Next course planned for New Year 2024 – please email expressions of interest
12 themed sessions, weekly, live Online via Zoom
From the Oxford Mindfulness Centre:
– deepening, sustaining and integrating mindfulness in daily life
– following on from the foundation of the 8-week course (or similar training)
Cost: £200
Generous Concessions and instalment payments available, or payment by donation if unwaged or adversely affected by the Covid situation
Who is this course for?
Taking it Further is for anyone who has completed an 8-week programme, or training that gave a foundation in the principles and practices of mindfulness.
If you’re not sure if you qualify to join this course or not sure if it’s suitable for you, please email your questions and concerns, telling me what training you’ve completed.
Many people have found the 8-week course transformational and want to deepen their learning and continue the journey in self-discovery and living well, but not sure how.
Often questions come up like “what happens now?”, “how can I keep motivated?”, “how can my practice be sustained and kept alive?”, “how can I really be present to the moments of my life?”
What can the course offer me?
The programme grew out of this need that 8-week course “graduates” recognised… to continue, deepen and sustain more wise, kind and compassionate awareness. It offers a continuing “journey” into mindfulness that guides and supports new discoveries and deeper understanding. Perhaps, even, discovering mindfulness is more than we ever thought… This course is for supporting, reinforcing and applying the learning and skills gained on the 8-week course; for establishing a stronger ground of stability and resilience, less swayed by the ‘domination’ of our thinking processes, or overwhelmed by feelings, stress, worry and reactivity.
Some themes focus on cultivating qualities and attitudes of mindfulness. Participants can deepen appreciation, gratitude and equanimity; kindness and care for themselves, others, nature and the world; and connect with important values – what’s essential for each of us so we can live well, connect with our natural wisdom and inner guidance – and truly flourish.
Some themes covered in the course
Each week has a theme but also builds on the previous session:
Examples:
attention – the gateway to experience
inhabiting our body
appreciating the life you have
the landscape of our bodies and mind
attitudes: appreciation, befriending and compassion
our reactivity to stress and difficulty
responding not reacting to our inner and outer worlds
cool head and warm heart: the art of balance and equanimity
being the change we’d like to see in the world
and more…
Mindfulness is more than learning techniques. It’s a way of living and being in our life. The learning and practice encourages direct, immediate and experiential non-conceptual knowing. So learning, sensing, tasting from our direct experience as it emerges in the moment. The Taking it Further course helps us connect with and galvanise our innate desire for being awake to life, gradually cultivating enactment of this intention over the weeks of the course… and beyond through our life.
The course includes new meditations, contemplations and practices, exercises, daily practice at home with links to Oxford Mindfulness Centre audio guided practices from each session and supporting material on each theme.
To express your interest in the next course and find out more contact:
What participants said:
“It was a wonderful course, with wonderful people. An oasis in challenging times. A special time and place where we are united by a will to be free of the demands of everyday life and learn how to better care for ourselves.”
“I found this to be such a brilliant course. The sessions were very enjoyable: the variation of and within the themes, the other participants, the warmth of the space that was created for us. One highlight for me was connection with, and joy from, my breath, which continues to be a source of great pleasure. And my personal learning has been intensely practical, giving me greater awareness of what patterns cause me difficulty with myself and others, and greater freedom to meet life as it is. Wonderful. Thank you!”
“Each week the discovery of more and more depth to skills I thought I was using, but was only skimming the surface… attention, awareness, body scan, breathing space, appreciation, responding not reacting, balance and equanimity, taking care of ourselves, being the change we’d like to see in the world… each one a gem. This was an excellent course that really did deepen practice, skilfully facilitated with care and kindness. It was the highlight of my week. I look forward each new day to my journey.”
“The course was an amazing, awakening journey, very high standards and facilitating skills. After sessions we could get in touch with Sara if anything came up – quick response, support, care…
…The course has made me come to terms with dealing with my illness, with aversion to difficulty and fears, and healing in such a way I could never have imagined. I’m very much more aware of my ‘being’… I have started and will continue with each new day, bringing gratitude and an open heart – there’s so much to be grateful for… to continue to learn each day from what arises, learning from moments how different they can be when letting them be just as they are… stillness, sounds, weather, all nature has intensified greatly. Our interconnecting world… how I can make choices to better my day, enjoy and treasure moments that bring contentment and love…
… I don’t feel I have to say I will have to do some mindfulness practice – this is a way of life for me now.”