Programs & Services —
Training and Mentoring for MBSR, MSC, and other Mindfulness-Based Teachers

We offer sessions for new and experience mindfulness teachers who wish to deepen their teaching practices and develop their abilities to work with a wide range of students, in person and online.

We can all benefit from periodic or ongoing support, mentoring, and advanced training as we teach.

Sessions may explore topics such as:

• Getting ready to teach your first course(s).
  • Looking at topics ranging from practical details to developing confidence and approaches that will serve best.
  • How do we get ready to teach, and how do we prepare our participants to be ready to engage?
• Deepening and strengthening your teaching skills.
  • After teaching some courses, understanding your strengths and identifying areas for growth.
    
  • How do we work with the challenges that inevitably arise as we teach.
  • How do we sustain ourselves so that we do not burn out?
  • Preparing to enter a teacher certification review process.
• Developing your own workshops and programs.
  • How to create and deliver programs that serves your clients' needs.
• Teaching online.
  • Understanding the potential and limitations of online technologies.
  • Adapting programs such as MBSR and MSC for online delivery.
  • Taking best advantage of what technology can offer to your students.
  • Becoming comfortable with teaching online.

Sessions can be booked in 60 or 90 minute blocks of time.

The rate is $125 per hour for one person.

If you wish to engage in such work with a teaching partner or a group the hourly fee will be higher. Please contact us for details.

Sessions are available at our Northampton, MA Meditation Center and online via Zoom, FaceTime, and Skype. We are also available to provide training and mentoring at your site, but the rate will be higher.

Our sessions:

• Are designed to support those who have completed professional mindfulness-based teacher training at any number of respected teacher training programs — such as those at the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness, the UMass Center for Mindfulness, and other programs from Sounds True, Jack Kornfield/Tara Brach, etc.
• Are intended to support and deepen a person's ability to teach mindfulness-based programs.
• Are also useful for those who who work with individual clients (such as psychotherapists) rather than offering group classes.
• May involve the creation of a structured practice plan with readings and other resources if the clients wants and needs it.
• May help someone decide whether to pursue training as a teacher.
• Are not intended to provide a license or certification to teach MBSR or MSC although these mentoring sessions will greatly support a training and certification process in which a person might be engaged with UMass, UCSD and other organizations.

My background and qualifications

• I am certified as a teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC).
• I work as an MBSR and MSC teacher trainer, teacher mentor, and course developer through the UCSD Center for Mindfulness and the Center for Mindful Self Compassion.
• I have been engaged in the practices of MBSR for 18 years and have been teaching it for 16 years. I have been engaged in the practices of MSC for 6 years and have been teaching it for 5 years.
• I served on the staff of the UMass Center for Mindfulness for 7 years, teaching MBSR and managing the MBSR teacher training and certification program.
• I have co-led 5 silent meditation retreats ranging from 5 to 9 days in length, for groups of 10 to 36 participants.
• I have worked closely with Jon Kabat-Zinn (creator or MBSR) and with Christopher Germer, Kristin Neff (creators of MSC) and Steven Hickman the founder of the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness and the Executive Director of the Center for Mindful Self-Compassion.
• I have studied, taught, and worked closely with a wide range of senior teachers in the MBSR and MSC communities.
• I have been teaching online for more than 8 years, and and I train and mentor others who wish to develop and strengthen their abilities to skillfully teach online.

If you are interested:

Please click here to send us an email outlining your needs, background, and interests as a mindfulness teacher. We will respond and be glad to discuss your needs and the options for how we might work together.

The work of becoming a teaching is never finished!

Teaching requires so much of us, not only learning and understanding the curriculum and developing teaching skills but more importantly developing the capacity to deliver courses with integrity and compassion, cultivating the ability to meet students where they are and to work with them if they struggle, being willing to acknowledge and work with any reactivity that arises within us, and continuing to do our own inner work so that we teach from the head, heart, and body.

In addition, teaching sometimes requires an understanding of, and skillful use of, online technologies. We need to recognize whether we are well-suited to teaching online and whether our students are well-suited to learning online.

How can we best teach and support (and learn with) our students whether they are with us in-person or connecting with us online?