Mindfulness Classes

Awake & Aware – Anew

The inspiration to keep meditating and appreciating its connection to awakening and freedom, is something we all need at times.

This series of sessions gives us time to practice together as well as skillfully explore our obstacles, our growth, and new applications.  It’s simple, but it’s not easy.  It makes perfect sense and it is a paradox too.  Together we will strengthen our individual intentions to grow and heal.

Mindfulness: Beginner’s Mind Series

One of the attitudes we cultivate in mindfulness is beginner’s mind.  As mindfulness invites us to be more present and attentive to what is actually happening, we have an opportunity to experience everything anew.  It is the opposite of been there, done that and helps bring novelty and delight to what we all too often take for granted.

These three weeks are designed to help you begin an exploration of mindfulness as a health practice, and as a means of life enhancement.  In each session we will:

Highlight the history, modern applications, and new frontiers of mindfulness.
Engage in various foundational practices that give you a direct experience of how it works.
Explore the challenges of mindfulness as well, why it is harder than you might think to be present and receptive.
Discuss strategies for keeping it going, integrating mindfulness into both routine and difficult situations.

This course is intended for beginners and can serve as a useful foundation for those interested in doing the more intensive Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program.  It is also open to experienced practitioners who would like to cultivate beginner’s mind.

Mindful Communication: Listening and Speaking with Care

The basis of mindful communication is first and foremost personal mindfulness- greater awareness of sensations, emotions, and thoughts that create unconscious reactivity. Each session will be grounded in the primary practice of personal meditation- refining how we stabilize attention and responsiveness within ourselves, moment to moment.

From here we will explore how to maintain and extend self-awareness to others, through a variety of speaking and listening practices. These practices not only help us become more skillful communicators, but also provide fascinating gateways into our personal patterns and the human condition.

This series is designed for both experienced and beginning meditators. Each class will involve some form of one-to-one speaking and listening. Care, kindness, and confidentiality will be emphasized throughout.

Mindful Listening: Hearing with the Heart and Mind

Listening is the building block of mindfulness.

Listening is synonymous with awareness, the unique human ability for self-reflective consciousness.  When we listen deeply, there is tremendous potential for new understanding and for the relief of interpersonal suffering.

This series of 3 classes will focus on how to anchor mindful listening skills, how to stabilize attention and manage reactivity in relationship, and how to listen from a place of innate curiosity. The emphasis of the series will be upon the practice and direct experience rather than communication theory or psychological analysis.

Mindful Relationships

The popular sociologist Brene Brown, PhD defines connection as “ the energy that is created between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment.”  This is essentially what we give ourselves when we cultivate mindfulness- in meditation and in life;  an energized connection to ourselves and to others.

In this series we will explore foundational practices of mindful listening & speaking  and their relevance to enhancing relationships of all varieties- family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.  The correlation of intrapersonal and interpersonal mindfulness will be explained as well as concepts of empathy, attunement, resonance, and compassion.   Using personal meditation as the starting point, then expanding to one-on-one, small group, and large group interaction we will practice stabilizing presence and opening to the possibility inherent in every encounter