Everyday Mindfulness
an 8-week online class.
Sundays from 6pm to 7:30pm PST
November 8, 2020 - December 27, 2020
Registration Closed!
I invite you to join me on the final dark weeks of this dark year to light a candle and say goodbye to 2020.
Join me on an 8-week journey into a system of mindfulness, creative flow, and compassion that may serve as a waypoint for your personal journey in 2021.
As we come to the end of 2020, we are collectively reflecting on one of the most turbulent years that many of us have experienced in our lifetimes.
As a result of the many ongoing crises we’ve faced this year, many are experiencing symptoms related to increased stress, anxiety, loneliness, disconnection, and difficulty in focusing on daily tasks.
These symptoms are all understandable human reactions to the times that we live in.
And while it’s true that mindfulness practice is not a replacement for proper therapy - these humble tools can be used to navigate these waters with deeper grace, self-compassion, and even… wonder and joy.
This program is for you if….
you’ve tried other mindfulness or meditation programs and haven’t found anything that works for you yet
you’re motivated to attend all 8 weeks of the program
you’re just getting curious about mindfulness, or want new tools to help integrate it into your daily life
you want to start 2021 off with a new mindfulness practice
you’re looking for a mindfulness practice with depth and breadth and not just fluff!
you’re looking for a ways to shift challenging experience as it arises in the moment
you’re looking for tools you can stick with and build on over time
you want to learn in a whole system of practice, not just individual or disconnected techniques
The techniques in UM (Unified Mindfulness) are very simple, but highly effective.
The approaches to mindfulness presented in this introductory course can be used
exactly as they are presented for a lifetime of ever deepening practice.
Enhanced focus, clarity, creativity, and a greater ability to be with difficult or challenging experience
is a common report from daily practice.
What you’ll learn!
5 proven meditation techniques specifically designed to be used both in formal practice, and out in the world in daily life no matter what situation you might find yourself in.
Basic pain management through mindfulness
You’ll learn how to apply Feel Flow to help manage everyday aches and pains the body, as well as to challenging emotional experiences.
Access Rest whenever you need it.
Learn the Feel Rest technique to help manage stress, fall asleep, and feel more grounded when things feel overwhelming or uncertain.
How to Cultivate Positivity
Learn how to intentionally cultivate and grow positive mental states for yourself with the technique Feel Good - and learn how to apply that skill in everyday interactions with others.
Learn Spontaneity practices
like Auto, which help to foster creative insight while also increasing it’s accessibility - encouraging more and more spontaneous creative insights to arise over time.
Tools for any situation
Learn how to use Micro-Hits, Background Practice, and formal practice together in a mindfulness strategy you can take with you anywhere.
Use Feel Flow to adapt to change
+ ride the waves of movement in your body and emotions - giving you the increased ability to greet each moment in greater balance - even the difficult ones.
Building a practice + sticking with it
How to build your own personal mindfulness practice - how long to sit, what techniques to focus on, and how to incorporate what you’ve learned to help you with your personal goals.
“Ultimately, meditation can allow us to have happiness independent of conditions - and that is one heck of an awesome claim.”
November 8 2020 - December 27 2020
Sundays at 6pm - 7:15 PST via ZOOM
100% free.
Class Syllabus
Week 1
Introduction to Unified Mindfulness
Learn the basics of the Unified Mindfulness system, how it works, and how you can use it in your daily life. We’ll also cover the very first technique to help build concentration, clarity, and equanimity.
Week 5
Getting out of the way of Creativity
We’ll dip into the Spontaneity quadrant of techniques this week, which can help you get out of the way of your own creativity and help to cultivate the Wisdom Function - which is great for activating spontaneous insights in daily life.
Week 2
How to Relax + Recharge with Mindfulness
We’ll cover the Feel Rest technique, and how it can help with stress management, creating mental space, and help with sleep.
Week 6
Feeling Good and the Magic of Music
We’ll use music as a tool to learn the Feel Good technique. You’ll learn how to generate and maintain positive emotional states, and how you can use them to help improve your relationship with yourself and with other people in your life.
Week 3
Mindfulness in Daily Life
You’ll learn all the various ways to apply the techniques you are learning to daily life, including specific strategies and systems you can use throughout your day
Week 7
Applying Mindfulness to Inner Opportunities and Obstacles
We’ll work on specific strategies you can employ to apply the techniques we’ve learned when difficulties or opportunities come up in practice. Learn how to optimize your practice and be your own coach!
Week 4
Going with the Flow
This week we’ll cover the technique Feel Flow to learn how to activate and maintain Flow to help stay centered and focused even if things around you are hectic or scattered
Week 8
Mindfulness Road-Map
To wrap up, we’ll go over everything you need to get your practice started + set up a strategy for growth. I’ll make sure you have all the problem solving strategies and support in place to make the most of your new skills as you move into 2021!
& other stuff!
Bonus 1
Downloadable recordings for each weeks practice
so you can easily practice on your own. Choose between 10 and 20 minute recordings to sit with every day!
Bonus 2
an optional totally complimentary one-on-one session to go over your practice and answer any individual questions or concerns that you might have. I can also suggest ways you might be able to optimize your practice to get the most out of it!
Bonus 3
Recordings of each class delivered weekly via Dropbox, so you can catch up or review the material as we go along!
Got Questions?
Please check out the FAQ for this class!
(and email me if you have any other questions!)
Hi, I’m Laura.
I'm an artist and creative in Los Angeles, mostly working on television - you've likely seen my work as an environment artist on various screens large and small. Most people in my circles mostly know me for that - but there's so much more to my story.
Several years ago I got serious about my meditation practice after a series of life events culminated in an inability to ignore the level of stress, anxiety, and overwhelm I felt at many things that seemed beyond my control.
I had dabbled in meditation on and off my whole adult life - but it wasn't until I hit the bottom that I really went all in on this practice. Within about a year of a 45 minute daily practice and residential retreat time (combined with an awesome therapist!) - the way I approached the world at all levels fundamentally shifted.
Today I’m a Level 2 certified coach in the Unified Mindfulness system developed by Shinzen Young - the same system I got started in myself!
I also have a daily formal sitting practice, and am committed to 10 full days of residential retreat per year. I keep engaged by doing regular daylong retreats and workshops, and sit on a weekly and monthly basis with Mettagroup and the Pointing out the Great Way Foundation. I have ongoing relationships with senior teachers and fellow coaches, who help keep me focused, on-track and productive!
As my journey continues I've noticed a continual loosening of more and more subtle layers of fear and anxiety, increased skills in connecting with others, a growing interest in being of service, and a profound awareness and gratitude for the felt sense of the interconnection of all beings.
I'm in growing amazement at the other unexpected benefits of practice that have arisen for me over time - including a deeper connection to my creative process, imagination, and more and more sparks of inspiration that arise spontaneously when I least expect them.
My primary meditation teacher is George Haas (founder of Mettagroup), and I have also worked directly with: Shinzen Young (founder of Unified Mindfulness & the author of the Science of Enlightenment), Dr. Daniel Brown (Founder Of The Pointing out the Great Way Foundation, and asst professor of Clinical Psychology at Harvard), and Michael Taft (host of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast, and author of The Mindful Geek)
For more in depth info on me, and the many other teachers I’ve worked with and coursework I’ve taken - please see my About Me page for all the details!
My personal interests and specialties include:
Heart-Centered Service.
I am deeply committed in this way to keep everything I offer available to anyone who might need it, regardless of their ability to pay.
The Imagination as a tool
the uses of the Imagination and creativity go well beyond content creation - they function as practical psychological tools for self transformation on the deepest levels.
Attachment psychology and the strategies we use to navigate the world.
How we use mindfulness to foster greater awareness and clarity around these strategies so they have less power over us. Cleaning up the smudged lens through which we see the world, in order to have more freedom from the past, to see our options more clearly, and to imagine a brilliant future.
Myth + Story as a healer
I’m a fan Depth Psychology, and meditation adjacent practices like Active Imagination - tools that are effective in exploring the myth and story bound up in our inner landscapes. These tools can help us to integrate the difficult stuff more effectively, imagine positive outcomes more clearly, and be more in touch with our own inner voice.
Building stronger relationships (to everything!)
Working with mindfulness and meditation skills to intentionally benefit connection and relationships - not only to the people in our lives, but to the broader natural world around us.
How we thrive through adversity
Understanding the use of emotional regulation strategies, and how our attachment styles and psychological schemas form the way that we act and react when our resources our low. How we clearly see all our options in any moment - and the best ways to overcome our conditioning to make non-reactive choices.
Classical Mysticism
Cross-cultural surveys of the classical mystic experience within and outside of traditional religious contexts. Did you know people without any religious background at all have had these profound experiences? They are not reserved for a particular type of person or only achieved through psychedelics - these peak experiences of interconnection are a part of what it means to be human - and available to anyone.
Tarot for the present moment
The intersection of mindfulness and Tarot - and how the ancient archetypes of the cards apply to universal inner and outer experience - coming together to encompass the totality of human experience - and telling a story of what is happening right now, in this moment .
and many many more……
“Compassion is to share the pain without sharing the suffering.”
About Unified Mindfulness
In their own words:
Unified Mindfulness is a system of meditation, designed by Shinzen Young, that’s easily researchable by science with clear terminology and rigorous precision around concepts and procedures. A direct result of this research and precision is that the process of learning and teaching mindfulness has been thoroughly systemized in a way that makes it accessible to anyone interested.
The UM system is a comprehensive, robust and refined support structure that any individual at any stage of meditation practice can rely on to go deeper in their insight and their ability to share it with others. UM is also a secular form of meditation, which means it’s not religious in any way, so anyone, of any faith, can do it.
The U.M. system is used by leading institutions like Harvard and Carnegie Mellon for their research on meditation
About Shinzen Young
Shinzen Young is an American mindfulness teacher and neuroscience research consultant.
His systematic approach to categorizing, adapting and teaching meditation, known as Unified Mindfulness, has resulted in collaborations with Harvard Medical School, Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Vermont in the burgeoning field of contemplative neuroscience.
Shinzen’s interest in Asia began at the age of 14 when he decided to attend Japanese ethnic school in his native city of Los Angeles.
After majoring in Asian languages at UCLA, he entered a PhD program in Buddhist Studies at the University of Wisconsin. As a part of his thesis research, he lived as a Shingon (Japanese Vajrayana) monk for three years at Mount Koya, Japan. It was then that he received the name Shinzen (真善).
Also during that time, he became friends with Father William Johnston (author of Christian Zen). Fr. Johnston helped broaden Shinzen’s interests to include comparative world mysticism and the scientific study of meditative states.
Upon returning to the United States, his academic interests shifted to the dialogue between Eastern meditation and Western science.
Shinzen is known for his interactive, algorithmic approach to mindfulness, and often uses mathematical metaphors to illustrate meditative phenomena.
He is the author of The Science of Enlightenment, Natural Pain Relief and numerous audio offerings.
