GUIDING EMBODIED INQUIRY WITH INDIVIDUALS (GEII): A TRAINING FOR MINDFULNESS MEDITATION TEACHERS

This is a year-long training for mindfulness meditation teachers to develop the skills for supporting individual students in psychological and spiritual healing and growth. 
 

Mindfulness meditation is traditionally taught in a group setting, which is  what meditation teachers traditionally are trained for. Often, we find that students are interested in meeting with teachers individually to explore  personal practice and bringing their mindfulness skills to their own emotional life and circumstances. 
 

As meditation teachers, we know the great benefit in accompanying students with compassionate presence toward discovery of their own inner wisdom. We can support our students in recognizing and letting go of the holding patterns and beliefs that limit freedom to love life and live fully. The skills of mindfulness are powerful for recognizing and releasing psychological  patterns, healing old wounds, and transforming relationships, which goes  hand in hand with spiritual awakening.


The GEII course provides the opportunity to deepen understanding and practice in the following skills: 

  • Discerning who can benefit from compassionate presence, deep listening, and guided inquiry, and who would be served by working with a mental health professional instead of, or in addition to, a meditation teacher

  • Supporting students in developing embodied presence and tracking experience in the body

  • Helping students cultivate their capacity to navigate strong emotions

  • Supporting students in exploring their thoughts and emotions as a path to insight

  • Supporting the healing of the conditioned self

  • Supporting students in working with relationship issues

  • Guiding relevant spiritual practices and principles to support growth and development

  • Supporting students as they cultivate and encounter spiritual openings

    Specific strategies that you will have an opportunity to practice utilizing and teaching during the course include:

  • Attunement

  • Reflective listening

  • Holding non-judging presence 

  • Self-kindness and self-compassion

  • Embodied awareness and tracking

  • Somatic processing of emotion

  • The practice of RAIN

  • Deepening questions

  • Working with imagery

  • Various guided meditations that serve to uncover challenges or provide  healing and growth

  • Embodied compassion and kindness practices

  • Practices to bring mindfulness into daily life

  • Spiritual reparenting

  • Using Buddhist and other teachings to help students reframe their experience 

Course Structure:

  • Twelve 4-hour online sessions, monthly for one year 

  • Practice with fellow students during and between meetings

  • Four online individual sessions throughout the year (two with each teacher) 

  • Retreat weekend (online)

Application: Please complete this application to express your interest in the course. Applications will be reviewed, and the teachers will be in touch with you about next steps.

Tuition: $2,000. Scholarship available on an as-needed basis; contact Cynthia to apply.

​Highly Recommended Precursor Course: Inquiry 8-Week Course. This course offers direct experience of many of the self-inquiry practices taught in the GEII course. The Inquiry course provides a jumping off place for in-depth inquiry theory and practice (both individually and in dyads) that will allow for a deeper understanding of these practices as they arise in the GEII course. Participants who register for both the Inquiry course and the GEII course will receive a $100 discount on the Inquiry course. Contact Stan if you have plans to register for both courses.


ABOUT THE TEACHERS

This curriculum is developed and presented by Cynthia Wilcox, Ph.D. and Stan Eisenstein.  Both work extensively with mindfulness-based groups and with individuals using a mindfulness. They come from different background and bring unique skills sets converging in this common space.

Cynthia Wilcox is a meditation teacher and psychologist. Her personal journey includes coming to live from embodied presence and listening to the wisdom of the body. Cynthia has a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and has completed in-depth trainings including Bodywork for Trauma Resolution and Embodiment of Spirit (Brigit Viksnins), Realization Process (Judith Blackstone), and a two-year meditation teacher training (Tara Brach, Jonathan Foust, Hugh Byrne, and Pat Coffey).

​Cynthia has been practicing psychotherapy for more than 25 years, integrating somatic psychotherapy, embodied meditation, and mindful awareness. She develops and guides deepening practice courses and retreats with the theme of bringing embodied awareness to our relational patterns. She works with therapists to integrate mindfulness and meditation into their work with clients, and she guides a number of mindfulness-based groups and sanghas.

​Cynthia is a mentor in the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program and has mentored in other programs developed by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield (Power of Awareness, Awakening the Fearless Heart, Conscious Loving: Pathways for Awakening our Hearts, Radical Compassion). She was formerly an adjunct teacher with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington

Stan Eisenstein is a teacher for Insight Meditation Community of Washington (IMCW). He completed his mindfulness meditation training in 2013 with teachers Tara Brach, Jonathan Foust, and others. Stan is or has been a mentor for many of Tara Brach’s online courses: Power of Awareness, Awakening Your Fearless Heart, Conscious Loving, Radical Self-Acceptance, and the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program.

 Stan has been teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) since 2013. He has created and taught courses in Inviting Chronic Pain and Illness to Tea, Self-Inquiry, and Deepening Practice for MBSR Graduates. He regularly guides meditation retreats for IMCW.

​Stan has been practicing Insight Meditation since 2004. He has a master’s degree in Social Work, though he is not a licensed psychotherapist. He taught high school physics for 32 years. Besides training to be a mindfulness meditation teacher, he has also trained in Somatic Experiencing (an embodied trauma therapy), Integrative Breathwork, and various embodiment practices. Stan also experienced over seven years of psychotherapy, both in group and individual formats.

 Stan has been mentoring individuals since 2014. Many of the practices to be taught in this course come from his direct experience in working with individuals who were seeking greater freedom, more ease in their daily lives, or healing from past conditioning or wounding.

GEII COURSE DETAILS

2023-2024 Course:

  • Monthly on Sundays (11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Eastern Time), 9/10/23, 10/8/23, 11/19/23, 12/10/23, 1/21/24, 2/11/24, 3/10/24, 4/14/24, 5/12/24, 6/9/24, 7/14/24, and 8/11/24.

  • Practice with fellow students during and between meetings and individual sessions with teachers to be scheduled based on mutual availability.

  • Online retreat weekend (Saturday/Sunday) on June 29-30, 2024.

​Details about registration will be provided upon acceptance of your application.