Mindfulness & emotional intelligence

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Mindfulness & emotional intelligence

Finding your personal path to a more peaceful, meaningful life

In a world where 10-second grabs are the norm and our brains are geared to focus on pressure and performance, the Chris Millar Foundation for Integrative Medicine is hosting a workshop on Mindfulness and emotional intelligence.

The workshop’s convenor, psychiatrist Dr Chris Walsh, a long-time friend and colleague of the late Dr Chris Millar, who passed away in October 2014, will be presenting a workshop that will provide participants with techniques to focus on being in the present, rather than worrying unduly about the past or the future.

Dr Chris Walsh, who has been a mindfulness practitioner for over 20 years, said that the aim of the workshop is to provide participants with basic skills that they can take away with them to practise.

“Like all techniques, whether playing a musical instrument or a game of golf, practice always improves the outcome,” Dr Walsh said.

“Developing emotional intelligence through mindfulness techniques has far-reaching benefits, from home life through to work and recreation,” he said.

“Becoming more emotionally intelligent enhances individual creativity while providing greater cooperative team skills. It helps us interact in a really positive way with our friends, families and colleagues,” Dr Walsh said.

Mindfulness can reduce anxiety and stress, and helps people to focus on what is really important in their lives.

“I work with small groups of people in a non-confrontational way, making them feel confident about their unique qualities and character and using this information to help them reflect on their personal limitations, without being judgmental,” Dr Walsh continued.

Dr Walsh and Dr Millar studied medicine together. Both shared a philosophy of healing the body and mind without necessarily relying on medication. Dr Millar used technology (brainwave biofeedback), Dr Walsh uses relaxation techniques.

It is particularly rewarding to have Dr Walsh present this workshop in Ballarat.

I am very excited that Dr Walsh is running his mindfulness program here. He has an international reputation and has presented his workshops in America, Asia and Europe. 

I’m delighted that the Chris Millar Foundation is hosting this workshop. The Foundation has been established to ensure that my late husband’s work continues. Healing the whole person was fundamental to Chris’ work. One of the Foundation’s aims is to raise funds to provide grants and scholarships for medical practitioners to study and research complementary medicine. The proceeds from the mindfulness workshop will go directly to the Foundation.

Our lives are so busy that we don’t give due consideration to enjoying the moment. I hope that people in the Ballarat community will think that their health is important enough to take some time out for themselves and attend this remarkable workshop.

Date:                          Saturday 10 October

Venue:                       102 English Street, Golden Point, Ballarat

Time:                         1.00 – 5.00pm

Cost:                          $50 members

                                  $60 non-members (incl $10 membership to Foundation)

                                  includes light refreshments

Tickets:                      eventbrite.com.au • Search for: Mindfulness Ballarat

Further information:   Kevin Harper, Honorary Secretary, Chris Millar Foundation

                                    5294 0222 or 0430 453 272

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Announcing our new team of GPs

MENSSANA's FUTURE IS SECURED

We are fortunate to have found a group of doctors to carry forward the vision of the late Dr Chris Millar

 

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

DURING these past 10 months, with the support of the team at Menssana Mindbody Medicine, I have been doing my utmost to maintain a functioning practice and preserve Chris’s philosophy and legacy of healing the whole person.

However, I soon realised that the dream Chris and I envisaged when we established this practice has to be carried forward by a medical professional. Alas, I am not a doctor – I am a practice manager trying to pass on our vision of an integrative practice to those who can carry that vision into the future. To that end, medical advisor Kevin Harper and I have worked tirelessly and searched far and wide to find a permanent doctor who would fit in with the practice vision.

So, to those patients who have stuck with us throughout these turbulent months while we have been looking for suitable candidates I say, “Thank you for your vote of confidence by staying with our practice”. While we have travelled through some choppy and uncertain waters this year, from February next year it will be smoother sailing.

Chris and I held similar views on the kind of practice that would work holistically for the patient. These views are embedded in the very structure of our practice and revolve around the team we have built together.

Early last year Chris and I began planning to expand the practice team to include a mental health nurse (Julie Lock), the Tomatis® Method of audio therapy (Lynne McDonald), and one or more GPs to share his workload. We both realised that the days of the solo-GP practice are well and truly over and that life as a solo GP was not sustainable. We had been looking for a suitable GP for some time.

I am pleased to announce that we at Menssana are incredibly fortunate to have found not one GP, but a group of doctors who will now carry forward Chris’ vision of healing the whole person. Dr Claire Hepper will join Dr Rod Stobart in mid-October.

Growing the team

From February next year we will continue to grow the team of doctors at Menssana in addition to Dr Claire and Dr Rod. This will enable us to carry forward the Menssana vision and enhance the number and type of services we can offer.

From February 2016 more GPs will join our team. Together they will continue the vision Chris and I worked hard to create. Sadly, for all of us, his untimely and tragic death means he will not be here to see his dream continue.

If you have been a long-term patient of Dr Chris, there is always the danger of measuring every doctor you meet against your experience of him. No one person will ever possess the exact combination of talents, interests and characteristics he had. However, these new doctors will bring their own special interests to our practice and I’m sure you will find one with whom you can build a good rapport:

• Dr Claire Hepper has a passion for palliative care (caring for people with a life-limiting illness and for their families) and is proficient in sleep apnoea, joint injections, women’s health and mental health.

• Dr Rod Stobart’s areas of expertise include men’s health, nutritional medicine, skin checks, minor surgical procedures, and hypnotherapy.

Soni, owner & practice manager

Together with other experienced practitioners (yet to be announced) they will make up the team that will continue to deliver the same quality services to you that Menssana Mindbody Medicine has always striven to be known for.

Above all, we are committed to continuing Dr Chris Millar’s legacy of treating the whole person – body and mind.

menssana.com.au