PRESENTERS: Karen Gipson (Faculty), Heather Wallace (Faculty), Jiyeon Suh (Faculty) and Martina Reinhold (Staff)  

This session introduces secular mindfulness and how it can naturally lead to greater awareness of our lived experience in the world, including our interpersonal relationships. For majority populations, the enhanced self-awareness fostered by mindfulness can facilitate the honest reflection needed to first see and then address one's own implicit bias. At the same time, mindfulness can help ameliorate the personal damage of microaggressions experienced by minoritized populations, as deeply seeing their systemic nature can help to depersonalize such transgressions and minimize the sense of imposter syndrome that often arises. The words of African-American meditation teacher Ruth King are applicable to all forms of identity-based oppression, "Racism is a heart disease, and mindfulness is its cure."
 The session will begin with an introduction to the practice of anchoring and participant reflection on the practice, followed by a roundtable discussion with mindfulness practitioners and instructors of IDS 105: Mindfulness as a College-Success Tool.