New Mindfulness for Health Programs: Art of Living for Teens and Parents

Screenshot: Radical Growth - the Practice of Mindfulness

"As you gradually free yourself from stress, you become healthhier, more resilient, confident, happier.
Achieve more of your full potential.
MINDFULNESS can help you get there."

Lou Carcasole, B.Sc, M.B.A, M.Ed

Mindfulness - the Art of Living in the Moment

So what actually is mindfulness?

Mindfulness means paying close attention to our own everyday experience; to all that we see, smell, hear, taste, touch, think and feel.

Mindfulness was developed in many cultures, over thousands of years, and has been effective in bettering the lives of countless people. The skills of mindfulness are easy to learn.  Like learning to drive a car, our first attempts at being mindful are hesitant and as we progress we do it naturally. By learning to do this, we become more precise about, and open to all our experiences, large and small, pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Gradually we discover that we experience life in a new way. 

Mindfulness does not ask us to believe in anything.  All we do is attempting to live in the moment. The more we practice living in the moment, the more we able to do it!  It gives us a feeling of freedom and ease. 

By learning techniques that anybody can do, we radically change the way we experience our own mind, body, emotions, our pleasures and pains, our relationships, etc.  We gradually open more fully to our life and discover how deeply fulfilling it is.  We become happier, more focussed, skillful, and compassionate.  We become better able to love and help others.

Mindfulness can be especially helpful to those who experience anxiety and depression, chronic pain and illness, cardiac disease, the demands of caregiving, life threatening illness, grief, spiritual emptiness and difficulty finding balance in current lifestyles.

Mind/body approaches work because they go beyond the physical to address the framework of habits and behaviors, i.e. neuropaths that impact our health. They teach individuals to break old and harmful cycle of stress-anxiety-physical tension-symptoms-disease and develop the new healthier behaviors.


Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program

We, at The Art of Life Community Health Centre set up the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program - a series of eight Mindfulness workshops conducted by Lou Carcasole, B.Sc, M.B.A, M.Ed for more than 5 years ago. Lou started his own Mindfulness training in 1987 with teacher Shinzen Young, an American meditation teacher and a Buddhist monk. Lou began teaching Mindfulness in 1996and since then he has taught Mindfulness to thousands of people in the Toronto and GTA area.

In 1999, Lou trained with Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, the founder and director of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center and he learned about the MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program). Based on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn's renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, Lou began measuring results as objectively as possible, in attempt to quantify changes occurring as a result of the practicing Mindfulness. The results have always been positive, almost always impressive, and sometimes spectacular.

New Mindfulness Programs

This year along with the MBSR program The Art of Life offers Mindfulness-Based program for teens, which suffer from different health & psychological conditions (including ADD/ADHD) and would like to improve their lives.

We also offer a new course “Parenting could be difficult – Mindfulness can help!”, recognizing the hard work and not easy life of some parents.


Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workshops

The workshops will include discussion and practice of mindfulness. There will be time for questions and answers.  There will be suggestions for mindfulness techniques to use between workshops; at home or at work, while going for a walk or waiting for a doctor's appointment. Objective results measuring will be conducted at the end of the course.

All programs framed in a 8-week course will start in a week after an Open House at The Art of Life CHC, 885 Don Mills Road, Suite 121, Toronto M3C 1V9 (Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue East, entrance from Wynford Dr. and Gervais Dr.).

Most of the courses will take place on Tuesdays at different times although another day/time possibilities are negotiable.

Suggested cost for new students - $300. For students who have completed previous the Art of Life Mindfulness courses - $150. No one with financial difficulties will be turned away; those who couldn't afford the fee they pay what they could afford for the course.

Join us for eight workshops to start transforming your Life into Art!

To register or to ask questions please call (416) 449-6747 or e-mail at office@theartlife.ca


Don’t miss your chance to win a half of the course fee!

Healthier Relationships with Children through Better Understanding of Ourselves

Leadership from Within – “Opening the Door to Healthier Relationships with our children through a better understanding of ourselves.”

The 12 Dimensions of Relationship

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower view points. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.  (Message from George Carlin)

This Life-Shop  is about really getting down to the nuts and bolts of who we are, how we work. It is about developing an understanding of why we behave the certain ways in certain situations. Why experiences in our life and in our family keep on repeating themselves creating dramatic and tumultuous times in our lives. It is about creating this awareness so that we may begin to develop certain strategies on how to deal with those things that create pain and discomfort. It is said that these situations are there to help us learn our lessons.

You can be certain that they will never go away but you can also be certain that as you do develop tools and practices that you will be able to manage these situations in a more masterful way. No longer will you be a slave to them. No longer will you find yourself in situations befuddled, frustrated and screaming out-loud, how did this happen to me again.

We will take you through YOUR specific dimension and show you how to really have a greater understanding of who you are and how to master the nature of relationships that you attract into your life. The relationships with your parents, your spouses, your bosses and most important your children.

This journey will happen on 3 levels:

First Level - Development Stages of Life
The first is identifying certain developmental stages that we go through in life. Like beginning to crawl, then learning how to stand up for who we are, how to deal with our obstacles, humiliations, crisis, etc; learning how to get really good and feeling comfortable with those around us; Learning how to be of help to others that are around us.

Second Level - Dimensions of a Relationship
The Second part is identifying the key Dimensions of Relationship those qualities that define who you are in the moment. Why we attract certain people, as parents, why we have attracted these specific children into our family.

Third Level - Tools for Self-Discovery
The third part takes you through some tools that will help you develop a greater understanding of who you are, tools that you can use to help navigate through your unique life experiences.

You will then share your actual life experiences:

• That will help yourself and others in their step by step journey;
• That will help others feel better in the knowing that they are not alone;
• That will help others shift and transform into someone who can better manage their own life and family situation and facilitate the next step for them to make!

Twelve Dimensions of a Relationship: Practical Workshop July 26-28

Poster: ART of LIFE: Discover the key to great relationships

The Art of Life Community Health Centre
with joy and anticipation invites you to
Stephen Dubrofsky's latest LIFE-SHOP

"The Twelve Dimensions of a Relationship"

This practical workshop will give you the opportunity to identify, understand and master the relationships that you have attracted in your life, to gain a deeper understanding of who you are and insight into the underlying “Life Lesson”!

The workshop will be fun, informative, engaging and very helpful in the discovery of those hidden dimensions of relationships that make our lives truly happy and satisfying!

Stephen Dubrofsky, M.A., M.ED. is an educator, psychologist and a practicing family consultant working with parents, children and individuals to promote healthy relationships within the home, workplace, school and community. He is also the author of practical guides for parents: "There Is No Magic" and Wisdom in the Family ".

The seminar will run over a 3-day period on July 26, 27 and 28.

Schedule:
Day 1: The Development Stages of Life -  Friday, July 26th at 6pm
Day 2: Key Dimensions of a Relationship - Saturday, July 27th at 10am
Day 3: Tools for Self-Discovery - Sunday, July 28th at 10am

Cost:
Total cost for 3 days is $200 per person.
Early-bird Discount (registration before July 13th): $170;
Second family member Discount: $150.

Join us if you wish to find the key to great relationships!

Registration:
Phone: 647-293-8906
Email: maranovsky@hotmail.com