James Fitzgerald Therapy, PLLC
Strengthening Your Conscious Self © 2022
Guide for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
This link will redirect you to an external website for more information about the MBSR program created by Jon Kabat Zinn
This link will redirect you to an external website for more information about MBSR, what it is, and how it helps.
Welcome to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
I have adapted this program for my clients and this website from an external source. Some of the content was curated from another provider’s resource, and combined with information from multiple other sources. This course is free and completely self-guided; there is no registration and only you will be monitoring your progress, using the online progress tracker built into this website. Please feel free to process this program with me (your life coach or therapist/counselor). Let me know if you have any questions, concerns, comments, or feedback.
Welcome!
I’m so glad you chose to take this course! This is a complete MBSR course, modified/expaned by me, and designed for people who are not able to take a live MBSR course for health safety, financial, or logistical reasons. All of the materials used in the live courses I teach, including guided meditations, articles and videos, are freely available here. Offering something for nothing does seem a little suspicious these days.
There is no catch: no fees, no spam, no cookies, you don’t even need to identify yourself or give an email address. You simply have to be one of my clients. This course is included in your therapy or coaching agreement. I receive no income personally from the sites I link to, not even indirectly. (NOTE: Some of the videos have advertising, but the ad revenue goes directly to the creator of the videos and not to me.)
I am certified as an MBSR/MBCT instructor by All CEUs and PESI and I have taught live, in-person mindfulness classes in the community for 12 years. I’m also a professional psychotherapist who has had a regular meditation practice for over 20 years, and when I discovered a free MBSR course, I wanted to offer it to my clients. I soon realized that with a little work, the material could be useful to people who are not able to attend a live MBSR class, either because of health, safety, financial, or geographical limitations.
Creating and incrementally improving this resource will continue to be a labor of love, and I’m happy to provide these materials without asking for a fee, something that is made possible given the economies of the internet, and how the course is structured. How does the online Mindfulness course compare to a live MBSR course? According to another teacher who offers the same course, who previously taught MBSR to 400 people live and in person, has concluded that students who complete an online Mindfulness course typically have just as deep an experience as those who complete a live MBSR course.
One of the reasons this online course can be as effective as a live course is because you are not limited to eight weeks of learning since you can take as long as you like to fully absorb the teachings and practices of each “week”, and much more material is available. Also, a live course, even one taught by a single gifted teacher, will necessarily be limited in range in terms of teaching style and content, but with this online course, you will be taught, through videos and readings, by a variety of world-renowned teachers such as Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, Sylvia Boorstein, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Kristin Neff, and Shauna Shapiro.
Online courses are challenging because it’s easy to start a self-paced online course but difficult to finish without regular, live, encouragement. It is for this reason that, for those who can afford it and can fit it into their schedule, a live MBSR course may be a better option than the online course because a regular live MBSR course increases the odds that a student will finish what they have begun.
What if I have questions while taking the course?
A distinct advantage of this course is that you don’t have to wait for a once-a-week meeting to ask a question or share a concern. There are optional ways of communicating with me through email and Quenza chat, instead of just weekly appointments.
To get more of a sense of what the course is about…
The introduction is designed to give you a sense of mindfulness and an idea of how this course is structured. For each of the eight weeks, videos, readings and practices help you build a base of both knowledge and experience. MBSR “At a Glance” provides a brief outline of the MBSR course.
All of what you will need is accessible through this website, and whether or not you actually take yourself through the course, the wealth of material here, including videos and writings by the teachers mentioned above and others, is freely available to you.
No registration required – begin whenever you’re ready
This course is completely self-guided (there is no registration and only you will be monitoring your progress, using the provided practice sheets). If you successfully complete the eight weeks of practice, study the materials, record your progress daily, submit your log each week, and request a Certificate of Completion, I will send you a personal note of congratulations along with a certificate of completion. There is no cost for this. You simply submit your online practice log and email the request.
If you are ready to begin, or if you’d just like to know more about mindfulness or this program, go to the introduction.
Much of the material in this course is drawn from the works of other teachers and writers who share my passion for mindfulness. Those who have given their explicit written approval to the original source content creator and how he uses their materials include Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tara Brach, Shauna Shapiro, Kristin Neff, Michelle Maldonado, Vidyamala Burch, Lynn Rossy, James Baraz, Ann Weiser Cornell, Daron Larson, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
This link will redirect you to the table of contents
This link will redirect you to the introduction section, to provide information about MBSR, what it is, and how it helps.