Wishlist Share
Share Course
Page Link
Share On Social Media
Uncategorized

About Course

This course delves into the widely recognized practice of mindfulness but expands the scope to integrate it with the insights of modern psychology. Through this fusion, we explore how mindfulness can be more than just a tool for relaxation or stress reduction. Instead, when paired with psychological principles, mindfulness becomes a powerful practice for increasing self-awareness, fostering personal transformation, and promoting emotional and psychological growth. Participants will engage with techniques and reflections designed to deepen their understanding of themselves, explore their inner experiences, and develop the resilience and insight needed for profound personal development.

What Will You Learn?

  • See course modules

Course Content

Introduction: Mindfulness & Experiential Awareness
In this module, participants will be introduced to mindfulness by way of its definition and origins (understanding what mindfulness is, its roots in Buddhist tradition, and how it has been adapted into modern psychology) and its role as an entryway into the present moment and the often overlooked and profound importance of that. Students will further be introduced to the science of mindfulness: the neuroscience of mindfulness (e.g., an overview of how mindfulness affects brain structure and function, including studies on neuroplasticity), its physiological Benefits (e.g., how mindfulness impacts the body, such as reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, and improving immune function), and psychological benefits (e.g., discussing the impact of mindfulness on mental health, including its role in reducing anxiety, depression, and enhancing overall emotional well-being). Participants will also be introduced to some of the core mindfulness practices, such as mindful breathing (e.g., techniques for focusing on the breath as a way to anchor attention), the body scan meditation (e.g, bringing awareness to different parts of the body to cultivate a deep connection between mind and body), loving-kindness meditation (e.g., developing compassion for oneself and others through structured meditation practices), and mindful movement (e.g., incorporating practices like yoga, walking meditation, or Tai Chi to bring mindfulness into physical activity).

Core Elements of Immersive Mindfulness
In this module, participants will explore a distinctive form of mindfulness that seamlessly integrates traditional mindfulness practices with the insights of modern psychology and a broader field of inquiry. This unique blend not only facilitates a disidentification or transcendence from experience but also plays a foundational role in fostering profound inner transformation. The module will specifically highlight the key elements of this specialized mindfulness practice, demonstrating how each aspect contributes to inner transformation, self-discovery, conscious living, healing, and the pursuit of greater wholeness. Additionally, participants will engage in practical exercises and practices designed to initiate their journey into applied mindfulness and experiential awareness.

Mindfulness in the Service of Transformational Work
In this module, we look at how immersive mindfulness works together and as a foundational aspect of other practices designed to both organically unfold and open up experience to its deeper facets and dimensions, and also focused practices addressing certain common sectors of experience which often act as barriers to such unfolding. This is vital because the unfolding is itself one of the key pathways of inner change as understood in the context of a wisdom psychology. Mindfulness further reveals itself as a beneficial tool to take one beyond mere abstract self-reflection, affording one the opportunity to experiential explore the inner landscape. To give but one example, a practice like this can allow individuals to explore their thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations with a heightened sense of awareness in a way that could lead to a deeper understanding of the self by uncovering underlying patterns, beliefs, and motivations that are often hidden from conscious awareness.

Mindfulness & Self-Acceptance
In this module we look at how the principle of relating to one’s experience with non-judgmentalness can be extended into and more penetratingly into the aspects of one’s personal psychology, which many are not aware of but can be extremely determinative of the range and character and general mood of one’s inner life. A simple mindfulness of the content of one’s surface experience may not reveal these aspects. Once uncovered, however, we proceed to apply various knowledge and practices drawn from psychology and heart-practices to introduce the participant to an alternative mode, one of radical self-acceptance and fundamental okayness. Just these steps, the uncovering of non-self-acceptance in one’s psychology and then the working directly with them can precipitate a shift in one’s inner state that could be truly life transforming.

Mindfulness & the Wisdom of the Body/Somatic Psychology
Mindfulness and somatic psychology are naturally complementary practices that, when blended, create a powerful approach to healing and personal growth. Somatic psychology focuses on the connection between the mind and the body, emphasizing the role of bodily sensations and experiences in psychological health. When mindfulness is integrated into somatic psychology, it enhances the awareness and exploration of these bodily experiences, leading to deeper insights and more effective healing. In a mindful state, using the body as a gateway, persons can more easily access and explore unconscious material, which can include deeply held beliefs, emotional patterns, and memories that influence their present experience and behavior. When combined with somatic psychology and various experiential techniques, possible benefits may include a greater mind-body integration, improved emotional regulation, increased resilience and coping skills, deeper self-awareness, personal growth, and even inner healing.

Broadening the Scope: Mindfulness & the Examined Life
This module broadens the scope of applied mindfulness to the larger project of an examined, conscious life. We accomplish this in two phases. In the first phase the meaning of mindfulness is widened to encompass and make explicit often tacit aspects of the governing operating systems of one’s life, such as one’s implicitly held and often unexamined values and assumptions. The mindfulness is further extended into an awareness of the existential issues of one’s life, touching upon life’s givens of impermanence and change, death, personal responsibility and choice, authenticity and inauthenticity, and the like. In the second phase, we recognize how the quieting of the mind that can sometimes accompany mindfulness practice can act as a segway into contemplative and even transrational modes of intuition and knowing.

Mindfulness & Living in the Present
In this module we move beyond the confines of conventional psychological and commonplace applications of mindfulness and to penetratingly explore the very ego-self itself. Mindfulness, coupled with and informed by certain teachings from wisdom traditions and newer psychological discoveries into the nature of the self are drawn upon to act like a spot light to lay bare these aspects of the ego-self. Then, through this understanding, we explore a number of ways that this activity of the ego can be relaxed and suspended to unveil a deeper sanity coincident with the landing or dropping into the “now.”

Mindfulness & Transcendent Wisdom
In this module, building on the previous one, various methods of inquiry into the nature of the conventional sense of self are applied in conjunction with mindfulness to uncover this presumed self and explore its true ontological status. Such explorations are said to sometimes lead to a seeing through of the illusion of a presumed self and in that very seeing a discovering an underlying inner freedom.

Student Ratings & Reviews

No Review Yet
No Review Yet