Transforming Depression and Anxiety: A Path of Skillful Compassion, Online 10/22–11/12

The Zoom link to participate in this event will be provided at least 24 hours before it begins. Please call 415-354-0360 if you have any questions.

We offer this course regularly because of high demand.

Suzuki Roshi said, “To be you is enough, you know…”

Weaving together mindfulness and contemporary psychology, this course explores how to best take care of ourselves by relating to depression and anxiety with compassion and understanding. Our purpose is for participants to learn and practice how to interrupt conditioning that hinders feeling better and noticing what is good in our lives. We encourage each student through skillful means to cultivate common sense practices that help us manage and prevent chronic feelings of unhappiness. By focusing on direct experience, we learn to see and disrupt habitual mind patterns that lead to depression and anxiety.

Each week will consist of two sessions:

1. A  2-hour class on Tuesdays combines presentations, guided meditations, experiential exercises, and group discussion.
2. Each Thursday, a follow-up one-hour practice session includes a short guided meditation, a brief practice encouragement, and time for participants to ask questions and share about their practice experience since the last class. These auxiliary sessions are offered to support participants in deepening learnings from the previous class.

The focus for each week of classes and practice sessions will be as follows:

1. Week One ─ Being in the Present Moment with Whatever Arises 
2. Week Two ─ Recognizing and Interrupting Reactive Habit Patterns
3. Week Three ─ Relating to Difficulties with Compassion and Lovingkindness
4. Week Four ─ Strategies for Taking Care of Ourselves

During this class series, you will discover how it is possible for you to:

1. Be released from the limiting storylines that you and others have told you about yourself
2. Learn new skills that help untangle painful thoughts and self-criticism
3. Build the capacity to be with emotional pain and distress with strength and courage
4. Cultivate self-confidence and self-esteem as you practice using re-sculpting tools
5. Learn to offer compassion and acceptance to yourself and others
6. Cultivate a natural experience of peace, ease, and well-being 
7. Experience deeper authentic connection, presence, and vitality
8. Feel better and have a more satisfying relationship to life

Appropriate for those who are new to meditation as well as experienced meditators.

Tuesday Classes 5:30–7:30 pm PT
Thursday Practice Sessions 5:30–6:30 pm PT

Week 1
Oct 22
Oct 24 

Week 2
Oct 29 
Oct 31

Week 3
Nov 5 
Nov 7

Week 4
Nov 12

You are warmly invited to try the TDA Practice Group once you have completed this course. It's an optional group that includes ongoing teaching to deepen TDA practice and community, meeting biweekly every Tuesday from January 7 through March 18. Practice Group information and registration are forthcoming.