EASTON, LAKEVILLE, RAYNHAM, and BELLINGHAM, MA, ISSUED NOVEMBER 16, 2021…Leigh-Ann Larson, CEO of Elevate Counseling Services is furthering her professional credentials by participating in a comprehensive Mindful Leader Program offered by the Brown University Mind Body Institute.

The program, offered through the Brown (University) School of Public Health and Brown University, helps individuals and organizations meet the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly complex, unpredictable world. Mindfulness is defined as “the capacity to be fully present in the moment, with clear perspective, thought and intention, which strengthens the ability of leaders and the workforce to be healthy, engaged and operating at their maximum potential.”

Leigh-Ann Larson said, “We’ve seen and even more over the last eighteen months with the COVID restrictions that people feel intense pressure to perform. Many people, in the workforce and in their own private lives, find that they are rushed and end up feeling stressed and compromised in their efforts to do their best and clearest thinking. This can have an adverse effect on their health and well-being.”

She envisions the educational benefits of the program as being beneficial both to the therapists and to the clients they work with.

The World Health Organization states that the average person spends 90,000 hours, 1/3 of their life, at work. Mindful leaders help by providing strategies and tools for effectiveness and well-being.

The program helps leaders focus in these areas:

• focus: the control, stability and efficiency of attention
• cognitive performance: flexible thinking, innovation, problem solving and decision-making
• emotional regulation: the ability to respond skillfully rather than react habitually
• interpersonal skill development: enhancing communication and collaboration
• resilience: discovering new and more effective ways of navigating challenge and stress
• well-being: essential for full and meaningful engagement in work and life

Upon completion of this phase of the program, Larson will then participate in a six-day retreat in March. At its conclusion she plans to enroll in a two year program which will qualify her to train other people in MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction). MBSR has been around since 1979 when it was developed at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Initially created for chronically ill patients who were not responding well to traditional treatments, it is now used for a wide variety of reasons to address chronic pain, anxiety, depression and general stress reduction. It is a secular non-religiously based programs.

“I am very enthused about this upcoming program,” Larson said, adding, “And having the chance to incorporate these teachings in to our therapy process and help people sift through the mental and emotional pain that they experience.” She added, “This program gives us the language to use for everybody, regardless of their belief systems.”