https://www.meghanslining.com/about daily 0.75 2026-03-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1602171145574-1U1AOQ00QJUVP4PUXWCB/Meghan+Slining+Photo+2016+_+WebResolution.jpg About Meghan Slining first studied mindfulness over 25 years ago. Since moving to Greenville, SC in 2013 Meghan has been teaching and sharing her love of mindfulness in university, corporate and correctional settings. She completed her MBSR teacher training with The Mindfulness Center at Brown University and The Center for Mindfulness at University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Most recently, Meghan completed the Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention program training, and a 300-hour Mindfulness Teacher Training with the Engaged Mindfulness Institute. She is also a certified Koru Mindfulness teacher and has taught over 20 sections of Koru at Furman University and Perry Correctional Institution. Mindful movement is important to Meghan; she completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training at Greenville Yoga in 2015 and completed a Curvy Yoga certification in 2023. Meghan has a particular commitment to offering Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness and has studied extensively with David Treleaven. By day, Meghan Slining, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a Professor of Health Sciences at Furman University with expertise in Public Health, Nutrition and Epidemiology. https://www.meghanslining.com/home daily 1.0 2023-09-09 https://www.meghanslining.com/meditations daily 0.75 2023-01-22 https://www.meghanslining.com/learn-more daily 0.75 2021-12-06 https://www.meghanslining.com/orientation daily 0.75 2021-02-21 https://www.meghanslining.com/materialsfall2023 daily 0.75 2025-10-30 https://www.meghanslining.com/course-link daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://www.meghanslining.com/week-1-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606670322545-1BDFBHNVM49LM4CQHCZI/image-asset.jpeg Week 1 - Week 1: Mindfulness of the Body “As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong.” Jon Kabat-Zinn There are no assigned readings. The subject matter is your life. I invite you to approach this course as an experiment and a challenge rather than a chore or one more thing on your to-do list. Mindful awareness is the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally with kindness. Life Practice Experiment with the body scan meditation this week (aim for 6 sessions total, counting practice in class). The challenge is to bring beginner’s mind to it each time, encountering your body as if it were the first time. And in fact, each time you practice you are different. Experiment with the 9-dots exercise. See if you can bring awareness to the experience of working with the exercise – what thoughts and emotions arise? Any familiar patterns? Experiment with bringing mindful awareness to eating this week. Perhaps you could eat an entire meal with full awareness. Or perhaps you take one mindful bite at every meal this week. What happens? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-3-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606322685725-YK6V3VE2PI1O9DITT9J1/image-asset.jpeg Week 3 - Week 3: The Power of Being Present “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” Thich Nhat Hanh Pleasant events are pleasant when we bring presence and mindful awareness to them. We miss many of our pleasant moments when we are not paying attention. Paradoxical possibilities – we can find pleasant moments during events that are not obviously pleasurable. Life Practice: Alternate practicing lying down yoga with the body scan every other day (aim for 6x per week) Experiment with sitting meditation for 15 minutes per day. Each session you will choose a specific ‘anchor’ that is available to you and rest your awareness with available sensations in that anchor. When you notice your mind has wandered, firmly bring attention back to your anchor. Become aware of ordinary moments during the day, capturing with awareness what is happening in the body, the mind and the emotional field. Also become aware of automatic pilot moments. Once you bring attention to them, do they stay automatic? What shifts? Are there particular experiences (fatigue, overwhelm) or circumstances (certain people, certain environments) where being on autopilot occurs more frequently? Without needing to change anything, bring curiosity to it all. Fill out one entry per day in the Unpleasant Events Calendar. What is considered unpleasant in the culture of you and what makes it so? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-2-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606320799079-SD5FY7HXOO4TJMZQWHYH/image-asset.jpeg Week 2 - Week 2: Perception and Creative Responding “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust Perception – how we see or don’t see things, including our stresses and challenges—influences much of how we experience our daily lives. The way we perceive a problem tends to limit our ability to see solutions. The way we perceive ourselves may also be limiting. Life Practice: Experiment with the Body Scan this week (aim for 6 sessions, including practice in class). Can you bring curiosity to each body scan? Experiment with sitting meditation for 10 minutes each day (not necessarily before or after the Body Scan). As we practiced in class this week, each session you will choose a specific ‘anchor’ that is available to you and rest your awareness with available sensations in that anchor. Gently but firmly guide attention to your anchor. When you notice that your attention has wandered, choose to direct attention again to your anchor. This aiming, sustaining, and re-aiming is the “muscle” work of mindfulness training, strengthening your innate capacity to be aware. Informal Practice: Choose a daily activity to bring full awareness to for the week (slowness is not necessary, just do one thing at a time, with full presence). Examples include brushing one’s teeth, washing the dishes, making tea or coffee in the morning, walking the dog, washing one’s face, etc. You should select something you do every day that is brief and fairly routine or ordinary. Fill out one entry per day in the Pleasant Events Calendar. What is considered pleasant in the culture of you and what makes it so? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-4-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606332981070-L0DZKVBVG61QVU2GWKZA/image-asset.jpeg Week 4 - Week 4: Meeting the Unwanted “Stress is a particular relationship between a person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her wellbeing.” Richard Lazarus Typically we move away as quickly as possible from the unpleasant or unwanted. This week we experimented with moving in closer to see, understand and be with what is actually here. We are building our capacity to hold all that is present in our lives. Through our practice we can cultivate a certain allowing or letting be quality. Our stress response is hard-wired, automatic and habitual. When we experience a threat, the sympathetic nervous system goes into high gear. This unconscious, biological intelligence is awe-inspiring. And when functioning adaptively, these automatic reactions save our life. Fortunately, most of the time we do not find ourselves encountering life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, physiologic responses to non-immediate stresses are similar as when you’re fighting for survival. We’re still prone to go into fight or flight when our sense of control is threatened, even if we’re just driving on the freeway or we receive harsh feedback from coworkers. Our brain still perceives events in terms of mortal threats to our well-being and sense of self, even when there is none. Life Practice: Experiment with alternating practicing the lying down yoga sequence with the body scan every other day (aim for 6x per week) Continue to experiment with the sitting meditation for 20-25 minutes per day, resting awareness with the chosen and kindly, yet firmly bringing awareness back when the mind wanders. If sensations, thoughts, or emotions arise that are uncomfortable or strong, remember that you have choice in how you meet them: If the discomfort is posture-related, shift your position slowly and mindfully; You can shift your attention to a more neutral anchor or object of attention (the body in its entirety, a more specific anchor, a sound); You can turn towards the discomfort and explore, making it the object of attention. Allow your natural curiosity to lead you. Are sensations sharp or dull? How large is the area? Are the edges of the sensation clear or diffuse? How do the sensations change over time? You may also choose to pendulate between discomfort and a place of greater ease at a pace that strengthens your capacity without overwhelming. Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you’re present to your moments and savor them! Experiment with becoming aware of automatic habitual stress reactions and behaviors during the week, without trying to change them in any way. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-5-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606321941925-Z7ALAJWZ4AX7V57AWYUH/image-asset.jpeg Week 5 - Week 5: Awareness of Automatic, Habitual Patterns “No one can live without experiencing some degree of stress all the time. You may think that only serious disease or intense physical or mental injury can cause stress. This is false. Crossing a busy intersection, exposure to a draft, or even sheer joy are enough to activate the body’s defense mechanisms to some extent. Stress is not even necessarily bad for you; it is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress. But, of course, your system must be prepared to take it. The same stress which makes one person sick can be an invigorating experience for another.” Hans Selye Anything that threatens our sense of well-being can trigger a stress response to some degree. Awareness—knowing more closely one’s reactive patterns—supports developing clear seeing and introduces the possibility of stepping out of automatic, habitual patterns. Awareness creates space between a stimulus and a response. In that space we are more able to see alternatives to our habitual patterns. Life Practice: Alternate sitting practicing with body scan or yoga (lying, standing or sitting) every other day (aim for 6x per week) Continue to bring awareness to moments of reactivity, and actively explore new possibilities. Asking yourself, are there other options? Experiment with the wedge of mindfulness between a stimulus and a response This may include using your anchor as a way to ground or center oneself. You may also experiment with S-T-O-P in the midst of stressful events. Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you are more present throughout your day. Extend awareness to communication and complete the Difficult Communications Calendar. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-6-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-08-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606322394560-OU3CTVX5U2DUZLZCOE4O/image-asset.jpeg Week 6 - Week 6: Flexibility, Power of Not Knowing, and Interpersonal Relating “Between stimulus and response there’s a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Victor Frankl There’s a moment of choice before we react to stress and pain in life. However, we’re often unaware of this space because we get caught in habitual patterns of reacting to life. The MBSR program helps us become more aware of our habitual reactions and helps us relate to ourselves in a new way to interrupt this cycle and create more choice in our lives. A mindful approach to communication can make a big difference in the course of an interaction. Mindfulness facilitates open space that supports deep listening, beyond labels, assumptions, or biases. As we practice in this way, the possibility to listen to others and to listen to ourselves, deepens. We build connection and community when we listen. Life Practice: Continue to alternate sitting practice with a body practice (body scan or yoga) every other day (aim for 6x per week) Bring awareness to moments of communication and interpersonal relating. What are you learning from personal practice that can be included in the interpersonal sphere? Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you’re more present to all your moments. Pay attention to what you take in: Physically in the form of food and drink, but also what you take in through the senses: media, internet, etc. In all these arenas notice the effects of what you take in and consider the result. Is it what you want? Apply what you’re leaning through practice to one of these ‘inputs’ and notice what happens. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-7-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-10-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606331562016-TT0VGO2UZ04083Q1LQU5/image-asset.jpeg Week 7 - Week 7: Engaged Mindfulness “The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant. How we relate to it creates the future. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.” Pema Chodron We can apply the lens of mindful awareness to all aspects of our lives. As we build greater awareness—knowing more closely our reactive patterns—we see more clearly and identify opportunities to step out of automatic habitual patterns. We are learning to be at home wherever we are at. Life Practice: Experiment without recordings in daily practice. Aim for 45 minutes of total daily practice time, dividing up the time as it feels most supportive. For example: 10 minutes of yoga, followed by 35 minutes of sitting practice. Or 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of body scan, 25 minutes of sitting practice. If practicing without recordings it too difficult, alternate recordings every other day. Continue with informal practices. Approach informal practice with curiosity and playfulness, being as aware and awake as possible during the day. Continue to work with ‘what you take in,’ perhaps choosing one new action or area to bring awareness to, to investigate what might be supportive and nourishing around this specific area. See if you can capture moments of craving and simply label them. For example, noticing that you want to eat a third cookie, to pour a glass of wine, or to check your phone for another message. Feel the sensation in the body of the craving. Notice any thoughts or feelings associated with the craving. What happens if you don’t do anything but watch the arising and possibly fading away of sensations, if you don’t chase or feed them? Next week is the last class… notice any patterns around endings. What are you seeing? For next week’s class feel free to bring something to share: A reflection, a poem or quote—that represents your experience of practice and/or the community. It is also fine to bring just yourself, as you’ve been doing for the whole program. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-8-fall25 daily 0.75 2025-10-30 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606332110605-09JQ17WCRM9KDYZJOBBG/image-asset.jpeg Week 8 - Week 8: The Rest of Your Life “Once you are cultivating mindfulness systematically in your life, it is virtually impossible to stop…Over time, the practice tends to teach you what you need to know next. “ Jon Kabat-Zinn “Even not practicing is practicing in a way, if you are aware of how you feel compared with when you do practice regularly and how it affects your ability to handle stress and pain.” Jon Kabat-Zinn Life Practice: The eighth week is the rest of your life. The invitation is to continue to investigate and explore your experiences with curiosity. You are ready to make the practice your own. It may be useful to continue practicing just as you’ve established, for another week or so—to sense how it is to practice without the class—and then to assess and make changes. As you experiment, allow the combination of formal and informal practice to be supportive for you. Trust that you have become familiar with your needs and that you can determine what will be most supportive in any moment. As you continue to make time for practice a priority, do your best to avoid the kind of harsh expectations we sometimes employ when putting a new habit into place. There is a discipline to this—but it’s also much more. Keep exploring with kindness. When you fall away from the practice, be willing to re-enter by being mindful of what’s going on in your life: what are the barriers to practice and how can you reduce them? How can you continue to make your own needs a priority? Resources for Continuing Your Practice: You are welcome to use recordings from our class https://www.meghanslining.com/ Tips for Finding the Right Mindfulness Practice for Your Life: There are many ways to practice mindfulness – short daily meditations, long daily meditations, mindful pauses, weekly or monthly meditation group meet-ups, annual retreats. Only you can discover what works best with your life. Pauses: Life gives us many chances to stop, breath and refresh. Learn to respond to these opportunities. Short daily: A 5-10-minute practice, once, twice or three times a day can refresh your awareness. Long daily: 30-minutes once or twice a day can build regular stability that make the mini-pauses more powerful. Weekly: Many groups hold a weekly sit and talk. It can be supportive to continue to sit and process your experiences with others. With so many online options available now, you can join a sitting group from anywhere and you can take a friend from anywhere with you! Monthly: Doing something intentional once a month (12 times in a year) can make a big difference - perhaps a half-day of silence. Annual/Semi-Annual/Quarterly: Extended periods of practice can be so helpful in reinforcing our learning and building our capacity. Take a look at your calendar and see if there is a time where you can include a longer retreat. Or perhaps you could join the MBSR all-day retreat for my next class (I will always send you an invitation to join). https://www.meghanslining.com/class-materials-w21 daily 0.75 2021-02-15 https://www.meghanslining.com/course-link-w21 daily 0.75 2020-12-30 https://www.meghanslining.com/week-1-w21 daily 0.75 2021-01-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606670322545-1BDFBHNVM49LM4CQHCZI/image-asset.jpeg Week 1 - W21 - Week 1: Mindfulness of the Body “As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong.” Jon Kabat-Zinn There are no assigned readings. The subject matter is your life. I invite you to approach this course as an experiment and a challenge rather than a chore or one more thing on your to-do list. Mindful awareness is the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally with kindness. Life Practice Experiment with the body scan meditation at least six times this week (practice in class can count as one time). The challenge is to bring beginner’s mind to it each time, encountering your body as if it were the first time. And in fact, each time you practice you are different. Experiment with the 9-dots exercise. See if you can bring awareness to the experience of working with the exercise – what thoughts and emotions arise? Any familiar patterns? Experiment with bringing mindful awareness to eating this week. Perhaps you could eat an entire meal with full awareness. Or perhaps you take one mindful bite at every meal this week. What happens? Informal Practice: Choose a daily activity to bring full awareness to for the week (slowness is not necessary, just do one thing at a time, with full presence). Examples include brushing one’s teeth, washing the dishes, making tea or coffee in the morning, walking the dog, washing one’s face, etc. You should select something you do every day that is brief and fairly routine or ordinary. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-2-w21 daily 0.75 2021-01-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606320799079-SD5FY7HXOO4TJMZQWHYH/image-asset.jpeg Week 2 - W21 - Week 2: Perception and Creative Responding “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust Perception – how we see or don’t see things, including our stresses and challenges—influences much of how we experience our daily lives. The way we perceive a problem tends to limit our ability to see solutions. The way we perceive ourselves may also be limiting. Life Practice: Experiment with the Body Scan at least 6 times this week (practice in class can count as one time). Can you bring curiosity to each body scan? Experiment with sitting meditation for 10 minutes each day (not necessarily before or after the Body Scan). As we practiced in class this week, each session you will choose a specific ‘anchor’ that is available to you and rest your awareness with available sensations in that anchor. Gently but firmly guide attention to your anchor. When you notice that your attention has wandered, choose to direct attention again to your anchor. This aiming, sustaining, and re-aiming is the “muscle” work of mindfulness training, strengthening your innate capacity to be aware. Informal Practice: Choose a daily activity to bring full awareness to for the week (slowness is not necessary, just do one thing at a time, with full presence). Examples include brushing one’s teeth, washing the dishes, making tea or coffee in the morning, walking the dog, washing one’s face, etc. You should select something you do every day that is brief and fairly routine or ordinary. Fill out one entry per day in the Pleasant Events Calendar. What is considered pleasant in the culture of you and what makes it so? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-3-w21 daily 0.75 2021-01-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606322685725-YK6V3VE2PI1O9DITT9J1/image-asset.jpeg Week 3 - W21 - Week 3: The Power of Being Present “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” Thich Nhat Hanh Pleasant events are pleasant when we bring presence and mindful awareness to them. We miss many of our pleasant moments when we are not paying attention. Paradoxical possibilities – we can find pleasant moments during events that are not obviously pleasurable. Life Practice: Alternate practicing lying down yoga with the body scan every other day (at least 6x per week) Experiment with sitting meditation for 15 minutes per day. Each session you will choose a specific ‘anchor’ that is available to you and rest your awareness with available sensations in that anchor. When you notice your mind has wandered, firmly bring attention back to your anchor. Become aware of ordinary moments during the day, capturing with awareness what is happening in the body, the mind and the emotional field. Also become aware of automatic pilot moments. Once you bring attention to them, do they stay automatic? What shifts? Are there particular experiences (fatigue, overwhelm) or circumstances (certain people, certain environments) where being on autopilot occurs more frequently? Without needing to change anything, bring curiosity to it all. Fill out one entry per day in the Unpleasant Events Calendar. What is considered unpleasant in the culture of you and what makes it so? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-4-w21 daily 0.75 2021-02-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606332981070-L0DZKVBVG61QVU2GWKZA/image-asset.jpeg Week 4 - W21 - Week 4: Meeting the Unwanted “Stress is a particular relationship between a person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her wellbeing.” Richard Lazarus Typically we move away as quickly as possible from that which is unpleasant or unwanted. This week we experimented with moving in closer to see, understand and be with what is here. We are building our capacity to hold all that is present in our lives. Through our practice we can cultivate a certain allowing or letting be quality. Our stress response is hard-wired, automatic and habitual. When we experience a threat, the sympathetic nervous system goes into high gear. This unconscious, biological intelligence is awe-inspiring. And when functioning adaptively, these automatic reactions save our life. Fortunately, most of the time we do not find ourselves encountering life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, physiologic responses to non-immediate stresses are largely the same as when you’re fighting for survival. We’re still prone to go into fight or flight when our sense of control is threatened, even if we’re just driving on the freeway or we receive harsh feedback from coworkers. Our brain still perceives events in terms of mortal threats to our well-being and sense of self, even when there is none. Life Practice: Experiment with alternating practicing the lying down yoga sequence with the body scan every other day (at least 6x per week) Continue to experiment with the sitting meditation for 20-25 minutes per day, resting awareness with the chosen and kindly, yet firmly bringing awareness back when the mind wanders. If sensations, thoughts, or emotions arise that are uncomfortable or strong, remember that you have choice in how you meet them: If the discomfort is posture-related, shift your position slowly and mindfully; You can shift your attention to a more neutral anchor or object of attention (the body in its entirety, a more specific anchor, a sound); You can turn towards the discomfort and explore, making it the object of attention. Allow your natural curiosity to lead you. Are sensations sharp or dull? How large is the area? Are the edges of the sensation clear or diffuse? How do the sensations change over time? You may also choose to pendulate between discomfort and a place of greater ease at a pace that strengthens your capacity without overwhelming. Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you’re present to your moments and savor them! Experiment with becoming aware of automatic habitual stress reactions and behaviors during the week, without trying to change them in any way. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-5-w21 daily 0.75 2021-02-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606321941925-Z7ALAJWZ4AX7V57AWYUH/image-asset.jpeg Week 5 - W21 - Week 5: Awareness of Automatic, Habitual Patterns “No one can live without experiencing some degree of stress all the time. You may think that only serious disease or intense physical or mental injury can cause stress. This is false. Crossing a busy intersection, exposure to a draft, or even sheer joy are enough to activate the body’s defense mechanisms to some extent. Stress is not even necessarily bad for you; it is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress. But, of course, your system must be prepared to take it. The same stress which makes one person sick can be an invigorating experience for another.” Hans Selye Anything that threatens our sense of well-being can trigger fight or flight to some degree. The impact of great awareness—knowing more closely one’s reactive patterns—supports developing more clear seeing and introduces the possibility of stepping out of automatic, habitual patterns. Awareness creates space between a stimulus and a response. In that space we are more able to see alternatives to our habitual patterns. Life Practice: Alternate sitting practicing with body scan or yoga (lying, standing or sitting) every other day (at least 6x per week) Continue to bring awareness to moments of reactivity, and actively explore new possibilities. Asking yourself, are there other options? Experiment with the wedge of mindfulness between a stimulus and a response This may include using your anchor as a way to ground or center oneself. You may also experiment with S-T-O-P in the midst of stressful events. Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you are more present throughout your day. Extend awareness to communication and complete the Difficult Communications Calendar. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-6-w21 daily 0.75 2021-02-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606322394560-OU3CTVX5U2DUZLZCOE4O/image-asset.jpeg Week 6 - W21 - Week 6: Flexibility, Power of Not Knowing, and Interpersonal Relating “Between stimulus and response there’s a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Victor Frankl There’s a moment of choice before we react to stress and pain in life. However, we’re often unaware of this space because we get caught in habitual patterns of reacting to life. The MBSR program helps us become more aware of our habitual reactions and helps us relate to ourselves in a new way to interrupt this cycle and create more choice in our lives. A mindful approach to communication can make a big difference in the course of an interaction. Mindfulness facilitates open space that supports deep listening, beyond labels, assumptions, or biases. As we practice in this way, the possibility to listen to others and to listen to ourselves, deepens. We build connection and community when we listen. Life Practice: Continue to alternate sitting practice with a body practice (body scan or yoga) every other day (at least 6x per week) Bring awareness to moments of communication and interpersonal relating. What are you learning from personal practice that can be included in the interpersonal sphere? Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you’re more present to all your moments. Pay attention to what you take in: Physically in the form of food and drink, but also what you take in through the senses: media, internet, etc. In all these arenas notice the effects of what you take in and consider the result. Is it what you want? Apply what you’re leaning through practice to one of these ‘inputs’ and notice what happens. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-7-w21 daily 0.75 2021-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606331562016-TT0VGO2UZ04083Q1LQU5/image-asset.jpeg Week 7 - W21 - Week 7: Engaged Mindfulness “The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant. How we relate to it creates the future. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.” Pema Chodron We can apply the lens of mindful awareness to all aspects of our lives. As we build greater awareness—knowing more closely our reactive patterns—we see more clearly and identify opportunities to step out of automatic habitual patterns. We are learning to be at home wherever we are at. Life Practice: Experiment without recordings in daily practice. Aim for 45 minutes of total daily practice time, dividing up the time as it feels most supportive. For example: 10 minutes of yoga, followed by 35 minutes of sitting practice. Or 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of body scan, 25 minutes of sitting practice. If practicing without recordings it too difficult, alternate recordings every other day. Continue with informal practices. Approach informal practice with curiosity and playfulness, being as aware and awake as possible during the day. Continue to work with ‘what you take in,’ perhaps choosing one new action or area to bring awareness to, to investigate what might be supportive and nourishing around this specific area. See if you can capture moments of craving and simply label them. For example, noticing that you want to eat a third cookie, to pour a glass of wine, or to check your phone for another message. Feel the sensation in the body of the craving. Notice any thoughts or feelings associated with the craving. What happens if you don’t do anything but watch the arising and possibly fading away of sensations, if you don’t chase or feed them? Next week is the last class… notice any patterns around endings. What are you seeing? For next week’s class feel free to bring something to share: A reflection, a poem or quote—that represents your experience of practice and/or the community. It is also fine to bring just yourself, as you’ve been doing for the whole program. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-8-w21 daily 0.75 2021-03-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606332110605-09JQ17WCRM9KDYZJOBBG/image-asset.jpeg Week 8 - W21 - Week 8: The Rest of Your Life “Once you are cultivating mindfulness systematically in your life, it is virtually impossible to stop…Over time, the practice tends to teach you what you need to know next. “ Jon Kabat-Zinn “Even not practicing is practicing in a way, if you are aware of how you feel compared with when you do practice regularly and how it affects your ability to handle stress and pain.” Jon Kabat-Zinn Life Practice: The eighth week is the rest of your life. The invitation is to continue to investigate and explore your experiences with curiosity. You are ready to make the practice your own. It may be useful to continue practicing just as you’ve established, for another week or so—to sense how it is to practice without the class—and then to assess and make changes. As you experiment, allow the combination of formal and informal practice to be supportive for you. Trust that you have become familiar with your needs and that you can determine what will be most supportive in any moment. As you continue to make time for practice a priority, do your best to avoid the kind of harsh expectations we sometimes employ when putting a new habit into place. There is a discipline to this—but it’s also much more. Keep exploring with kindness. When you fall away from the practice, be willing to re-enter by being mindful of what’s going on in your life: what are the barriers to practice and how can you reduce them? How can you continue to make your own needs a priority? Resources for Continuing Your Practice: You are welcome to use recordings from our class https://www.meghanslining.com/ The Center for Mindfulness at Brown University (where I completed my training) offers regular, online, free community mindfulness sessions. I recommend exploring their offerings to see if something works with your schedule. Insight Timer (app for your phone or iPad) is another wonderful free resource. Tips for Finding the Right Mindfulness Practice for Your Life: There are many ways to practice mindfulness – short daily meditations, long daily meditations, mindful pauses, weekly or monthly meditation group meet-ups, annual retreats. Only you can discover what works best with your life. Pauses: Life gives us many chances to stop, breath and refresh. Learn to respond to these opportunities. Short daily: A 5-10-minute practice, once, twice or three times a day can refresh your awareness. Long daily: 30-minutes once or twice a day can build regular stability that make the mini-pauses more powerful. Weekly: Many groups hold a weekly sit and talk. It can be supportive to continue to sit and process your experiences with others. With so many online options available now, you can join a sitting group from anywhere and you can take a friend from anywhere with you! Monthly: Doing something intentional once a month (12 times in a year) can make a big difference - perhaps a half-day of silence. Annual/Semi-Annual/Quarterly: Extended periods of practice can be so helpful in reinforcing our learning and building our capacity. Take a look at your calendar and see if there is a time where you can include a longer retreat. Or perhaps you could join the MBSR all-day retreat for my next class (I will always send you an invitation to join). https://www.meghanslining.com/allday-readings-quotes daily 0.75 2021-02-15 https://www.meghanslining.com/materialssummer23 daily 0.75 2023-09-25 https://www.meghanslining.com/course-link-fall21 daily 0.75 2023-07-11 https://www.meghanslining.com/week-2-summer23 daily 0.75 2023-07-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606320799079-SD5FY7HXOO4TJMZQWHYH/image-asset.jpeg Week 2 - Week 2: Perception and Creative Responding “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust Perception – how we see or don’t see things, including our stresses and challenges—influences much of how we experience our daily lives. The way we perceive a problem tends to limit our ability to see solutions. The way we perceive ourselves may also be limiting. Life Practice: Experiment with the Body Scan at least 6 times this week (practice in class can count as one time). Can you bring curiosity to each body scan? Experiment with sitting meditation for 10 minutes each day (not necessarily before or after the Body Scan). As we practiced in class this week, each session you will choose a specific ‘anchor’ that is available to you and rest your awareness with available sensations in that anchor. Gently but firmly guide attention to your anchor. When you notice that your attention has wandered, choose to direct attention again to your anchor. This aiming, sustaining, and re-aiming is the “muscle” work of mindfulness training, strengthening your innate capacity to be aware. Informal Practice: Choose a daily activity to bring full awareness to for the week (slowness is not necessary, just do one thing at a time, with full presence). Examples include brushing one’s teeth, washing the dishes, making tea or coffee in the morning, walking the dog, washing one’s face, etc. You should select something you do every day that is brief and fairly routine or ordinary. Fill out one entry per day in the Pleasant Events Calendar. What is considered pleasant in the culture of you and what makes it so? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-3-summer23 daily 0.75 2023-08-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606322685725-YK6V3VE2PI1O9DITT9J1/image-asset.jpeg Week 3 - Week 3: The Power of Being Present “People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.” Thich Nhat Hanh Pleasant events are pleasant when we bring presence and mindful awareness to them. We miss many of our pleasant moments when we are not paying attention. Paradoxical possibilities – we can find pleasant moments during events that are not obviously pleasurable. Life Practice: Alternate practicing lying down yoga with the body scan every other day (at least 6x per week) Experiment with sitting meditation for 15 minutes per day. Each session you will choose a specific ‘anchor’ that is available to you and rest your awareness with available sensations in that anchor. When you notice your mind has wandered, firmly bring attention back to your anchor. Become aware of ordinary moments during the day, capturing with awareness what is happening in the body, the mind and the emotional field. Also become aware of automatic pilot moments. Once you bring attention to them, do they stay automatic? What shifts? Are there particular experiences (fatigue, overwhelm) or circumstances (certain people, certain environments) where being on autopilot occurs more frequently? Without needing to change anything, bring curiosity to it all. Fill out one entry per day in the Unpleasant Events Calendar. What is considered unpleasant in the culture of you and what makes it so? https://www.meghanslining.com/week-4-summer23 daily 0.75 2023-08-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1622121638490-ZM6MN3UV4PJ9YPIRQ7SS/unsplash-image-PZy8RuMdIhg.jpg Week 4 - Week 4: Meeting the Unwanted “Stress is a particular relationship between a person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her wellbeing.” Richard Lazarus Typically we move away as quickly as possible from that which is unpleasant or unwanted. This week we experimented with moving in closer to see, understand and be with what is here. We are building our capacity to hold all that is present in our lives. Through our practice we can cultivate a certain allowing or letting be quality. Our stress response is hard-wired, automatic and habitual. When we experience a threat, the sympathetic nervous system goes into high gear. This unconscious, biological intelligence is awe-inspiring. And when functioning adaptively, these automatic reactions save our life. Fortunately, most of the time we do not find ourselves encountering life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, physiologic responses to non-immediate stresses are largely the same as when you’re fighting for survival. We’re still prone to go into fight or flight when our sense of control is threatened, even if we’re just driving on the freeway or we receive harsh feedback from coworkers. Our brain still perceives events in terms of mortal threats to our well-being and sense of self, even when there is none. Life Practice: Experiment with alternating practicing the lying down yoga sequence with the body scan every other day (at least 6x per week) Continue to experiment with the sitting meditation for 20-25 minutes per day, resting awareness with the chosen anchor and kindly, yet firmly bringing awareness back when the mind wanders. If sensations, thoughts, or emotions arise that are uncomfortable or strong, remember that you have choice in how you meet them: If the discomfort is posture-related, shift your position slowly and mindfully; You can shift your attention to a more neutral anchor or object of attention (the body in its entirety, a more specific anchor, a sound); You can turn towards the discomfort and explore, making it the object of attention. Allow your natural curiosity to lead you. Are sensations sharp or dull? How large is the area? Are the edges of the sensation clear or diffuse? How do the sensations change over time? You may also choose to pendulate between discomfort and a place of greater ease at a pace that strengthens your capacity without overwhelming. Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you’re present to your moments and savor them! Experiment with becoming aware of automatic habitual stress reactions and behaviors during the week, without trying to change them in any way. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-5-sum23 daily 0.75 2023-08-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606321941925-Z7ALAJWZ4AX7V57AWYUH/image-asset.jpeg Week 5 - Week 5: Awareness of Automatic, Habitual Patterns “No one can live without experiencing some degree of stress all the time. You may think that only serious disease or intense physical or mental injury can cause stress. This is false. Crossing a busy intersection, exposure to a draft, or even sheer joy are enough to activate the body’s defense mechanisms to some extent. Stress is not even necessarily bad for you; it is also the spice of life, for any emotion, any activity causes stress. But, of course, your system must be prepared to take it. The same stress which makes one person sick can be an invigorating experience for another.” Hans Selye Anything that threatens our sense of well-being can trigger fight or flight to some degree. The impact of great awareness—knowing more closely one’s reactive patterns—supports developing more clear seeing and introduces the possibility of stepping out of automatic, habitual patterns. Awareness creates space between a stimulus and a response. In that space we are more able to see alternatives to our habitual patterns. Life Practice: Alternate sitting practicing with body scan or yoga (lying, standing or sitting) every other day (at least 6x per week) Continue to bring awareness to moments of reactivity, and actively explore new possibilities. Asking yourself, are there other options? Experiment with the wedge of mindfulness between a stimulus and a response This may include using your anchor as a way to ground or center oneself. You may also experiment with S-T-O-P in the midst of stressful events. Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you are more present throughout your day. Extend awareness to communication and complete the Difficult Communications Calendar. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-6-sum23 daily 0.75 2023-08-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606322394560-OU3CTVX5U2DUZLZCOE4O/image-asset.jpeg Week 6 - Week 6: Flexibility, Power of Not Knowing, and Interpersonal Relating “Between stimulus and response there’s a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Victor Frankl There’s a moment of choice before we react to stress and pain in life. However, we’re often unaware of this space because we get caught in habitual patterns of reacting to life. The MBSR program helps us become more aware of our habitual reactions and helps us relate to ourselves in a new way to interrupt this cycle and create more choice in our lives. A mindful approach to communication can make a big difference in the course of an interaction. Mindfulness facilitates open space that supports deep listening, beyond labels, assumptions, or biases. As we practice in this way, the possibility to listen to others and to listen to ourselves, deepens. We build connection and community when we listen. Life Practice: Continue to alternate sitting practice with a body practice (body scan or yoga) every other day (at least 6x per week) Bring awareness to moments of communication and interpersonal relating. What are you learning from personal practice that can be included in the interpersonal sphere? Continue to practice mindfulness with your chosen daily activity. Notice when you’re more present to all your moments. Pay attention to what you take in: Physically in the form of food and drink, but also what you take in through the senses: media, internet, etc. In all these arenas notice the effects of what you take in and consider the result. Is it what you want? Apply what you’re leaning through practice to one of these ‘inputs’ and notice what happens. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-7-sum23 daily 0.75 2023-08-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606331562016-TT0VGO2UZ04083Q1LQU5/image-asset.jpeg Week 7 - Week 7: Engaged Mindfulness “The source of wisdom is whatever is happening to us right at this very instant. How we relate to it creates the future. What we do accumulates; the future is the result of what we do right now.” Pema Chodron We can apply the lens of mindful awareness to all aspects of our lives. As we build greater awareness—knowing more closely our reactive patterns—we see more clearly and identify opportunities to step out of automatic habitual patterns. We are learning to be at home wherever we are at. Life Practice: Experiment without recordings in daily practice. Aim for 45 minutes of total daily practice time, dividing up the time as it feels most supportive. For example: 10 minutes of yoga, followed by 35 minutes of sitting practice. Or 10 minutes of yoga, 10 minutes of body scan, 25 minutes of sitting practice. If practicing without recordings it too difficult, alternate recordings every other day. Continue with informal practices. Approach informal practice with curiosity and playfulness, being as aware and awake as possible during the day. Continue to work with ‘what you take in,’ perhaps choosing one new action or area to bring awareness to, to investigate what might be supportive and nourishing around this specific area. See if you can capture moments of craving and simply label them. For example, noticing that you want to eat a third cookie, to pour a glass of wine, or to check your phone for another message. Feel the sensation in the body of the craving. Notice any thoughts or feelings associated with the craving. What happens if you don’t do anything but watch the arising and possibly fading away of sensations, if you don’t chase or feed them? Next week is the last class… notice any patterns around endings. What are you seeing? For next week’s class feel free to bring something to share: A reflection, a poem or quote—that represents your experience of practice and/or the community. It is also fine to bring just yourself, as you’ve been doing for the whole program. https://www.meghanslining.com/week-8-fall-23 daily 0.75 2023-11-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5eff46c8aed580171f1e3565/1606332110605-09JQ17WCRM9KDYZJOBBG/image-asset.jpeg Week 8 - Week 8: The Rest of Your Life “Once you are cultivating mindfulness systematically in your life, it is virtually impossible to stop…Over time, the practice tends to teach you what you need to know next. “ Jon Kabat-Zinn “Even not practicing is practicing in a way, if you are aware of how you feel compared with when you do practice regularly and how it affects your ability to handle stress and pain.” Jon Kabat-Zinn Life Practice: The eighth week is the rest of your life. The invitation is to continue to investigate and explore your experiences with curiosity. You are ready to make the practice your own. It may be useful to continue practicing just as you’ve established, for another week or so—to sense how it is to practice without the class—and then to assess and make changes. As you experiment, allow the combination of formal and informal practice to be supportive for you. Trust that you have become familiar with your needs and that you can determine what will be most supportive in any moment. As you continue to make time for practice a priority, do your best to avoid the kind of harsh expectations we sometimes employ when putting a new habit into place. There is a discipline to this—but it’s also much more. Keep exploring with kindness. When you fall away from the practice, be willing to re-enter by being mindful of what’s going on in your life: what are the barriers to practice and how can you reduce them? How can you continue to make your own needs a priority? Resources for Continuing Your Practice: You are welcome to use recordings from our class https://www.meghanslining.com/ Insight Timer (app for your phone or iPad) is another wonderful free resource. Tips for Finding the Right Mindfulness Practice for Your Life: There are many ways to practice mindfulness – short daily meditations, long daily meditations, mindful pauses, weekly or monthly meditation group meet-ups, annual retreats. Only you can discover what works best with your life. Pauses: Life gives us many chances to stop, breath and refresh. Learn to respond to these opportunities. Short daily: A 5-10-minute practice, once, twice or three times a day can refresh your awareness. Long daily: 30-minutes once or twice a day can build regular stability that make the mini-pauses more powerful. Weekly: Many groups hold a weekly sit and talk. It can be supportive to continue to sit and process your experiences with others. With so many online options available now, you can join a sitting group from anywhere and you can take a friend from anywhere with you! Monthly: Doing something intentional once a month (12 times in a year) can make a big difference - perhaps a half-day of silence. Annual/Semi-Annual/Quarterly: Extended periods of practice can be so helpful in reinforcing our learning and building our capacity. Take a look at your calendar and see if there is a time where you can include a longer retreat. Or perhaps you could join the MBSR all-day retreat for my next class (I will always send you an invitation to join). https://www.meghanslining.com/courses daily 0.75 2026-03-10 https://www.meghanslining.com/learn-more-1 daily 0.75 2026-03-10 https://www.meghanslining.com/mbsrpayment daily 0.75 2026-03-10 https://www.meghanslining.com/mbsrpayment/p/mbrp-mindfulness-based-relapse-prevention-course monthly 0.5 2026-03-24 https://www.meghanslining.com/mbsrpayment/p/upcomingcourse monthly 0.5 2026-03-10