Mindfulness Practice Development

Mindfulness Practice Development– 8 week Online Training Program

Next Course Date: 8 Wednesdays, 4 – 6 pm EDT, September 26 – November 14, 2018
Early Bird deadline: Friday, August 31, 2018
Registration deadline: Friday, September 28, 2018
Special Early Bird Rate: $400 CAD; Regular: $590 CAD

About the Kaizen Mindfulness Practice Development Course

In the Kaizen Mindfulness Training program you will develop your own mindfulness practice, one that will serve you to manage the complexities of your life. Over time and with continued practice, you will discover you are leading with the heart and living your practice, simply and with increasing authenticity.

Kaizen Mindfulness Training offers a structured, experiential and interactive learning process in 8 weekly two-hour sessions. The first 4 weeks is on Attention Training and weeks 5 – 8 develops Emotional Awareness and Self-Regulation. Each session involves periods of guided instruction in a variety of meditation and mindfulness practices and discovery exercises; silent exploration and inquiry; dialogue and sharing. Home practice reflective assignments are designed to help the participant develop their own mindfulness practice.

The safe and supportive environment of the Kaizen Mindfulness Training course creates the potential for participants to cultivate deep, awareness and insight, self-compassion and responsibility and the creativity and courage that flows from authentic, mindful, presence.

Together, we explore habitual, conditioned, mental patterns active in our daily lives and how mindful awareness empowers us to make new, informed choices that enhance our experience at home and at work.

We will explore the seven fundamental attitudes of mindfulness. Themes include:

  1. Being vs Doing
  2. Automatic pilot
  3. Beginner’s mind
  4. Being present
  5. Response-ability
  6. Allowing and letting go
  7. Self-care
  8. Self-responsibility 

Program Outline:

Sessions 1 through 4 focus on Attention Training 

The first four sessions focus on the development of mental and emotional calm and stability. Calm and stable presence is a pre-requisite to cultivate the capacity to respond rather than react to everyday stressors.

During the first four sessions learning is focused on developing the ability to pause and perceive clearly. Coursework and home practices has the participant:

  • Entering and dwelling in stillness and deep relaxation
  • Experiencing non-judgmental, non-reactive awareness
  • Practicing a range mindfulness techniques and exercises
  • Recognizing and identifying stressors and the experience of stress
  • Developing awareness of subtle mind-body interactions
  • Cultivating resilience – recovering more rapidly from stressful events. 

Sessions 5 through 8 focus on developing emotional awareness 

The root cause of suffering in human beings is to surrender to their emotions and allow themselves to be moved by their experience rather than observe it.

Building on the first four weeks of attention training, sessions 5 – 8 focus on developing emotional awareness. We will examine how the mind responds / reacts to moment to moment experience while deepening the capacity to apply growing mindfulness skills in your everyday life.

In sessions 5 – 8, we will observe and understand the nature of emotion as a response to a mental pattern; learn to recognize emotion as information, pause emotional flow, dismantle emotional reaction, track and experience emotion as sensation through body awareness. The participant will also develop practices that cultivate appreciation, gratitude and compassion and reflection.

As emotional fluency and awareness develops, participants will learn to recognize feelings and emotions as information helpful in decision-making, based on their intention.

Enhanced emotional intelligence and awareness engenders a new sense of personal freedom and wellbeing, providing new-found energy to generate momentum and create a heightened sense of wellbeing. Key to success, of course, is commitment to practice. 

10 Key Learning Outcomes

Guided instruction, demonstration, discussion, fieldwork – exercises and assignments for completion at home or at work, are designed to help participants:

  1. Achieve and sustain a state of mental focus and emotional calm
  2. Manage their personal energy (energy gains and drains)
  3. Create awareness, recognize and transform limiting patterns and beliefs
  4. Shift perspective and make informed choices
  5. Recognize personal strengths and opportunities, when and how to leverage them
  6. Develop empathy and compassion for themselves and others
  7. Establish and maintain boundaries
  8. Cultivate resilience, ability to recover, pivot, shift and manage focus in challenging or emotionally-charged situations
  9. Listen and hold the space for creative collaboration and dialogue
  10. Discover new ways of applying mindfulness for personal stress management and creative collaboration for a healthier, happier personal and professional life.

Participant Feedback:

“I live day to day with less doubt in my own capabilities and more freedom to enjoy the activities I participate in, worrying less about perfection. This has allowed me to perform better and experience my life more fully by being more present. With the ability to be present and stay present I am also more thoughtful and considerate. I have learned so much in such a short time. Thank you!” Malcolm 

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