Online: Learning a New Embodied Relationship to Pain
with Joan Griffiths Vega, MFA and COFA, MBSR Facilitator
Sunday, October 4th, 2020 | 10:00am – 12:00pm ET
“All pain is real, no matter what is causing it. But also, all pain is made by the brain in response to the information available to it.” -Lorimer Moseley, clinical scientist and pain researcher at the University of South Australia
Pain, acute or chronic, requires a multifaceted, multi-dimensional approach to manage its overwhelming domination. Ironically, reducing pain is counterintuitive. Once pain is present, a choice opens up to us—to live a life of suffering, or to experientially know that pain is truly only a small portion of our infinite selves. In our time together we will explore ways to turn towards the pain with kindness and curiosity rather than react in fear or anger and try to push away the pain. When acceptance is present, the war stops. Choices arise.
Mindfulness is a well spring for living a more spacious, more joyful life. It supports a kind, curious awareness towards pain from which to decide what is needed and when.
In this two-hour class we will experience:
-Mindfulness as a way of establishing a warm, more relaxed relationship with the pain in the body.
-Meditations practices to soften pain and open the body to greater ease to maintain optimal energy.
-The current neuroscience of pain, and how our relationship to it can define it.
-How to recognize anxious thoughts and emotions that can unwittingly contribute to feeling more pain.
-How simple caring physical gestures, brief breathing exercises, and acupressure points can calm the nervous system to encourage pain reduction and increase body’s state of relaxation that can be done anywhere, anytime.
-A way to develop a daily schedule that supports your well-being and minimizes your pain.
Registration:
Please register at the highest level that your generosity offers.
Explanations of levels follow below.
If you are registering via a mobile device such as a phone or tablet, you can scroll right and left and up and down within the below form if it is partially obscured or cut off. Please contact registration@nyimc.org if you need assistance.
Registration Fees include Teacher Support
New York Insight Meditation Center has streamlined the registration fee levels. Members of our Circle of Friends are eligible to receive 20% off of the Sustaining Rate via a code provided in the email confirming membership, which you can enter after clicking the Sustaining Level registration.
*Benefactor Level: Supports NYI’s ability to offer the Subsidized Base.
**Sustaining Level: This level reflects the actual costs to support this program. Circle of Friends members eligible for 20% discount with code. Click here to join.
***Subsidized Base: Made possible by the generosity of Benefactor Level above and other donations to ensure participation by those requiring financial assistance.
If you have questions about your registration (cancellation policy, membership discount, email confirmation, etc.), please read our FAQs. If your question is not addressed in the FAQs, please email registration@nyimc.org.
If you are unable to pay the Subsidized Base Fee, you can learn about volunteering to offer work exchange and letting us know how much you are able to pay for this program by emailing registration@nyimc.org.
Teacher(s)
Joan Griffiths Vega, MFA, MA, Certified Open Focus Coach, Qualified MBSR Teacher
After her first Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course in 2003, Joan took her first steps on her path to becoming a facilitator. Nineteen years later, she has taught MBSR around the city at different venues, particularly at the Martha Stewart Center for Healthy Living, Mt. Sinai Hospital, for over the last 15 years.
She completed the Professional Training workshop led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD., and Saki Santorelli, Ed.D, Exec. Director of the UMass Center for Mindfulness (CFM) in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, as well as the MBSR practicum and Teacher Development Intensive at CFM in Worcester, MA. As a former family caregiver, she tailored the 8-week course to caregivers’ concerns. With Patricia Bloom, MD, she developed a pain intervention model MBPR, Mindfulness-Based Pain Relief.
She deepens her practice and understanding through retreats, courses, studying online with Sharon Salzberg, Tara Brach, and Jack Kornfield, and at Zen Contemplative Care and New York Insight, as well as continuing extensive reading and ongoing personal supervision. She is a storyteller with a MA in cross-cultural mythology, Jungian and religious studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute, CA, and a MFA in film from School of the Arts at Columbia University. She is a certified Coach of Open Focus™ Attention, a dynamic pain management tool.
Over the last two years, she deeply trained in pain management as she healed from a sacrum fracture.