life as well as deep listening in relational spaces. We engage in Contemplative Dialogue on issues that are relevant at a collective level. We also seek to provide spaces and dialogue around death and dying and living with ease through our `Dying with Grace’ program.

Developing centers of learning & research

We are developing centers of learning and research in the use of awareness, love and wisdom within the field of psychology. We provide mentorship to professionals wanting to apply deep listening, mindfulness and a presence-orientation to their work and opportunities to explore a true understanding of Mindfulness and Presence and its translation in many areas of life.

About founder director

Sandy Dias Andrade is a Psychologist trained in Mindfulness and Presence Orientations

Lead Facilitator, Therapist and Mentor

Short Bio : Sandy is the Founder-Director at Just Being and is a Mindfulness & Presence Oriented Psychotherapist, MBCT Facilitator, Lead Trainer and Teacher for the Mindfulness & Presence Oriented Psychotherapy and Mindfulness Based Counseling : Listening with Embodied Presence courses, Mentor for Mindfulness Based Trainings and curator and mentor to the applied mindfulness based programs.

She is passionate about merging mainstream psychological processes with wisdom approaches. Through Just Being, she runs training programs for mental health professionals, offers individual psychotherapy, group process work through deep listening and other programs for the community.

With over nineteen years of experience in the field, she has trained in a number of approaches. She has an international certification in facilitating Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) from the Center of Mindfulness, University of California, San Diego, USA. She has trained with Zindel Segal who developed MBCT and received further mentorship from Susan Woods. She is listed on the international directory of MBCT - therapists (www.accessmbct.com). She has also received training in Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). She has trained extensively in Integral Somatic Psychology (ISP), Cognitive Therapy, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST), Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing. She is an accredited practitioner in Craniosacral Biodynamics from the International Institute of Craniosacral Balancing (IICSB), Switzerland and certified in Focusing Skills from the British Focusing Association (BFA). She is also trained in trauma resolution work through her training in somatic approaches and EMDR. Her work is also informed by Internal Family Systems (IFS) and attachment work. She has vast experience in designing and executing trainings for mental health professionals, educationists and others. Her trainings are experiential and comprehensive.

She contributes to Connecting, an NGO involved in suicide prevention, where she is a trustee, trainer, mentor and volunteer. She also contributes to many other social organizations and schools. She established Connecting’s helpline service in Pune city and designed and co-developed Mindfulness Based Active Listening, a course for volunteers for providing listening support that now runs independently. She has contributed extensively to RBA School, Pune and contributed to their Life Skills Orientation program. She is currently associated with Swadhaa Waldorf Learning Center, Pune and Aman Setu School, Pune.

She has designed, developed and teaches a two year training for mental health professionals in Mindfulness and Presence Oriented Psychotherapy – Integrating Compassion and Wisdom that is jointly certified by Just Being and CLL-TISS, Mumbai and has designed, developed and teaches a one year post graduate diploma program open to all on Mindfulness Based Counseling: Listening from Embodied Presence that is jointly certified by Just Being and St. Mira’s College, Pune.

She is invited as visiting faculty to teach the applications of Mindfulness and Presence on many other courses like the Buddhist Psychology and Psychotherapy course offered by the Pali Department at Pune University. She teaches modules on Mindfulness, Presence and Listening at a course by Seeds of Awareness and TISS Mumbai and takes a module on Deep and Active Listening for psychology students at St. Mira’s College, Pune. She has also taught modules on Mindfulness and Presence to students of Dance Movement Therapy. She supports counsellors working in social organizations and in the social developmental sector like Akanksha, to bring Mindfulness for themselves as counselors and with their clients. She provides regular mentorship to psychotherapists and counsellors in applying Mindfulness and a Presence Orientation with individual clients and in group work and encourages a more inner-oriented process for counsellors that focuses on their own ‘Being’ or ‘Presence’ while supporting clients.

Sandy curated and organized through Just Being, India’s first ever conference for mental health professionals on Mindfulness and Presence and its applications in mental health, education and community. She has also been invited as a speaker and panelist and contributed to a number of conferences on mental health and education. She has also been invited as a TEDx speaker. She is currently writing her book `Mindfulness & Presence Oriented Psychotherapy’ for mental health professionals and others in the field.

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