Admiral Insurance
A four-week course on mind training for staff.
A talk with David Oromith
Mind training for modern life
Traffic, annoying neighbours, difficult colleagues and plans that fall through. They are part of everyday life, and yet we find them so challenging to deal with.
This talk looks at mind training, a category of Tibetan Buddhist teachings known as lojong, aimed at working with exactly these kinds of daily difficulties. It asks how we can use everyday stress, disappointment and conflict to actually increase our good qualities like patience and compassion, rather than being taken away from them. David brings together insights from the Buddhist tradition, Western psychology and modern wellbeing research.
Mind training is the teaching that has had the biggest impact on David, and he has taught and practised it extensively for years.
What your audience will take away
Where distress comes from
How the stories we tell ourselves turn everyday events into problems.
Accepting what we can't change
Patient acceptance, and how to stop fighting situations we can't change.
Working with disappointment
How expectations set us up for disappointment, and how contentment and gratitude help.
Working with anger and conflict
Turning anger at people into understanding, and ways to stop an argument from escalating.
Letting go of putting ourselves first
Why putting our own comfort first causes so much of our upset, and why caring for others, ourselves included, helps.
A guided meditation and PDF notes
The talk includes a guided meditation, and everyone gets PDF notes afterwards.
Not getting what we want
- What we feel
- Disappointment.
- What drives it
- Attachment: believing we need this to be happy, and expecting it to happen.
- What transforms it
- Non-attachment, contentment and gratitude.
Things going wrong
- What we feel
- Anger and frustration.
- What drives it
- Aversion: exaggerating what is wrong, and believing it shouldn't be happening.
- What transforms it
- Patient acceptance for situations, compassion for people.
Being blamed or harmed
- What we feel
- Hurt, embarrassment, feeling slighted.
- What drives it
- Self-cherishing: treating our own happiness as more important than anyone else's.
- What transforms it
- Cherishing others, beginning by seeing them as equal to ourselves.
Three situations from David's course on mind training, with the state of mind behind each and what transforms it. Self-cherishing is at the root of the other two.
Where David has given this talk
Center for Contemplative Research
A talk on mind training, at CCR's invitation.
Exhale Fest and Kidwelly Wellbeing Festival
Talks at both festivals.
Samadhi
Week-long retreats and courses on mind training, including the four-week course "Transform Your Mind".
Insight Timer Live
Online talks, including "Transforming Adversity into Awakening".
Why book David
Mental health background
David started as a mental health support worker at eighteen and went on to work in Liverpool's mental health services, on the wards and in the community.
Lived experience
At his lowest he was signed off work for months, and he speaks about it openly.
Qualified
He is a qualified mindfulness teacher and a Mental Health First Aider.
Trained in Buddhism for over a decade
His root teacher is Dr B. Alan Wallace, a renowned scholar and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, and David has trained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition since 2015.
Author and teacher
He wrote A Practical Guide to Mindful Living and Calm Mind, Open Heart, and co-founded Samadhi, a Buddhist wellbeing charity (1207744), where he leads retreats and courses across the UK and online.
Who it's for
David gives this talk to workplace wellbeing programmes, customer-facing and frontline teams, conferences and festivals, and meditation and Buddhist groups. It suits anyone who deals with pressure, difficult people or setbacks they cannot change.
- Workplace wellbeing
- Customer-facing teams
- NHS and frontline teams
- Conferences and festivals
- Meditation and Buddhist groups
Keynote
20 to 45 minutes
For festivals, summits and conference main stages.
Workshop
90 minutes to half a day
With short guided practices, for 20 to 200 people.
Corporate wellbeing day
Full day
For a team, including lunchtime guided meditations and Q&A.
Reduced rates are available for NHS, charity and educational bookings.
What participants said
“I've been going through a very hard time recently and this session helped me put things into perspective a bit.”
“Really helpful and useful session at a time in my life where I needed to take in a lot of what David talked about.”
“Informative and valuable session. Thank you for giving us all the opportunity to listen to David and reframe our thinking.”
“David is calm, honest, and really helps to put things into perspective.”
“Fantastic session. David is a really engaging speaker.”
“Thank you so very much. This has been unbelievably helpful.”
Questions from organisers
How long is the talk?
From a 20-minute keynote to a full-day programme.
Does it include a guided practice?
Yes. The talk includes a guided meditation, and short phrases from the mind training teachings that people can keep on a note and use when things go wrong.
Do attendees get anything to take away?
Yes. Everyone gets PDF notes after the talk.
Can it be tailored to our audience?
Yes. David shapes every talk with the organiser, for example for a customer service team, a meditation group or a festival audience.
Online or in person?
Both. Online keynotes and workshops run on Zoom, and David has taught this material to a room and an online audience at the same time.
Do you travel?
David is based in South Wales and travels across the UK. International in-person bookings are considered case by case.
What does it cost?
It depends on the format, so get in touch for a quote. Reduced rates are available for NHS, charity and educational bookings.
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Book this talk
Tell us a little about your event and we will come back within two working days with availability, a fee and a rough idea of how a session could work for your audience.
