Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

8-Week Program Beginning Sunday, January 13, 2019

(25 hours CE available*)

Stress is seen by many as a "given" in today's world, but in fact it is neither normal nor healthy. Stress actually compounds difficulties in our lives, creating greater challenges for our health, relationships, work productivity, and more. Among the difficulties people report when they come to our mindfulness classes are stress and anxiety, relationship difficulties, feeling out of control, chronic pain or illness, depression, and more.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD., is an eight-week program that systematically teaches mindfulness practices and therapeutic yoga to help reduce stress, increase well-being, and support health, healing and personal growth. The weekly meetings help participants integrate the practices into daily life.

Please note that while the class will be held at the FCM Center, it is important to point out that MBSR has been designed specifically to be non-denominational and, therefore, complements any existing religious or spiritual practice (or lack thereof).

Please visit our MBSR webpage for more in-depth information about our program.

Advance registration is required.

Fee: $300 before December 20; $350 December 20 and after. Limited scholarship funds are available.

Cancellation Policy: Full refund prior to Class 1. No refunds after Class 1.

Course Components and Class Dates:

• 1 Orientation Class, 90 minutes (required) - Thursday, January 10, 7:00 - 8:30 pm (live or via Zoom).
• 8 Weekly Classes, 2.5 hours - Sunday afternoons from 2:00 - 4:30 pm, January 13 through March 3.
• 1 All-Day Retreat, 7 hours - Saturday, February 23, from 9:00 - 4:00 pm

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Angie Parrish is a Qualified Teacher of MBSR through the UC-San Diego Mindfulness-Based Professional Institute. She brought the fruits of her experience in mindfulness and meditation into her professional career as an employee benefits consultant for a wide variety of organizations, including many employee training programs. Angie has developed and taught classes on Mindful Communication, Mindfulness and Stress Reduction, Mindfulness and Money Management, and Introduction to Mindfulness classes for both the general public and for employee groups.

Angie has been a student of Buddhism and mindfulness for over 20 years. After a 1999 retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, she became a student of Fred Eppsteiner's and a member of the Florida Community of Mindfulness (FCM). She is currently the Executive Director of FCM.

Rosy Sharma Sedhain is a Qualified Teacher of MBSR through the UMASS Center for Mindfulness and a certified yoga teacher. Prior to teaching mindfulness classes, Rosy attained a degree in Information Systems and an MBA, concentrating her work in the pharmaceutical industry. She teaches mindfulness to children, teens and adults and feels that teaching mindfulness gives her the greatest learning opportunity.

Rosy is married and the mother of two children, ages seven and 12.

* Florida Community of Mindfulness, Inc. is approved by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage & Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling to provide continuing education credits through CE Provider # 50-14766. Total in-class time is 25 hours over 8 weeks. 

Mindfulness Institute Grievance Procedure

Mail a statement describing your complaint to: Director of Continuing Education, 6501 N. Nebraska Avenue, Tampa, FL 33604.

Questions? E-mail us at info@floridamindfulness.org or call 813-237-0746.

Relationships as a Path of Healing and Transformation

A Four Hour Workshop for FCM Members Only

Presenters:  Fred and Angie

In our modern age, creating and maintaining harmonious, caring, emotionally mature, and loving relationships seems to be a chronic challenge for many. Whether these relationships are of the intimate variety or familial or societal, establishing rewarding and meaningful relationships seems to be an challenge that demands never ending ‘work’. For many persons following a spiritual path, their relationships with family members, co-workers, and others are often viewed as an obstacle or diversion from the "real spiritual work” they are undertaking.

This four hour workshop will present an opposing view. Rather than an obstacle to spiritual growth, relationships will be shown to be a remarkably relevant path to developing all the positive emotions and mind states that spiritual and meditative practice promise. Actually, relationships are perhaps one of the most direct and experiential means to developing a truly wholesome and selfless life.

The objectives for this workshop are for participants to have the opportunity to:

• Explore a conceptual and practical pathway for developing relationships that are nurturing and meaningful, and have the capacity to heal, transform and awaken us.
  
• Recognize how everyday conflicts that arise within relationships are opportunities for spiritual growth and practice.
  
• Identify values and aspirations for how we want to be in life and in relationships.
  
• Learn mindfulness awareness practices that cultivate our natural capacity for love and promote the healing of emotional wounds triggered within relationships.
  
• Learn communication skills that support awareness and healing within relationships. 

The workshop leaders will use their training in Buddhism, mind-fulness, meditation, counseling, plus their own personal journeys with relationships to create an environment for workshop participants to learn practical and easily applicable means to facilitate the workshop’s goals.  Presentations, mindfulness practice, and guided experiential meditations will all be utilized during the workshop. The suggested donation for this workshop is $40.

Workshop Leaders

Our Teacher Fred will be using his training as a family therapist, plus his experience as a meditation and Dharma teacher, to create a challenging and opening environment for workshop participants to learn practical and easily applicable means to facilitate the workshop’s goals. Theoretical and psychological presentations, mindfulness practice, and guided experiential meditations will all be utilized during the workshop.

Fred has been a student of the psychology of Buddhist meditation for over 40 years, and was a psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He has trained extensively in the Buddhist meditative traditions the U.S. and Asia. He received permission to teach from Thich Nhat Hanh in 1994 and is the editor of two books: The Path of Compassion and Interbeing.

Angie Parrish has been a student of Buddhism and mindfulness for over 20 years. After a 1999 retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, she became a student of Fred Eppsteiner's and a member of the Florida Community of Mindfulness. Angie brought the fruits of her experience in mindfulness and meditation into her professional career as an employee benefits consultant for a wide variety of organizations, including many employee training programs.

Angie is a Dharma Leader with FCM, having been given permission by FCM’s teacher Fred Eppsteiner to share the Buddha’s teachings with the sangha. She is also a Qualified Teacher of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and is a frequent teacher of mindful living classes.

Introduction to Buddhist Psychology

Save the date!

More information to come in January 2019.

Mind Your Anger:

Loosening the Knots of Anger Through Mindfulness
A Daylong Workshop

Presenters: Betsy Arizu and Andrew Rock

The afflictive emotion of anger – including the range of emotions from low level irritation, frustration, resentment and jealousy to full blown rage – is one of the most destructive forces we face as human beings. This is true of anger experienced in our personal lives as well as societal anger that wreaks so much havoc upon people everywhere.

We have each acquired our own personal anger patterns due to our conditioning in life; we certainly don’t consciously choose to be irritable, resentful or angry. Thus, we can be gentle and understanding of ourselves as we are today, while at the same time knowing that with mindfulness we can create new conditions that will help to uproot anger and bring more joy into our lives.

Buddhist psychology offers much wisdom for working skillfully to transform anger through the practices of mindfulness and the cultivation of understanding and patience. These teachings have proven beneficial for over 2600 years in helping individuals to uproot anger and experience more joy in their lives. 

In our workshop we will explore the following fundamental principles essential for loosening the knots of anger, including:

• What is anger
• The destructiveness of anger and how it has manifested in our lives
• The sources and causes of anger
• Is anger ever useful
• Using understanding to unknot anger and cultivate patience
• What to do when anger has already arisen in the mind

The workshop will include instruction, reflections and practice opportunities through interactive exercises.

The workshop will be held at the FCM Practice Center, 6501 N. Nebraska Avenue, in Tampa from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm on Saturday, April 14. The cost is $75. If you have questions, please email us at info@floridamindfulness.org.

Workshop Leaders

Betsy Arizu has been interested in Buddhism for over 30 years as a counselor and artist. Her formal study began in 2011 when she became a student of Fred Eppsteiner and a practicing member of the Florida Community of Mindfulness. In 2015 she was ordained as a member of the Order of Interbeing, a community of lay and monastic practitioners established by the Venerable Thich Nhat Hahn. She leads mindfulness workshops for educators, psychologists, school and mental health counselors and social workers. 

Andrew Rock took refuge as a Buddhist in 2003, and has been an active member of Florida Community of Mindfulness and student of its teacher Fred Eppsteiner since 2005. He is an ordained member of the Order of Interbeing, and has led numerous workshops and programs at FCM. Andrew is a co-founder of the Buddhist Climate Action Network, and also practices within the Earth Holders Sangha of the Plum Village community.

Digital Detox

Save the date!

More information to come in early 2019.