Mindfulness in Nature

Presented by: Dr. Brenda Butterfield, EdD, MSW, LMHC 

When: Friday, August 23rd, 2024 | 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM, Pacific Time

Where: Live in person at the ONE Center (7400 Gallagher Cove Road NW, Olympia, WA 98502)

Lodging Options: If you are coming to the area from out of town, several lodging options are available, including staying at the ONE Center. For all lodging accommodation options, please see the list here.

Continuing Education Credit Hours: 6 CEs | $189.00

The Mindfulness Movement continues to change lives by helping people worldwide wake up and learn new ways of living a more peaceful, joy-filled, and healthier life. This movement includes different clinical Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) developed to effectively help people suffer less from chronic pain, depression, anxiety, substance use, suicidality, and more painful conditions. MBIs include Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and Mindful Self Compassion (MSC).  They are all strongly influenced by Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn over 45 years ago.  These evidence-based interventions honor the mind/body connection and align well with the integrated health care bio-psycho-social treatment model. 

While psychological interventions are typically knowledge-based and directed toward client change, irrespective of the clinician’s health and well-being, Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) are different. They require teachers to practice what they preach and teach from their practice. So, let’s practice mindfulness together at the beautiful ONE Center on the South Salish Sea just outside Olympia, WA. ONE is an incredibly special place created specifically for healthcare providers! This day of learning is designed to support your health and well-being WHILE earning continuing education credits, too! This workshop is retreat-style, nature-based, and experiential. We’ll be walking slowly, short distances, and pausing all along the way because we’ve created this workshop for you to experience mindfulness by slowing down, pausing, and resting in moments of awareness right here, right now. 

Through your own lived experience on the land, you will learn how to develop/strengthen a mindfulness practice to improve your health and well-being and guide clients in doing the same. We’ll explore formal and informal practices taught in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), including sitting/lying down meditation, walking meditation, and mindful movement. We’ll also explore mindful walking, simple sensory invitations to increase somatic awareness, and self-reflective writing throughout the day. All are simple practices you can teach clients and empower them to support their own health and well-being.  These are accessible practices to increase awareness of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and behaviors, empowering one to make healthy choices in daily life. 

In addition, we’ll explore questions such as, What is mindfulness? What does it mean to BE mindful and to practice mindfulness?  What’s the difference between mindfulness and meditation? What does the research suggest about integrating mindfulness into mental health care? And we’ll explore important implications of calling oneself a mindfulness therapist. 

We hope you come, explore, and experience mindfulness in nature to learn accessible, simple ways of practicing mindfulness through invitations from the beautiful land, gardens, forest, and waters of the South Salish Sea at The ONE Center.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Understand the benefits of integrating MBIs in clinical practice and the necessity of teaching from one’s lived experience. 
2. Learn mindfulness and develop a daily practice for yourself and your clients.
3. Explore the language, concepts, and phenomena of mindfulness.
4. Learn about the mind/body relationship between chronic stress (CBT Thinking Errors) & health (depression/anxiety/panic attacks), enabling you to explain the Autonomic, Sympathetic, and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems to clients.
5. Practice various breathing techniques to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and facilitate emotional regulation. 
6. Learn formal and informal mindfulness practices for therapeutic use with clients (guided meditation, mindful walking, walking meditation, body scan, mindful eating, STOP method, etc.)
7. Become familiar with explaining the relationship between CBT thinking errors and mindfulness to provide more holistic care to clients.