Mindfulness for MEntal Health
“Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn’t more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it.”
-Sylvia Boorstein
The purpose of this six week therapeutic course is to help increase mental and emotional flexibility, expand your curiosity about your own inner landscape, bolster your sense of resilience, soften the intrusive voice of shame, and steer you toward an expanded capacity to love both yourself and others in this wonderful-terrible world we all live in.
This course is an invitation to relate to your experiences in new ways so you can be free.
Six Thursdays
January 30th-March 6th
Lunch hour meetings
11:30am-12:30pm via zoom
Limited to 10 participants
$300
Recordings will be offered as a resource; however in-real-time attendance is requested. If you cannot attend live, please do not sign up. This is meant to be a group process experience.
Since the modern mindfulness movement began there have been thousands of peer reviewed research studies that have shown the benefits of mindfulness. As the Buddha himself predicted, meditation has been shown to have a protective effect on both the body and the mind. Mindfulness interventions have been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, rumination, depression, ADHD symptoms, chronic pain, shame, insomnia, and many other causes of suffering, while also increasing empathy, neuroplasticity, self-compassion, and contentment. In short, mindfulness-based interventions, "...effectively reduce mental health problems (for a recent review, see Goldberg et al., 2022), and also support and sustain eudaimonic wellbeing—non-contingent happiness in face of adversity (Garland & Fredrickson, 2019)." If you aren't already convinced, there was also a study looking at biological markers that found that mindfulness can decrease cellular aging by increasing the production of telomerase, the enzyme responsible for telomere production (Jacobs et al., 2012).
During these six weeks you will receive guidance on the following:
Introduction to mindfulness both formal and informal
Somatic grounding practices
Body Scan
Walking meditation instructions
Identifying the common barriers to practice
Mindfulness of breathing techniques
Audra's 3 P's. Pause, presence, perception
Information about the bodies response to stress
Noticing and observing thoughts
Naming techniques: pleasant, unpleasant, neutral
Self-compassion and kindness techniques
Resilience through the cultivation of boundaries
Ongoing support for formal and informal practice
