An immersive 4-day residential training course in mindful awareness, heart intelligence and listening spaces. Learn fundamental techniques and habits to live with more balance, happiness, connection and emotional resilience.
- An immersive environment including talks, guided practices, and small group listening spaces
- Lead by a team of experienced facilitators
- Emphasis on techniques and habits that can be integrated into daily lives
- Ways to truly resource ourselves to greatly enhance our work, relationships and aspirations in the world
- 3 months of after-course support including online sessions and resources
Upcoming Courses
Sadly we have taken the decision to postpone all our Intensives in 2020 due to the difficulty in managing the risk from Covid 19. We hope you can join us next year and in the mean time you might like to try our Start Mindfulness online course.
If you have any questions regarding the course please do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
What will I learn
Using the foundations of mindfulness, heart intelligence and listening spaces, the course explores our 4 keys to heart: stopping and resting, happiness, difficulty and connection.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is attention training, learning to rest our mind in the present moment and to bring our awareness to our bodies. Our courses teach mindfulness as a way of connecting mind and heart as a way to live more fully and allow us space to understand our emotional life.
We explore how to apply it to every aspect of life including sitting, walking, eating, speaking and relating.
Next: Heart Intelligence
Heart Intelligence
Science shows us that our heart is in a constant two-way neurological communication with our brain and is sending more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.
When we experience sustained positive emotions such as appreciation we see a positive shift in our body and mind which is reflected in a measurable change in our heart rhythms. We teach techniques to create and sustain this beneficial psychophysical state including how we can utilise biofeedback from the heart.
Next: Listening Spaces
Listening Spaces
We will offer concrete ways to listen with our hearts rather than our heads and to open ourselves to more empathic and meaningful communication.
These experiential practices can be applied widely: in personal relationship, the workplace and in community dialogue to open up possibilities for more meaningful communication and understanding.
Next: Stopping and Resting
Stopping and Resting
How can we find ways to effectively replenish and resource our body and mind right in the midst of the stresses and strains of everyday life? We will learn how we can utilise mindfulness practices in daily life to restore wellbeing and sustain vitality even when we feel we do not have enough time to rest.
We will explore different ways of integrating rest into our life including the power of short periods of mindful breathing and developing and maintaining a regular sitting meditation practice.
Next: Happiness
Happiness
We will look at what causes and conditions lead to happiness and how we can develop habits which create more happiness for ourselves. We will explore how our mind can be hardwired to prioritise negative thoughts and emotions and how to counter that.
Far from being self-indulgent, learning how to focus on happiness will allow us to be of much more use to those around us in need.
Next: Difficulty
Difficulty
We all experience difficulty, it is not something we can get rid of. Rather than spending our energy resisting all the difficulties in our life, there are ways we can move towards them with kindness and curiosity.
Taking this approach to difficulty not only means that we can handle challenging situations much better but also use these situations for opportunities for growth and development.
Next: Connection
Connection
Are we fully experiencing a sense of connection in our lives? What causes disconnection? How can we build a bridge between disconnection and connection?
We will have space to understand more about how we relate to ourselves, to each other and to the wider world around us.
First: Mindfulness
I felt like I had been lost and the Intensive brought me home again.
Participant
Far more than a 4-day course
We recognise that a supportive community is crucial to embed lasting changes in our lives.
- Regular group video calls with course facilitators for 3 months after the course
- Range of resource to support with continued mindfulness, heart intelligence and listening space practice
- An online community to stay connected with course participants
- We also offer an ambassador development programme for those who want to teach heart-based living. The intensive is a pre-requisite for this programme.
More from previous attendees
Meet the facilitators
Michael Schwammberger
Michael is a highly sought-after teacher and has led retreats in the UK, Spain and South America.
Michael Schwammberger
Michael is a highly sought-after teacher and has led retreats in the UK, Spain and South America. He has been practising mindfulness since 1992 and he lived as a Buddhist monk for 15 years in Plum Village France, where he was a student of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.
Lyndsay Lunan
Lyndsay has taught both at Glasgow University and in Further Education, where she created an acclaimed mindfulness programmes for staff and students.
Lyndsay Lunan
Lyndsay has taught both at Glasgow University and in Further Education, where she created an acclaimed mindfulness programmes for staff and students. She was later director of programme development and lead trainer at Youth Mindfulness. Lyndsay believes that the world we create begins with a state of mind
Will Stephens
Will has completed over 50 weeks of intensive mindfulness training from 2003 to 2013.
Will Stephens
He spent three years training in Core Process Psychotherapy at the Karuna Institute before gaining experience working in NHS mental health services and in two UK prisons. He built and ran a Mindfulness Centre in the South of England, running residential retreats and specific programmes for young people and educators.
Kareem Ghandour
Kareem has been engaged as a facilitator with mindfulness communities for young people since 2011
Kareem Ghandour
Kareem has been engaged as a facilitator with mindfulness communities for young people since 2011. He worked on the facilitator team of the Scottish charity Youth Mindfulness, where he supported retreats, training programmes and delivered courses in schools. He has recently completed a 2-year teacher training programme in the U.S with renowned teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Jasmine Shaw
Jasmine has been a mindfulness facilitator in youth communities since 2010.
Jasmine Shaw
Jasmine has been a mindfulness facilitator in youth communities since 2010. Most recently she was programme coordinator and facilitator on the Youth Mindfulness One Year Programm which trains adult mindfulness facilitators for educational and community settings. She has trained with Kristen Neff in mindful self-compassion and completed a 2-year teacher training programme in the U.S with renowned teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Karim Manji
Karim has taught mindfulness in schools, workplaces and youth groups.
Karim Manji
Karim has taught mindfulness in schools, workplaces and youth groups. He is a qualified Secondary School teacher and has spent 18 months training in mindfulness at Plum Village. He has been taught by Jon Kabat Zinn, Tara Brach, Vinny Ferano and Tenzin Palmo. He brings an accessible and relatable style to teaching and is passionate about finding ways that every person can benefit from heart-based practices.
Pricing
Our standard rate for the fully residential 4-day course is £795. This covers all meals, accommodation, a full schedule of daily talks, activities, and workshops as well as access to ongoing support after the course.
You can choose to pay in 2 instalments with our deposit scheme: deposit payment of 50% due on registration and the remaining instalment will be due 6 weeks prior to the course start date.
There is also a supported rate of £495 and scholarships available.
If you are book at the same time as a friend we offer you each a £50 reduction (use the promotional code of FRIEND).
Supported Rate and Scholarships
We are committed to ensuring that Heart-Based Living courses are available to all who wish to participate, irrespective of financial circumstances.
It is our policy to offer financial assistance for 25% of course places to help make participation more accessible if the Standard rate is too high.
We welcome and encourage people to make use of these options as we want to extend our inclusivity beyond those fortunate enough to afford personal change and growth, allowing us to connect with other areas of need.
Supported Rate
There are places offered on each course at the supported rate of £495 for those who are genuinely not able to afford the Standard rate. All financially assisted places are offered 6 weeks before the start of each course and payment is required in full to secure your place at this time.
Scholarship Fund
There are also places offered on each course through our Scholarship Fund. To apply, you will need to fill in a short, confidential application form. Please email us at info@heartbasedliving.org.uk to request an application form.