You make new year’s resolutions to eat better, exercise more, or whatever else… It’s all abstract until the moment when you’re about to eat, or you’re finding it hard to jump out of bed to go to the gym… That is, the moment when the fears and pressures that keep you from changing come to the foreground and drown out all the logic and motivation that was behind your resolutions.
What makes these fears and pressures so powerful is that they are embodied. They manifest as energy. It can be high intensity energy (tensions in your body) or loss of energy (numbing out or giving up).
Practicing proactive mindfulness involves engaging with our bodies and noticing how doing so transforms our ability to be more present and effective in what we do. You could think of it as rehearsal for the moment of change. But it’s not just a rehearsal. It is also a way to awaken embodied resources that were dormant until you engage with them.
Describing the practices can make them seem more difficult than they are, very much the way that describing how you ride a bicycle or how you swim can make it seem daunting. As you engage with the embodied practices, they naturally fit into your life.
We call them Embodied Meditations to emphasize paying attention rather than forcing things through. But it’s not the kind of meditations where you sit still doing nothing. And you don’t need to be a meditator to enjoy them.
We’ll simply ask you to spend some time in a receptive mode as we guide you to pay more attention to parts of your body and noticing what happens as you do it. You engage with the process so you can let the process work for you organically.
5 self-study sessions and 5 live Q&A sessions
5 self-study classes, released every other week, starting January 23.
Each class includes a guided meditation and instructions. The class takes 15 to 20 minutes (on your own schedule). Class materials also include suggestions for daily practice (5 to 15 minutes, as it works for you).
5 live Q&A sessions on Zoom, a week after you receive class instructions. The 5 Q&A sessions are on Fridays from 12 to 1 PM New York time, as follows:
January 30 (with Serge)
February 13 (with Merete & Serge)
February 27 (with Serge)
March 13 (with Serge)
March 27 (with Merete & Serge)
Practice group: For those of you who want to, you can participate in a small peer group to practice together. We suggest you meet on alternate Fridays following the Q&A, but you are free to schedule it as you wish.
About us
This course was developed by Merete Holm Brantbjerg and Serge Prengel. Our work with somatic, trauma-informed therapies has enriched our understanding of mindfulness beyond what we had gotten from meditation and mindfulness traditions. We have come to see mindfulness as an action-oriented healing process that can be integrated into everyday life and help all of us engage more fully in our lives.
Please note
– We will be recording the Q&A sessions so that you can catch up if you miss a session. But we encourage you to attend all of the Q&A sessions in person.
– This course is for non-meditators as well as people who have a mindfulness practice.
– This is not a therapy course, but it is very useful for therapists as a way to better understand yourself and your clients.
Cost
The cost is US$125.
Note: We intend to make these Embodied Meditations available for free as a self-learning course at some point in the future. So, if money is a consideration, you can wait for the free version.
If you can pay for it, this course gives you a chance to go deeper than you might in a self-learning course because each pre-recorded class is followed by a live Q&A session.
To pay, please click on the link at the end of this paragraph. Please note: You will see that your payment is successful on the screen, but you will not receive an automatic confirmation email. We will be manually sending you a confirmation email within a few days of your payment. Here is the payment link.
