Instructor: Trish Magyari, MS, LCPC

Register Online

Calling all Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teachers:
Are you a lover of our one precious planet?
Bring the Earth into your mindfulness teaching!

As MBSR teachers, we have the opportunity to wonder. 

• Am I ready to invite the Earth into my own practice and into my MBSR classroom? What resources do I need in place to meet myself and my students at this time of global climate/inequity crisis?
• Can the MBSR curriculum include awareness of the beauty and vulnerability of the Earth, our human family and all of our more-than-human kin?
• As teachers, can we adapt our own lives and the life of our teaching, given the Earth’s need for our love, compassion and caring response?

The MBSR and Eco-Awareness Workshop brings together MBSR teachers to contemplate and engage in practice around their wishes for wellbeing and healing for our planet Earth.

The six sessions of the workshop cover all 10 MBSR class sessions. Workshop meetings are divided approximately in half: the first half is dedicated to Earth Awareness practice and time for sharing personal reflections and experiences; the second half allows time for considering and sharing ways of inviting Earth Awareness into the curriculum and MBSR classroom. Teachers can share both their established ways and their discoveries around new possibilities for bringing Earth Awareness into their teaching of the MBSR curriculum. Together, we can engage in the challenge and the benefit of holding the Earth as a fully worthy recipient in the circle of MBSR care, compassion and embodied action.

Teachers prepare for each meeting by engaging with practice and self-reflection prompts, reading/listening to/watching selected study materials, and reviewing the MBSR curriculum for the two MBSR class sessions to be discussed. Teachers are also encouraged to write and share between workshop meetings, and to contribute to a collection of articles, poems, guided practices and other resources to support Earth Awareness. Each teacher will leave the workshop with a wealth of materials to gain inspiration from.

Workshop Sessions and Topics

Session One: Start Where You Are Gather

• Meeting One Another, Making Community
• Explore: How am I with the Polycrisis/Climate Emergency?
• Review and Plan: Possibilities for Earth Awareness in Orientation & Class 1

Session Two: Resourcing for the Journey

• Explore: What helps me maintain wellbeing and openness?
• Consider: Connecting with nature
• Review and Plan: Possibilities for Earth Awareness in Classes 2 & 3

Session Three: Honoring Our Pain for the World

• Explore: Facing challenge, difficulty, anxiety, grief for our Earth
• Consider: Causes and conditions of climate emergency
• Consider: Mindfulness-Based Coping strategies
• Review and Plan: Possibilities for Earth Awareness in Classes 4 & 5

Session Four: Deepening into Practice

• Explore: Listening to the Earth
• Share: Earth-based Practices
• Review and Plan: Possibilities for Earth Awareness in the Retreat Class

Session Five: Sustainability in the Midst of it All

• Explore: Tuning in to the collective intelligence
• Consider: Building capacity and resilience for the long run
• Review and Plan: Possibilities for Earth Awareness in Classes 6 & 7

Session Six: Integration and Going Forth

• Reflect: in review and looking forward
• Review and Plan: Possibilities for Earth Awareness in Class 8 and beyond
• Ending, and continuing, in Community

Typical Session Outline

• Welcome and landing
• Earth Practice
• Reflections and Sharing
• Curriculum Review, Teaching Questions, Action Learning Possibilities, Practice Guiding
• Closing

Goals for this Workshop

Over the course of 5 online group sessions, participating teachers engage around four aims: 

• Reflect on their relationship with the Earth’s poly-crisis
• Share MBSR-specific and other practices to support each other in awareness, compassion and engagement for the Earth’s wellbeing
• Review the MBSR curriculum to identify practices, activities and means for calling out the natural place of Earth in our lives and awareness
• Prepare and guide brief Earth-informed mindfulness practices
• Discuss the challenges and possibilities of teaching in a way that invites the Earth herself in as a fully worthy recipient in the circle of MBSR care, compassion and embodied action.

What will you receive from this workshop?

• Earth-based practices for your own use and to incorporate into your MBSR teaching
• A variety of ways to resource yourself in gratitude, compassion, joy and connection during these challenging times
• Creative methods for invoking Earth awareness into your MBSR class plans
• Opportunities for practice guiding others in Earth-informed practices
• Good colleagues to share with and support you during the workshop and beyond
• Quarterly refresher gatherings and dedicated online sharing group for graduates of this workshop
• Additional development resources to access beyond the workshop

Participant Guidelines

This teacher development workshop is for MBSR and MBCT teachers. Some MBSR and MBCT course teaching experience is recommended. 

Participation in Research

Participants in the workshop are asked to participate in research around best practices for teachers who wish to bring EcoAwareness into their teaching. At the beginning of the first workshop session, you’ll be asked to give your permission for session recording. Program sessions will be recorded for use by participants in the instance of a missed session and also for research purposes. Workshop participants are asked to give permission to the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies to review transcriptions of pre-program information forms, session recordings, transcriptions, any written reflections and post-program surveys.

Here is a statement from our research partners at Lund University, Sweden:

Lund University is conducting early review and research around best practices for teachers bringing EcoAwareness into mindfulness teaching. All information gathered by Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) will be completely anonymized and used solely for research purposes. LUCSUS will not share your data with any external stakeholders, and it will be securely stored in password-protected files. Research data will be archived and disposed of in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Participants may contact Professor Christine Wamsler with any questions or concerns (christine.wamsler@lucsus.lu.se).

Schedule

March 6 - April 10, 2025

3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PT (March 6: until 5:30 p.m. PT)

Registration Fees

General Registration: $400 ($350 early-bird rate available for those who pay 30 days in advance)

UCSD Employee Registration: $350 ($300 early-bird rate available for those who pay 30 days in advance)

*Scholarships are available. Please email mindfulness@health.ucsd.edu.

Application Form

During the registration process, you will be required to fill out an online application form.

Your application for this training will not be taken under consideration until the application form has been submitted. Should your qualifications not be accepted for admittance, a full refund will be granted. Please do not make any travel arrangements until you are approved.

Partial Payments

Partial payments are acceptable; however a non-refundable/non-transferable minimum deposit of $100 USD is due upon registration.

Please be aware that the early-bird rate is available for all participants who register and pay their balance in full by the early-bird deadline (see registration information above). All early-bird rate participants who have a remaining balance on or after the early-bird deadline will have their fees automatically adjusted to the General Session Rate.

All remaining balances must be paid in full 30 days prior to the start of the training or your registration will be cancelled for non-payment and you will not be permitted to attend.

Cancellation Policy

A refund (minus your $100 non-refundable/non-transferable deposit) will be made for cancellations submitted in writing 30 days prior to the training by emailing mindfulness@health.ucsd.edu. No refunds will be allowed after that date. Registration, deposits, and funds are non-transferable.

In the unlikely event that the course is cancelled, UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness is responsible only for a full refund of the registration fee and not for transportation, hotel accommodations or any miscellaneous expenses.

The refunds are processed in the same method as payment were submitted.

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.

What teachers are saying about the workshop

• I’m working with this question: how do I bring Eco-Awareness to inspire people, because if people really become inspired or feel connected to someone, then it just naturally engenders care for that someone. I that’s true of the Earth, too, and that’s what I’m trying to do in going more deep with my Eco-Awareness teaching.
• I want to live more and more in alignment with the universal life force that created planet Earth, that sustains planet Earth. So for me, personally, I feel a stronger conviction to do that.
• I feel much more of a sense of personal and collective agency to affect positive change, and to support others.
• The last thing I want to do is add the fuel to the fire of climate anxiety or depression. And yet it is all about awareness, right? It's all about waking up.
• It was and is such a gift to participate in your inquiry, opening up to deeper connections and taking action with small steps. Learning and teaching eco awareness and responsibility, starting with finding my own support and resilience.
• I feel more connected than ever to the natural world.
• It’s become part of my practice around teaching, that the awe of the earth and the cosmos, to really let that work on me, which then increases my commitment to the teaching work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need to be actively teaching an MBSR or MBCT course as I participate in the workshop?

A: It’s helpful if teachers are teaching an MBSR or MBCT course at some point during their workshop participation, but not a requirement.

Q: Do we talk about our students during the workshop?

A: At times, teachers may describe students’ experiences for the benefit of the group. This is always done anonymously and within the confidentiality of a teacher gathering.

Q: What if I need to miss an online session?

A: Workshop sessions will be recorded for the convenience of those unable to attend a given session. All teachers give consent for recording.

Q: What benefits have teachers reported after completing this workshop:

A: So far, there has been one workshop completed, the pilot workshop. Teachers in the pilot were affected in many ways. They reported these experiences: 

• Experienced the power and impact of sitting with the Earth, in all her beauty and fragility, as the object of meditation
• Increased awareness of the wholeness of life and interconnection with the Earth, kinship with all her living beings, her challenges, history and her call for change and care
• Appreciation for Earth mindfulness practice that includes awareness beyond self
• Increased recognition of the crisis around the Earth and human ecology
• Capability and permission to include Earth awareness in MBSR and MBI teachings
• Beginning to research and recognize the evidence-basis of Earth Awareness practice
• Creativity in bringing Earth Awareness into the MBSR curriculum
• Trust in the capacity for students to consider their own relationship with the Earth and our human role in her crisis, as a mindfulness exercise
• Recognizing the potential to use trauma-informed mindfulness strategies to support students around climate anxiety
• Gratitude for being with and learning from other MBSR teachers, around Earth Awareness and for general MBSR support
• Commitment to further develop and include Earth Awareness into ongoing mindfulness practice in ways that provide support, stability and good care for themselves, their students and beyond

Q: For the students in these MBSR classes, what benefits do they report?

A: Students have reported an array of benefits, such as feeling closer to the Earth, connecting with the natural world around them, finding inspiration to do more to help the planet, and a desire to apply their mindfulness practice to benefit our shared Earth.

Needs Assessment

The utilization of mindfulness in a clinical context is a burgeoning area of study and practice in the mental health field in the past few years. The number of research articles, books and popular press articles on the topic is growing exponentially each year and the demand for quality professional training in these practices and techniques is growing each year. The first level training in MBSR has been offered for the past fourteen years through the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness, with increasing enrollments each year, as well as at other sites across the country and around the world. This has led to a growing number of practitioners who have some experience in teaching MBSR and are seeking further opportunities for professional development in the field.

Cultural and Linguistic Competency Statement

California Assembly Bill 1195 requires continuing medical education activities with patient care components to include curriculum in the subjects of cultural and linguistic competency. It is the intent of the bill, which went into effect on July 1, 2006, to encourage physicians and surgeons, CME providers in the state of California, and the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to meet the cultural and linguistic concerns of a diverse patient population through appropriate professional development. The planners, speakers and authors of this activity have been encouraged to address issues relevant in their topic area. In addition, a variety of resources are available that address cultural and linguistic competency, some of which are included in your syllabus or handout materials. Additional resources and information about AB1195 can be found on the CME website.

Disclosure

It is the policy of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine to ensure balance, independence, objectivity and scientific rigor. All persons involved in the selection, development and presentation of content are required to disclose any real or apparent conflicts of interest. All conflicts of interest will be resolved prior to an educational activity being delivered to the learners through one of the following mechanisms 1) altering the financial relationship with the commercial interest, 2) altering the individual’s control over content about the products or services of the commercial interest, and/or 3) validating the activity content through independent peer review. All persons are also required to disclose any discussions of off label/unapproved uses of drugs or devices. Persons who refuse or fail to disclose are disqualified from participating in the activity. Participants will be asked to evaluate whether the speaker’s outside interests reflect a possible bias in the planning or presentation of the activity. This information is used to plan future activities. All faculty members listed above have no relevant financial relationships to disclose. The MBPTI staff, meeting planners, planning committee and MBPTI committee reviewers do not have any relevant financial relationships to disclose. The views and opinions expressed in this activity are those of the faculty and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine or University of California, San Diego Medical Center.