Highland Mindfulness Group

Peter Wilkes

Dr Peter Wilkes, BSc., PhD, MB, ChB, MRCGP is a retired GP who has lived for many years in the village of Drumnadrochit. He started his training in mindfulness in 2006 completing courses arranged through the NHS and Bangor University. For many years he worked with the Clinical Psychology Department in NHS Highland delivering mindfulness courses to clients of the Mental Health services. He has attended many training courses and retreats in various aspects of mindfulness and meditation over the years and now teaches mainly insight meditation techniques to those who wish to develop their meditation practice beyond the normal beginner’s courses. He is the founder of the Highland Mindfulness Group.

Rona Mackenzie

Rona Mackenzie is the owner of The Butterfly Effect EFT. She offers a blend of emotional wellbeing therapies to promote positive change and self-healing. She is an NHS accredited Mindfulness teacher, clinical hypnotherapist and Emotional Freedom Technique practitioner. Underpinned by 30 years’ experience within mental health nursing and health visiting in the NHS. She has been teaching with the Highland Mindfulness Group since 2018 including beginners, Insight and Compassion courses. Together with Jan Grigg, she developed the Kindfulness course in 2021.

Catherine Lavelle

Catherine has been a mindfulness facilitator with Highland Mindfulness since 2018 and she is the current Chair of the charity. She has undertaken her training with the NHS and gained her teaching qualification with the Mindfulness Association. She has extensive knowledge of the MBSR and MBLC programmes and has developed her facilitation practice to intermediate level and currently helps to facilitate insight courses, study days, morning sessions and retreats. As an Occupational Health Nurse with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service she has a particular interest in stress prevention and wider wellbeing initiatives and has developed mindfulness techniques within the Fire Service to highlight mental heath issues and support employees. As a result of her own experience with lived chronic pain, Catherine has also developed mindfulness techniques to help and support those suffering with chronic pain conditions. She is available for one to one and for small groups sessions.

Jan Grigg

Jan Grigg is a fully qualified, experienced Mindfulness teacher having trained and then tutored with the Mindfulness Association. Having practiced meditation and yoga for over 30 years, she gained a Masters in Mindfulness studies from the University of Aberdeen in 2013. With over 20 years’ experience as a Biology/Science teacher, Jan has also researched, written and trialled mindfulness courses in a wide variety of settings from schools and businesses to NHS professionals and Armed Forces personnel, families and Veterans. She is a CEO of Mindful Forces which aims to bring mindfulness training to the Armed Forces community and Emergency Services personnel. She enjoys running mindfulness courses and retreats, as well as mentoring new teachers. Jan has been teaching Mindfulness courses since 2010 and joined the team at HMG in 2020.

Liz Newstead

Liz is the founder of Able2BeMindful which aims to share the knowledge and skills of mindfulness with as many people as she can reach to help them to flourish in their life. Liz has worked in the NHS as a mental health nurse for over 35 years, she has also been a senior lecturer in Mental Health, a Nurse Educator for NHS Education for Scotland and has worked for more than 20 years as a Community Psychiatric Nurse (CPN). Throughout her career she maintained a passion for enabling people to build emotional skills and resources, which allows them to live their life with ease as best as they are able. Liz holds a conviction that we all have a unique human capacity to cope with stress and to heal and recover from emotional distress. Liz has had a personal practice of meditation for over 20 years. Her journey to teaching mindfulness was via the NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) pathway where she trained to deliver Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). In addition, Liz followed the Mindfulness Association teacher training pathway which adds Mindfulness Based Living Course (MBLC) to the courses she can competently deliver. In addition Liz is qualified to teach and supervise those training to become mindfulness facilitators.

Val Gale

Val has undertaken teacher training with Bangor University, the Mindfulness Association, and is registered with the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches (BAMBA). 
She facilitates 8-week Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Living courses (MBLC) for both adults and young people, having been doing so for the past 6 years.
Her mindfulness journey began over 10 years ago and Val regularly invests in the cultivation of her own practice in order to bring embodiment, empathy, and authenticity to her work as a facilitator.
She has a long track record of supporting young people and communities, having been Chief Executive of the Care and Learning Alliance (CALA), and since retiring, she has chaired the Go Golspie Development Trust, focussing on economic regeneration and wellbeing within her local community. She views her mindfulness facilitation as a critical component of this. 

Meg Somerville

Meg has a lifetime interest in movement and spirituality which led her to training to teach mindfulness in 2016. She started Meg’s Mindful Movement in 2017 and Highland Retreats in 2024. She joined the HMG facilitator team in 2020. Her field of expertise includes teaching the MBSR course, meditation, mindful movement, mindful forest walking, retreats, gentle mindful yoga, chair yoga, yoga for cancer, yoga for dementia, relaxation techniques and breathwork. With a background of working with people, Meg is passionate about helping others, especially helping to recognise the importance of taking time out to relax, restore and refresh.

Diana Woodman

Diana has been practising Mindfulness since 2015 and began facilitating Mindfulness groups after retiring from teaching. She combines her meditation practice with a love of the outdoors and is an enthusiastic mountaineer and lover of poetry. She trained through the Mindfulness Association and has been facilitating with the Highland Mindfulness Group since 2021.

Stephen Wiseman

Stephen has worked in the outdoors for over 40 years and co-founded the Nature 4 Health charity in the Highlands which uses nature to support people’s holistic health through walks and other outdoor activities to learn new skills and make connections. Stephen qualified as a mindfulness teacher in 2022 and regularly leads morning online sessions for HMG, as well as the occasional course. Recently he has been developing ‘mindfulness in nature’ which brings the benefits of being outside as a catalyst alongside mindful practices.