Throughout the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, you will be consciously and systematically building tools and mindfulness practices as you work with the challenges and demands of your everyday life. As this is a practice oriented class (concerned with the *how* of mindfulness practice), the learning is highly experiential.
Between each weekly class, you will be encouraged to build a daily meditation practice with specific support, instruction and resources. Your instructor will create a safe and supportive environment for this work and learning by:
Guided instruction in mindfulness meditation practices
Gentle stretching and mindful yoga, with options for engaging practice in sitting poses
Group dialogue and discussions aimed at enhancing awareness in everyday life
Systematic instruction in formal MBSR meditation practices, with opportunity to check in with the teacher
Daily and weekly home assignments
Downloadable home practice audio files and a home practice packet to support you throughout the course
ORIENTATION (Required)
This session offers an introduction to the practice of mindfulness as taught at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Brown University. You will learn how this secular, scientific, evidence-based practice has become an accepted part of mainstream medicine, and begin to explore how it can positively affect the quality of your everyday life.
WEEK 1
You will receive an overview of the course and begin to establish the learning context for the rest of your course experience. You will learn the theory and evidence of mind-body medicine and how to apply it in your life. In this class, we'll experientially explore mindful eating, mindful breathing, and be introduced to formal meditation using the body-scan method. A special emphasis is placed on what it means to be fully engaged in the present moment.
WEEK 2
A key theme of class two is perception: a crucial component in life, as it is in mindfulness. How we see things (or perhaps don’t see them) largely determines how we respond in any particular situation. This week’s session and practice focus will ask you to examine your perceptions, assumptions, and the way you view the world. You will learn to use the body-scan practice to cultivate a greater degree of awareness of how you react to stressful situations. Changing the way you perceive and respond to challenges will impact both short- and long-term effects of stress on your mind and body.
WEEK 3
During this session, we'll explore several distinct yet interrelated mindfulness practices—mindful yoga, sitting meditation, and walking meditation. You'll be invited to share your insights about your experiences with formal practice and what's occurring as you work to integrate mindfulness into your daily life. Group exploration will continue to delve into discoveries surrounding the pleasure and power in being present and you'll be invited to investigate--in a very granular, descriptive way--how such experiences are felt and known in both mind and body.
WEEK 4
By practicing mindfulness, we cultivate curiosity and openness to the full range of our experience, and through this process our ability to pay attention becomes more flexible. This week, your practice will focus on developing your ability to focus concentration and intentionally expand your field of awareness. We'll explore the physiological and psychological bases of stress reactivity, and experientially explore mindful strategies for responding in positive, proactive ways to stressful situations.
WEEK 5
At the halfway point in this course, you should now have a familiarity with the foundations of mindfulness and be able to focus on applying it more effectively to specific life challenges and stressors. This week we examine the places where we might be stuck in repeating, unhealthy patterns and explore how mindful awareness can disrupt these habitualized routines and behaviors. You will learn how to apply mindfulness at the critical moment when you experience stress reactivity and continue to become more familiar with the physical sensations, thoughts and emotions that signal stress response.
WEEK 6
Resilience or “stress hardiness” is our ability to return to equilibrium after stressful situations. This week, you will focus on transformational coping strategies to broaden your inner resources and enhance your resilience through mindfulness practice. You’ll also be introduced to the fundamentals of interpersonal mindfulness—applying awareness and presence at times when communication becomes difficult or fraught with strong emotions--and gain direct experience of a variety of communication styles to support effective and healthy interpersonal communication.
ALL-DAY RETREAT
Nestled between Week 6 and Week 7, this all-day intensive guided retreat, takes place from 9am-4pm on either a Saturday or Sunday. The intention of the retreat is to assist you in firmly and effectively establishing the use of MBSR skills across varying situations in your life. Having established a daily mindfulness practice during the previous weeks, you will be better prepared to benefit from this class.
Make sure to prepare and bring a lunch
Wear loose fitting clothes
Bring mats, cushions, blankets, or any other items to help in your practice
WEEK 7
Mindfulness is most effective--and we recieve the most benefit--when it is a lifetime commitment. This week, you will explore ways to integrate mindfulness more fully and personally into your life. While having a dedicated regular practice for mindfulness meditation is important and beneficial, it is just as important to bring a broader sense of awareness and presence to every moment in your life, and to use non-judgmental mindfulness in your self-reflection and decision-making processes. You’ll learn how to maintain the discipline and flexibility of daily practice as circumstances change over the course of your life.
WEEK 8
In the final week of the program, you will have a complete review of everything you’ve learned over the course, with an emphasis on carrying the momentum you’ve built forward into the coming months and years. You’ll learn about resources available to you to pursue mindfulness in new directions as your life and practice evolve, as well as the support systems that exist to help you continue to integrate, learn, and grow. The final lesson creates a meaningful closure by honoring both the end of this program and the beginning of the rest of your life.
Click here for registration information.
