What happens in a mindfulness class?

All mindfulness-based courses involve helping people to cultivate the ability to move from "doing" mode in to "being" mode. Dwelling in being mode is a place where it is possible to obtain a different perspective on thinking and a different relationship with the people, places and experiences that make up our lives.  There are many invitations within each mindfulness class to "come back" to the body. Each time that you "wake up" to find that your mind has wandered you arrive at a point of renewal, an opportunity to "let go" of thinking, and with the qualities of gentleness and compassion begin again in the next moment.  
"In many ways mindfulness is much like gardening - we have to prepare the ground, plant the seeds, ensure that they are adequately watered and nourished and then wait patiently for results"
- Segal, Williams & Teasdale, 2014 -
Mindfulness classes are very "experiential"; they are focused on learning from direct, moment-by-moment experience. This is in contrast to, for example, learning about mindfulness by reading a book or even talking about mindfulness. In practice, this experiential learning about what it means to be mindful ("paying attention, on purpose, non-judgmentally, in the present moment, with kindness and with curiosity, to things as they are") means returning again and again to how the breath and the body are experienced in each moment. 
Whilst our mind can very quickly begin to imagine a future we haven't yet lived or travel back to the past to re-live what has already gone, if we are "dropping below thinking" and directly sensing the flow of life within our constantly changing bodies we can be in the present moment. The breath and the body are always there for us and in a mindfulness class you are helped to use both as anchors that secure you firmly in the present moment. Both the breath and the body provide a focus around which to gather your attention when your thinking becomes scattered and dispersed. Within each class there are many opportunities to notice the flow of life as it moves through you; releasing the mind from thinking and beginning over with kindness and curiosity, as many times as you need to, is the heart of the practice.  In this way we develop the neural pathways that support resilience and flourshing. 
Because of the nature in which our brains have evolved, thinking necessarily involves creating storylines about our experience. Unfortunately, thinking is sometimes just this, an unreliable storyline! Narratives about the events that happen in our lives may very easily ensnare us, masquerade as the truth and propel us toward unskilful action if we rely on them in their entirety. Knowing experience, deeply, in the present moment and directly through the senses of the body allows us to develop a relationship with experience in which we may see the events in our lives more clearly and make wise choices about how to respond. 
Vertical Divider
In class you will begin to learn how to hold all experience in awareness. Mindfulness allows us to inhabit a space where both the unwelcome and difficult can be held, as well as the joyful and pleasant. Cultivating curiosity, gentleness, and compassion in the heart and mind allows us to begin to move toward the difficult and challenging that exists in our lives, allow it to just "be" if it is not possible to change it for the better, and see it more clearly for what it is whilst taking a broader and more spacious perspective. Mindfulness allows us to inhabit a space where we may live fully and whole-heartedly, whatever we face.