ABOUT OUR PROGRAM
This year long course, offers secular mindfulness training from a decolonial access centered approach to learning for people of color.
Who is this for?
The virtual 270 hour, certified Mindfulness Teacher Training course is meant for:
- Educators
- Life Coaches
- Mental Health Workers
- Addiction Counselors
- Organizers
- Community Leaders
- Business Professionals
- Social workers
- Yoga therapists
- Somatic Based Practitioners
- Meditation teachers
- Traditional healers
- Students in Secondary, Doctoral or Postdoctoral Studies
Who are committed to a personal practice, continued training and sharing mindfulness teachings with their communities.
The Training Will Be Delivered Over A Year In Nine Monthly Courses Divided Into Three Stages With One Month Off Between Stages:
Course 1: Coming Home Together
- History Of Mindfulness
- Applications Of Mindfulness In Society
- What “Decolonization” Means To Us
Course 2: The Spiritual Roots Of Secular Mindfulness
- The Buddhist roots of mindfulness
- Universal Wisdoms: mindfulness across religious tradition
Course 3: The Courage To Teach
- Indigenous experiential learning cycle
- Exploring multiple intelligences
- Teaching diverse learners
- Creating safe and liberating spaces
- Mindfulness-based Interventions Teaching Assessment Criteria (MBI:TAC)
- Mindful Inquiry
Course 4: Embodiment, Movement, And Neuroscience
The attitudinal foundations of mindfulness practice
The play, prayer, and practice of movement
Mindful movement
The neuroscience of embodiment
Expanding your window of tolerance and self-regulation
The negativity bias and neuroplasticity
Mindfulness in daily life
Course 5: Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness
Defining trauma
Understanding individual and collective trauma
Moving through “clean pain”
Approaches and principles in mindfulness teaching
Trauma-sensitive scenarios
Somatic exercises
Course 6: Holding Space
Group Development
Your experience with groups
Culturally responsive practice
Transformative learning
Holding space
Reflections on emergent strategy
Group Brainstorm: holding the group learning environment
Reflection: your worst nightmare
Assignment: mindfulness in society research and presentation
Comprehension check: designing a mindfulness program
Course 7: Mindfulness In Society
- Applications of mindfulness in society
- Mindfulness in the Mainstream
- Decolonizing Mindfulness, part I
- The ethics of mindfulness in society
- Movement building through Mindfulness
Course 8: Mindfulness For Social And Environmental Justice
- Mindfulness, embodiment, and personal and collective liberation
- Tapping into the wisdom of the body
- Mindfulness for social justice
- Mindfulness for this moment: inner change and social justice
- Mindfulness for environmental justice
- Secular mindfulness as activism?: critiques and ways forward
- Towards a community-engaged mindfulness
- Decolonizing Mindfulness, part II
Course 9: Celebrating Our Collective Journey
- Presentations of Learning
- Setting yourself up as a mindfulness teacher
- Joining the mindfulness field
As a community we are dedicated to increasing the ways we make our virtual training more accessible for all. Here are some of the steps Freedom Together is employing to support accessibility at this time.
We acknowledge that in making our course certified, the required prerequisites to apply may create some barriers or limits for those who wish to attend. To help mitigate this as much as we are able, we offer a five day retreat ahead of the application due date and also have community partners who are willing and able to support with the 8-week secular mindfulness course requirements that will qualify an interested applicant. To learn more about possible 8-week course offers please email headoffaculty@freedom-together.org.
Our trauma informed curriculum acknowledges the ways that reflective learning can trigger or bring to the surface difficult or challenging memories of lived experiences. The themes and content are designed to move at the speed of trust and capacity for our learners. We also highlight wrap around care with the inclusion of 1-1 mentoring sessions, small groups and spaces to learn and share together in welcoming and caring peer group environments.
We acknowledge that in making our course certified the prerequisites to apply may create some barriers or limits for those who wish to attend. To help mitigate this as much as we are able, we offer a five day retreat ahead of the application due date and also have community partners who are willing and able to support with the 8-week secular mindfulness course requirements that will qualify an interested applicant. To learn more about possible 8-week course offers please email headoffaculty@freedom-together.org
This Course Includes
- Over 10 videotaped recordings and transcripts of guest lectures from prominent teachers contributing to the field of mindfulness.
- Over 200 mins of audio recordings of guided meditations and practices with transcripts.
- Transcripts of all video recorded and live sessions.
- 9 modules of teachings on the sacred and secular origins of Mindfulness across the world, somatic and movement based mindfulness practice, teaching for various learning styles and accessibility needs, an Indigenous approach to mindfulness, how to develop and implement a mindfulness course for and with diverse communities and more.
- Practicums And Practice Sessions Leading Mediation And Developing Cultural Centered Curriculum.
- 300 Mins Of Video Recordsings For Tailored Made Curriculum.
- Q & A And Course Review With Guest Teachers Over Weekend Training Zoom Calls.
- Ten hours of teacher-led classes on Zoom over a weekend (two 6.5-hour days, including breaks) for a total of 90 hours of instruction.
- Nine, 1.5 hour group mentoring sessions per month outside of holidays.
- Twelve hours of student-directed learning per month for a total of 108 hours.
- Four, 30 min one-to-one mentoring sessions.
- 2, mandatory 5 day retreats at the start and end of the Teacher Training (20-25hrs/retreat).
- 270 hours in total of engagement in 1-1 mentorship, small group with peers, video recordings and Freedom Together tailored curriculum, live Zoom teacher training classes with lead faculty and guest teachers.
“Each step in freedom contributes to our freedom together. Mindfulness helps us remember why our separateness inhibits the path of our collective freedom, and when we find remedy in spaces free of racism, mindfulness can lead us back to openness and our inherent wisdom, together.”
Marisela Gomez
How You Will Benefit
- Have the background and ability to share the Buddhist origins and secular history of mindfulness
- Trained and practiced in the ability to offer culturally relevant and decolonial guided meditations in
- a)body,
- b)breath,
- c)kindness,
- d)compassion,
- e)somatic,
- f) movement,
- g)spaciousness and inquiry.
- The development and implementation of a 4-6 week mindfulness course for your communitie.
- Learning how to apply trauma informed and access centered approaches to teaching mindfulness.
- Developing the attitudes, skills, and experiences needed to share and teach mindfulness in our own communities.
- Building community with faculty, facilitators, and peers, co-creating a new mindfulness eco-system that meets the needs and sensibilities of people of color.
- Becoming a certified mindfulness teacher accredited through the International Mindfulness Teacher Association (IMTA), barring completion of all. prerequisites
Prerequisites
Prerequisites
ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS AND COURSE PREREQUISITES
You are eligible to apply if you have:- A minimum 2 years of regular mindfulness meditation practice
- Attended at least 1 mindfulness meditation retreat of a minimum of 5 days with a qualified instructor. More than 1 retreat is highly recommended.
- Attended a mindfulness course like Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs) or equivalent
- Completion and submission of written application materials (includes a teacher/mentor reference)
- A deep connection with mindfulness and meditation and desire to teach mindfulness.
- Lived experience as a BIPOC mindfulness practitioner (“what do we mean by BIPOC”)
- Deep awareness regarding your own social conditioning around race, gender, socioeconomic class, ability, sexual orientation, and other dimensions of identities and how this conditioning often impacts others.
Course Fees
To help spread the cost of training we offer to spread payments over 4, or 6 equal monthly payments instead of full annual tuition payment upfront. The first monthly installment must be received four weeks before the Module 1 start date. Email joy@freedom-together.org to inquire about payment plan options.
Full tuition payment
$500 commitment fee + 1 Full Tuition Payment
4 month payment plan
$500 commitment fee + 4 Partial Tuition payments
6 month payment plan
$500 commitment fee + 6 Partial Tuition payments
Program Costs $5500 USD Includes Retreat Cost
Course Dates
- Opening Retreat August 25 – 28, 2023
- Orientation September 09, 2023
- Module #1 September 16 – 17, 2023
- Module #2 October 14 – 15, 2023
- Module #3 November 18 – 19, 2023
- Break December 2023
- Module #4 January 20 – 21, 2024
- Module #5 February 10 – 11, 2024
- Module #6 March 16 – 17, 2024
- Break April 2024
- Module #7 May 18 – 19, 2024
- Module #8 June 15 – 16, 2024
- Closing Retreat – July 12 – 16, 2024
- Module #9 July 20 – 21, 2024