silent retreats
Take time out to deepen your practice and refresh body, heart and mind.
Connect with and care for yourself while practicing with the support of a community.
Your first experience of a Simply Mindful all day silent retreat will be as a participant in the MBSR program as it is an integral part of the program. The retreat is a full day of meditation practice held in silence under the guidance of the Simply Mindful teachers. The day is intended to make space to simply be and explore further what you have learned in the program in the first 6 weeks.
Upon completion of the MBSR program you will receive regular invitations to join in our silent retreats as part of the Simply Mindful community. We are always delighted to welcome the many previous participants to the silent retreats.
Please note that in most cases, you must either be a current student or a graduate of our 8 week MBSR program in order to attend our retreats.
The full day retreat was amazing and I can’t wait for the next one. — All Day Retreat participant
upcoming retreats – save your spot
Mindfulness practice can help reduce stress, connect us with a strong calm presence and enable us to act skilfully, cooperatively and compassionately.
We offer several retreat lengths to suit you
All Day Retreats
7 hours
Offered 4 x year
Half Day Retreat
4 hours
Offered 2-4 x year
Weekend or Week-long Residential Retreats
Offered 1-3 x year
Practicing as a community helps us all stay sane, stay connected and reminds us of our shared humanity.
What do our silent retreats include?
Teaching & guidance
Sitting & walking meditation
Mindful yoga
Poems & stories to inspire you
A safe container for your practice
Connection with your community
Connect with and care for yourself while practicing with the support of a community.
typical retreat schedule
This is an example of what an all-day retreat may look like.
morning
Arrival & welcome. The retreat begins.
Introduction & setting intentions
Lying-down yoga
Sitting & walking meditation practices
morning tea break
Teacher talk
Sitting & walking meditation practices
lunch break
afternoon
Sitting & walking meditation practices
Standing yoga
Closing meditation practices
We break silence together, reflect on the day for a brief time and then close the retreat.
Meet your retreat facilitators
Megan Layton
Director, Senior MBSR and Yoga teacher
Trevor Heldt
MBSR teacher
upcoming retreats – save your spot
Questions? Send us a message.
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is about being fully present and aware to all of life. Presence is an innate human capacity, however this capacity is underdeveloped in most people.
Mindfulness training is a bit like ‘mental exercise’. As we practice over time, we build what’s known as the ‘mindful muscle’ – our ability to be fully present and alive to our lives more of the time.
What does the MBSR course involve?
- 2 ½ hour class once a week for 8 weeks plus one full day session (held on the weekend)
- Mindfulness meditation training, access to the online library of guided meditation recordings, and course workbook
- Learning about the effects of stress on our bodies and minds
- Exploring patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving and their relationship to stress
- Developing strategies for applying mindfulness in daily life
- Learning through brief lectures, group discussion and experiential activities
Who is MBSR for?
This is suitable for absolute beginners as well as those who’ve previously done some mindfulness training.
How can MBSR help me?
"This is the most important thing I have ever done for myself"—this quite literally is the feedback we hear from participants again and again.
If you want to learn how to work skilfully with your own mind, body and emotions and really enjoy being you and feel truly at home in your own skin, then mindfulness training is for you. It is a proven method for improving health, mental health, self-awareness and skilfulness.
Is there science to back this up? Isn’t meditation a spiritual thing?
MBSR teaches the art and science of presence.
It’s an art because everyone’s internal world is completely unique, nuanced and it’s also a creative changing space. No one else can tell you exactly how to meditate or do it for you.
It’s a science because research in neuroscience, medicine and psychology have helped us to understand how this ancient practice actually works, how it not only changes the structure of the brain, but also improves health and mental health, and even slows down the process of ageing. (see our resources for some references)
Mindfulness and MBSR is open to anyone. You don’t have to believe anything in particular to benefit from it. It’s compatible with a wide range of spiritual and religious beliefs. Anything that is important or meaningful for you in your life can be enhanced by mindfulness practice.
I have a really busy mind. I can’t sit still, how am I going to meditate?
Almost everyone in our MBSR courses complains of a busy mind!
The mind’s job is to think. In mindfulness meditation we are not trying to stop thinking, we are learning to relate differently to it.
Throughout the course you will have the opportunity to explore strategies, techniques and practical approaches for relating to your mind.
You will learn to meet your thoughts, mental and emotional habits, fears and stuck places with kindness and curiosity.
Why should I do MBSR when I can go to a local meditation centre for free?
Many people come to MBSR because they specifically want a mindfulness training that is secular and has no particular spiritual orientation or beliefs attached to the process.
As well, most “free” meditation centres rely on people’s generosity to support and sustain their work and the teachings. In order for these centres to survive, they need to be considered as supported by the people who use them.
MBSR is the world’s gold standard evidence based mindfulness training, It has been a major source of the evidence base over the last 40 years as it began in a university hospital setting, the university of Massachusetts medical school and was designed by a scientist, Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Someone down the road is offering a mindfulness course cheaper. What’s the difference?
Check it out! We encourage you to be curious about the differences. It is likely that with a shorter course (ie 4 weeks of 1 hour each week) that you will get ‘mindfulness lite’, a superficial and no doubt helpful course, but not something that sticks, or substantially changes anything in your life.
For over 40 years, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) has been the gold standard of teaching mindfulness in a secular setting for the relief of physical and psychological suffering. It is taught by people who have committed themselves to training, doing retreats and having a personal practice themselves, over many years.
Training takes place over a long period, is in depth and high standard. MBSR started at the University of Massachusetts Medical School over 26,000 people have participated in the research. This is a major source of the evidence base and current interest in mindfulness.
However, many people are now offering “mindfulness” courses “based on MBSR” or “based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn” with very little personal experience and immersion in mindfulness practice themselves, and little or no training in MBSR.
These courses are often shorter, perhaps 6 sessions of 1.5 hours (ie 9 hours long) or 6 sessions x 2 hours (12 hours long) for around $400. This works out as more expensive than the MBSR program which is 27 hours long, including a silent retreat day, plus email and phone contact with the teacher if you need it during the 8 weeks.