Before any new idea arrives, this lesson from Nick Kientsch's MBCT course stops to look backward. Running about 80 seconds, it asks students to review the first week of small practices (a regular morning activity, the body scan, changing chairs) and to consider whether "autopilot" showed up in how they think and respond. It is a brief clip, but it describes a deliberate method: in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, learning is built on reflecting on what you actually did, not on what you expected to happen.
Kientsch is direct about the purpose. Each week, he says, the lesson will begin by "taking some time to look back at the previous week and what we've learned." The reflection is not framed as a performance test. He points viewers to a downloadable form beneath the video and describes the task as simply looking back at what was practiced.
"simply looking back at the things that you have practiced."Nick Kientsch, MBCT Week 2 lesson
The week's practices matter because each is a small experiment in attention. Kientsch lists three:
- A regular morning activity, approached with "a new curious attention," so a routine you run without thinking becomes something you actually observe.
- The body scan, which means "noticing what it's like to bring your attention into your body."
- Changing chairs, which invites you to see "a familiar space from a different perspective."
What connects them is the same move. Familiar things are usually seen through habit: a morning routine, a body you rarely feel, a room you sit in every day. The practices don't ask for anything exotic. They ask for a different quality of attention applied to ordinary material.
The clip then centers the question of autopilot. Kientsch asks what it was like noticing autopilot, and whether it played out "in the way that I think or respond to things." That is a specific form of self-inquiry: treating habitual thoughts and reactions as patterns that can be seen before they are changed. He closes by asking whether any lessons were learned, then suggests taking a few minutes with these questions before the next lesson introduces the week's theme.
The implied practice is noticing, not fixing. Nothing in the lesson asks you to correct a habit. It asks you to name what happened during the week, where autopilot appeared, and what you saw.
Use the downloadable reflection form beneath the lesson video to write down what you practiced and what you noticed. Then move on to the next lesson in Nick Kientsch's MBCT course, where the theme for the coming week is introduced. Working through the lessons in order keeps each week's reflection tied to the practices that came before it.
