Date: March 22, 2019; 10:00am – 5:00pm
Sliding Scale: $75 – 200. Code HC1D19.
6 CE credits available for $60, for psychologists and California licensed MFTs, LCSWs, LEPs, LPCCs, nurses, and chiropractors.

Description:
Everyone wants to be calm and peaceful. Much of our restlessness and agitation stems from an untrained mind and lack of clear perception of what’s happening in our mind and body moment-to-moment. During this day retreat, we will train our hearts and minds to find a calm abiding in the present moment. How will we accomplish this?

We will follow the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness — being mindful of our bodies, beginning with the sensations of breathing and expanding to include all other types of physical sensations. We will learn to feel pleasure more fully without trying to make it last and learn to accommodate inevitable unpleasant experiences without being afraid of or reactive to them. We will develop the skill of recognizing and working with our moods and emotions and learn how to relate to our thoughts more wisely rather than being so easily carried away by them.

Settling the mind into the body, while noticing and caring about the flow of experience, our hearts can settle and we can all realize that the peace and ease we are looking for in our lives is the natural peace and ease of our own nature.

This day will be valuable for health professionals as they grapple with the same challenges that their patients and clients face. Learning through direct experience can dramatically increase the prospects of being more successful with others. Developing the skill of calming the restless mind requires direct experience and the support of an experienced guide. Teachings are appropriate for individuals as well as health care professionals. Continuing Education (CE) credit available. See below for attendance requirements and more information.

Learning Objectives for participating health care professionals-
Based on the content of this program, you will be able to:

• Differentiate which attitudes of mind, when present, increase distress and which attitudes and mental qualities decrease stress;
• Utilize the practice of tracking real time flow of sensations with continuous mindful attention, to cultivate peace and ease;
• Utilize the practice of cultivating a non-interfering real-time awareness of the flow of emotions through the body, in ways that may calm a restless mind;
• Demonstrate how to calm the body and mind, through personal direct experience.

Continuing Education content level: Introductory