PATHWAYS TO
Mindfulness
Enhancing awareness and living mindfully is a transformative journey that will convert the heart and mind, and consequently the lifestyle of anyone who chooses to follow the path.
What is Pathways to Mindfulness?
Pathways to Mindfulness is a mentoring program that makes the inner journey practical and accessible. Instead of offering surface-level fixes, PTM goes to the root of suffering, helping you see the subconscious stories shaping your life, and guiding you back to clarity, presence, and choice.
It’s a journey of self-awareness, inviting you to see what holds you back from living each day with greater peace, love, joy, and fulfilment.
Who is PTM For?
PTM is for anyone who:
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Feels weighed down by old patterns or painful stories.
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Struggles with reactivity, judgment, or disconnection.
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Senses there must be more to life than surviving or “coping.”
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Longs for clarity, peace, and the freedom to respond with awareness.
As adults we are unconsciously having our 'strings pulled' by a child version of ourselves.
Unaware of this scenario, we engage life through a story that emerged from our childhood. It is this story that holds us back. It's as if we are the puppet and our child-self is the puppeteer.
Our Personal Filter
Each of us carries a personal filter that shapes how we experience life. Formed in early childhood, this filter is coloured by our environment and shaped by our personality and interpretations of the experiences and emotions we witnessed. By age seven (some say as early as five), this filter is firmly established, becoming the lens through which we see ourselves and the world. As adults, we often move through life unaware that this younger version of ourselves is quietly pulling the strings. It’s as if we are the puppet, and our inner child the puppeteer.
The Story
A central part of this childhood filter is what we call the story. The story is a belief we carry about our self-worth. A belief that, for most of us, says who we are and the way we are is not enough. This belief is closely tied to the degree of connection, or disconnection, we experienced with our primary caregivers in those early years. The more consistently we felt seen, safe, and nurtured, the more inherently worthy we experienced ourselves to be. The more disconnected we felt, the deeper the sense that we were lacking.
It is not uncommon for people to try to fill this perceived lack through external measures such as power and control, wealth and status, acceptance from others, or success and achievements, and over time, we can become dependent on these things to bring us happiness. The problem is that when they are taken away, lose their influence, or simply fade in potency, our happiness fades with them. Unless we actively learn to cultivate a state of consciousness that connects us with an inner source of happiness, our sense of fulfilment will continue to rise and fall with the changing circumstances of life.
PTM is a Doorway to Freedom
PTM helps you recognise these patterns, understand their origins, and reconnect with the freedom that comes from awareness and conscious choice. By noticing the stories that have guided your behaviour, you begin to reclaim your own agency and step out of habitual reactivity.
Furthermore, PTM teaches that true happiness is not found in external sources but arises from within when you no longer operate from the filter of who you were taught to be, and instead begin living from who you truly are. Pathways to Mindfulness provides participants with an enhanced awareness of their inner world and provides them with tools that, if utilised, will help them live more mindfully so that each day can be lived with greater peace, love, joy, and so they can find freedom from their suffering.
There is happiness to be found in both awareness and ignorance. It is just that the latter has a use-by date.
Three Behaviours That Prevent Healing
In the Buddhist approach to mindfulness they teach that three things keep you trapped in a mundane and often painful existence. Buddha called them the Three Poisons because of their ability to cause sickness and disease.
Ignorance is when you live life habitually, always doing what you have always done. You are completely enmeshed with your childhood narrative, believing your thoughts and perceptions are real. The degree to which you experience happiness or suffering is purely dictated by external factors.
Avoidance is when you have become more conscious of other ways of doing things, but what it takes to change requires too much effort or it's too difficult, so you resort to maintaining your old habits. You have awareness, which means you have a choice, but you forfeit that choice and continue to do what you've always done and continue to get the same outcomes.
Attachment is when you are aware of what you need to do to change, you want to change, so you use willpower to make the changes. This becomes unsustainable and eventually sees you reverting back to your old habits. You lack the understanding of how to dissolve your attachment to 'your story' and it's associated values.
Buddha went on to say that "All evil things, and all evil destiny, are really rooted in greed, hate and ignorance; and of these three things ignorance is the chief root and the primary cause of all evil and misery in the world." This suggests that the opposite of ignorance must be the remedy, and the opposite of ignorance is awareness (gaining new knowledge and understanding).
The first four modules of Pathways to Mindfulness, are dedicated to just that—enhancing awareness. The fifth module is about how to be mindful of that new awareness in each moment.
Awareness is understanding. Mindfulness is using that understanding in a way that truely serves.
Awareness and Mindfulness are the Remedy for Suffering
Awareness is about expanding your understanding. In Pathways to Mindfulness, this includes noticing how you experience life mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually; observing your story and the beliefs you hold about your worth; and recognising how your life could be different if you were no longer limited by your childhood narrative.
Mindfulness is about holding this new awareness as you engage with life, moment by moment. Once you begin to see the extent to which your story is turning up in your life, the next step is to untangle your sense of self from it. This is achieved through observing or "witnessing" experiences as they unfold, rather than getting caught up in the drama and reacting habitually from ingrained patterns. This practice, known as living mindfully, helps you pause the moment you are pulled out of stillness, step into present-moment awareness, and consciously choose how to respond. It is from this lived state of presence that healing occurs, and inner peace and joy are experienced more consistently.
Pathways to Mindfulness guides participants through a five-step process for identifying their story and moving beyond ignorance, avoidance, and attachment by becoming more aware and living mindfully. To make the five steps easier to remember, we use the acronym CHASM, symbolising the profound gap between your current experience and a life where inner peace prevails.
Current Reality
Module C is an awareness exercise where you practice observing the facts of your current reality, free from any judgements or perceptions. Through this process you start to become familiar with what it means to be the witness of your experience. You will become aware of how subconsciously you have lived your life up until this moment, and you will begin to understand how being unaware is directly connected to your suffering.
Holding You Back
Aristotle once said “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” There is a substantial amount of scientific literature that supports the notion that during the first 5-7 years of a child’s life they are exposed to the programming that will form the filters for how they engage life. In a gentle way, Module H has you identify the programming, filters, and beliefs that are Holding You Back. We refer to this as ‘your story’.
Alternative Reality
Once you have established your current reality and how your story brought you to that place, you will then explore what a kinder, Alternative Reality might look like. This is a state of consciousness where there is little or even no suffering. The minute you begin to imagine this alternative reality, you have already begun to lay down the foundation for creating a new neural pathway.
Shifting Realities
If you are going somewhere you have never been before, it is likely that you will use a map to guide you to your destination. This is what Module S is all about. You will build a strategic map for Shifting Realities from point A (your current reality) to point B (the alternative reality). Each time you review the strategy you strengthen the neural pathway that can lead you toward the kinder, loving alternative you selected as your destination.
Mindful Not Wilful
The Western Mindfulness approach to change requires you to be Mindful Not Wilful. In this module you will be given five tools, that if embraced, will help you to pause your stream of programmed thoughts and behaviours in any given moment. It is in this space, when the mind is silent, that you will remember that the choice to be kinder to yourself, to others and to the planet exists. This is the place where change occurs.
Pathways to Mindfulness has proven to be aligned with the latest research regarding neuroplasticity and neural pathway development.
The program has been packaged in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step experiential program. The process is simple, but the impact is dynamic.
Using C.H.A.S.M as the foundation for each session, participants gain an understanding of how to make the changes that will result in a better quality of life through enhancing their awareness, and living mindfully. When kindness becomes the thing you value most, your suffering - burnout, depression, challenging relationships etc, are replaced with a more consistent state of inner-peace, joy and fulfilment.
Pathways to Mindfulness Programs
Exploring Awareness
2 Sessions
The first two sessions of the process have been designed as a stand alone booklet so that you can trial the program before committing. This can be done on your own or with a mentor. It is essential that these two sessions are completed before moving on to CHASM or the Short Course.
Each version of the program is delivered in a high quality workbook with a complementary mindfulness journal.
Be free of the thing that is holding you back.
Live the life you've always imagined!
Our clients consistently report the following benefits:
Generally happier in all aspects of life.
Restored love and connection in relationships.
Able to communicate with more clarity and confidence.
More freedom to be themselves.
Less dependant on the approval of others.
Less demanding of themselves and others.
Take the time to really hear others.
Less consumed by negative thoughts.
Listen to themselves and their own needs more often.
Prioritise looking after their needs just as much as the needs of others.
Less emotionally reactive and can now respond thoughtfully.
Experience less frustration, anxiety and anger.
Less exhausted.
More motivated to engage in life.
Increased confidence.
More inclined to make values based decisions.
Consume less alcohol and drugs.
Have found fulfilment in their work or changed employment.
Improved financial circumstances.
Improved sleep.
More committed to health and fitness.
Improved health and wellbeing.
A deeper sense of self-esteem and self-worth.