About us
Southsea Mindfulness was established in 2015 by Sabrina Davis and Sue Knight following a long standing friendship rooted in mindfulness practice and an appreciation for the joy and challenges of being human. While Sue has moved away from direct teaching to focus on to Training and Development, Sabrina continues to teach and offers as much as she can whilst continuing to work for a charity delivering services to the most vulnerable.
In 2024 we are pleased to welcome Claire Lock and Elle Gray to the teaching team - long term mindfulness practitioners with a focus on Compassion based approaches.
Sabrina Davis
Sabrina first discovered the benefits of meditation practice while living in South India in 2007. Having struggled with low mood and anxiety, and also living with a degenerative lower spine condition, she soon realised the potential for mindfulness practice to support well-being and boost resilience.
On returning to the U.K she undertook several secular mindfulness courses and started to attend retreats at Gaia House in Devon. In 2010 Sabrina started to study at Bangor University’s Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice, the first University in the U.K to offer formal study in this field, and now a leading international research centre.
In 2015 Sabrina graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Mindfulness Based Approaches with distinction, and is a trained mindfulness teacher that has been listed with The British Association of Mindfulness Teachers since 2015. Sabrina adheres to the Good Practice Guidelines and engages in regular supervision and professional development training days.
In addition to her mindfulness teaching, she has worked in front line services with vulnerable client groups for 20 years and is currently a senior member of the team where she works, both delivering direct interventions to clients, and also responsible for supervising and training staff.
Sabrina also has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Sociology, and has training in Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Group Work, Brief Solution Focused Therapy, Motivational Interviewing and Restorative Justice.
Claire Lock
Claire is passionate about sharing mindfulness and self-compassion in her local community after benefitting so much herself from these practices. Claire’s interest in mindfulness started when she was introduced to it through work in 2010 while being trained in Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT). Claire always struggled with feelings of anxiety and a strong inner critic which stopped her living fully. Practising mindfulness and ACT daily enabled Claire to see these patterns more clearly and she found that anxiety had less of a hold on her life.
After completing the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course, Claire trained to be a Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) teacher through the Oxford Mindfulness Centre. Following this, Claire enrolled on an 8-week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) course which she found transformational. Learning self-compassion skills felt like the missing piece and it enabled Claire to meet her inner critic in a kinder way, increasing her confidence and overall quality of life. This experience inspired Claire to train to become an MSC Teacher through the Self-Compassion Academy with Chris Germer - co-founder of the Mindful Self-Compassion course.
Claire is a senior member of staff currently working with people in recovery from addictions, supporting them to make changes using ACT, Mindfulness and Self- Compassion – primarily via group work. In addition, Claire supervises staff and delivers training on a regular basis. Claire has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Psychology, a Master of Science in Health Psychology and has also had training in Counselling, Solution Focused Brief Therapy and Motivational Interviewing.
Claire adheres to the Good Practice Guidelines and engages in regular supervision and professional development.
Elle Gray
Elle has been practicing Mindfulness since 2008, being introduced via the Sri Chimnoy School while living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Since then she has taken mindfulness to heart and finds the joy in these practices … helping to navigate this short and precious life. Annual UK retreats from 5 – 14 days of silence are an essential top up to the daily homecoming.
Having worked in diverse roles in Health and Social care, working directly with people who are suffering and also leading teams on national projects… it is clear that we are in need of more compassion in the world and care for those who deliver care at work. Elle is now a Clinical Associate Psychologist working in the NHS community mental health teams.
She has a particular interest in Self Compassion as a therapeutic intervention, with it’s impact being evidenced not just in the Clinical Psychology field on PTSD but also in areas of caregiver stress, long term health conditions, leadership and elite athlete performance.
As an early-stage researcher, Elle is working with the National Institute of Health Research to look at the feasibility of
implementing and evaluating a short version of the Mindful Self Compassion course for NHS workers to address burnout and the impact of vicarious trauma.
Understanding the impact of Mindful Self Compassion, Elle was inspired to join the teacher training programme in The Netherlands to learn from Chris Germer, a clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who co-developed the Mindful Self-Compassion program with Dr Kristin Neff.
