Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course

30 July - 17 September 2025 // Wednesdays 6.00pm - 8.30pm // North Caulfield // Caulfield Park Community Room

Join this world-renowned course for greater peace of mind and balance. A transformative, evidence-based course to nurture physical and mental health

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Course

Heading 3

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course is an in-depth, 8-week course. It is a unique learning experience to explore mindfulness and learn practical tools for greater balance, ease and well-being in your life. It is designed to give you new tools and resources to develop new practices and bring the changes that you want to see in your life.

This 8-week course was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn (University of Massachusetts Medical School), a modern-day pioneer of mindfulness. MBSR is arguably one of the best mindfulness courses there is, completed by hundreds of thousands of people world-wide. It is an ‘evidence-based’ course with decades of research showing its positive effects on physical health, mental health and well-being.

This course provides a comprehensive and in-person learning experience for people who want to learn to apply mindfulness practices for their everyday life.

The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course is an in-person course completed over an 8-week period. Through 8 weekly sessions, an experienced meditation teacher will support you to explore mindfulness and meditation practices to integrate into your everyday life. No meditation experience is necessary. Our classes are inclusive of people with different

backgrounds, abilities and ages.

Class size is limited to a maximum of ten people to ensure an optimal learning environment.

In the course, you'll learn lifelong skills:

Mindfulness skills to enhance your well-being, resilience and health
Core meditation practices (eg: body scan, gentle movement, sitting meditation)
Practical and easy practices that you can use in your everyday life
How to expand mindfulness into your daily life
How to shift from reactivity to responding with greater choice and control
How to bring more ease into your life, including when you experience challenges, discomfort or pain
How to bring greater awareness to yourself and to others

Here's what you’ll receive in the 8-week MBSR course:

An Initial Call with the teacher to answer any questions you may have.
More than 24 Hours Of Classes. There are 8, weekly classes. Each class is two and a half hours in length. Each class includes in-depth curriculum, experiential learning and guided practices and group discussion.
A Bonus Day of Mindfulness on a Sunday mid-way through the course. You’ll enjoy a whole day of guided meditations, walking meditation, movement and lunch together.
Small, safe & confidential Group environment.
An opportunity for One-to-one Calls with the teacher outside of class time, if you need extra support or wish to discuss any more personal issues outside of class.
A Comprehensive Course Workbook with all the course content week-by-week to remind you of the key lessons and guidance material to integrate mindfulness into your daily life.
A course Meditation App with guided meditations for your ongoing use after the course.
The 8-week course price is $695 for the standard rate (or if you need assistance, please enquire about concessional rates of $495 or $250. No-one is turned away for lack of funds).

Please note: all of our courses are secular and not religious.

In-person course.

The MBSR course is suitable for everyone. This includes beginners, adults of all ages and people with a variety of backgrounds.

The practice and content of this course is simple and easy to learn. No prior knowledge or experience of meditation, yoga or mindfulness is required.

Recommended audience

Format

MBSR course outline

Week 1 - Recognising the present moment

This week you will receive an overview of the course and establish the context for your learning experience over the next 8 weeks. You will learn about getting stuck in 'doing' mode and how you can shift to 'being' mode. You'll be introduced to the mindfully eating and the body scan meditation practices and how you can interrupt 'automatic pilot' to be fully engaged in the present moment.

Week 2 - Perception and how we make sense of the world

How you see the world (your perceptions) significantly drives your behaviour, actions and responses. This week explores the role of perceptions, the assumptions and how this largely determines how we respond. You will learn practices to observe your experience and cultivate a greater level awareness of the way you view the world. Understanding the role of these, often unconscious, perceptions enables to you change how you respond to stressful situations in your life.

Week 3 - Practice and the power of being present

This week you will be experientially introduced to some core mindfulness practices - mindful hatha yoga and sitting meditation. Along with other participants, you'll have the opportunity to share your insights and experiences of these practices and begin to explore how to integrate mindfulness into your everyday life.

You will learn what it means to be 'present' and to become more aware of how you respond in automatic or reactive ways. In this session, you will also be exploring how to be with, and investigate, your own experience rather than unconsciously reacting.

Week 4 - Investigating stressful experience and approaching the difficult

This week you will learn about the physiology and psychology of stress and it's impact on the mind and body.

As we cultivate mindfulness, we become more curious and open to all of our experience. In this session, you will explore how to expand your awareness and to work effectively with stressful or difficult situations. These mindful practices will help you to cultivate more equanimity to difficult experiences and respond in more positive and proactive ways to stressors in your life.

Week 5 - Finding another place to stand

Having established yourself in the foundations of mindfulness at this point in the course, you will begin to explore more deeply the habits and unhealthy patterns that keep you stuck in responding to stressors in certain ways. Through the mindful strategies and tools you have been practicing, you will increasingly recognise these unhelpful patterns of thinking and how they contribute to stress.

You will learn how to bring mindfulness to stressful moments and interrupt these habitual patterns when you have strong sensations, emotions or experiences.

Week 6 - Interpersonal mindfulness

This week you will explore how to use and apply mindfulness practices in interpersonal relationships. Often times, we experience difficult communication in our relationships with other people, especially when there are strong emotions involved.

In this session, you will explore applying mindfulness to relationships with others. You'll learn and practice specific mindfulness techniques for effective interpersonal communication.

Week 7 - Applying mindfulness

Mindfulness is more than learning a set of practices or techniques. To achieve the changes you want to see in your life, it is important to learn how to integrate mindfulness more fully into your life.

In this session, you will be invited to bring a broad perspective to your life and with a deep sense of compassion towards yourself. You'll be encouraged to open to your own wisdom and reflect on what is needed to support yourself, or change, for your own health, healing and growth.

Week 8 - Making mindfulness a part of your life

In our final session together, you will have a review of the themes and learnings over the 8 weeks of the course.

The emphasis this week will be how to build on the momentum you have gained during the course and how to continue to pursue mindfulness in your life. You will also learn about additional resources available to support your practice and to continue to integrate and grow in your life.

TO REGISTER