Dear Folks; I know we are all feeling the winds of incredible and unpredictable change personally, with our families, friends, in our local communities, across the nation, and the world. Every corner of life seems impacted by these winds; health, social systems, confidence in the future, and so much more.
Entering my eight decade of life and peering more honestly and willingly toward mortality I have been pondering how to offer my best to my loved ones during this unprecedented and challenging time; you of course included. I intend to help in more thorough and effective ways to prepare us for the immense challenges ahead.
There are many who will advise us about such things as material prosperity, physical and mental health, politics, and personal security. Things we can ‘do’ to survive well.
Beyond that we can prepare and enter the challenges ahead with firm and effective orientation toward our inner lives. Attend to how we will ‘be’ in the face of difficulties. What I know is the foundation for ‘doing’ what we need to do during difficulties.
We have a tremendous and often untapped ability to evoke our inherent resilience, vitality, and resolve. We can act to remember our rich capacity for attentive presence allowing our unique and individual vitality to flourish in the face of the difficulties that will come our way. We can flow more fully with our life’s untapped energy when we learn to travel more hand-in-hand with a more complete sense of our purpose in this life.
My teacher, Jon Kabat-Zinn, offered his approach to to this for us modern people more than thirty years ago with his book, Full Catastrophe Living. I have taught the program he describes in that book, MBSR, for most of the last fifteen years for many hundreds of folks in corporations, government agencies, police agencies, organizations, fire districts, in my classrooms and now online. It has proven incredibly helpful in decades of research and often individually transformative for the folks who participate. Likewise my other courses and workshops here have proven very beneficial.
Recently I have begun studying with new teachers to learn more about how to offer more generously and more appropriately something helpful for us as we enter the new era of challenge and uncertainty. I have been learning much more about how we can cultivate these inner capacities we have to meet change. Rather than a prescribing something to ‘do’ what i am learning is how we might ‘be’ more present, powerful, and capable of meeting the challenges ahead. I want to share with you what I have learned.
So, this fall I am offering my courses, workshops and some new series that weave together our way forward with the intention of inviting a practice of acknowledging and and acting to awaken our internal resources for clarity, strength, vitality, and perseverance as we face the coming changes. This is not some formula for success, better health, or side-stepping difficulty. It’s an invitation to lean generously into the inward journey of gathering a sense of your life’s direction and purpose. In doing so there will be a greater access to the vitality, clarity, creativity and endurance that come hand-in-hand with that knowing.
My courses will of course all be available to you one-at-a-time or in groups as we have done in the past. If you are so moved to journey in a fully engaged way this fall I am offering a comprehensive and inclusive program that offers access to all of my courses including MBSR, all mindful yoga classes, workshops, series, meditation evenings and two hours of personal coaching as a complete package, Free Orientation for the Full Catastrophe Living Open Door Program Breathe, Move, Nourish, & Pay Attention, Monday September 14th at 6pm.
Do review and consider this if you wish. I will be glad to discuss it with you. Otherwise I am sure you will continue to participate in as you wish and supported by my courses always offered to you with sincerity, gratitude, humility, and reverence.
Kind Regards — Brant