Eight week mindfulness course with Cesare in Rochester, Kent

This course is appropriate for both the general public, looking for support or who are interested in  self-improvement and professionals and trainees looking for CPD.

Benefits of a mindfulness course

Training in mindfulness allows us to recognise the "gap" between our thoughts, feelings, sensations and our awareness of them, providing us with the choice to react to them in a more useful way or even see that no reaction at all is necessary as we choose to simply be, remaining aware as our thoughts, feelings and sensations come and go like clouds in the sky of our mind. In this way, we can disengage the "automatic pilot" which often drives our lives and have our mind serve us rather than have us be the servants of our wandering and often tiresome mind.

Training in mindfulness can also help us recognise our mind's habits and realise how those habitual patterns create our reality by interpreting events based on our current moods. This recognition in awareness, thus slowly frees us from those habitual patterns, allowing us to let them go or act in a way that is kinder to ourselves and others in the moment as we realise that our reality is less fixed and more fluid than we think.

Mindfulness is a life-skill that anyone can benefit from connecting with and training in. Whether it is to help with life's stresses, anxiety, depression, chronic pain, general well-being or to explore the dimensions of our mind and the experience of what it means to be a human being.

Mindfulness can help us find more peace in an often frantic world, reignite our wonder, creativity and gratitude for life while bringing more presence and spacious kindness to ourself and others as we travel through it.

The course (£250)

Training in mindfulness, like anything, needs to be consistent to bring results and that's what a structured eight-week course, complete with group work and individual home practice is designed to do. It is perfect for those who are completely new and those looking to commit more to their current practice with the support of the course, the group and an instructor.

The course will provide you with the opportunity to learn a combination of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction/Cognitive Therapy techniques, through formal and informal practices that can be easily integrated into your daily life, including mindfulness of eating, breath, bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, sounds and movement, as well as a number of other techniques and thought experiments that support the process.

The course will be supported by

• An e-booklet helping you explore and deepen your understanding of the themes covered in your weekly sessions. It will also include weekly home practice guidance and record sheets to help you keep track of your progress.
• Online guided audio meditations to guide and support you in your home practice.
• Email support in between sessions with Cesare to discuss or elucidate any points emerging during your home practice. 
• Certificate of completion.

Each of the eight sessions will cover a particular theme, these eight themes are:

1. Automatic pilot.
2. Living in our heads.
3.The power of being present.
4. Recognising the mind's habits.
5. Allowing and letting be.
6.Thoughts are not facts.
7. Taking care of ourself.
8. Maintaining and deepening practice.

The course will also include a silent retreat day on a weekend before the last session, where we will practice the techniques and methods learnt in silence together, allowing us to deepen into and consolidate the practice we have put in over the weeks.

Please note that this course includes a daily commitment of up to one hour of home practice in-between sessions. The home practice elements are a core feature of these courses, enabling participants to become familiar with them and explore their cumulative benefits. Simply attending the taught components of these courses, although useful, won't allow for the complete experience and benefits the course is designed to provide.

Prior to the start of the course, there will be a questionnaire (to assess prior experience and any physical and/or mental health needs) for all prospective participants to complete and return.

Past participant feedback

"This course is brilliant!"

"I found the mindfulness course truly inspiring. Cesare delivered a fantastic training with an informative yet very personal and individual feel. It has changed the way I live my life. Every moment feels more sacred and my mind feels calmer."

"I loved the open group discussions and the rapport I had with the group as a whole."

"The mindfulness course has transformed many aspects of my mind and the way I react/over analyse situations. This has allowed me to create more nourishing
relationships in my life."

"It has allowed me to work towards becoming and maintaining my best self."

"Learning to be more mindful has allowed me to become more grounded, I am now
more aware of my thoughts and actions."

"I have understood the power of giving time and taking care of myself, and how
this energy has an expansive effect on those around me."

"I have learned how to connect my mind with my body and this has
helped me release tension in problem areas."

"The mindfulness course has given me a strength to be kind to myself - to allow myself some breathing space which has enabled me to be of benefit to others."

Your mindfulness instructor

Cesare completed his Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy teacher training retreat with the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, University of Oxford. He currently conducts mindfulness courses and training for organisations e.g. Medway Council and Young Healthy Minds. Cesare is also a qualified counsellor with Kent and Medway NHS, and runs a successful private psychotherapy practice.

Cesare began as a teacher in secondary schools. He later went on to education, training and employment within UK prisons, and then specialised in addiction and substance misuse counselling.

For over nine years, Cesare’s own meditation practice has been under the guidance of international Buddhist teachers. He set up Bodhicharya Kent, a non-profit group which provides teachings and practice in meditation and Buddhism. There he has been facilitating thriving ongoing weekly meditation classes for the Kent community in Rochester for the past four years, under the guidance of his main teacher, Ringu Tulku Rinpoche.

Details

Times: sessions will be between two and two and a half hours long and the start time will be from 7:30pm.

Dates: Friday; 6th, 13th, 20th, 27th January and 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th February.

Day retreat: silent day retreat on Saturday 4th or Sunday 5th March, date and venue TBC.

To book your place now, please follow the PayPal link below or if you have any questions at all regarding the course or payment, then please do get in touch via email or with the number below.

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=4YZ3W6C68ENP6

Hoping to see you in the New Year and to accompany you on your mindfulness journey

Very best wishes,

Cesare

cesare_saguato@hotmail.co.uk

07766720702.