Dates: Tuesday, July 7, 3:00pm – Friday, July 17, 11:30am; 10 nights.
Sliding Scale: $2900-$1300, PLUS a donation to the teacher(s) and retreat staff. Code 366R20.
15 CE credits available for $150, for psychologists and California licensed MFTs, LCSWs, LEPs, LPCCs, nurses, and chiropractors.

Please Note:  We are monitoring the COVID-19 situation and may move this retreat online.

Retreat Description:
Metta is the Pali term for friendship, goodwill or loving-kindness. In this retreat, we will develop metta as a meditation practice, which cultivates our natural capacity for an open and loving heart towards ourselves and all other beings. We will also develop the practices of compassion, joy, and equanimity. Metta practice leads to greater acceptance of ourselves and others, revealing our fundamental connectedness to all life.

The schedule will include regular periods of mindful movement, as we find this is a helpful complement to the loving-kindness meditation.

Financial assistance is available for all Spirit Rock residential retreats. Our scholarship rate is $40/night and available for all those with financial hardship with special funds allocated to People of Color (POC), folks with serious medical conditions, and young adults (age 18-26). Scholarship funding is offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Scholarships are budgeted per retreat and because they are in high demand, can run out quickly. We encourage you to register for a retreat as close as possible to the registration opening date (lotteries are an exception).

Special Opportunity for a 19-Night Extended Retreat:
Pre-requisite: Completion of one (or more) 9-night (or longer) silent, residential, insight meditation retreat(s). You will be required to list retreat experience during the registration process: the teachers’ names, dates, location/center, length (# of nights), and style of the retreat(s).

If you would like a longer retreat period (19 nights), you could attend BOTH the July Metta (July 7–17) and the July Insight (July 17-26) retreats back-to-back. We will reserve 30 spaces for this extended retreat opportunity. If you are awarded one of these spaces, you will be able to bypass the lottery for the July Insight retreat.

HOW TO APPLY: Spaces are limited for these “bypass spots” so we strongly suggest you register for the Metta retreat as early as possible on opening day. Registration will open at 9:00 a.m. PT. During the registration process for the Metta retreat, you should select the “19-night retreat” option and indicate how you meet the pre-requisite; this should include details of the teachers’ names, dates, location/center, length (# of nights), and style of the retreat(s).

We will let you know of your status within the following 48 hours of registering for the Metta retreat. Please do not call us prior to that time as we are busily processing registrations. If you are awarded a “lottery bypass spot”, you will be required to pay a minimum deposit for the July Insight retreat within 48 hours of receiving the notification of acceptance. If you need scholarship funding to attend the July Insight retreat, please indicate that during registration for the Metta retreat. Please know that scholarship funding is very limited for these bypass spots and is NOT guaranteed.

If you do not receive a bypass spot, then we suggest that you still register in the July Insight lottery to have a chance to get into that retreat. No preference is given based on your status on the lottery bypass waiting list. See lottery details below.

Lottery Details for the July Insight Retreat:
The lottery will open on Wednesday, February 5, 2020, and will close approximately one month from this date. No preference is given to when you apply within this period even if you need scholarship funding. Be sure to select a scholarship option during the application process, if you will need financial support to attend.

All applicants must apply online. Please call us if you do not have access to a computer. No retreat fees will be collected at this time, it is purely registration for the lottery portion of the process.

After the lottery closes, applicants will be notified by email of their status no later than two weeks after the lottery closes; please refrain from calling before this deadline. If you are selected in the lottery, you will be sent an email with a special link to register and pay your retreat fees online within 2 business days. If you end up on a waiting list, you will be notified of your position on the list. ~Thank you for your practice of patience!

Continuing Education (CE) credit available. Teachings are appropriate for health care professionals as well as the general public. Health care professionals will be able to incorporate the tools and practices offered in this program in ways beneficial to clients or patients. See below for attendance requirements and more information.

Learning Objectives for participating health care professionals-
At the end of the program you will be better able to:
• Describe the cognitive and emotional aspects of self-regulation.;
• Describe the physiological aspects of self-regulation;
• Describe a practice that may be useful to support self-acceptance and orientation when temporarily dysregulated;
• Describe the process of identifying difficult and restorative areas of attention;
• Describe the process of pendulating one’s attention between difficult and restorative areas;
• Describe the process of titrating the depth and length of contact between difficult and restorative areas of attention;
• Contrast the consequences of rigidity and attachment in bonding relationships;
• Describe the importance of practicing fluidity and adaptability in the sense of self as a basis for an honest and healthy form of love;
• Incorporate mindfulness practices that may be utilized in a professional setting to recover from burnout;
• Describe how to use mindfulness to work through habitual patterns that cause pain and suffering;
• Describe how to use mindfulness to work through habitual patterns causing ease and well being.

Continuing Education content level: Introductory