"Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), life coaching, mindfulness-based yoga and self-care trainings in Hillsboro, Beaverton, Aloha, Forest Grove and Greater Portland, Oregon. Online and in class"
Supporting ourselves and one another these mornings to make a positive difference as society changes so much; elections, social media, rapid changes near and far. More Details
Both Sunday and Wednesday Mornings, 7-8am, throughout October. Just show up.
There is no tuition for this. Freely offered, though only if you sense it would be helpful and appropriate, offer something; consider contributing something in some kind way (effort, funding, material) toward helping you and others meet the difficult changes in our society – a worthy charity, friend, acquaintance, or cause sometime this month. Something that speaks to your larger and compassionate intentions to participate and be a contribution to a changing world.
My bias is that such an offering of something toward a cause that is bigger than you, that addresses your sense of a larger purpose, is very helpful in one’s life and always helpful in making a difference in that cause.
ThisBe-Well Gathering an evening of general overview and discussion of the benefits of mindfulness practice and modified mindful yoga as taught here. We will review research that will help us understand how practice can be appropriately modified for folks with various chronic pain challenges. Books and audio books by authors such as Dr. Lauren Fishman MD and Jon Kabat-Zinn and others will be reviewed and discussed. Hosted by Brant. RSVP. Saturday, October 6th; 5-6:30pm
Many of us need wheelchairs, walkers, canes. and otherwise to help us be mobile.All of us can learn and share a joyful, adapted practice in a chair or otherwise. For many years I offered this class to folks. Once again let’s meet and see if there is interest to move forward with more class and practice together. Free on October 7th; 2-3pm. RSVP. More detailslink.
My mindful hatha yoga classes are an invitation for you to be more at home with yourself; intentions, mind and body. Learning here is an invitation to explore and remember your inherent ability to experience vitality, strength, balance, mental clarity and so much more.
Fall classes will begin in early September. See the Schedule page for details. Learn about the simple details of registering for my classes: Yoga Class Registration.
People of all physical abilities are welcomed in my classes. My style doesn’t push or demand. It isn’t ‘yoga-robics’ nor is a quasi-religious exercise. You’re simply invited to move and be kind and attentive to your experience in your unique way whether you are in a wheelchair or preparing for your next triathlon. Learn more: Yoga & Movement Class Descriptions, Videos and More.
Please note that my description of classes as ‘mindful yoga’ is not a particular brand or school of yoga as much as it is a description of my way of teaching as influenced by many years of personal practice and teaching mindfulness-based trainings; details here. My teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote about this in his book Full Catastrophe Living and in a 2003 article in the magazine Yoga International.
Other teachers bring their unique styles to the classes and workshops they hold here. See their bio pages and our schedule for more details about their programs.
This incredible sunset inspired these simple words that flowed toward a dear friend that evening as I awaited a Blue Moon in July of 2015. There on the hilltop looking toward home in Hillsboro. Let me offer this poem, Here, to you as well. As a dear friend no matter who you are.
Perhaps it will speak to you, support you, help you to meet life ‘here’ in some kind way.
Dear Folks; One morning recently I was taken by the urge to share, write and speak about welcoming. It was a new day, one I was thankful for. Not that the day had done anything in particular to earn that thankfulness. I was simply thankful for the opportunity to be alive, to drink in the elements of the experience of being alive.
Perhaps it was a morning of living and sensing life’s precious and beautiful essentials and offering them back to the world as Carrie Newcomer describes in her lovely song Bare to the Bone;“What we do in love and kindness is all we ever leave behind.”
Likewise the morning may have been an experience of vulnerability. Powerful vulnerability toward the beautiful and difficult elements of life as Brene Brown describes in her TED Talk, The Power of Vulnerability.
Perhaps it could be called a moment of Grace as David Brooks describes in a recent podcast interview: moments of clarity, openness, appreciation that hit us once in a while. And then as he describes, we long to be worthy of those moments of Grace by living with them side-by-side and even guided by them.
As I let the morning open to welcoming, the meditation below emerged. I hope you are encouraged. So often we encounter the fears, disappointments, and traumas and clinch inward as we hold back from welcoming. Perhaps this will encourage you and find you welcoming yourself and others a bit more today.
Dear Folks; A number of years ago I began to get requests from organizations to provide mindfulness-based trainings and coaching sessions, I have worked with a diversity of organizations and many professionssince then to develop and deliver coaching and training programs tailored to their unique goals and intentions; better interpersonal communication, leadership, health and wellbeing, stress reduction, enhanced teamwork.
My unique quality as a coach and trainer is to work with each group in a relevant and tailored way to find the elemental qualities of balance, communication, and interpersonal relationships that move an organization toward it mission.
It seems like my work as a Peach Corps Volunteer, corporate work from shift worker to executive, and decode of government service have all provided a broad, empathic background for serving you. Below is a sampling of my programs. Contact me if you would like to learn more.
I awoke this morning to the lyrics of one of my beloved artists, Carrie Newcomer. Tearfully thankful she put words to such wisdom. Her recent song, On the Brink of Everything (Youtube video & Lyrics below), seems to echo so much of what becomes more evident with the passing years, with the kind disciple of contemplative practice, across years of teaching, and with timeless wisdom that seems to be shared by folks across time and many cultures. Antonio Machado, the great Spanish poet of the last century spoke of this same thing in his timeless poem, Last Night as I was Sleeping, especially the last stanzas that speak of listening at the “Edge of the Great Silence.”
I couldn’t help but share these with you . My hope is that they will be nourishing perspective during this turbulent time in our nation’s, our world’s history, and perhaps in your personal life. It’s my invitation for us to find our way to settle a little more thoroughly and kindly on this ‘edge’ and the ‘brink’ of life’s rich offerings; both joyful and challenging.
Practices shared here in my classrooms are ways toward that, though I am sure, you will find your own ways. Follow your heart as I recently have been sharing in my MBSR students midway through their training, “There is no right way, there is your way.”
On a more personal note and for those of you who are my students, the lyrics of Carrie Newcomer’s On the Brink of Everything capture the heart of the motivation of teaching and coaching for me. In one stanza she writes “I never sang ’cause I know something, I sang because it’s a prayer. The finest one that i could bear.”
Dear folks, I hope you sense that same spirit about what I offer. I will echo her sentiment to clarify the heart of what I intend.
“I never taught because I knew something, I taught because it’s a prayer. The finest one that i can bear.”
I have met many folks who have become yoga teachers. Their motivations are very diverse though what they most often have in common is a full sense that this art and science has been to very helpful to them personally and they wish to share with others as a loving contribution to help make life better for others.
Come and meet a number of folks who have trained to teach and are just beginning or have done so for many years.
Perhaps you are someone just interested in yoga and want to learn more about it. Perhaps you are a student with burning questions to ask a teacher about their path, perhaps you are a yoga teacher and just want to meet other teachers and folks that show up.
You’re all welcome to attend!
Hope to see you here! Please RSVP to assure there is enough room for all!
You and I see the images of families separated at our borders, refugees making perilous journeys is small rickety boats, and read headlines of difficulty and despair. If you are like me it is often way too much. How can we let all that in and feel in any way that we can offer something helpful?
Without answering that question directly, my intuitive sense this summer was to devote more of my time to support folks nearby more directly in any way I could; donations of time, money, effort to those in need and those helping others. Last term I put together an evening to share with everyone to ponder the question together, “How to make the world a better place?” Likewise I offered time and space here for morning meditations a couple of times a week to provide a quiet, safe place to share a quality of attentive presence with one another, in the face of whatever life is right now.
Of course this does not fix the bigger problems around us and the sense of helplessness to affect the bigger problems still lingers. Yet . . . something, some small thing, has been offered in a direction that is hopeful. That seems to lead toward further contribution. Perhaps at Helen Keller noted what we sense can be “. . . transmuted to the deeper faith.”
I was so thankful and encouraged when a friend sent along this podcast from the NPR program OnBeing. It’s commentary by Krista Tippet, the show’s host. She has interviewed hundreds of people on her show. Folks who meet the challenges, huge challenges, seemingly unsolvable challenges of the world in ways that are courageous and hopeful. What so many of them have in common is a sense of hope. A willingness to lean deeply into the problem at hand with courage, compassion, and hope. A sense of ‘Yes, and . . .’ Seeing the world for all its difficulty and the joy that is tucked in there nearby.
Here is an incredibly hopeful and encouraging commentary by Krista Tippet about her struggle to make sense of the difficulties she sees every day and her willingness to practice hope, give herself permission to sense joy even as she works to make the world a better place.
I hope this will encourage you as it did me — Brant
