Episode 29 - Paula Haddock: Mindfulness for Social Change

The Mindful Cranks

I often get the question – “Well, who is doing innovative and leading-edge work on social and civic mindfulness – who is teaching mindfulness outside of the clinical, biomedical, and individualistic framework? I kept hearing Paula Haddock’s name pop up.

Paula Haddock is a long-time social activist and spent many years working in non-profit fundraising and with NGOs – and she is a seasoned training manager – working worldwide in supporting civil society in capacity building. She is the co-founder (with Luke Wreford) of the Mindfulness and Social Change Network which is a collective of international academics, activists, humanitarian workers and socially engaged mindfulness practitioners who are exploring the potential for secular mindfulness training and practice to contribute to more sustainable, caring and socially just societies.

David Forbes in Brooklyn joins me in this episode as we explore with Paula her unique social framework for teaching mindfulness, along with her work with the Ulex Project which delivers training on movement building, impact and resilience for European based change makers. Paula has also been actively involved in EcoDharma training. We touch on a number of other issues such as whiteness in mindfulness communities, cancel culture, and our reactions to Trump getting Covid.

Paula has delivered social-mindfulness related sessions for the Atlantic Fellows Programme, University College London, The Mindfulness Association and written for the Transformation Series of Open Democracy: Mindfulness and Social Change and Don’t wait for the future of Mindfulness – it’s already here.