MBSR Program Schedule

Fall 2019

Columbus, Ohio
 

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class is an 8-week, 10-session course comprised of 31 hours of direct instruction. The class meets for 2.5 to 3.5 hours every week for 8 weeks. There is a silent retreat between the 6th and 7th week that is an all-day class. This event will be on a weekend day. The MBSR classes are in October, November and December .  (see below for more details on upcoming programs). 

UPCOMING CLASSES for FALL 2019

 FIRST PROGRAM:

MBSR PROGRAM

MBSR Research Program

For individuals who agree to participate in my larger MBSR research program, this 8-week course will be offered free of charge as long as they agree to my MBSR research program.

(Please inquire for more details about my continuing research work).

Requirements

The requirement for being part of this MBSR research program is committing to attend EACH and EVERY of the 8 MBSR classes.

All classes of the same level are taught weekly, Monday to Thursday. If participants miss one of their sessions, they will have the opportunity to attend another class of the same level in the same week.

The other requirement is that all participants must answer a few questions in an anonymous survey at the end of each of the 8 sessions. These questions will examine the individual’s experiences within the program, and the privacy of the participant’s response is completely respected.

Lastly, the “All day Silent Retreat” will be conducted in early December, and is mandatory.     

Second MBSR Program at Denison University

from November 2 to December 21, 2019

MBSR and After Reflections

I was very excited to see Denison offer the MBSR training, which brought together a community of people committed to cultivate the skills and habits of paying attention, non-judgmentally, to what is available moment to moment. 

 This recent training was a powerful reminder of the usefulness of both formal sitting practices—when you set aside 20-40 min at a time to sit or move with attention to your breath, thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations—and of informal ones. Of the latter, my favorite is tuning in and using a key phrase to reframe a situation. For instance, when presented with a difficult emotion such as annoyance, discouragement, or anger—let’s say when you get an assignment, as a student, or when you are in a meeting that doesn’t go where you’d like, as a faculty or staff— MBSR teaches to notice in the body that difficulty. It will show up as a loss of energy, as a tension in the muscles, or a shortening of the breath. Naming those sensations already moves you away from your automatic feeling and thinking reactions. A key phrase opens you up to a skillful response. My favorite is: “Is there a choice here?” I love this because, instead of succumbing to a limiting view of yourself and others, you give yourself an invitation to see clearly your available agency in the moment. Sometimes the choice may be of accepting what is in front of you. Sometimes you realize there is a way of intervening with an action (e.g., moving a discussion into another direction; asking the professor a question or making a comment). Whatever the response, by becoming aware of your somatic and emotional reaction, you slow down enough to allow more creative and effective ways to engage with what’s right in front of you. 

 I’m leaving the MBSR program with a commitment to ask more often, in the most mundane of situations, the question: “is there a choice?” And I’ll be inviting my advisees and students to ask the same in their everyday lives. Ask it with a softened gaze and an attitude of gentle curiosity. 

 Mindfulness is a practice, though. We get to become more mindful because we practice being in the present moment, in many of our available moments. So, I’m excited to see where we can take this practice in our community, how we can support each other in our practice, trusting from experience that it changes our creativity, discernment, and skillful communication with ourselves and with one another.  

A. H. Ph.D. 

Why did you take the class? 

I was curious to learn about a new form of practice.  I have been practicing yoga for over 25 years and have found extended, multi-week workshops of this sort very rewarding in the past.  This was an opportunity to deepen my practice and to broaden my repertoire to include mindfulness meditation.  I was also looking to build and strengthen a community of practice.  This was an opportunity to engage co-workers in a new context, outside of our usual roles on campus.

 What did you get from the class? 

I pay more attention to detail:  I approach my almost 25-year yoga practice with an increased and renewed awareness of my body; I find I have a slightly new perspective on everyday life, seeing the positive more readily and being better able to shake of the negative—or at least to put it in perspective.  The class’s focus on exploring body movement and body awareness internally, with our eyes closed, allowed me to explore, to feel, and to experience embodiment in new ways.  The emphasis on informal meditation thematized and allowed me to pursue more explicitly habits that I was already trying to cultivate.

I have come to know new colleague-friends and strengthened or refashioned relationships with old ones.  There is an amazingly robust support network here, so much strength and wisdom, but I think its potential usually goes unrecognized.  Being part of that network these past several weeks has been a wonderful gift.

 In what ways might you use what you’ve learned in the scope of your work at Denison?

I have already used some of the tools we learned in this training in my conversations with advisees to offer them ways to reduce their stress and anxieties.  I was already using very brief yoga sequences in my classes to help students get centered and ready to learn and will continue to do so.  (This semester, for whatever reason, students responded even more positively than they have in the past; maybe it was because I was participating in the MBSR training.)  I began thinking about ways to incorporate mindfulness into my pedagogy in other ways since engaging with the work of Becky Thompson (Teaching With Tenderness, 2017), so this experience contributes to an on-going project.  

 I took the class because I've been interested in mindfulness for many years and have cultivated my own practice for much of my life.  Primarily, I have meditated, practiced yoga and engaged in contemplative movement/dance.  What I'm taking away from this class that I might use in my work at Denison is that the practices we learned in MBSR are useable throughout the day.  They include not only practices that require me to set aside time away from it all, but also simple things that help me bring myself back into the present moment at any time.  This includes awareness of the breath, paying attention to discomfort in the body and also doing a movement that feels right to respond to that discomfort,  paying attention to how grounded I am through my feet and how I'm relating to my spine by grounding in my feet and being aware of how I am suspended from my head/shoulders, walking with awareness and being conscious of walking to and from meetings rather than just thinking about the future and getting to the meeting and what will happen while there.   Beyond these practical things that keep me aware of being present in any moment, I  think I can integrate ideas from MBSR into the classroom.  For example, I might ask my students to engage in as simple practices to help them transition from whatever/where ever they are coming from to the class I am teaching.  I think paying attention to the transition from previous classes, activities, etc. might help students be fully present in the class they're in right now.    Finally, I'm sure I can be more conscious within my classes, meetings, committees, and other things during my day, in terms of when it might be good to pause and come up with a way to be present again.   This might be particularly helpful if we have run into something that creates anxiety (such as introducing an exam prompt, or talking about a controversial issue in the classroom).  

Warmly,

T.K. PhD

CLASS FOUR

In this 2.5 hour session we explore how conditioning and perception shape our experience.

CLASS FIVE

In this 2.5 hour session the emphasis is on attentiveness—the capacity to respond instead of reacting—and highlighting our conditioning and behavioral patterns.

CLASS SIX

In this 2.5 hour session the emphasis is on the growing capacity to self-regulate and an in-depth exploration of the domain of communication.

CLASS SEVEN

In this 2.5 hour session we review and discuss the all-day Silent Retreat, as well as how to integrate mindfulness practices more fully and personally into daily life.

CLASS EIGHT

This 3 hour session we will clarify any lingering questions about various mindfulness practices and their applications in everyday life.