Mindfulness & Resilience

Coping with COVID: A Half Day Mindfulness Retreat

Restore, Renew and Reconnect

📅 Date and time: November 7th, 2020, 9:30am - 1:30pm EST

Fee: $75 + HST

💻 Delivered virtually

Please join us for our second retreat for graduates of McMaster University Faculty of Health Sciences Program for Faculty Development mindfulness courses. Graduates of other mindfulness courses including Hamilton Health Sciences Centre for People Development are also welcome to attend.

The more we understand and practice our mindfulness and self compassion skills, the more they become an integrated part of our professional and personal lives. We are better able to remain calm and resilient in times of stress and adversity; particularly in Covid 19 times of uncertainty.

Wherever you are on your mindfulness journey, we invite you to deepen your practice, rejuvenate your spirit and reconnect with our growing mindfulness community and find support in being with like-minded colleagues.

Course Description:

This retreat is designed to provide healthcare professionals staff and educators, with prior meditation experience, an opportunity to deepen their mindfulness practices.

This retreat will provide an opportunity to:

•Deepen your self-awareness to enable greater resiliency in times of stress

•Refresh your practice of familiar mindfulness practices, and learn new ones. Some of these practices include: See, Hear, Feel meditation, Affectionate breathing, Mindful Movement , Compassionate body scan, and Equanimity practice.

Who should attend? Any health professional or staff or educator who has attended a previous mindful course or who has (had) a regular mindfulness practice. If you are not sure about this please email: mkennedy@mcmaster.ca

Course Faculty

Barbara Smith, MFA, GIT, MS. Psych, RP (CRPO), certified EMDR therapist, PACT level II - Barbara is a Registered Psychotherapist in private practice and mental health counsellor with the Hamilton Family Health Team (retired). She has been involved in contemplative studies for over 4 decades and has extensive training and experience in Mindfulness. She has trained in MBSR, DRAM (Discovering Resilience through Applied Mindfulness), Mindful Communication with Drs. Ron Epstein and Mick Krasner, at the University of Rochester, NY. Barbara is a trained Mindful Self-Compassion teacher and studied under Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer (2014). She presently teaches Mindful Self-Compassion and Mindful Communication courses in Hamilton. Barbara is part of the executive of Mindfulness Hamilton, has studied with Michael Stone and the application of mindfulness in clinical practice and has also studied with Pema Chodron, Ron Siegel and Dr. Gabor Mate.

Ken Burgess (McMaster BSc MD CCFP (EM) FCFP ‘77 is a semi-retired family, occupational and emergency physician. He has been on faculty since 1980, teaching medical students and residents. He helped found the first free –standing occupational health clinic in Canada in 1981. He was a leader in the Hamilton Family Health Team and the Ontario Association of Family Health teams. He has had a meditation practice for about twenty-five years has attended numerous meditation retreats and mindfulness courses and teaches mindfulness, and in particular the neuroscience of mindfulness. Since 2014 he has been a co-chair of the Program for Faculty Development’s Discovering Resilience Leadership Team which has run mindfulness courses and workshops.

Cancellation Policy: McMaster University, Program for Faculty Development reserves the right to cancel a course due to insufficient registration or any circumstances beyond our control. Cancellations received prior to October 24th, 2020 will be refunded minus a 25% administrative fee. No refunds will be issued for cancellations received after this date.