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Parenting is a journey filled with joy, and it also brings moments of real emotional challenge. This first-of-its-kind online program is designed for parents and children (ages 8–12) to strengthen connection and build practical skills for meeting stress and difficult emotions with greater awareness, kindness, and resilience.

By integrating core principles of mindfulness and self-compassion, participants learn to create more space in the moment and shift from impulsive reactions to thoughtful responses.

What You’ll Learn

• Create a lasting foundation of warmth, security, and trust.
• Build resilience through practical self-care skills for both parent and child.
• Meet difficult emotions with greater awareness, kindness, and respect.

What Is Mindfulness

Mindfulness is moment-to-moment, non-judgmental awareness. It is learning to pay attention to experience as it is in each moment. Much of our stress occurs when we operate on autopilot, which can lead to rumination and worry. Through simple practices, mindfulness can strengthen emotional resilience and support more skillful responses to life’s challenges.

Schedule and Registration

Note: CFM requires a minimum of 10 registrants per program. Classes with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and provided a refund. Please be aware of this when making arrangements to attend this program.

Please note: The child must be between the ages of 8–12. If you have more than one child who wishes to participate, you must register them separately. One to two parents may attend with their child.

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is an 8-week, evidence-based, experiential program that combines cognitive therapy approaches with mindfulness meditation to cultivate present-moment, non-judgmental awareness. MBCT is designed to build resilience and support relapse prevention for recurring patterns of low mood, stress, anxiety, and depression.

Through weekly experiential sessions, participants learn to recognize unhelpful patterns of thinking, relate differently to difficult emotions, and respond to life’s challenges with greater clarity and choice.

Participants are required to meet with the instructor before the program begins. More information will be provided closer to the start date.

What You’ll Learn

• Attend to patterns of thought, emotions, and behavior.
• Increase awareness of negative states and reduce identification with them.
• Build skills to support relapse prevention using mindfulness meditation techniques.
• Respond rather than react by strengthening the ability to choose how to meet difficult experiences.

Who Should Participate

This course is designed for individuals who often worry about the future or dwell on the past, experience low mood, or have a history of anxiety and/or depression and want practical tools to support well-being.

• Attendance of at least 80% of sessions is required.
• Home practice activities are required.
• Participants are strongly encouraged to attend the daylong silent retreat.

Note: This course is for personal learning and practice and does not provide facilitator training.

Schedule and Registration

Note: CFM requires a minimum of 10 registrants per program. Classes with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and provided a refund. Please be aware of this when making arrangements to attend this program.

Helpful Resources

• The Mindful Way Workbook: An 8-Week Program to Free Yourself from Depression and Emotional Distress — John Teasdale, Mark Williams, and Zindel Segal (Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn).
• Video: Zindel Segal speaks about MBCT
• Kuyken (2016): Individual patient data meta-analysis of randomized trials (MBCT and relapse prevention).

Mindful Preparation and Integration for Psychedelic Interventions is an 8-week course that blends mindfulness training with education on the science of psychedelics. Participants learn to use mindfulness as a foundation for approaching professionally led psychedelic experiences with clarity, presence, and intention.

The course provides practical tools for preparation and integration, supporting stress reduction, inner exploration, and personal growth. Sessions combine mindfulness practices with evidence-based education to help participants make meaning from insights and apply them to daily life.

What You’ll Learn

• Build practical skills for self-reflection, emotional regulation, and mindfulness.
• Learn integration strategies to safely and effectively apply insights to personal growth.
• Understand benefits, risks, and harm reduction considerations related to psychedelic use.
• Develop greater self-awareness of emotions, beliefs, and behavior patterns.
• Explore cultural, societal, and ethical factors that shape choices and experiences.

Who Should Participate

• People interested in mindfulness-based interventions and their relationship with classical psychedelic plant medicine.
• People contemplating psychedelic-assisted therapy who want skills to manage perceptions and emotions.
• People seeking ways to sustain the impact of psychedelic-assisted therapies through integration practices.

Legal and Ethical Education

This course strictly adheres to all relevant local, national, and international laws regarding controlled substances. Educational content about substances such as psilocybin is provided for informational and academic purposes only and does not constitute encouragement or promotion of illegal use.

The curriculum emphasizes factual, evidence-based information and ethical decision-making, prioritizing safety, well-being, and legal compliance.

Schedule and Registration

Note: CFM requires a minimum of 10 registrants per program. Classes with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and provided a refund. Please be aware of this when making arrangements to attend this program.

Join us online for a 5-week deep dive into guided meditation with iRest Yoga Nidra. iRest is a meditation practice based on the ancient tradition of Yoga Nidra and adapted to suit the conditions of modern life.

This course is designed to help you meet each moment with greater well-being. Through guided meditation and discussion, participants build a personal resource toolbox that can support better sleep, clarity when experiencing difficult sensations or emotions, navigating stress and anxiety, and reconnecting with a sense of joy and balance.

No previous meditation or yoga experience is required. This inclusive, accessible course welcomes both new and experienced practitioners. Each series is adapted to the class, and each session is unique.

What You’ll Learn

• Nurture resilience, inner peace, and well-being.
• Integrate mindfulness and meditation into daily life.
• Use strategies for navigating stress, anxiety, and challenging emotions.
• Experience deep relaxation and a greater sense of safety and balance.
• Reconnect with your essential wholeness and remember your true nature.
• Apply the 10-step iRest protocol in your own life.
• Support self-regulation and inner calm.
• Use practices that promote restful sleep and relaxation.

Who Should Participate

This course is for everyone. New and experienced practitioners are welcome and will benefit from the class.

Schedule and Registration

Note: CFM requires a minimum of 10 registrants per program. Classes with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and provided a refund. Please be aware of this when making arrangements to attend this program.

The sessions will be recorded and available for a limited time. You must register to receive these recordings each week.

Orientation Recording

Watch the orientation session recording

What would happen if, in moments of shame, you could care for yourself instead of going small, attacking yourself, or shutting down?

8-Week Self-Compassion for Shame: Returning Home to Yourself is a groundbreaking online program developed by Dr. Chris Germer, Natalie Bell, and the SC-Shame development team. The course takes a non-pathological look at shame through the lens of mindful self-compassion and explores why self-compassion is an antidote to shame.

What You’ll Learn

You will build practical resources to meet shame with greater acceptance and authenticity so you can stay connected, think in a balanced way, and make wise, healthy choices. The course weaves together talks, experiential exercises, meditation, and group discussion, alongside theory and research on shame and self-compassion.

• Mindfulness of shame
• Origins of shame
• Self-criticism
• Body shame
• Self-forgiveness
• Hidden parts
• Social justice

Who Should Participate

This course is for anyone who has completed the MSC prerequisite and suspects (or recognizes) that shame may be limiting their full potential and wants new resources to open up new ways of living.

SC-Shame is a resource-building program (like MSC), not psychotherapy. Because we will be touching shame with self-compassion, challenging emotions may arise. The teaching team is committed to co-creating a safe and rewarding learning environment with participants.

Program Structure

• 8 weeks, 28 hours total (20 hours class time plus 8 hours optional practice group)
• Weekly classes: 2.5 hours each
• Optional practice group: 1 hour weekly, facilitated by SC-Shame teachers
• Class size: maximum 30 participants
• Online

Free Orientation Session

Join us for a free orientation session as a preview of the upcoming 8-week course starting in April 2026.

In today’s world, teens and pre-teens face increasing pressure from technology, academic demands, and major life transitions. These stressors can affect both physical and emotional well-being and make it harder to feel steady, focused, and connected.

This course teaches practical mindfulness skills to help teens navigate change, reduce reactivity, and make healthier choices. Students strengthen attention, emotional regulation, and self-care through guided practice and supportive discussion.

What You’ll Learn

• Strengthen focus and attention.
• Respond to challenging situations with less emotional reactivity.
• Use strategies that support wiser decision-making.
• Build kindness and compassion for themselves and others.
• Develop practical self-care skills.

The Practice

• Gentle stretching and yoga.
• Mindful meditation practices to support relaxation and awareness.
• Self-reflection through journaling, activities, and group discussion.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an evidence-based, 8-week program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn that helps participants build mindfulness skills to relate differently to stress, health concerns, and everyday challenges.

Through weekly sessions that include guided meditation, mindful movement, and inquiry, participants learn to cultivate greater awareness, compassion, and steadiness. The program supports developing the ability to respond with more choice rather than reacting on autopilot.

Who Should Participate

MBSR is for people experiencing stress or ongoing life challenges who want practical tools to support well-being. Participants often join with concerns such as:

• Stress, anxiety, worry, or low mood
• Chronic pain or chronic medical conditions
• Sleep disturbance
• Headaches, hypertension, or grief and loss
• Relationship challenges

All-Day Session

As part of the program, participants attend a teacher-led all-day silent retreat (typically between weeks 6 and 7). This is an opportunity to practice what you have been learning—such as sitting meditation, mindful movement, and walking meditation—in a supportive, spacious setting.

Free Orientation Session

Please watch the recording of our MBSR Orientation Session to learn about the origins and evidence-based foundations of MBSR, experience a brief practice, and review the class structure and participation guidelines.

Orientation session recording: Orientation Session Recording Here

Passcode: we.g#3D5

Note: All UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness MBSR graduates are invited to join an upcoming all-day session for free by registering here: Register HERE.

Note: CFM requires a minimum of 10 registrants per program. Classes with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and provided a refund. Please be aware of this when making arrangements to attend this program.

There are moments in everyday life that shape what happens next: how we interpret events, react, and move forward. What if you could recognize those turning points earlier, before stress or reactivity takes over, and use them to return to clarity and calm?

Deeper Mindfulness is an innovative 8-week course that blends mindfulness meditation with neuroscience to explore “feeling tone”: the subtle emotional backdrop that colors experience. Feeling tone can be the tipping point into habitual reactions, and learning to notice it sooner can help you regain balance in a chaotic world.

This course is designed for those who want to deepen their mindfulness practice beyond Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), or other mindfulness-based programs.

What You’ll Learn

• Recognize feeling tone and how it influences thoughts, emotions, and behavior.
• Strengthen self-regulation during stress and difficult emotions.
• Reduce reactivity and respond with greater clarity and intention.
• Apply mindfulness skills in everyday personal and professional situations.
• Create a sustainable plan to deepen and continue mindfulness practice.

Who Should Participate

This course is for participants seeking to deepen their mindfulness journey after completing MBCT, MBSR, or another mindfulness-based program.

If you cannot attend the first session or expect to miss two sessions, we recommend waiting for the next offering.

This Course Includes

• Eight weekly, 2-hour classes that include discussion, meditation, and inquiry.
• Home practice: 10–30 minutes of daily guided meditation, plus instructions for everyday mindfulness.

Note: This course is for personal learning and practice and does not provide facilitator training.

There are many moments in life that shape our destiny, sending ripples into the future, influencing how we perceive the world in the moments that follow. These unfolding moments can be uplifting and positive, dark and chaotic, or simply mundane. But what if we could identify these moments before they seize control of our lives? What if we could harness them to chart a course toward a wiser and brighter future? What if every moment, no matter how insignificant, held this potential?

"Deeper Mindfulness," an innovative 8-week course presented by one of the pioneers of mindfulness, Oxford Professor Mark Williams, takes mindfulness practice to new heights. This program blends mindfulness meditation with neuroscience to unveil the deeper, hidden layers of mindfulness known as the 'feeling tone'. Feeling tone is what sets the 'background color' that tinges your entire experience of life. It is also the tipping point from which you can reclaim balance in a frantic world. Proven effective in alleviating anxiety, stress, and depression, this course caters to those seeking to deepen their mindfulness journey beyond Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), or any other Mindfulness-Based programs. Deeper Mindfulness will further equip participants to rediscover serenity and regain control amidst life's chaos.

Note: A minimum of 10 registrants is required to run the program. Programs with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and refunded.

The Short Course in Mindful Self-Compassion (SC-MSC) is a six-week adaptation of the empirically supported eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program, designed to introduce the core skills of self-compassion with a reduced time commitment. Developed by Kristin Neff, PhD, a pioneering researcher in self-compassion, and Christopher Germer, PhD, a leader in mindfulness- and compassion-based psychotherapy, SC-MSC offers a focused and accessible entry point into this work.

Most of us readily offer compassion to close friends when they are struggling. SC-MSC invites participants to explore what it might be like to extend that same care and understanding to themselves. Self-compassion involves learning to comfort and soothe ourselves, and to motivate ourselves with encouragement rather than self-criticism, particularly when we experience suffering, failure, or feelings of inadequacy. By recognizing our shared humanity, we learn to include ourselves in the circle of compassion we naturally offer to others.

The program draws on mindfulness skills and emphasizes cultivating self-compassion as a resource for emotional wellbeing. Research increasingly shows that self-compassion is associated with greater emotional resilience, improved coping with life challenges, lower levels of anxiety and depression, healthier habits, and more satisfying personal relationships. It is an inner strength that allows us to respond to difficulty with greater clarity, balance, and care.

Self-compassion is a learnable skill, even for those who did not develop these capacities earlier in life. Program activities include short talks, experiential exercises, group discussion, and home practices. Participants will explore habitual responses to difficulty and learn practical tools for becoming a warm and supportive companion to themselves. Meditation experience is not required. This program is open to the general public and welcomes participants of all backgrounds. You must be 18 years or older to enroll.

Note: A minimum of 10 registrants is required to run the program. Programs with fewer than 10 registrants will be cancelled and refunded.