welcome to
MBSR & ECOAWARENESS
MBSR and Our One Earth
welcome to
MBSR & ECOAWARENESS
MBSR and Our One Earth
Calling all Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teachers
Are you a lover of our one precious planet?
Bring the Earth into your mindfulness teaching!
As MBSR teachers, we have the opportunity to wonder…
Am I ready to invite the Earth into my own practice and into my MBSR classroom?
What resources do I need in place to meet myself and my students at this time of global climate/inequity crisis?
Can the MBSR curriculum include awareness of the beauty and vulnerability of the Earth, our human family and all of our more-than-himan kin?
As teachers, can we adapt our own lives and the life of our teaching, given the Earth’s need for our love, compassion and caring response?
The MBSR and Eco-Awareness Workshop brings together MBSR teachers to contemplate and engage in practice around their wishes for wellbeing and healing for our planet Earth.
Who is this workshop for?
This teacher development workshop is for MBSR teachers. All are welcome.
Earth-based practices for your own use and to incorporate into your MBSR teaching
A variety of ways to resource yourself in gratitude, compassion, joy and connection during these challenging times
Creative methods for invoking Earth awareness into your MBSR class plans
Opportunities for practice guiding others in Earth-informed practices
Good colleagues to share with and support you during the workshop and beyond
Quarterly refresher gatherings and dedicated online sharing group for graduates of this workshop
Additional development resources to access beyond the workshop
What will you receive from this workshop?
What teachers are saying
about the workshop
I’m working with this question:
how do I bring EcoAwareness to inspire people, because if people really become inspired or feel connected to someone, then it just naturally engenders care for that someone. I think that's true of the earth, too, and that's what I'm trying to do in going more deep with my EcoAwareness teaching.
Goals for this Workshop
Over the course of 5 online group sessions, participating teachers engage around four aims:
Reflect on their relationship with the Earth’s poly-crisis
Share MBSR-specific and other practices to support each other in awareness, compassion and engagement for the Earth’s wellbeing
Review the MBSR curriculum to identify practices, activities and means for calling out the natural place of Earth in our lives and awareness
Prepare and guide brief Earth-informed mindfulness practices
Discuss the challenges and possibilities of teaching in a way that invites the Earth herself in as a fully worthy recipient in the circle of MBSR care, compassion and embodied action
The six sessions of the workshop cover all 10 MBSR class sessions. Workshop meetings are divided approximately in half: the first half is dedicated to Earth Awareness practice and time for sharing personal reflections and experiences; the second half allows time for considering and sharing ways of inviting Earth Awareness into the curriculum and MBSR classroom. Teachers can share both their established ways and their discoveries around new possibilities for bringing Earth Awareness into their teaching of the MBSR curriculum. Together, we can engage in the challenge and the benefit of holding the Earth as a fully worthy recipient in the circle of MBSR care, compassion and embodied action.
Teachers prepare for each meeting by engaging with practice and self-reflection prompts, reading/listening to/watching selected study materials, and reviewing the MBSR curriculum for the two MBSR class sessions to be discussed. Teachers are also encouraged to write and share between workshop meetings, and to contribute to a collection of articles, poems, guided practices and other resources to support Earth Awareness. Each teacher will leave the workshop with a wealth of materials to gain inspiration from.
Session One: Start Where You Are
Session Two: Resourcing for the Journey
Session Three: Honoring Our Pain for the World
Session Four: Deepening into Practice
Session Five: Sustainability in the Midst of it All
Session Six: Integration and Going Forth
Typical Session Outline
Here is a statement from our research partners at Lund University, Sweden:
Lund University is conducting early review and research around best practices for teachers bringing EcoAwareness into mindfulness teaching. All information gathered by Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) will be completely anonymized and used solely for research purposes. LUCSUS will not share your data with any external stakeholders, and it will be securely stored in password-protected files. Research data will be archived and disposed of in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Participants may contact Professor Christine Wamsler with any questions or concerns.
Future workshops are coming! To receive an email about upcoming times and dates, let us know by clicking here:
In partnership with the
© 2024 MBSR-EcoAwareness
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Q: Do I need to be actively teaching an MBSR course as I participate in the workshop?
A: It’s helpful if teachers are teaching an MBSR course at some point during their workshop participation, but not a requirement.
Q: Do we talk about our students during the workshop?
A: At times, teachers may describe students’ experiences for the benefit of the group. This is always done anonymously and within the confidentiality of a teacher gathering.
Q: What if I need to miss an online session?
A: Workshop sessions will be recorded for the convenience of those unable to attend a given session. All teachers give consent for recording.
Q: What benefits have teachers reported after completing this workshop:
A: So far, there has been one workshop completed, the pilot workshop. Teachers in the pilot were affected in many ways. They reported these experiences:
• Experienced the power and impact of sitting with the Earth, in all her beauty and fragility, as the object of meditation
• Increased awareness of the wholeness of life and interconnection with the Earth, kinship with all her living beings, her challenges, history and her call for change and care
• Appreciation for Earth mindfulness practice that includes awareness beyond self
• Increased recognition of the crisis around the Earth and human ecology
• Capability and permission to include Earth awareness in MBSR and MBI teachings
• Beginning to research and recognize the evidence-basis of Earth Awareness practice
• Creativity in bringing Earth Awareness into the MBSR curriculum
• Trust in the capacity for students to consider their own relationship with the Earth and our human role in her crisis, as a mindfulness exercise
• Recognizing the potential to use trauma-informed mindfulness strategies to support students around climate anxiety
• Gratitude for being with and learning from other MBSR teachers, around Earth Awareness and for general MBSR support
• Commitment to further develop and include Earth Awareness into ongoing mindfulness practice in ways that provide support, stability and good care for themselves, their students and beyond
Q: For the students in these MBSR classes, what benefits do they report? A: Students have reported an array of benefits, such as feeling closer to the Earth, connecting with the natural world around them, finding inspiration to do more to help the planet, and a desire to apply their mindfulness practice to benefit our shared Earth.