Who is this for

For individuals who are looking to begin their mindfulness practice or deepen their existing practice. It’s important to be at a place of balance – mentally, emotionally, and physically. As gentle as mindfulness may seem, it may have a counter effect for those who are currently in crisis and be too overwhelming. MBSR is not a replacement for therapy or physical treatments you may be receiving.

Course roadmap

MBSR is a course that  is highly participatory and experiential-based. We will spend more than half of the class practicing a variety of formal and informal meditation practices. There will also be time during class to share experiences of the practices. Below is a general road map of what will be covered in each session.

Orientation:

A time to review the entire program and meet our cohort. We will go over the history of MBSR, what mindfulness is and what it is not, course content, course logistics, the risks and benefits, and participate in a shoot practice.

Week 1:

Cultivating simple awareness. In this class, we’ll slow down our thoughts and interrupt our usual auto-pilot way of being. Moving from “doing” to “being”. We will begin to become familiar with mindful awareness of the body.

Week 2:

Cultivating attention and awareness. We are exploring our perception and how we assess and perceive our stressors. How we see things determines how we react or respond to them.

Week 3:

This class incorporates several formal mindfulness practices. We’ll explore our challenges and insights encountered in formal practice and integrating mindfulness into everyday life.

Week 4:

We dive into how conditioning and perception shape our experience. In week 4, we explore mindfulness as a way to recognize and reduce negative effects of automatic, habitual stress reactivity. We review the physiological and psychological bases of stress reactivity.

Week 5:

This is the half-way point of the course. We are practicing for longer periods of time and learning how to recover from stressful encounters as they arise. Recovery begins with recognizing how it is we respond to our stressors (fight, flight or freeze) and also investigating how we cope. 

Week 6:

This class explores mindfulness and communication. To be able to communicate more mindfully, it’s important to know how we’re feeling, understand our interpersonal communication patterns and ways to build more healthy communication patterns.

Day-long retreat:

We will spend 7.5 hours together to establish the use of mindfulness across multiple situations in our lives. We will do a variety of formal practices like: yoga, sitting meditation, body scan, walking meditation, and mindful eating. 

Week 7:

In this class, we review the all-day retreat and discuss ways we can learn how to integrate mindfulness practices more fully and personally into daily life. Exploring what in our lives nourishes us and what depletes us.

Week 8:

In the final class, we reflect on our 8 weeks together and what we’ve learned so far. There is an opportunity to share with the group and also do self-reflection.

“Everything in your life – every moment, every struggle – is the path. Everything is an opportunity for awakening”

- Pema Chodron