This website offers guided meditation and mindful Hatha yoga instructions which are part of the curriculum for Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Preventing Depressive Relapse (MBCT) and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) group programs.
These recordings are designed to help people who would like to begin, sustain and deepen a personal mindfulness meditation practice. When practiced regularly, meditation has been proven to be beneficial for reducing anxiety, preventing depressive relapse, building self-compassion, and managing the stress that arises in everyday life.
When allowing room and time to live more fully in the present moment, we create the foundation for peace of mind, greater contentment, and the possibility of a more meaningful life.
“The purpose of meditation is not to create a special state of mind. That is always temporary. It is to work directly with the most primary elements of our experience, all the aspects of our body, our mind, to see the way we get trapped into our fears and desires and anger and to learn directly our capacity for freedom.” ~ Jack Kornfield, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom
Denise Coles, M.A., R.C.C., is a Registered Clinical Counsellor in public and private practice for over twenty years in Vancouver and at Transitions Mental Health and Addictions in Richmond, B.C., providing mindfulness-based, trauma-informed, existential analytic, and cognitive therapy approaches.
She received her training to teach mindfulness meditation through UMass Medical’s MBSR program from Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1999. Since then, Denise has participated in many meditation retreats and trainings under the guidance of teachers Michele McDonald, Stephen Smith, Kamala Masters, Steve Armstrong, Jack Kornfeild and Joseph Goldstein. She furthers her study in altruism, compassion and contemplative practices through the teachings of Matthieu Ricard and the Art of Spiritual Guidance Program (Atum O’Kane) She has received certification in Existential Analysis and is studying Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST)
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl