We begin with a short inspirational reading that you can choose to reflect on during your meditation. The meditation is 20 minutes and not guided, so you can choose whatever you like for your meditation during this session.

You can listen to a guided meditation, focus on your breath, repeat a mantra, gaze at a candle flame, or whatever works best for you.

A mindful bell is rung once at the beginning, once every 5 minutes to bring you back to center, and once at the end to close the meditation.

After the 20 minutes of meditation, we will have a mindful sharing of our experience with others in our community circle.

Fee: Free, By Donation, or Monthly Membership
You will receive an email after the class that will indicate you can pay what you like.

Time Listed is (CST) Central Time Zone (Chicago). See https://timezoneconversion.org to convert to your Time Zone.

Our goal for the Mindful Book Group is to embrace mindfulness practices in all areas of our lives. All the books that are chosen for our group are either from teachers of mindfulness or otherwise rooted in mindfulness practices.

Meets every other week.

Fee: By Donation or Monthly Membership
You will receive an email after the class that will indicate you can pay what you like.

More information at the Mindful Book Group website, see link below.

Our new book starts January 13th.

Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive by Kristin Neff

The author of Self-Compassion follows up her groundbreaking book with new ideas that expand our notion of self-kindness and its capacity to transform our lives, showing women how to balance tender self-acceptance with fierce action to claim their power and change the world.

Kristin Neff changed how we talk about self-care with her enormously popular first book, Self-Compassion. Now, ten years and many studies later, she expands her body of work to explore a brand-new take on self-compassion. Although kindness and self-acceptance allow us to be with ourselves as we are, in all our glorious imperfection, the desire to alleviate suffering at the heart of this mindset isn't always gentle, sometimes it's fierce. We must also act courageously in order to protect ourselves from harm and injustice, say no to others so we can meet our own needs, and motivate necessary change in ourselves and society. Gender roles demand that women be soft and nurturing, not angry or powerful. But like yin and yang, the energies of fierce and tender self-compassion must be balanced for wholeness and wellbeing.

Drawing on a wealth of research, her personal life story and empirically supported practices, Neff demonstrates how women can use fierce and tender self-compassion to succeed in the workplace, engage in caregiving without burning out, be authentic in relationships, and end the silence around sexual harassment and abuse. Most women intuitively recognize fierceness as part of their true nature, but have been discouraged from developing it. Women must reclaim their power in order to create a healthier society and find lasting happiness. In this wise, caring, and enlightening book, Neff shows women how to reclaim balance within themselves, so they can help restore balance in the world.

Time Listed is (CST) Central Time Zone (Chicago). See https://timezoneconversion.org to convert to your Time Zone.