A FEW WORDS
About Our Practice
Mindfulness
“Mindfulness can best be described as an intentional focused awareness – a way of paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn).
This uncritical presence helps us cultivate a different relationship with our experiences, one that allows us to meet the world as it is with curiosity, openness, and kindness rather than resistance and fear. Mindfulness invites us to be fully awake for each moment of our lives and for those around us. It builds the inner resources to take better care of ourselves and develops our resources for coping, growing, and healing.
MBSR
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The course sprung out of Kabat-Zinn’s desire to provide support to patients who were not responding to conventional medical treatment. Today, the course is one of the most widely taught mindfulness program in the country. Watch a video with Jon Kabat-Zinn speaking at Dartmouth College on the healing power of mindfulness.
Practicing mindfulness, whether through meditation or in daily life, cultivates mental and physical resilience and an ability to deal with stressors and life circumstances with more patience and discernment. These benefits, and others, have been documented through 40 years of research.
Here are some of the most common benefits of cultivating mindfulness:
- Improved resilience in the face of stress
- More compassion for self and others
- Better levels of concentration and attention
- Improved immunity
- Diminished suffering from pain and anxiety
- Greater sense of meaning and purpose in life
For more information on mindfulness see our resources page.
About the Teacher
Celine Kavalec
Celine is a qualified MBSR teacher, trained through the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness and Brown University. She received her MBSR Qualified Teacher status in 2018.
She has been an educator for over 30 years at Valencia College in different capacities and began her MBSR training in 2016, though she began practicing and learning about meditation 24 years ago. She currently teaches mindfulness to students and faculty at Valencia College and in the Central Florida community. She continues to complete courses toward her Teacher Certification through the Mindfulness Center at Brown University.
She began teaching because of a desire to help others and sees mindfulness as a means to bring healing and joy to herself and others.
She wishes presence and peace to all.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION