Interpersonal Mindfulness: An 8-Week Course
with Elaine Retholtz
Course: Wednesdays January 15th – March 4th, 2020 | 6:30pm – 9:00pm
Daylong: Saturday February 8th, 2020 | 10:00am – 5:00pm
Many of us have spent a great deal of time in solitary practice, on the cushion, developing mindfulness and calm concentration. As we move into the normal flow of our daily lives, we experience the challenges of sustaining mindfulness. As humans we are exquisitely sensitive, every moment awash in a sea of contact. Touching and being touched, feeling, perceiving, and thinking, we create our world. Can we cultivate awareness in these dynamic moments of contact?
Is it possible that human relationships are one of the best fields for cultivating mindfulness? From birth, we have been designed for attunement with others. The absence of attunement is a significant source of stress. With the support of each other’s awareness and kind intention to pay attention to the very act of communicating becomes an opportunity for awakening our inherent capacities for love, joy, and wisdom. What better place to learn how to pause in of the habit mind, notice tensions and relax, kindly accept present moment experience, open and trust emergence as we listen deeply and speak the truth of our subjective experience.
The Interpersonal Mindfulness Program was developed jointly by Florence Meleo-Meyer and Phyllis Hicks, senior MBSR teachers from the Center for Mindfulness (now at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University) and Metta Programs respectively, and Gregory Kramer, who developed the Insight Dialogue practice upon which the course is based. It was specifically designed for graduates of MBSR programs but is suitable for anyone with a mindfulness practice who has experience or is willing to experience stepping out of silent practice and applying mindfulness in human interaction. The bulk of the class time is spent in dyads, using the Insight Dialogue Guidelines while engaging in contemplations about shared aspects of human experience.
Registration:
Please register at the highest level that your generosity offers.
Registration Fees include Teacher Support
New York Insight Meditation Center has streamlined the registration fee levels. Members of our Circle of Friends are eligible to receive 20% off of the Sustaining Rate via a code provided in the email confirming membership, which you can enter after clicking the Sustaining Level registration.
If you have questions about your registration (cancellation policy, membership discount, email confirmation, etc.), please read our FAQs. If your question is not addressed in the FAQs, please email registration@nyimc.org.
If you are unable to pay the Subsidized Base Fee, you can learn about volunteering to offer work exchange and letting us know how much you are able to pay for this program by emailing registration@nyimc.org.
Teacher(s)
Elaine Retholtz
Elaine Retholtz has been studying and practicing the Dharma since 1988. In addition to teaching Dharma at New York Insight, she is a certified Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction teacher and has a deep interest in helping students integrate mindfulness practice into daily life. Elaine is committed to deepening her own understanding of issues of diversity and the way racial conditioning in the United States affects all of us — both as individuals and in relationship to the institutions we are a part of, including New York Insight. She’s been involved in New York Insight’s diversity efforts for many years, serving on the diversity committee, and working with others to create spaces – for diverse groups of practitioners as well as for white practitioners meeting separately – to explore these issues within a Dharma frame.