So happy I found this. I have a daily meditation practice and already received a certificate in mindful meditation instruction…but I didn’t feel prepared to lead others. This program looks like it will fill in the holes. Thank you!
Thanks, Sean for being transparent in sharing your journey. I look forward to learning and growing as well as, building new connections and relationships in this community!
Thanks Sean. I can relate to quite a few of those struggles, especially articulating my experience and feeling inadequate about my knowledge. I’m so happy to be a part of this community!
I’m glad to read about “the hard way” that you’ve gone through as this is exactly how I felt when I was teaching other courses to teachers around the world. It reminded me that BEING HUMBLE and CURIOUS is important during a teaching and learning process (no matter what content / concepts you are teaching). To me, being mindful is a way of living. Such way of living may bring up a lot of different experiences which have already inside myself. Though it may be hard to be with whatever come up in the moment, learning to be with those feelings with compassion is also essential.
Happy yo be here!! Covid has really had me spinning in circles. My business is failing due to the event industry being shut down, I love helping people and I have been working on being mindful for a few years but something has been missing. I have been in a tail spin thinking about what is missing in my life. Helping others and feeling good about myself is the answer and I believe I can do this by taking this course and becoming certified and beginning a new journey in my life. Thank you for popping up on my screen at the right time.
A great Intro. Video, Sean!
What impressed me was your Humbleness, esp. making all the mistakes!
Your subtle humor is engaging! Maybe I need to clean up my own bias!!
Namaste & thanks for sharing!
Thanks Sean, so good to hear your story, encourages me on mine. Thanks too for being candid re your mistakes & struggles! Gives me grace to be me. I’d been struggling with the whole thing of imposter syndrome but realise I don’t need to be ‘perfect’ just walk the journey WITH others. Thanks!
Thank you Sean for sharing you story! It is so nice to learn your journey! Thanks for doing your work! Especially with children and PTSD giving’s back to the community! Our work matters!
I am excited to learn more about adaptations that can be made in order to teach mindfulness to different communities. I know silence, closed eyes, etc. can be a traumatic trigger for some folks, and being sure that people are kept emotionally safe throughout an experience is important to me. Talk about learning the hard way, I was once guiding a client through a deep breathing exercise and she said the exhalation reminded her of exhaling when she was doing drugs and made her want to use. That particular mistake made me want to get more training for sure so here I am!
Love your journey and your authenticity. Amazing reminder of asking our clients what they are struggling with to provide them with an outcome they are hoping for. Thank you for sharing. Thank you 🙏 Thank you 🙏 Thank you 🙏
Thank you Sean for this honest and authentic summary. I can totally relate: the realization that your professional life was not so fulfilling and the inadequacies you felt. Looking forward to embark on this journey with you. Tünde
From blistered and burned out in Beijing, to calming nervous systems all over the world. Wow, talk about a redemption story! 🙂 You are incredibly inspiring, Sean. With the guidance of this program, I look forward to sharing mindfulness with three particular populations: (1) writers; (2) the neurodiverse or highly sensitive, and (3) ancestors of slaves/survivors.
It is impressive what you have experienced and with whom you have worked. However, I was very touched by your sharing your personal intentions as well as your “mistakes” on your path so far. This sincerity gives me courage to also go my way – and I’m looking forward to JUST DOING IT : )
Amazing journey and experiences you have had! What a great testimony and I’m happy to see you sharing all of your wisdom, knowledge and experiences to help others grow! God Bless!
I enjoyed learning more about you and the journey you have been on. My biggest takeaway from the intro is to be myself. We all have our own gifts and unique personalities which is enough and perfect as we teach mindfulness to others. Thank you.
So much experience devolved into such wisdom. Really looking forward to learning from and with Sean and my fellow students. Hearing your passion and sharing in some of your journey has reactivated my passion for Mindfulness Teaching with adults, as most of my experience has been with children Birth to 18 in educational settings. Thankyou Sean
Ive looked at this course for years and kept going off to do other trainings – first day in and it feels like its going to be a great journey and addition to my meditation and yoga teaching 🙂
Just finished watching the video "why teach Mindfulness"…
Sean was very transparent about his journey so far .Everyone have to take their own path.Let me see how this journey will unfold for me.Truly blessed to be part of this course and this community.
Knowing what you are doing while you are doing it… What a wonderful, short and to the point description – simple, yet not that simple to practice. Love it.
Thank you for the introduction, a lot of what you struggled with at the beginning really resonated with me and are some areas I need to work on. Its great to hear about your experiences and how you ended up here. I am really looking forward to sharing and learning from this community.
Thank you Sean,
I really enjoyed this introduction and learning more about you and the path you have taken, with all it's ups and downs. I am looking forward to setting out on my path to a more mindful and peaceful future.
I appreciaqte the transparency about the mistakes you made while teaching mindfulness. All that you mentioned is what I am currently sturggling with especially about the part of feeling inadequte.
Dear Sean,
I am just starting this training and listened to Why Teach Mindfulness. My favorite part is when you talked about your personal challenges associated with teaching. Thank you for your pure and courageous honesty which is refreshing and opens the door to authenticity for each and every one of us.
Thank you Sean for sharing your experience with such humility and transparence. I'm more and more comfortable with my decision to deepen my knowledge around mindfulness and meditation and realizing also that it will ask me much more involvement as english is not my native language. Yet it will make me practice it and improve it 🙂 . I feel ready anyway to take this journey!
So powerful think that this is for real people, real life. It is so necessary to be present in ourselves, in our sensations, emotions, experience the life being in the life. Very nice intro, knowing of yourself from your own view and experiences. What a wonderful trip you have taken. I am very excited to learn from you Thank you Sean
I am looking forward to learning and deepening. I have been a mental health therapist for 17 years working primarily with those who suffer from substance use disorders and trauma. I took the 8-week course from Sounds True last year and have been meditating for 6-7 years. After I finished the course I started a mindfulness group at work and this week will mark the completion of my second class. It has been rewarding to see how the practice of mindfulness has been beneficial for the individuals in the groups. If the transformation that I have witnessed is possible from someone as untrained as me, then I look forward to giving away what this program will give to me.
Thank you for sharing your walks of life and the journey it's taken you. I am honored to hear about your path as everyone has one and it's wonderful to hear how mindfulness has impacted you on this journey and others. Thank you.
I am happy to have "stumbled" across the Facebook advertisement for this course! It is in alignment with my personal daily practice and looking forward to learning more and offering a service to help others.
Thank you for showing up here authentic. It's a beautiful example of how to BE. Looking forward to growing and BEing with all-the-things in all-the-ways. 😉
Thank you for this comprehensive introduction. I also recently listened to your podcast ' Sharing Mindfulness from the heart'; both were complementary and reassuring for me.
Hello,
My name is Kim and I am just starting the Mindfulness Teaching Fundamentals course. I am going through the questions and wondering if I should be writing each answer down and also Have been not able to view the youtube videos on the page under the Why teach Mindfulness section. Every time I click on the link to the mindful eating ones, it brings up a blank gray screen.
Also, I am feeling a bit over-whelmed with all the requisites and information and wondering how best to go about completing each requirement. How should I be integrating my own Mindfulness meditation practice with the course work?
Hi Kim! I responded directly via email, but will share what I wrote here in case others share your same questions:
For the workbook – yes, you will need to write out all of your answers for each field. To do this, you will first need to download the workbook and save it your computer (note that for some people, when they download the complete workbook it opens in their browser – anything you type into the workbook while it is within your browser will not be saved, so ensure you are opening the PDF file from a saved location on your computer). You can download the complete workbook in the lesson you have referred to, ‘Why Teach Mindfulness?’ – https://teach.mindfulnessexercises.com/course/why-teach-mindfulness/
Downloading the workbook will also address the other challenge you’re facing, which is that currently, when you click on the link it does not open to a video. The links will work when you click on them from the downloaded PDF version saved on your computer.
Regarding your last question:
Essentially, there is no single right way to go through the program as everyone will be coming to it from a unique background, experience level, other life commitments, etc. However, I would say to begin by focusing on the Mindfulness Teaching Fundamentals Course – either by just watching all of the single videos attached to each lesson (see screenshot below – there are individual videos when you click on each lesson, beyond what is within the course workbook – https://teach.mindfulnessexercises.com/mindfulness-courses/mindfulness-teaching-fundamentals/).
Overtime, you will start to become more familiar with the lessons, workbook, and resources in the dashboard. And when you feel ready, you can begin to lead sessions with friends, family, or in our Tuesday practice opportunity calls.
Good introduction to why to engage in and teach others mindfulness. As a counseling psychologist, I like to be able to share this information and the reasons why to my clients, so they understand how to help themselves with this simple practice. I have been engaging in mindfulness for over 20 years and use it as part of the DBT training I have, with clients. It is great to get this additional certification and knowledge to share.
Great Intro and to learn about you and your path and where it has led you, something for myself to ponder on as I am doing my journey and the path into Mindfulness. Thank-you for sharing your path. 🥰
super appreciate your wisdom and human-ness. It made me smile to begin with the myths and invitation to teach and not be intimidated by other's credentials and path and the vulnerability many of us give fuel to of 'not being good enough" to "do this thing that seems so powerful and important." Thank you for sharing your unique story and your cherished teachers along the way.
Thank you for sharing your story. So great how you make it 'simple' and 'for the real world'. Helping people to experience less stress and more compassion for themselves is worth so much. I'm looking forward to all the knowledge and experiences you and others will share.
Loved this intro video. So much much of what you felt in feeling inadequate, or looking for approval, seeming "wise" really struck a chord. Your words are genuine and relatable. I'm looking forward to learning more!
I am so grateful to be on this journey. I love the introduction. Especially the part where Sean talks about what he did incorrectly. He became very human in that instant and that was when my anticipation for this course grew. I wanted to know that I invested in something authentic. Thank you for being open with your failures.
HI Sean, thank you for sharing your journey. It made me see a beautiful path ahead and excited about the possibilities. I am excited to learn from you, other mentors, and from this tribe of mindfulness advocates.
Thank you for sharing the importance of being authentic. When I began my mindfulness journal, I found myself trying to duplicate what I heard or visually what I perceived mindfulness to be. What I realized is the transformational process is what was most important, and to share that part of the experience with others. I've become comfortable with what the journey was like instead of focusing on how I should look or sound when sharing the experience with others (if that makes sense).
I appreciated Sean's honesting in the lessons he's learned through teaching mindfulness. I love that he said he learned more from the prisoners, kids, and chronic pain sufferers than he taught them. Such humility.
I am delighted to be starting this Teacher Training course. Any lingering doubts I had on if is the right course for me have vanished after listening to the introduction videos and checking out some of the content. It was nice to hear some of your story, you have truly walked what I imagine was a winding path of personally benefiting from this wonderful practice to becoming a Teacher of Teachers.
Thank you for your honesty about your journey finding your own style and values to effectively teach mindfulness. It's helpful to know that it is a flexible journey and "not a one-way trip"!
I am looking forward to this learning opportunity. The possibilities of helping others learn within their own being is really exciting for me.
Thank you for sharing your story. You have a very interesting journey, first getting into mindfulness and then teaching it. And I am so excited to start my own journey today.
Oh yeah. I resonate with so many of your lessons learned. The big one is that I didn't start meditating early enough in my life to "be an expert" enough to teach mindfulness. Alas. I have begun learning that I'm not the expert — the client/student is the expert to their own mind and learning. I just need to ask, listen and be present with them where we are. (I think that's true anyway.) THANKS for your openness (and thoughtfulness) to make this so very available to people like me.
Thank you and excited to start! Your story is also very inspiring, especially the example of how to make these ancient practices useful for our modern secular life and for very different public. I work as a scool counselor ang psychological counselor for adults. Ihave my regular metitation practice, some days very short but multiple times a day, sometimes (more in the weekends) a few hours with rhe sort breaks. I loved Craig Hamilton´s longer course etc. i want also to share this tools in different enfironments. In Estonia there is no point to specialize too narrow 🙂
Thank you for sharing. I have always wanted to study and teach mindfulness but had that niggling doubt of why would someone want to learn from me? That led me to career pursuits that were more money based but brought little happiness. This just feels right.
Thank you for sharing your life story and experience, very impressive and inspiring. Looking forward to learning from your rich and solid experience, Sean
Thank you for sharing your story and candid insights. Amazing to learn about your journey, and the foundation for offering this opportunity to learn from you.
It feels like I am listening to your heart. Every word is that you have said introduces to every corner of your journey and giving confidence to us that "yes" we can learn, practice and embraced the essence of mindfulness. Thank you Sean.
Thank you for this wonderful introduction and chronicle of your background. It gave me a lot of respect for your knowledge and teaching style. I also appreciate the doubts and challenges you mentioned as it reassured me that this is a path worth pursuing for myself as well.
Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your inspiring path. As a recently retired physician new to this endeavor, I am curious about exploring how I could get involved with populations you described, particularly chronic pain, depression and PTSD as well as perhaps the existential despair of serious terminal illness as well as health care professionals such as doctors and nurses. I also feel a deep calling to help people, everyone but perhaps especially younger generations, deal with the cynicism and/or despair related to the environmental crisis we face.
It's very comforting to know, not only about your success story, but also the 'mistakes' and challenges you faced along the way – I resonate with so much here. Thank you for sharing your story and your passion. So grateful to be here. <3
Loved this! Thank you, Sean, for sharing your path. Each of us have a different path, and mine has led me here. And I realize, through this introduction, that it is time for me to grow my compassion and kindness for others, to be present when a situation arises without reacting negatively, and to have courage to face life as it unfolds.
Greetings Beautiful Spirit,
Thank you for the overview of your journey. Your vast experience and knowledge helps me to feel like this really is a good program for me. Also acknowledging the pitfalls offers encouragement to do it any how, in the face of fear and be as authentic as possible.
Thank you Sean for the thoughtful intro to this experience and for sharing your journey with mindfulness and mindfulness teaching so openly and compellingly.
Bowing in appreciation of your humble path, your sharing and wisdom. Looking forward to deepening in practice and learning from you and the community. Graces, Andrea
I found this introduction to be incredibly compelling, Understanding your journey has motivated me to recognize our stories are our strengths. I value your openness, and sharing your experiences has and will be instrumental in my progression in viewing mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. I look forward to my positive transformational journey and helping others in theirs.
Thank you for sharing you stories. To be honest, I have signed up for this course about 4 months ago, but I have not made any significant progress. I procrastinate a lot in my learning process and it is due to fear. What if I made a wrong decision by taking this course? What if the investment that I have made for signing up to this course was a mistake? What if I cannot monetize it in the future? So my heart wants to do it because it feels right. Yet my head is so noisy with those what ifs. I don't know if there is anyone here have the similar experience with me, maybe you can share it with me and let me know how you get through it. Appreciate for any sharing on this :))
Thank you. I also have trouble communicating the amazing experiences. I feel spirituality compelled to share this with everyone. The "before I die" slide says it all, Thank you
Thank you Sean! This was very helpful. I appreciate your sharing your path. I am looking forward to the course, to deepening my personal mindfulness practice and sharing it with others.
Such an inspiring journey… There is a lot that resonates with me in what you are saying…sharing about your 'mistakes' too, I'll probably will make all of them haha or, maybe not?…Whatever may be, the journey is worth taking… Gratitude
I am so thankful for all your mistakes! I look forward to making a few of my own as well. It was interesting to hear your journey as well as your passion to come alongside those in need. I'm thrilled for this opportunity and diving in!
This was very inspiring and I love that by simply sharing your experience, you provide a wonderful array of examples for the way this practice can be used in multiple areas of life. Thank you for this. I am so excited to be apart of this journey!
I am a mindfulness/meditation teacher and I'm looking forward to this course.
I'm also a co-founder of Montana Mindfulness Project and several people are taking the course as
well to train to teach our teen and adult programs.
I find the entire secular mindfulness surge to be dynamic, there's a dynamic movement for folks to
intuitively sense they are missing a big part of life when they are not tapping into their inner resources for wisdom and courage.
I am a zen practitioner of 15 years, formally in Chicago and the past 10 in Bozeman. "If you take care of your practice, your practice will take care of you." This is a saying I've come across and I can testify to its truth in my life. I want to encourage others to find and use skills that heal and develop their authenticity to life to its fullest.
It will be wonderful to meet you on this path.
I've responded once, not sure where it went.
One more try:
I'm a mindfulness teacher and am taking the course to add to my toolbox.
I find teaching a deeply moving and rewarding experience.
A journey to and from the mountain to a place where compassion, acceptance, non-judgement, and kindness are studied, taught and shared. Looking forward to the learning, self-development and insights to enable me to grow and teach.
Very inspiring introduction, and thank you so much for sharing the mistakes you made, it made me feel normal when I make such mistakes, and what caught my attention the most about it is teaching people what I think is useful for them and not asking them what they are suffering from, this is really a very important point to reflect on
Thank you for sharing your journey to Mindfulness with us. I'm excited and look forward to being of service to others and myself through learning and teaching mindfulness.
It was wonderful hearing about your journey and your passion Sean. My intention of this program is to really be able to alleviate myself from my emotional suffering so that I am able to finally love myself deeply. Although, I have been a mindfulness practitioner for many years and also do lots of inner work as a part of my personal self transformation journey, at times, I am not able to connect with my deepest authentic self as I hit the wall of my own personal resentments that, I have not been able to let go even after so many years of being on the transformation journey.
I want to help others alleviate their sufferings and find their true purpose and mission and, that is my intention of doing the mindfulness teacher certification program.
It is helpful to learn about your journey and how you continued to expand your knowledge and experiences and the value mindfulness brought to yourself and why you wanted to share it with others. I appreciate your openness and honesty about the path not always being easy. Thank you.
Hola, this was a good introduction and I love JKZ. I remember when he began working with gang involved youth in Worcester, MA waaaayyyyy back and I've followed him ever since. I'm a person in long-term recovery and to use one of our phrases – "Stick with the winners" and when it comes to learning mindfulness meditation to meet market demands I can't think of two better people to learn from. Another thing about me, I'm a Mahayana Tibetan Buddhist in the Shambhala tradition. Peace, Vicente
I am grateful for your nice introduction. I had doubts to even start any meditation program, but somehow I felt, that I "need to", I mean it was a little spirit in my soul what inquired this. So I spent a lot of time to search for the right one. I just went through the points of the program today, and I am pretty sure that I found the perfect place to be, and go on with it. Thank you very much for all of your work and support (and your team's support) in advance during this journey, what will last for a lifetime, and now you became the part of my journey, with this amazing opportunity for me.
I am so excited about this opportunity. I have thought long and hard about learning mindfulness at a deeper level.. I was currently thinking and deciding about a mindfulness teaching certification when your add came my way. I believe I am answering a call now.
I love you you identified the mistakes you made, and could relate to some of them. The big takeaway was, to find out what people need, vs. teaching them what I think they should know. That was a gem. Thank you
Thank you so much, Sean. I really liked to hear you say that this mindfulness meditation is practical and for the real world… and that we don't need to be born wise to share mindfulness concepts. Knowing that it is out of compassion that we want to help others, and to be the change we wish to see in this world (like you and Gandhi said) is very powerful. Also, I love the fact that you aim to help children and prisoners…I know that not only can we teach them a lot, but we can also learn a lot from them, too. So happy to be here to learn from you! Thank you!
Thank you for the intro and how you were led to mindfulness. I think "connecting to purpose" is useful to keep in mind the motivation to sign up for this course. I feel I am in the right place.
I am very excited to take this course. I am going through it again and will practice, journal and meditate. Thank you so much Sir. Please pray for me. Many Blessings to you and your family! This is so awesome; it does give insight into the inner person and the health of the inner person. It will allow me to maintain healthy habits and lead other to this teaching that has helped me.
A VERY NICE INTRO. It was nice to learn about your path and where it has lead you. Thank you.
Very helpful. Helped me to connect with my reasons for wanting to share this practice. Thank you.
It was very interesting learning about your path and where it has lead you. Thank you for sharing.
So happy I found this. I have a daily meditation practice and already received a certificate in mindful meditation instruction…but I didn’t feel prepared to lead others. This program looks like it will fill in the holes. Thank you!
Thank you, Sean. Very helpful!
Thank you, Sean. Very helpful!
Thanks, Sean for being transparent in sharing your journey. I look forward to learning and growing as well as, building new connections and relationships in this community!
Thanks Sean. I can relate to quite a few of those struggles, especially articulating my experience and feeling inadequate about my knowledge. I’m so happy to be a part of this community!
I’m glad to read about “the hard way” that you’ve gone through as this is exactly how I felt when I was teaching other courses to teachers around the world. It reminded me that BEING HUMBLE and CURIOUS is important during a teaching and learning process (no matter what content / concepts you are teaching). To me, being mindful is a way of living. Such way of living may bring up a lot of different experiences which have already inside myself. Though it may be hard to be with whatever come up in the moment, learning to be with those feelings with compassion is also essential.
Thank you for sharing your journey. Now I am ready for mine. 🙂
Happy yo be here!! Covid has really had me spinning in circles. My business is failing due to the event industry being shut down, I love helping people and I have been working on being mindful for a few years but something has been missing. I have been in a tail spin thinking about what is missing in my life. Helping others and feeling good about myself is the answer and I believe I can do this by taking this course and becoming certified and beginning a new journey in my life. Thank you for popping up on my screen at the right time.
Hello 🙂 I’ve thrilled to be here with you all! Looking forward to our work together and deepening my practice.
Thanks Sean, loved the part about mistakes made. I like others often worry about how to sell or monetize, perhaps fall in trap and be Salesy.. 🙂
Thank you for sharing
A great Intro. Video, Sean!
What impressed me was your Humbleness, esp. making all the mistakes!
Your subtle humor is engaging! Maybe I need to clean up my own bias!!
Namaste & thanks for sharing!
Thanks Sean, so good to hear your story, encourages me on mine. Thanks too for being candid re your mistakes & struggles! Gives me grace to be me. I’d been struggling with the whole thing of imposter syndrome but realise I don’t need to be ‘perfect’ just walk the journey WITH others. Thanks!
Thank you Sean for sharing you story! It is so nice to learn your journey! Thanks for doing your work! Especially with children and PTSD giving’s back to the community! Our work matters!
Thank you Sean for sharing your story. Very interesting.
Enjoyed learning about your journey. Thanks for sharing and caring.
Thanks, Sean, for sharing your journey thi=us far. I would love to emulate you by working with special populations in the community.
Thanks again!
Heartfelt and wonderfully expressed with both humor and humility. Thank you Sean for sharing your path.
I am excited to learn more about adaptations that can be made in order to teach mindfulness to different communities. I know silence, closed eyes, etc. can be a traumatic trigger for some folks, and being sure that people are kept emotionally safe throughout an experience is important to me. Talk about learning the hard way, I was once guiding a client through a deep breathing exercise and she said the exhalation reminded her of exhaling when she was doing drugs and made her want to use. That particular mistake made me want to get more training for sure so here I am!
Love your journey and your authenticity. Amazing reminder of asking our clients what they are struggling with to provide them with an outcome they are hoping for. Thank you for sharing. Thank you 🙏 Thank you 🙏 Thank you 🙏
So grateful for the “gifts of imperfection” in your own life story! Thank you, Sean!!
Thank you Sean for this honest and authentic summary. I can totally relate: the realization that your professional life was not so fulfilling and the inadequacies you felt. Looking forward to embark on this journey with you. Tünde
From blistered and burned out in Beijing, to calming nervous systems all over the world. Wow, talk about a redemption story! 🙂 You are incredibly inspiring, Sean. With the guidance of this program, I look forward to sharing mindfulness with three particular populations: (1) writers; (2) the neurodiverse or highly sensitive, and (3) ancestors of slaves/survivors.
Self-correction: (3) descendants, not ancestors. 🤦🏾♀️
Love your journey. I got so much inspiration through your journey.
It is impressive what you have experienced and with whom you have worked. However, I was very touched by your sharing your personal intentions as well as your “mistakes” on your path so far. This sincerity gives me courage to also go my way – and I’m looking forward to JUST DOING IT : )
Amazing journey and experiences you have had! What a great testimony and I’m happy to see you sharing all of your wisdom, knowledge and experiences to help others grow! God Bless!
Great words of wisdom and info.
Muchas gracias Sean por compartir tu vida y tus experiencias de manera tan honesta.
Off to a good start, I can relate to the reasons to teach mindfulness in the insecurities that come with it in the journey.
Your journey is very inspirational, Sean. Thank you for openly sharing about the good times and the struggles.
Thank you for sharing your journey. Quite interesting and relatable.
Thank you for sharing your story. Really looking forward to taking this next step!
I enjoyed learning more about you and the journey you have been on. My biggest takeaway from the intro is to be myself. We all have our own gifts and unique personalities which is enough and perfect as we teach mindfulness to others. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing the path that got you to this point as you continue your journey. I am excited to learn.
Honored to be learning from you. Thank you for sharing your time, teachings, talents and making a positive difference in the world.
So much experience devolved into such wisdom. Really looking forward to learning from and with Sean and my fellow students. Hearing your passion and sharing in some of your journey has reactivated my passion for Mindfulness Teaching with adults, as most of my experience has been with children Birth to 18 in educational settings. Thankyou Sean
Very helpful and I am excited to learn.
Ive looked at this course for years and kept going off to do other trainings – first day in and it feels like its going to be a great journey and addition to my meditation and yoga teaching 🙂
Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to enjoye Thais journey.
Just finished watching the video "why teach Mindfulness"…
Sean was very transparent about his journey so far .Everyone have to take their own path.Let me see how this journey will unfold for me.Truly blessed to be part of this course and this community.
Thank you for your contributions. I feel this course will help me immensely in my search to better know myself and to be able to impact others.
Knowing what you are doing while you are doing it… What a wonderful, short and to the point description – simple, yet not that simple to practice. Love it.
Thank you for a very inspiring intro to this course!
Thank you for the introduction, a lot of what you struggled with at the beginning really resonated with me and are some areas I need to work on. Its great to hear about your experiences and how you ended up here. I am really looking forward to sharing and learning from this community.
Thank you Sean,
I really enjoyed this introduction and learning more about you and the path you have taken, with all it's ups and downs. I am looking forward to setting out on my path to a more mindful and peaceful future.
Thank you for sharing your journey! Excited to be on this journey along side all of you.
I appreciate your honesty and ability to be vulnerable about the challenges you have had in developing your unique practice.
I appreciaqte the transparency about the mistakes you made while teaching mindfulness. All that you mentioned is what I am currently sturggling with especially about the part of feeling inadequte.
Dear Sean,
I am just starting this training and listened to Why Teach Mindfulness. My favorite part is when you talked about your personal challenges associated with teaching. Thank you for your pure and courageous honesty which is refreshing and opens the door to authenticity for each and every one of us.
Kindest regards,
Diane Davis
Hola Sean, many thanks for sharing your experiences and cred with us. I'm in good hands. Peace, Vicente
Thank you Sean for sharing your experience with such humility and transparence. I'm more and more comfortable with my decision to deepen my knowledge around mindfulness and meditation and realizing also that it will ask me much more involvement as english is not my native language. Yet it will make me practice it and improve it 🙂 . I feel ready anyway to take this journey!
I feel like I am in the right place. Thank you!
So powerful think that this is for real people, real life. It is so necessary to be present in ourselves, in our sensations, emotions, experience the life being in the life. Very nice intro, knowing of yourself from your own view and experiences. What a wonderful trip you have taken. I am very excited to learn from you Thank you Sean
I am looking forward to learning and deepening. I have been a mental health therapist for 17 years working primarily with those who suffer from substance use disorders and trauma. I took the 8-week course from Sounds True last year and have been meditating for 6-7 years. After I finished the course I started a mindfulness group at work and this week will mark the completion of my second class. It has been rewarding to see how the practice of mindfulness has been beneficial for the individuals in the groups. If the transformation that I have witnessed is possible from someone as untrained as me, then I look forward to giving away what this program will give to me.
thank you for shaering your life story.
Thank-you for sharing your path and journey. Looking forward to this course to learn mindfulness and to pass it on. 👋🏻🥰
Great Journey story! Thank you for your transparency and authenticity. That style of training is so needed. Peace, Blessings and Joy. 🙏🏾
Thank you for sharing your walks of life and the journey it's taken you. I am honored to hear about your path as everyone has one and it's wonderful to hear how mindfulness has impacted you on this journey and others. Thank you.
I appreciate the in-depth look into your background. Thank you for sharing!
I am happy to have "stumbled" across the Facebook advertisement for this course! It is in alignment with my personal daily practice and looking forward to learning more and offering a service to help others.
Thank you for showing up here authentic. It's a beautiful example of how to BE. Looking forward to growing and BEing with all-the-things in all-the-ways. 😉
Thank you for this comprehensive introduction. I also recently listened to your podcast ' Sharing Mindfulness from the heart'; both were complementary and reassuring for me.
Wonderful to hear, Anisha!
Hello,
My name is Kim and I am just starting the Mindfulness Teaching Fundamentals course. I am going through the questions and wondering if I should be writing each answer down and also Have been not able to view the youtube videos on the page under the Why teach Mindfulness section. Every time I click on the link to the mindful eating ones, it brings up a blank gray screen.
Also, I am feeling a bit over-whelmed with all the requisites and information and wondering how best to go about completing each requirement. How should I be integrating my own Mindfulness meditation practice with the course work?
Thank you,
Kim
Hi Kim! I responded directly via email, but will share what I wrote here in case others share your same questions:
For the workbook – yes, you will need to write out all of your answers for each field. To do this, you will first need to download the workbook and save it your computer (note that for some people, when they download the complete workbook it opens in their browser – anything you type into the workbook while it is within your browser will not be saved, so ensure you are opening the PDF file from a saved location on your computer). You can download the complete workbook in the lesson you have referred to, ‘Why Teach Mindfulness?’ – https://teach.mindfulnessexercises.com/course/why-teach-mindfulness/
Downloading the workbook will also address the other challenge you’re facing, which is that currently, when you click on the link it does not open to a video. The links will work when you click on them from the downloaded PDF version saved on your computer.
Regarding your last question:
Essentially, there is no single right way to go through the program as everyone will be coming to it from a unique background, experience level, other life commitments, etc. However, I would say to begin by focusing on the Mindfulness Teaching Fundamentals Course – either by just watching all of the single videos attached to each lesson (see screenshot below – there are individual videos when you click on each lesson, beyond what is within the course workbook – https://teach.mindfulnessexercises.com/mindfulness-courses/mindfulness-teaching-fundamentals/).
At the same time, you can develop a daily mindfulness practice if you don’t already have one. Take a few minutes before and after each practice to fill out the meditation log, which you can download from the requisites page: https://teach.mindfulnessexercises.com/mindfulness-meditation-teacher-certification/
Overtime, you will start to become more familiar with the lessons, workbook, and resources in the dashboard. And when you feel ready, you can begin to lead sessions with friends, family, or in our Tuesday practice opportunity calls.
Thank you so much for the transparency of your journey!
Good introduction to why to engage in and teach others mindfulness. As a counseling psychologist, I like to be able to share this information and the reasons why to my clients, so they understand how to help themselves with this simple practice. I have been engaging in mindfulness for over 20 years and use it as part of the DBT training I have, with clients. It is great to get this additional certification and knowledge to share.
Inspiring to hear about your path!
Great Intro and to learn about you and your path and where it has led you, something for myself to ponder on as I am doing my journey and the path into Mindfulness. Thank-you for sharing your path. 🥰
super appreciate your wisdom and human-ness. It made me smile to begin with the myths and invitation to teach and not be intimidated by other's credentials and path and the vulnerability many of us give fuel to of 'not being good enough" to "do this thing that seems so powerful and important." Thank you for sharing your unique story and your cherished teachers along the way.
Thank you for sharing some of your experience and what has led you to teaching this course.
Thank you for sharing your background path on this journey,
Thank you for the intro! It was very nice to learn about you and your journey up to now.
Thank you for sharing your story. So great how you make it 'simple' and 'for the real world'. Helping people to experience less stress and more compassion for themselves is worth so much. I'm looking forward to all the knowledge and experiences you and others will share.
So happy to be finally doing this! Great introduction.
You exactly nailed why I want to teach this. I want to help people because mindfulness and meditation have helped me so much to relieve my suffering.
Beautiful Intro, Thank you for sharing about your journey. I love to hear about our spiritual paths & healing stories.
Thanks so much for this introduction. I'm looking forward to the rest of the course!
Loved this intro video. So much much of what you felt in feeling inadequate, or looking for approval, seeming "wise" really struck a chord. Your words are genuine and relatable. I'm looking forward to learning more!
It's an inspiring and interesting introduction. A practical path speaks a lot. Thank you so much!
Thank you Sean for sharing your story. I am very excited to get started.
Thank you for the vulnerability you share as you discuss your journey. Very inspiring.
Thank you for sharing, very inspiring, looking forward to the journey.
I am so grateful to be on this journey. I love the introduction. Especially the part where Sean talks about what he did incorrectly. He became very human in that instant and that was when my anticipation for this course grew. I wanted to know that I invested in something authentic. Thank you for being open with your failures.
Thank you for sharing your story.
a great intro, many thanks. loved hearing about your journey & the definition of mindfulness was obvious but GREAT!
HI Sean, thank you for sharing your journey. It made me see a beautiful path ahead and excited about the possibilities. I am excited to learn from you, other mentors, and from this tribe of mindfulness advocates.
Thank you for sharing the importance of being authentic. When I began my mindfulness journal, I found myself trying to duplicate what I heard or visually what I perceived mindfulness to be. What I realized is the transformational process is what was most important, and to share that part of the experience with others. I've become comfortable with what the journey was like instead of focusing on how I should look or sound when sharing the experience with others (if that makes sense).
I appreciated Sean's honesting in the lessons he's learned through teaching mindfulness. I love that he said he learned more from the prisoners, kids, and chronic pain sufferers than he taught them. Such humility.
I am delighted to be starting this Teacher Training course. Any lingering doubts I had on if is the right course for me have vanished after listening to the introduction videos and checking out some of the content. It was nice to hear some of your story, you have truly walked what I imagine was a winding path of personally benefiting from this wonderful practice to becoming a Teacher of Teachers.
Thank you for your honesty about your journey finding your own style and values to effectively teach mindfulness. It's helpful to know that it is a flexible journey and "not a one-way trip"!
I am looking forward to this learning opportunity. The possibilities of helping others learn within their own being is really exciting for me.
Thank you for sharing your story. You have a very interesting journey, first getting into mindfulness and then teaching it. And I am so excited to start my own journey today.
Oh yeah. I resonate with so many of your lessons learned. The big one is that I didn't start meditating early enough in my life to "be an expert" enough to teach mindfulness. Alas. I have begun learning that I'm not the expert — the client/student is the expert to their own mind and learning. I just need to ask, listen and be present with them where we are. (I think that's true anyway.) THANKS for your openness (and thoughtfulness) to make this so very available to people like me.
Thank you and excited to start! Your story is also very inspiring, especially the example of how to make these ancient practices useful for our modern secular life and for very different public. I work as a scool counselor ang psychological counselor for adults. Ihave my regular metitation practice, some days very short but multiple times a day, sometimes (more in the weekends) a few hours with rhe sort breaks. I loved Craig Hamilton´s longer course etc. i want also to share this tools in different enfironments. In Estonia there is no point to specialize too narrow 🙂
Thank you for sharing your story. I'm looking forward to getting started!
Thank you for sharing. I have always wanted to study and teach mindfulness but had that niggling doubt of why would someone want to learn from me? That led me to career pursuits that were more money based but brought little happiness. This just feels right.
Thank you for sharing your life story and experience, very impressive and inspiring. Looking forward to learning from your rich and solid experience, Sean
Thank you for sharing your story and candid insights. Amazing to learn about your journey, and the foundation for offering this opportunity to learn from you.
loved the perspective of what you tried that didn't work. I always appreciate the honesty in those moments!
Thank you, I have printed out the workbook and I am looking forward continuing on this journey. I liked to hear about your experience.
Wow – very impressed by your path – thank you for sharing!
Thank you for sharing your personal journey.
It feels like I am listening to your heart. Every word is that you have said introduces to every corner of your journey and giving confidence to us that "yes" we can learn, practice and embraced the essence of mindfulness. Thank you Sean.
Hi, I am just at the very beginning of my journey with this course.
I am excited to see where this will take us all 🙂
Thank you for sharing Sean.
TY for allowing us to 'see' you! Your intro helps me to feel more safe, more comfortable, and less judgy of myself. 🙏🏻
Thank you Sean for being real and for sharing your personal experiences of your journey.
So excited to finally get started with the program. I enjoyed this first video. Thanks for keeping it real.
Looking forward to learning from your rich and solid experience, Sean
Brilliant Intro really feel we get to know you and how your journey has lead you to this moment. Thank you
Thank you for this wonderful introduction and chronicle of your background. It gave me a lot of respect for your knowledge and teaching style. I also appreciate the doubts and challenges you mentioned as it reassured me that this is a path worth pursuing for myself as well.
Thank you!
Thank You so much for your testimony. It is an honor to be your student. Thank you. Karen Mitchell
Thank you for sharing your inspiring path. As a recently retired physician new to this endeavor, I am curious about exploring how I could get involved with populations you described, particularly chronic pain, depression and PTSD as well as perhaps the existential despair of serious terminal illness as well as health care professionals such as doctors and nurses. I also feel a deep calling to help people, everyone but perhaps especially younger generations, deal with the cynicism and/or despair related to the environmental crisis we face.
It's very comforting to know, not only about your success story, but also the 'mistakes' and challenges you faced along the way – I resonate with so much here. Thank you for sharing your story and your passion. So grateful to be here. <3
Thank you for sharing your story. This intro is such a great primer for what’s to come.
Thank You!
Thanks, Sean. I am looking forward to learning from you in this program.
Loved this! Thank you, Sean, for sharing your path. Each of us have a different path, and mine has led me here. And I realize, through this introduction, that it is time for me to grow my compassion and kindness for others, to be present when a situation arises without reacting negatively, and to have courage to face life as it unfolds.
Great to hear Sean's own personal journey to Mindfulness & Meditation – so much authenticity!
Thank you. I was moved to remember why I was embarking on this journey.
Greetings Beautiful Spirit,
Thank you for the overview of your journey. Your vast experience and knowledge helps me to feel like this really is a good program for me. Also acknowledging the pitfalls offers encouragement to do it any how, in the face of fear and be as authentic as possible.
Thank you Sean for the thoughtful intro to this experience and for sharing your journey with mindfulness and mindfulness teaching so openly and compellingly.
Nice to listen to and appreciate the transperency.
Bowing in appreciation of your humble path, your sharing and wisdom. Looking forward to deepening in practice and learning from you and the community. Graces, Andrea
Thanks for such an authentic intro ~ Kristine, Blessed&Blissed
Thanks for the into and all inspiring.
I found this introduction to be incredibly compelling, Understanding your journey has motivated me to recognize our stories are our strengths. I value your openness, and sharing your experiences has and will be instrumental in my progression in viewing mistakes as valuable learning opportunities. I look forward to my positive transformational journey and helping others in theirs.
Sean, super glad to be here. Your story is inspiring!
Thank you for sharing you stories. To be honest, I have signed up for this course about 4 months ago, but I have not made any significant progress. I procrastinate a lot in my learning process and it is due to fear. What if I made a wrong decision by taking this course? What if the investment that I have made for signing up to this course was a mistake? What if I cannot monetize it in the future? So my heart wants to do it because it feels right. Yet my head is so noisy with those what ifs. I don't know if there is anyone here have the similar experience with me, maybe you can share it with me and let me know how you get through it. Appreciate for any sharing on this :))
Thank you for this introduction, Sean.
Your journey inspires me, and I am also considering wearing the robes here in lovely Thailand at some point.
Thank you. I also have trouble communicating the amazing experiences. I feel spirituality compelled to share this with everyone. The "before I die" slide says it all, Thank you
Thank you Sean! This was very helpful. I appreciate your sharing your path. I am looking forward to the course, to deepening my personal mindfulness practice and sharing it with others.
Such an inspiring journey… There is a lot that resonates with me in what you are saying…sharing about your 'mistakes' too, I'll probably will make all of them haha or, maybe not?…Whatever may be, the journey is worth taking… Gratitude
Thank you for sharing your journey. It has given me the boost that I needed to move forward in improving myself and help others.
I am so thankful for all your mistakes! I look forward to making a few of my own as well. It was interesting to hear your journey as well as your passion to come alongside those in need. I'm thrilled for this opportunity and diving in!
Thank you for the Intro, interesting to hear how you started and some of your journet. Thanks for the workbook
I loved hearing about your journey. Excited about my own journey and where it can take me.
I am so excited to be starting this chapter of my journey. Thank you for providing a safe space to learn!
Thanks for your humility! Anyone who can laugh at themselves is who I want to learn from!
I really enjoyed this personal introduction. Thank you.
This was very inspiring and I love that by simply sharing your experience, you provide a wonderful array of examples for the way this practice can be used in multiple areas of life. Thank you for this. I am so excited to be apart of this journey!
I am a mindfulness/meditation teacher and I'm looking forward to this course.
I'm also a co-founder of Montana Mindfulness Project and several people are taking the course as
well to train to teach our teen and adult programs.
I find the entire secular mindfulness surge to be dynamic, there's a dynamic movement for folks to
intuitively sense they are missing a big part of life when they are not tapping into their inner resources for wisdom and courage.
I am a zen practitioner of 15 years, formally in Chicago and the past 10 in Bozeman. "If you take care of your practice, your practice will take care of you." This is a saying I've come across and I can testify to its truth in my life. I want to encourage others to find and use skills that heal and develop their authenticity to life to its fullest.
It will be wonderful to meet you on this path.
I've responded once, not sure where it went.
One more try:
I'm a mindfulness teacher and am taking the course to add to my toolbox.
I find teaching a deeply moving and rewarding experience.
A journey to and from the mountain to a place where compassion, acceptance, non-judgement, and kindness are studied, taught and shared. Looking forward to the learning, self-development and insights to enable me to grow and teach.
A beautiful introduction, thank you for sharing.
Very inspiring introduction, and thank you so much for sharing the mistakes you made, it made me feel normal when I make such mistakes, and what caught my attention the most about it is teaching people what I think is useful for them and not asking them what they are suffering from, this is really a very important point to reflect on
Thank you. I am looking forward to course and how it will build on my other experience and o trainings completed.
Thank you for sharing your journey to Mindfulness with us. I'm excited and look forward to being of service to others and myself through learning and teaching mindfulness.
Thank you for confirming for me that I am in the right place, learning from the right teacher.
Your story is so powerful! This was an amazing introduction
The video reinforced my decision to follow my heart and begin this journey.
Thank you
Great introduction Sean. I love your voice and how you explain so clearly your background and the amazing journey of becoming a teacher.
Here we go! One moment at a time with curiosity! Happy tobehere.
Hola all, I'm excited of being in the space to get a lot from this course and alleviate the suffering .
It was wonderful hearing about your journey and your passion Sean. My intention of this program is to really be able to alleviate myself from my emotional suffering so that I am able to finally love myself deeply. Although, I have been a mindfulness practitioner for many years and also do lots of inner work as a part of my personal self transformation journey, at times, I am not able to connect with my deepest authentic self as I hit the wall of my own personal resentments that, I have not been able to let go even after so many years of being on the transformation journey.
I want to help others alleviate their sufferings and find their true purpose and mission and, that is my intention of doing the mindfulness teacher certification program.
It is helpful to learn about your journey and how you continued to expand your knowledge and experiences and the value mindfulness brought to yourself and why you wanted to share it with others. I appreciate your openness and honesty about the path not always being easy. Thank you.
Hola, this was a good introduction and I love JKZ. I remember when he began working with gang involved youth in Worcester, MA waaaayyyyy back and I've followed him ever since. I'm a person in long-term recovery and to use one of our phrases – "Stick with the winners" and when it comes to learning mindfulness meditation to meet market demands I can't think of two better people to learn from. Another thing about me, I'm a Mahayana Tibetan Buddhist in the Shambhala tradition. Peace, Vicente
I am grateful for your nice introduction. I had doubts to even start any meditation program, but somehow I felt, that I "need to", I mean it was a little spirit in my soul what inquired this. So I spent a lot of time to search for the right one. I just went through the points of the program today, and I am pretty sure that I found the perfect place to be, and go on with it. Thank you very much for all of your work and support (and your team's support) in advance during this journey, what will last for a lifetime, and now you became the part of my journey, with this amazing opportunity for me.
I am so excited about this opportunity. I have thought long and hard about learning mindfulness at a deeper level.. I was currently thinking and deciding about a mindfulness teaching certification when your add came my way. I believe I am answering a call now.
I love you you identified the mistakes you made, and could relate to some of them. The big takeaway was, to find out what people need, vs. teaching them what I think they should know. That was a gem. Thank you
Thank you so much, Sean. I really liked to hear you say that this mindfulness meditation is practical and for the real world… and that we don't need to be born wise to share mindfulness concepts. Knowing that it is out of compassion that we want to help others, and to be the change we wish to see in this world (like you and Gandhi said) is very powerful. Also, I love the fact that you aim to help children and prisoners…I know that not only can we teach them a lot, but we can also learn a lot from them, too. So happy to be here to learn from you! Thank you!
This was a nice way to begin this journey. I appreciate your story and feel more confident with my choice in moving forward with this program and why.
Thank you for the intro and how you were led to mindfulness. I think "connecting to purpose" is useful to keep in mind the motivation to sign up for this course. I feel I am in the right place.
I am very excited to take this course. I am going through it again and will practice, journal and meditate. Thank you so much Sir. Please pray for me. Many Blessings to you and your family! This is so awesome; it does give insight into the inner person and the health of the inner person. It will allow me to maintain healthy habits and lead other to this teaching that has helped me.