Come along if you want some basic tools to get to know your own mind
For transforming stress, anxiety, chronic illness, pain and the impacts of trauma
If your circumstances require a discount, please be in touch.
Come along if you have experienced depression and want to prevent a relapse
Develop self-compassion to build your resilience
Enrol if you want to digest past wounds through mindfulness and compassion training and Internal Family Systems
Come along if you want to explore your inner life using the lenses of mindfulness practice and Internal Family Systems
This retreat is suitable for people who have some experience of mindfulness meditation already
Learning mindfulness with an experienced teacher can’t be compared with using an app. We take a genuine, personal approach and our highly trained and dedicated teachers go the extra mile to help you engage with your practice in ways that can bring real transformation. Our teaching work is overseen by experienced clinicians and we have a collaborative intake process, to make sure the course can work for you.
We offer evidence-based and evidence-informed programs which are grounded in long standing research and based on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. Unlike many contemporary mindfulness offerings, which have no evidence of benefit, MBSR and MBCT are globally recognised as the gold standard for mental and physical health in the field.
Our immersive, eight-week courses include 28 hours of personal mindfulness training curated for the treatment of stress, burnout, anxiety, depression and the impacts of trauma and led by an experienced and dedicated teacher. Our courses offer significant value. We are a not-for-profit and we can also arrange serious discounts if you need a helping hand to attend.
Check out where you can access an in-person class. Live online courses are available and work surprisingly well.
As a not-for-profit, we are committed to making our evidence-based courses available to all who need them. If you need a discount:
If you can afford it we appreciate you paying the full fee to keep the books balanced.
In late 2018, ABC's Catalyst team invited a group of 15 ordinary Australians to take part in a mindfulness experiment to see if undertaking the MBSR course could help treat conditions like chronic pain, stress, anxiety and depression that effect millions of us. This course was taught by Timothea Goddard - the Director of Openground. Watch their journey here to see how the eight week MBSR course changes people's lives and brains. Or check out these shorts giving an overview of MBSR and an excerpt following Erin's journey with MS and chronic pain.
Cultivate more concentration and capacity to be in the moment with what matters to you most, here and now.
Reduce reactivity, learn to befriend your emotions and to express them in ways that set clear and caring boundaries.
See your patterns and values with more clarity so that your actions can be more beneficial to yourself and others.
Through mindfulness training we learn how to bring acceptance and curiosity to all of our experience – sensations, thoughts, emotions and actions, and the situation we are in.
This way of seeing can free us up to respond with more clarity and wisdom, rather than acting out of habitual patterns.
It opens up the possibility of working more wisely and compassionately with difficulties in life and to choose what is nourishing for ourselves and others.
Yes, we know! Everybody has this experience when they first start mindfulness practice, and most people in your class will feel the same way. Don't worry – it won't prevent you from developing more ease and peace in your life through mindfulness training.
We all need to start with the mind we have, and if that is a busy and preoccupied mind, then that’s the perfect place to begin. Initially, mindfulness practice is about becoming familiar with your own mind and body, and exploring ways to soothe, calm, and simply explore how you tick.
Step-by-step throughout the course, you’ll be offered different ways of practicing so you can bring more of this way of being to support your mental health. By exploring the science of mindfulness, you’ll also discover why so many of us have such jumpy, 'jack-rabbit' minds and learn what you need to do to cultivate a calmer and clearer mind.
Openground has 20 years of experience in helping people with serious mental and physical health challenges. Our programs spring from a long tradition of preventative and behavioural medicine which has been researched over decades. Much of the more recent mindfulness stuff has been watered down:
- using videos V exploring with a dedicated teacher
- just using an app, rather than a detailed exploration of your patterns and how to interrupt them
- using the research about longer, intensive programs like MBSR and MBCT to "sell" more "light-on" programs
- focussing on "well-being" rather than acknowledging just how tough mental health problems can be.
Mindfulness is not just a good idea – it’s a practice!
A with any new skill – like learning to swim, do Pilates or play golf – just hearing or reading about mindfulness can only take you so far. Experience and practice are the two things that will lead to lasting and profound changes.
For the training to make a real difference to your mental health, ask yourself if you are willing to make a commitment to undertake some formal practice each day over the eight weeks of your course. This will make all the difference to your satisfaction with the course, the benefits you experience, and your life.
Training in mindfulness will equip you with a very portable set of skills that you can practice anywhere, anytime. Give it a go and let's see what happens!
We may not like it, but real change takes time. This is why your training for stress and burnout, anxiety, depression and trauma unfolds over eight weeks plus a whole day retreat – a total of 27 hours of training, as well as your home practice.
Promises of a quick fix are always tempting. There are many pre-recorded short courses about recently, that don't have the clinical evidence behind them. If you have tried these and only had minimal benefit, that makes sense.
We encourage you to do some research of your own. If you are quite stressed, or you’re facing some big challenges, you may find greater benefit in an in-depth, evidence-based program.
Change happens through practice, and evidence suggests that for clinical conditions eight weeks is an optimum time for new cognitive, emotional, neurological and behavioural changes to become embedded. Our experience is that practice develops most effectively and sustainably when there is an ongoing personal relationship with a teacher who really knows their stuff.
Unfortunately, not all health professionals can be registered to offer a Medicare rebate. Although many of our teachers are among the best trained and most skilled in the country, they are not able to offer a rebate. However, we do offer discounts for people whose circumstances make it impossible to afford the full fee, and we’re happy to discuss this option with you.
We are a not-for-profit committed to making the programs accessible to as many people as possible. So, we offer some heavily discounted places and payment plans for our courses for people who genuinely can't afford the full fee.
Please click on the DISCOUNTS tab on the course booking page to request a discount. We are proud of the fact that we have never turned anyone away from doing the program just because they couldn’t afford the full fees.