Certificate Overview
Applied Specialization in Mindfulness Meditation
About the certificate
Applied Specialization in Mindfulness Meditation courses will lead learners to apply the knowledge foundations from the Foundations in Applied Mindfulness Meditation certificate towards a more specialized application. To complete this, learners must complete any combination of four courses from the streams as noted: education, parenting and youth, contemplative arts, workplace, technology and media, therapy, embodied mind, and compassion. For learners who wish to gain more intimate knowledge of a specific subject area, it is recommended that you complete all courses from that stream.
Required Courses
Education
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3272
Mindfulness for Reconciliation and Conflict Management
Learn to apply mindfulness practice to reconciliation and conflict resolution. In this two-day course, you’ll learn to recognize and handle the roots of strong emotions in conflict, and communicate effectively at times of difficulty. You’ll explore the four-step framework of “Beginning Anew”, based on the tradition of scholar, Zen Master and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh. “Beginning Anew” offers a concrete structure that can be applied to a wide spectrum of daily settings, including workplaces, classrooms and the home. -
3275
More on Neuroscience, Mindfulness and Meditation
If you’ve already completed Neuroscience, Mindfulness and Mindfulness Meditation, this two-day workshop will help you build your understanding and skills. You’ll discover how mindfulness meditation enhances specific areas of the brain, and how these changes promote psychological and social well-being. Through lectures, videos and small group discussions, you’ll explore the latest research on neuroscience, neural integration and the many ways it’s enhanced by mindfulness meditation. -
3276
Mindful Approaches to Well-Being for Helping Professionals
Inviting teachers and other helping professionals to participate in a two day workshop that will highlight the important role that subjective knowledge plays in our respective contexts. The helping professions are embedded in bureaucratic systems where relational/subjective knowing is paradoxically required, yet often undermined. The intensification and pace of the workplace life contribute to the fragmentation of the self and disconnection from others. Reflective practices which help us reconnect to our subjective knowing may help counteract some of the forces that distort our moral agency in our attempts to humanize these professional contexts for all concerned. Participants in this seminar will use arts based processes and mindfulness practices to examine resiliency, agency, and general well-being in the workplace. While best suited for educators, the module will be of interest to anyone in the helping professions. -
3277
Teaching Mindfulness to Teens
- Winter - 25
- Online
350This introductory workshop is designed for educators, counsellors, and youth leaders who want to teach mindfulness to teenagers effectively. Through a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical application, participants will learn how to implement engaging mindfulness practices and strategies tailored to the unique needs of adolescents.
Who Should Enroll:
This course is ideal for educators, school counsellors, youth program leaders, and mental health professionals interested in integrating mindfulness into their work with teens. This program is also applicable to parents wishing to support their teens as they learn to manage the ups and downs of life.Outcomes:
By the end of the course, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to confidently teach mindfulness to teens, fostering resilience, emotional intelligence, and well-being in their students or participants. Extensive resources will be provided to support you on your journey. -
3767
Cultivating The Compassionate Classroom
- Winter - 25
- Online
350Mindful teaching supports learners of all ages in their development of compassionate, prosocial behaviour. In this course, you’ll develop a repertoire of mindful and compassionate teaching practices that help students build supportive and collaborative relationships with their peers. You’ll explore relevant connections to learning skills and work habits, curriculum, policies and resources, along with active learning strategies that build community. You’ll learn how to create safe, inclusive learning environments in schools, post-secondary institutions, hospitals, training centres, and in the workplace.
Parenting and Youth
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3277
Teaching Mindfulness to Teens
- Winter - 25
- Online
350This introductory workshop is designed for educators, counsellors, and youth leaders who want to teach mindfulness to teenagers effectively. Through a combination of theoretical knowledge and practical application, participants will learn how to implement engaging mindfulness practices and strategies tailored to the unique needs of adolescents.
Who Should Enroll:
This course is ideal for educators, school counsellors, youth program leaders, and mental health professionals interested in integrating mindfulness into their work with teens. This program is also applicable to parents wishing to support their teens as they learn to manage the ups and downs of life.Outcomes:
By the end of the course, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to confidently teach mindfulness to teens, fostering resilience, emotional intelligence, and well-being in their students or participants. Extensive resources will be provided to support you on your journey.
Contemplative Arts
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3269
A Mindful Way Through the Creative Process
A Mindful Way Through The Creative Process offers a 10-step model that uses skills and practices informed by mindfulness to help you develop any project or even just uncover your next steps in life. Whether you are working on a business plan, writing a book, taking a leap into a new career or unsure of what you want to do, this interactive program shows you how to break everything down into manageable, bite-sized pieces to help you to accomplish your needs or discover your biggest dreams. As you learn to make friends with uncertainty and floundering, you will see how making a mess, creating your own unique relationship to structure and knowing who to go to for feedback are all part of the inescapable and important pieces of any creative process.
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3969
Mindfulness and Art Therapy
- Winter - 25
- Online
365If you’re seeking to integrate mindfulness and art therapy into your personal life or professional practice, this course is for you. You’ll learn why and how mindfulness-based interventions and art therapy came together to create new protocols and tools in psychotherapy. This course will teach you methods and skills to increase awareness of the self through creative exploration. You’ll emerge with a greater awareness of how mindfulness and art therapy can improve cognitive, emotional and behavioral processes. No prior artistic experience is needed.
Notes:
This course is equivalent to 3519 and 3520.
This course is for educational purposes and is not intended as a substitute for consultation and treatment from a qualified and registered healthcare professional or service provider.
Workplace
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3271
Mindfulness and Teams
- Winter - 25
- Online
350The intent of this learning experience is to help you strengthen your own personal and professional contributions in group settings, to lead and develop stronger teams. You’ll learn how mindfulness can improve interpersonal relations, personal accountability, information sharing, productive conflict, support psychological safety and enhance team performance. You’ll also learn practical mindfulness techniques that can be applied in various team settings. Each live, weekly session will combine theory and experiential learning practices including several discussion points to cultivate a team environment amongst participants. Each week will also have a self-directed learning component that will include posting self-reflective assignments to support your understanding of the course content while creating opportunity to engage in on-going discussions to strengthen relationship building and enhance the course’s team environment.
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3522
Mindfulness, Stoicism and Writing for Discipline and Productivity
- Winter - 25
- Online
365Formally called Mindfulness and Writing for Discipline and Productivity.
Time=Life. In this four-week intensive course, the topic of discipline and productivity is approached from an inside-out perspective. Discipline is a path to walk on and a muscle to exercise and strengthen. We learn not to be tossed around by our emotions and “external circumstances” over which we have little or no control. We will draw from the tradition of mindfulness practice and the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans—Pythagoras, Socrates, Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Through the practices of mindfulness and generative writing, journaling, wisdom circles and group discussions, we see ourselves more clearly. By identifying some of the inner, outer and secret obstacles to success and wellbeing, we recognize ways in which self-sabotage can occur. Through the contemplative practices of Mindfulness, Stoicism and writing and practical strategies such as activity scheduling, habit-tracking, setting intention and daily review, we discover ways to achieve greater stability, focus and joy in our lives. Discipline is a key tool for making good use of our precious human life. Discipline=Freedom.
Technology and Media
Healthcare
Therapy
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3273
Mindfulness of Feelings
- Winter - 25
- In Class
- St. George Campus
350Mindfulness of Feelings is a foundational practice in both traditional Buddhist meditation and contemporary mindfulness-based interventions. In this two-day workshop, you’ll get a comprehensive and immersive introduction to this practice. You’ll explore its therapeutic effect in the contexts of Buddhist psychology, western psychology and neuropsychology. You’ll learn how we can attend to feelings without falling into habitual patterns of reaction. You’ll deepen your understanding of feelings in mindfulness meditation and the connection between mind and the body. -
3406
Compassion-Based Resilience for Healthcare Professionals
- Winter - 25
- Online
350Healthcare professionals are exposed to others’ suffering on a regular basis through the very nature of their work. Empathic distress can be experienced as a normal consequence of empathic connection with those who are suffering. Compassion, rather than leading to fatigue and burnout, is a way of responding to others’ suffering that can strengthen our fortitude and benevolence. Drawing upon research and various models of compassion, you will discover mindfulness and compassion based practices that promote greater positive affect, connection, and resilience, even in the face of suffering. Through transformational meditative practices you will learn to activate your natural capacity for compassionate presence while strengthening your inner resources, ultimately improving the quality of care for yourself and others.
Embodied Mind
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3261
Finding Your Edge: Mindfulness and Optimal Performance
- Winter - 25
- Online
350If you want to achieve greater performance and success in your personal and professional life, this course is for you. You’ll learn how the science, practice and philosophy of mindfulness can reduce stress, enhance emotional intelligence and help you meet your goals. You’ll discover how to use cognitive-based and dialectical-based practices to work with emotions associated with stress, loss and change. You’ll learn practices that incorporate neuroscientific research, competitive advances and trends in athletics, military and executive leadership. -
3281
Foundations of Mindful Eating for Health Care Professionals
- Winter - 25
- Online
350Learn the principles of mindfulness as they relate to eating in this interactive course. This course introduces the theoretical and research underpinnings of disordered eating patterns and the rationale for the application of mindful eating interventions. You will explore mindful eating practices and relevant exercises for eating problems. You will learn about triggers that can lead to overeating, emotional eating, and loss of control. In addition, you will learn how to apply a mindful framework for dealing with maladaptive eating behaviours, including emotional eating, loss of control, overeating and grazing.
Mindful eating exercises will be facilitated during this course. Learners who are enrolled in the Online course will be required to purchase food in advance and a small list of foods will be emailed to you one week before the start of the course.
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3274
Mindfulness-Based Narrative Inquiry
Our own personal narratives have the power to hinder or foster our development. In this four-part workshop, we will use narrative theory and the practice of mindfulness to write a new story to live by. You’ll discover how personal stories follow a universal pattern, and consider Joseph Campbell’s perspective on the hero’s journey. You will also search out repeated patterns that hinder your progress, so that you can identify obstacles in your path. Finally, you will learn strategies to move forward into to your preferred story with a renewed sense of purpose. -
3738
Building Inner Strength – 16 Guidelines Level 1
- Winter - 25
- Online
350If you’re seeking practical tools to bring about positive change in your life, this experiential course is for you. You’ll explore the 16 Guidelines framework to deepen your experience in mindfulness as an embodied practice. You’ll enhance your capacity for personal reflection, resulting in a greater sense of well-being, confidence, purpose and emotional resilience. Drawing on proven techniques from positive psychology, social justice practices, neuroscience and centuries-old Eastern philosophy, you’ll develop an ethical, holistic approach to self-improvement and cultural change.
Notes:
This course is recognized by Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom, as part of their Training Pathway to become an Accredited 16 Guidelines Level 1 Facilitator. For more information about the 16 Guidelines program and a full list of all their accredited facilitators and other programs, please visit their website: www.compassionandwisdom.org -
3739
Building Inner Strength – 16 Guidelines Level 2
- Winter - 25
- Online
350Transforming yourself through mindful practice can give rise to challenges – specifically how aspects of the “shadow side” can be exposed through self-awareness. In this 16 Guidelines-based course, you’ll navigate these experiences as they arise so you can better understand your own shadow. Whether you’re a personal practitioner or mindful facilitator, you’ll explore the interplay between your mind, body, personal development and cultural contexts. You’ll develop skills that help you lead a happy, healthy and fulfilled life – and help others thrive.
Notes:
This course is recognized by Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom, as part of their Training Pathway to become an Accredited 16 Guidelines Level 1 Facilitator. For more information about the 16 Guidelines program and a full list of all their accredited facilitators and other programs, please visit their website: www.compassionandwisdom.org
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3761
Trauma-Informed Mindful Movement
- Winter - 25
- Online
350Discover the benefits of an embodied movement practice to help participants integrate past trauma. In this course, you’ll acquire the basic tools to practice in a group with ample time for experiential learning. By combining theory and practice, you’ll gain direct experience of mindful movement practices, including Trauma-Informed Yoga and Somatic Experiencing (SETM). You'll study the impacts and neuroscience of stress and trauma so you can share gentle movement practices in a safe environment and adapt them for various populations.