You cannot overcome pressure through intellect or willpower. This course trains your body and mind through guided experiences. Learn how engaging your body changes the way you meet the challenges of life.
This 10-week course starts the week of October 12. The five self-study classes are yours to start whenever suits you; the five live Zoom sessions run on a set schedule.
✓ Five self-study classes (on your own time): Coming into embodied presence
✓ Five live Zoom sessions (fixed dates): For live support and deeper integration
✓ Daily practice suggestions
✓ Recordings of all live sessions
✓ US$120
Under stress, we do not rise to our best. We fall back to our level of preparedness
You intend to be less reactive, more assertive, more present. It’s all clear until the moment you’re actually facing it, when pressure overcomes the logic and motivation behind your intentions.
It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s that logic doesn’t reach where the pressure actually lives: in the body, as energy. As tension when it’s high-intensity, and numbing or giving up when it isn’t.
Training your body and mind
By embodied presence, we mean the capacity to stay connected with yourself while responding to what life asks of you. That connection runs through attention.
Normally, attention goes where it’s pulled: a loud noise, a stab of pain. But there’s a strange exception. When you’re not really present, when you’re “in your head,” you don’t notice your body is absent. Nothing pulls at your attention, because nothing feels missing.
You can’t force your way out of a gap you can’t feel.
Proactive mindfulness works two ways. It trains you ahead of time, building preparedness before the moment that will demand it. And it trains attention to go, on purpose, where it needs to go: toward the body, even when nothing there is asking for it. This course closes that gap directly, awakening embodied resources that stay dormant until you engage them.
Experience how engaging your body changes how you respond under pressure
This course teaches through guided experiences, not explanations. Mind and body learn more deeply through experience than through being told.
As a participant, you follow simple instructions to bring attention to parts of the body and notice what happens as you do. This lets you discover, from the inside, how embodied presence actually works.
Like meditation, these guided experiences cultivate attentive awareness rather than willpower. Unlike traditional meditation, they actively engage the body as a way of building presence under pressure. No meditation experience is needed.
Why take this course
- Discover how your body has more resources than you thought.
- Train your body and mind rather than relying on willpower.
- Combine flexible self-study pace and live Q&A to address your specific questions and deepen your practice.
About this course
This course was developed by Merete Holm Brantbjerg and Serge Prengel, drawing on somatic, trauma-informed therapies that shaped their understanding of mindfulness beyond what meditation traditions alone offer. They came to see mindfulness as an action-oriented process, integrated into everyday life. Serge will be leading this course.
Typical comments from previous participants
— “I now understand what it feels like to be engaged with life and how it has to do with engaging the body instead of willpower.“
— “I see how parts of my body have been disengaged and how this has meant functioning without a full deck.“
— “Empowering and mind-expanding!“
Specifics of the course
5 self-study classes, every other week starting week of July 27
- Class materials released every other week, on Monday.
- Each class includes a guided experience and instructions.
- Each class takes 15 to 25 minutes (on your own schedule).
- Each class includes suggestions for daily practice (a few minutes a day, as it works for you).
Class topics:
- Week of October 12: Engaging with your body
- Week of October 26: Engaging with your feet and legs
- Week of November 9: Engaging with your torso
- Week of November 23: Engaging with your core
- Week of December 7: Personal integration
5 live Zoom sessions, the week after each class
5 live Q&A sessions on Zoom, on the Monday after you receive class instructions, at a time convenient for many time zones: from 1 to 2 PM New York time:
- October 19
- November 2
- November 16
- November 30
- December 14
Answers to FAQ
- We will be recording the Live sessions so that you can catch up if you miss a session. But we encourage you to attend all of the Live sessions in person.
- You do not need to have a traditional mindfulness practice to take this course.
- If you have a traditional mindfulness background, we believe you will experience the course as skillful means that will help you deepen your current practice and apply it in everyday life.
- This is not a therapy course, but it is very useful for therapists as a way to better understand yourself and your clients.
- This course is not a good fit for people who are looking for quick fixes or passive listening. It is for people who value mindful learning and personal integration of experience.
Pricing & Enrollment
The price is US$120. It includes all self-study classes and Live sessions to address your specific questions and deepen your practice. Enroll here for the course.