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tools for mental health and well-being
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a trusted collection of simple and empowering self-care tools to nourish your body, mind & spirit
Online Courses
To Inspire You
40 Days to Positive Change:
Daily Support to Create a New Habit
With Kelly McGonigal
"If you've ever devoted yourself to adding a beneficial new habit to your daily life, you've likely run into a universal truth: true personal change is really difficult."
-- Kelly McGonigal
WHY WE LOVE IT:
Kelly is a smart, engaging instructor with a deep passion for studying her subject matter on both a personal and scientific level. Her teachings are practical, accessible, and fully applicable. She delivers 40 daily lessons, 10-15 minutes each, along with 2 previously recorded Q&A sessions, as well as guided practices and exercises for initiating and internalizing positive change in your life. This program is useful for common daily habits that people often want to incorporate in their lives such as exercising regularly, getting more sleep, reading more books, eating more fruits and vegetables, or meditating daily. It can also be used to change habits on a larger scale such as taking small steps to overcome a fear of flying, or making a daily effort to declutter in preparation for a larger, overwhelming move. Kelly is your kind guide throughout this journey, as she provides structure and support by sharing the science of habit formation from the latest neuroscientific and behavioral research, and discusses the practices of motivation, intention, action, reward, gratitude, joy, encouragement, and internalization that make up positive behavioral change. By working with these principles, your new habit can become a natural, positive part of your daily life and can be instilled as a life-long habit. If you are looking for grounded support in truly making a life change for the better, we highly recommend this course! Better yet, do it collaboratively with a friend, and together you can cultivate a positive life-long habit that becomes deeply embedded in your brain and your body and contributes to your health, happiness, and ability to live life more fully.
Gratitude Daily:
21 Days to More Joy and Less Stress
With Nataly Kogan
WHY WE LOVE IT:
According to research, developing an "attitude of gratitude" is one of the simplest ways we can reduce stress and improve our life satisfaction, physical and psychological health, our relationships, sleep, self-esteem, and even our resilience after a
traumatic event. Sometimes even though we like the idea of maintaining a daily gratitude practice, we may have a hard time getting in the groove. This is where Nataly's Gratitude Daily comes in. As we were among those people who had trouble getting started, we can attest to the wonderful structure and support of this 21-day gratitude program to help us along. Nataly is our lovely, encouraging, world-renowned guide through this 21-day experience that includes daily 10-15 minute teachings, personal stories, and fun exercises to build a solid gratitude habit that changes your brain and your resilience for the better!
The Science of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion
With Kristin Neff and Shauna Shapiro
WHY WE LOVE IT:
We love this 7-hour downloadable experience with Kristin and Shauna. As it's recorded in a recent workshop setting, it has the feel of being in a live class with a live audience but you can start anytime and go at your own pace. By combining the skills of mindfulness and self-compassion, the practice of mindful self-compassion is one of the most powerful tools we know of to build emotional resilience and to help transform your life for the better. The science tells us that mindful self-compassion brings increased life satisfaction and leads to decreased stress, anxiety, and depression. This course combines a discussion about the evidence on the benefits of self-compassion, myths about self-compassion, guided practices and exercises, along with a recorded Q&A. We had the good fortune of participating in a live workshop with Kristin in Santa Monica, California a number of years ago during a personally challenging time, and can attest to the power of this transformational life skill - -which helps us learn to set aside that critical voice in your head and choose instead to be kind to yourself and to your present-moment experience.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: An 8-Week Online Training Course
With Dr. Saki Santorelli and Florence Meleo-Meyer
WHY WE LOVE IT:
We cannot say enough about the power of mindfulness as a life skill. We've seen the growth of mindfulness as the most revolutionary development in meditation in the Western world. More and more, we're seeing mindfulness entering the common understanding as a proven tool in health care, psychology, and personal well-being -- as well as being a foundation for spiritual practice. The overwhelming
body of scientific evidence on mindfulness confirms the power of this practice to change our lives. This 8-week online course, offered as a purely secular approach by top teachers at Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn's Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, includes 8 weekly downloadable sessions and a day-long session at the end of the course. It allows you to go at your own pace, and offers support through weekly emails with practice suggestions. Although an in-person course is sometimes preferable, this amazingly high-quality online course, serving as a foundation for your mindfulness knowledge and practice, is the next best thing! You can start anytime.
Basics of Mindfulness Meditation:
A 28-Day Program
With Elisha Goldstein, ph.d.
WHY WE LOVE IT:
Elisha teaches mindfulness meditation in a wise, compassionate, and accessible way. As he puts it, in this course we "learn the basic elements of integrating mindfulness into daily life, how to work with distraction, practice the core elements of formal meditation and open up to more experiences of compassion and balance." He incorporates the components of mindfulness of
body and emotions, mindfulness of compassion, self-compassion, balance, and freedom. An excellent, supportive course that you can start anytime. He also has a 6-month long comprehensive Course in Mindful Living that begins periodically throughout the year.
The Power of Awareness: An Online Mindfulness Training to Transform Your Life with Awareness, Compassion and Well-Being
With Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach
WHY WE LOVE IT:
You can definitely learn so much, as we have, from Tara and Jack's free talks and meditations; they are generous with making so many of their teachings free and accessible. But if you want a full online course with a community of support for learning the foundational
skills of mindfulness and meditation, this is perfect for you. This excellent course incorporates teachings on the practices of mindfulness, meditation, an awareness of emotions, thoughts, and body sensations, and creating mindful relationships. Weekly topics include:
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How to establish your practice and awaken to your body
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Mindfulness with your emotions and freedom with your thoughts
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How to work with difficulty in your life
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Expanding the love for yourself and others
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Creating mindful relationships ("bringing the skills of mindfulness to your relationships to deepen and strengthen your authentic bond with others")
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How to bring more awareness into your daily life and care for our world
It's a 7-week online course with prerecorded teachings with Tara and Jack, prerecorded Q&A sessions, and LIVE community mentoring calls with handpicked mentors and fellow students to ask questions, find support, and gain a deeper understanding of the material within the context of your own life. We love Tara and Jack in their wisdom and kindness, and we love this beginning course as a strong foundation for learning how to be fully present in your life in all its sorrows and joys.
Mindful Parent, Mindful Child: Simple Mindfulness Practices for Busy Parents
With Susan Kaiser Greenland
WHY WE LOVE IT:
Susan is one of the top people in the field of mindfulness for parents and kids. She makes secular mindfulness accessible and fun with 30 simple practices in just 10 minutes a day that you can explore together with your kids.
Mindfulness-Based Mind Fitness Training: A Trauma-Sensitive Online Course to Build Resilience and Thrive During Stress
With Elizabeth Stanley, Ph.D.
WHY WE LOVE IT:
This is a tried-and-true research-based course that is newly online. The course is timely in its comprehensive approach to mindfulness, stress, trauma, and resilience, noting the effects that chronic
stress has not only on first responders but also on parents, teachers, and all of us really at this moment in history. It's an 8-week online course that includes teachings combined with guided practices and exercises. The course aims to help you:
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Build your resilience, by recovering from prior stress and healing from trauma
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Improve your decision-making and ability to access choice during challenges
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Create more effective relationships, especially during stress and conflict.
Mindfulness-Based Fitness Training is an ideal, highly applicable course -- perfect for cultivating the healing and skills needed to reset and thrive during these turbulent times.
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NOTE: If you are interested in complimentary access to this course and you support or work within the civil service, military, healthcare, education, law enforcement, first responder, or public service organizations, please apply to the Sounds True Foundation. And if you would like to help others gain complimentary access, you can make a tax-deductible contribution to the Sounds True Foundation for this purpose at soundstruefoundation.org. We love that in order to make this course accessible to all, Sounds True offers those in need the opportunity to apply for a course scholarship.
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AND/OR: Join pioneering resilience researcher Dr. Elizabeth Stanley in a FREE one-hour webinar to learn about the neurobiology of recovery from chronic stress and trauma, and how to maximize your performance and emotional well-being in high-stress environments and relationships. She highlights some key concepts from the course too!
Energy Essentials for Every Day Living
With Prune Harris
WHY WE LOVE IT:
Prune is calming, wise, and passionate in her online course introducing energy tools and techniques to help increase health, vitality, and calm. After some background on energy anatomy, she introduces energy techniques to work with a range of issues including fatigue, stress, insomnia, physical pain, insomnia, anger, sadness, brain fog, and immune boosters. Prune knows her stuff and if you are curious about learning the basics of
ways to use energy for optimal health and well-being, this is an excellent place to start.
Renew Yourself:
Body, Mind, and Spirit
With Deepak Chopra & J Balvin
WHY WE LOVE IT:
Deepak teams up with J Balvin to offer a powerful learning experience in both English and Spanish. Each day they offer a mini-talk followed by an easy mantra meditation to deepen your connection to your mind, body, and spirit. We love this 21-day experience! It offers insight and clarity around what matters most for your well-being in terms of finding stillness underneath the
active mind, connecting to the healing messages of your body and seeing your body as a source of energy and joy, and aligning with your soul and spirit for greater clarity, creativity, insight, purpose, and meaning. This was a free 21-day meditation experience from the summer of 2020 that has ended and is now available for purchase. Well worth it!