About me

My adventures in mindfulness started as part of my training as a therapist, where I was first formally taught meditation. I found it relaxing, so it was something that I dipped in and out of depending on how stressed I was! Meditation is not actually about relaxing, although this is a fortunate side effect, it is more about tuning in to different levels of awareness, which give us wisdom, choice and so much more.  Anyway, not long after my training had finished, I caught a virus and I then became ill with Chronic Fatigue (similar to Long Covid), it had a severe impact on my ability to function.  I was told I would have this condition for life but I wasn’t willing to let this happen.  I  began meditating regularly (3 times a day at first!), learning to more successfully disentangle from unhelpful thoughts and pacing myself physically by listening to my body; after many months I managed to reset my nervous system and fully recover.  

I continue to benefit immensely from regularly practising meditation and mindfulness and I see others benefit too. It has led me to other practices such as Yoga and Qi Gong. It has helped me turn towards difficulty and work through difficult emotions.  I have personally found that the more intensive my mindfulness practice is, the more rewards I get from it.  It has enabled me to give up some bad habits without the usual discomfort of giving something up!   It has made me feel increasingly grounded, with a strong sense of wholeness, irrespective of what chaos might be happening around me.  I  also experience the positive impact it continually has on my work as a therapist as it helps me to be very present and more intuitive. I feel that the more regulated we are, the more regulated people around us become, just as when we are dysregulated, we tend to trigger people around us into dysregulation. Most problems in relationship are down to one person's threat system clashing with another's.

As a result of these experiences, I am more drawn to using mindfulness based therapy, including ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and Compassion Focused Therapy.  I enjoy exploring meditation and mindfulness in various contexts; from retreats in Spain to attending Dharma talks at the local Buddhist Monastery and I meet many lovely and inspirational people along the way, who I constantly learn new things from.  Meditation aides an ease of connection with others, as it calms our nervous system, enabling trust, openness and compassion, so we feel safe to be our authentic selves. It has got me through many difficult and challenging times with relative ease and continues to enable me to appreciate the simple things in life...particularly being in nature.  I am constantly grateful for living near an area of outstanding natural beauty, as nature is a great way to reground ourselves.

My adventures in mindfulness will continue as I experience a much more value driven and enriching life, all the time nurturing mindfulness attitudes of curiosity, acceptance, trust, letting-go, non-striving, patience, compassion, kindness and non-judgment. To me it feels like being on a continual journey of exploration and discovery.  How much you get from it is up to you...from my experience, you will get some benefit from just 'dipping your toes in'! 

I try and approach both my one-to-one and group work with curiosity, openness and compassion. I aim to be as authentic as possible and hope that this enables others to feel safe to be themselves with me.  We are all on the same journey through life and we all have things that we have learnt along the way that we can share with others.  I have always been interested in the mind and spirit to a somewhat obsessive degree and I love to share what I have learnt...hoping that this is received in the same spirit with which I share it!! 

I really enjoy delivering groups and have done this almost consistently since I first trained as a therapist many years ago.  I have mostly delivered anything from 5 - 12 session psycho-educational courses on anything from stress, wellbeing to compassion.  In my experience, people are often very resistant to joining a course on anything remotely psychological...there seems to be a lot of embarrassment or shame attached. However, we are all made up of the same stuff; we all experience the same emotions, so when people come together and share their experiences, there is a huge sense of common humanity.  So what I love, is that almost everyone that decides to attend anyway come out of the course saying that it was a fantastically normalising and validating experience!

I am accredited with the British Association of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP), which means that I have demonstrated that I meet their high standards of training and experience in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT);  I commit to maintaining these standards in my clinical practice and abide by their Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics. It also means that I continue to work on my professional development by attending at least six hours of skills workshops every year, read journal articles to keep up with the latest research and read books relevant to my CBT practice.  Most of my continued professional development has centred on third wave CBT, mindfulness based therapies, and trauma focused therapies.  I am also geeky and obsessed enough to attend training, listen to podcasts/talks and read books which are in addition to my continued professional development (CPD) requirements!! The following are my core qualifications/training:

Advanced Level 2 MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Teacher in Training 2022

Standard EMDR Europe Accredited Training 2022

Trauma Focused CBT for PTSD 2021

Level 1 MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) Teacher in Training 2019

Post Graduate Diploma in Psychological Intervention (CBT) 2011

Post Graduate Certificate in Education 2008

Psychology BA (Hons) in the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences 2001

BABCP Accreditation - CBT Register UK | The online register of CBT therapists for the UK and Ireland (babcp.com) 

Psychology Today - Nikki Hayers, Psychotherapist, Chichester, PO19 | Psychology Today