related websites
Awakened Heart Project
If you are Jewish and would like to find a meditation practice that is rooted in the Jewish tradition, the mission of Awakened Heart Project is to promote the use of Jewish contemplative techniques that foster the development of a heart of wisdom and compassion. Cultivating an awakened heart leads to acting in the world with loving-kindness towards all beings recognizing them as manifestations of the Holy One of Being. The AHP provides opportunities for a focused effort at refining contemplative Jewish practices, such as meditation and prayer, as well as creating opportunities for intensive practice.
Contemplative Outreach
If you are a Christian and would like to find a meditation practice that is rooted in the Christian Tradition, Contemplative Outreach is a spiritual network of individuals and small faith communities committed to living the contemplative dimension of the Gospel. The common desire for Divine transformation, primarily expressed through a commitment to a daily Centering Prayer practice, unites our international, interdenominational community.Today, Contemplative Outreach annually serves over 40,000 people; supports over 120 active contemplative chapters in 39 countries; supports over 800 prayer groups; teaches over 15,000 people the practice of Centering Prayer and other contemplative practices through locally-hosted workshops; and provides training and resources to local chapters and volunteers. We also publish and distribute the wisdom teachings of Fr. Thomas Keating and other resources that support the contemplative life.
Half-Full: Science for Raising Happy Kids
This blog about science-based parenting advice comes from Christine Carter, PhD, sociologist and the executive director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. Says Carter, “Since I'm reading all the research related to raising happy children anyway, I thought we might as well make it USEABLE to parents. We hope this is a valuable counterpoint to some of the more opinion-based parenting advice platforms that are out there, especially because sorting out fact from fiction can be confusing when it comes to parenting.”
Making Healthy Families
This site is a parenting and family resource for childbirth, pregnancy and raising healthy families brought to you by prenatal and family development expert Dr. Gayle Peterson. Search these articles for guidelines based on scientific research on what promotes and ensures healthy family relationships. Our families are the gardens in which we grow, parents and children alike. Information on family processes that promote connection over disconnection spell the difference.
Mindful Mama™
Mindful Mama™ partners with birth and wellness practitioners to encourage environmental awareness and healthy lifestyle among women in the child-bearing and caring years. Through positive media, we inspire mothers to use their power as consumers to create a healthy and sustainable future for families worldwide.
WiseBrain.org
Go to this website for a plethora of “News and Tools for Happiness, Love, and Wisdom” at the meeting place of psychology, neuroscience, and contemplative practice.
recommended books
Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
In the rush, rush, rush of too-much-to-do-and-no-time-to-do-it, the all-important, nurturing aspects of parenthood can easily disappear. Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Wherever You Go, There You Are and Myla Kabat-Zinn have collaborated on Everyday Blessings, a book that approaches parenting from the Zen Buddhist position of moment-to-moment awareness. It's a beautiful presentation and a thoughtful approach to mindful meditation that will help you slow down, enrich your life as a parent, and nourish the internal life of your children.
Parenting From the Inside Out
In this book, psychiatrist Daniel Siegel and educator Mary Hartzell present a unique perspective on the "art and science" of building nurturing relationships with our children. Born out of a series of workshops for parents that combined Siegel's cutting-edge research on how communication impacts brain development with Hartzell's thirty years of experience as a child development specialist and parent educator, Parenting from the Inside Out guides parents through creating the necessary foundations for a loving and secure relationship with their children.
meditation and mindful awareness teachings
Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society
Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is perhaps the most well-known secular form of mindfulness training. Available now at most major medical centers across the U.S., it takes the form of an eight-week class that meets once a week for three hours, plus a day-long retreat.
Center of Timeless Being
The Center of Timeless Being is dedicated to the path of self-inquiry and to all who aspire to awaken to their true nature as the formless sacred mystery of Being that underlies all of life. Richard Miller, the founder, is the author of Yoga Nidra: The Meditative Heart of Yoga as well as numerous articles, and on this website you can access more information about his teachings and work with a variety of populations including returning veterans.
Dharma Seed
This website offers hundreds of dharma talks (teachings on Theravada Buddhism) freely available for download or streaming as digital audio files (MP3s), many by teachers mentioned in the Mindful Motherhood book.
Eckhart Tolle
Spiritual Teacher and author Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany and educated at the Universities of London and Cambridge. At the age of twenty-nine a profound inner transformation radically changed the course of his life. The next few years were devoted to understanding, integrating and deepening that transformation, which marked the beginning of an intense inward journey. is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Power of Now (translated into 33 languages) and the highly acclaimed follow-up A New Earth.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy
If you’ve experienced depression, you might consider mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), which is designed to help people who suffer repeated bouts of depression and chronic unhappiness. It combines the ideas of cognitive therapy with meditative practices and attitudes based on the cultivation of mindfulness. MBCT was developed by Zindel Segal, Mark Williams, and John Teasdale based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program.
New Earth - Webcast Archive
A series of ten in-depth interviews with Eckhart Tolle, author of The
Power of Now (1999) and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
(2008). This archive also includes exercises and chat rooms and will teach
you everything you ever wanted to know about present-moment awareness. Material
is available for download and transcripts are available. Search “A New Earth”
at:
www.oprah.com
Open Gate Sangha
Adyashanti’s nondual teachings have been compared to those of the early Zen masters and Advaita Vedanta sages. Expressing both the infinite possibilities and the ordinary simplicity of a spiritually realized life, Adyashanti’s teachings are directed to those who are sincerely called to awaken to their true nature and embody this life-changing realization. At this website you can read Adyashanti’s writings, listen to audio excerpts, or watch video clips.
Pema Chödrön
Pema Chödrön is the resident teacher at Gampo Abbey, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery for Westerners and has authored several books, including: The Places that Scare You, When Things Fall Apart, and Start Where You Are. She is widely known for her down-to-earth interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism for Western audiences.
Sharon Salzberg
One of America’s leading spiritual teachers and authors, Sharon Salzberg is cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, Massachusetts. She has played a crucial role in bringing Asian meditation practices to the West. The ancient Buddhist practices of vipassana (mindfulness) and metta (lovingkindness) are the foundations of her work. This website offers a wealth of articles, audio, meditation teachings, media, and a calendar of events for IMS.
Spirit Rock Family Program
offers classes, daylongs, benefits, and residential retreats in Woodacre, California in which the practice and teachings of mindful awareness from the insight meditation tradition are offered in order to support the development of wisdom and compassion for children, teens, whole families, and the wider community.
Spirit Rock Meditation Center and The Insight Meditation Society
If you are interested in learning more about mindfulness meditation or in participating in a meditation retreat in which you practice mindfulness meditation with skilled teachers from one to ten days or more, you might look into Spirit Rock Meditation Center on the West Coast or the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA.
Sylvia Boorstein
Sylvia Boorstein, M.A., Ph.D. who wrote the foreword to Mindful Motherhood, is a psychologist, meditation teacher, political activist, and cofounder of Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Her website offers her books, a do-it-yourself meditation retreat, audio recordings, and a calendar of her events.
Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka
This website connects seekers with the international communities of Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. Vipassana is taught in ten-day residential courses that are free of charge to participants, running solely off of donations. Find courses throughout the world, information on Vipassana, recordings of Mr. Goenka, and more.
mindfulness-oriented groups, therapists, and healing professionals
Anne Diedrich
Anne Diedrich is a psychotherapist in San Francisco. She works with individuals, new and expectant parents, children and families coping with mood and stress issues. She is currently creating a mindfulness program, MOVING with Moods, ildren and parents, integrating mindful awareness into the family.
Bay Area MBCT
Bay Area MBCT is a consortium of meditation teachers that have been trained in mindfulness based cognitive therapy. This site offers easy access to a calendar of current MBCT classes in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Calm Birth
Calm Birth is a compilation of pre- and peri-natal classes created by Robert Bruce Newman. Calm Birth was developed out of Robert's twenty years of Tibetan meditation practice and apprenticeships with doctors. Calm Birth methodology includes the practice of opening, womb breathing, giving and receiving healing, and more. The website offers training, product information, a blog, and more extensive information on Calm Birth.
Chris Weipert
Chris Weipert, MA, MFT is a psychotherapist who helps individuals and couples with issues of fertility, pregnancy, and new parenthood. Chris runs a Mindful Pregnancy Support Group in San Francisco.
Daniel Rechtschaffen
Daniel is a core teacher with Mindful Schools. He teaches mindfulness at the Omega Institute, The Center for Discovery, and is a visiting scholar at Esalen. Daniel teaches Developmental Psychology at the UC Berkeley ASA program. He works in the San Francisco Bay area as a marriage and family therapist intern, offering mindfulness-based therapy for children, adults, and families. He has been trained in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and has an MA in counseling psychology.
Essential Parenting
This is a series of classes designed by Chris White MD, a Marin County pediatrician with many years of experience with mindfulness, child development, and helping individuals on their own path of maturation. Essential Parenting seeks to integrate both psychological and spiritual perspectives on the questions, “What is a human being? And how does one develop, grow, and mature?” Classes are dynamic, interactive, and practice oriented to help parenting become a living art-form that benefits the whole family.
Gina Hassan
Gina Hassan, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, mother of two, co-founder of Perinatal Psychotherapy Services, and mindfulness teacher. She runs Mindfulness-Based New Mothers Groups in the San Francisco Bay Area, working with mothers to integrate mindfulness into their daily lives of parenting.
Hearth Foundation
Located in Sonoma County, California, The Hearth Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting home based spiritual practice through information sharing and community building. They are committed to support the creation of a kinder, more mindful world by quietly expanding love and wisdom one household at a time. They offer online lay Buddhist practice classes, a list of conscious parenting and homemaking resources, a place to connect with other like minded parents and a monthly newsletter. Although the orientation of the classes is Buddhist, we honor all Wisdom traditions.
Jessica Zucker
Dr. Jessica Zucker is a psychotherapist in Los Angeles specializing in women's health with a focus on fertility, prenatal and post-partum adjustments, and transitions in motherhood. Jessica works with adults, couples, infants and mothers, and developing families.
Lisa Dale Miller, MFT
Lisa Dale Miller, MFT is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist in Los Gatos, CA, specializing in the treatment of depression, anxiety, addiction, relationship distress, and emotion dysregulation. Lisa is a frequent presenter at conferences on the clinical applications of mindfulness and is on the faculty of eMindful.com. She teaches MBSR, MBCT, MBRP (Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention for addiction recovery) and is on MBRP clinical training team. Lisa has been a yogic and Buddhist meditation practitioner for more than 30 years.
Mindful Mamas
Mindful Mamas was founded by Carrie Katz, MFT. Mindful Mamas is an eight-week series conducted in Berkeley, California, where women and their babies come together to share, support, learn, and practice applying mindfulness to motherhood. The website offers guided meditation audio tracks, recommended readings, mindfulness poetry, and information on how to join a Mindful Mamas group.
Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Program
This is the website for the Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting Program (MBCP) created by Nancy Bardacke. MBCP includes teaching and coaching the mind for labor, mindfulness-based infant massage, mindfulness in parenting, and mindfulness training for professional caregivers. You will find information on the various programs offered by Nancy as well as articles and resources.
Whole Birth Yoga
Robin Sale is a Perinatal Hypnotherapist and Prenatal Yoga Educator who has founded Whole Birth Yoga. She teaches classes and trainings, runs retreats, and counsels families in Santa Cruz, CA. Her website has a national directory, information on her services, articles, CD's, and online resources.
child development
Brazelton Institute
The Brazelton Institute is dedicated to promoting the healthy development of infants and families, through research and education programs for people who care for children and their families in the first years of life. The Institute is based in the Department of Pediatrics at the Children's Hospital in Boston, which is an affiliate of the Harvard Medical School.
William and Martha Sears
William Sears, MD and his wife Martha Sears, RN, authors of The Baby Book, introduce their website this way: “Most folks just call us Dr. Bill and Martha. After raising eight children and practicing pediatric medicine for more than 30 years, we have answered questions from thousands of parents. Millions more have sought our advice through our 40+ pediatric books, articles in parenting magazines, and our appearances on more than 100 television programs such as 20/20, Donahue, Good Morning America, Oprah, CBS This Morning, CNN, NBC's Today Show and Dateline. How did all of this come about? Because we've always loved kids. That's why this site is dedicated to the people who have taught us the most about pediatric care: our eight children - James, Robert, Peter, Hayden, Erin, Matthew, Stephen and Lauren.” This website is full of guidance and advice for parents of children at any age.
children's spirituality
Child Spirit
The Child Spirit Institute is a collaborative effort of families, researchers,
teachers, health care providers, community and religious leaders, and scholars
to understand and nurture children's spirituality. Their projects include
education, research, consultations, workshops, and children's camps. You
will find resources and publications on their website as well.
acknowledgements
Jnana Gowan and Powerhouse Yoga
Jnana Gowan, director of Powerhouse Education and Seminars, developed the Mindful Motherhood Yoga Series in chapter 4. Jnana conducts retreats and semi nars, as well as education programs for children and adults in various arenas. Her specialty areas include: mindfulness-based prenatal yoga classes, corporate stress-reduction seminars, and wellness retreats for women. One of her favorite things in life is her preschool yoga program called Bunny Head Yoga.
Joanne Le Cocq–Wild Rooster Productions
Joanne Le Cocq, illustrator for the Mindful Motherhood Yoga Series, is the proud mother of two wonderful boys, Frank and Evan. Joanne is a successful freelance designer and artist who works in the entertainment industry in Southern California.
John Astin
John Astin was a coinvestigator on the Mindful Motherhood research project, and contributed some of the poetry in the book. He lives in northern California with his wife and daughter. Along with his work as a scientist studying the role of meditative practices in medicine and health care, he is a songwriter and recording artist and the author of Too Intimate for Words (2005) and This Is Always Enough (2007), poetic and prose reflections on the nature of nondual awareness.