Who We Are
At Community Mindfulness Project, we turn no one away.
Through our Theory of Change, we believe in the ability to achieve excellence, and deepen measurable impact. We reach people where they are. In public schools, in maternal health clinics and hospitals, in libraries, and in our community spaces wherever people who traditionally do not have access to mental health support feel safe and want to gather.
We provide direct services through partnership with local nonprofits, education and healthcare spaces.
Our Services Include
Meditation and nonviolent communications sessions and workshops
Community listening, brave space conversations
Training for affiliates and facilitators
All sessions and workshops are free, inclusive and open to anyone.
Together, we can provide access to mindfulness for all who need it.
Why Mindfulness?
Because it has the power to transform lives. The average human attention span is just eight seconds – shorter than a fish! That’s likely because increasingly in the US today, our attention and time is highly sought after, often commoditized and often spread thin. Where you focus your attention is your superpower, so we’ll keep this introduction to who we are brief.
So what do you do?
Our Core Programs
Mindful Tool & Neuroscience Training Workshops for students and adults
Nonprofit/Frontline Staff Training to build resilience that sustainably addresses burnout, vicarious trauma and empathy fatigue
Free & Open to the Public Meditation Sessions live in public libraries, via Zoom or dial-in
Additional Limited Services
Mindful, nonviolent communication training and coaching for select partner and foundation leaders
Trauma-informed and neuroscience-backed training for select partner affiliates and diverse set of facilitators.
Sessions & Workshops are:
Inclusive, trauma-informed and open to anyone.
Appropriate for people with any level of experience, including first-timers.
Secular and science-based with guided facilitators certified and rooted in multiple trainings.
Accessible in English and Spanish with transcripts available to those with hearing impairment.
Uh huh, ok. Who is behind the scenes?
Our Advisory Board
Our Founding Advisory Board launched in 2024 is serving two-year terms to lend their time, insights, and advice to help us navigate complex issues addressing the mental health crisis and support the growth of our impact to ensure we can reach out vision where mindfulness is a broadly distributed, community-based skillset.
Our Day-to-Day Team
Our staff, founders and facilitators have collectively been trained in many evidence-based mindfulness programs including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindful Self Compassion, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Mindful School’s curriculum, Cultivating Emotional Balance and Mindfulness in Schools Project's .B program, Mindfulness and Meditation Teacher Certification Program (Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield) and Deep Play for Kids, among others.
This is all interesting and impressive, but why does it matter?
The Science of Mindfulness
Numerous studies strongly support the benefits of mindfulness and meditation, which include improved emotional regulation, focus, resilience, compassion, and mental and physical health.
Mindfulness and regular practice of meditation have been indicated to lower and reduce levels of anxiety, fear, depression, OCD, stress, and more. And this is proven for community members aged 5 to 105.
Mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to reduce blood pressure and inflammation, and help with chronic pain, psoriasis, Type 2 diabetes, and fibromyalgia, improve sleep, and there’s even early research on how it can help protect against Alzheimer’s.
What does community mindfulness mean, then?
We can’t control the waves, but we can teach each other to surf. We have a loneliness epidemic in America. Loneliness can cost us an estimated 15 years of life expectancy. When we come together to support each other as a community, we are more connected and ever more resilient. We prioritize our initiatives on counterbalancing the overwhelming lean toward isolation that recent advances in technology and the pandemic have exacerbated. When we meet community members at their work, school, or in public places that bring them together with their friends, family and others they can find connection with, the spaces become conducive to advancing positive relationships, identifying common needs and challenges, and gratitude.
Why community partnership?
Meditation and mindfulness have been linked through decades of research to physical and mental health benefits. Additionally, there are many emotional and social benefits which support community resiliency.
Despite the fact that the mindfulness tools that we share are portable, affordable and flexible, they have not historically been accessible to all.
Barriers historically have reduced accessibility to mindfulness, including:
Language: historically predominantly in English, and often in language that can culturally feel “othering”
Physical ability: encouraged or assumed must be seated on the floor
Time: Taught on multi-day retreats that require time away from work and caregiving obligations
Cultural considerations: Taught in a religious tone despite it’s secular nature
Financial resources: fees for access to sessions and travel/housing for retreats
Transportation: offered in remote, hard-to-access locations
We have prioritized community partnerships with local organizations to reduce these barriers certain communities are facing to access critical healthcare resources.
But working within systems differs from changing them. We love this quote from Desmond Tutu, “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out fo the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.” We are inspired to work with our community partners to find the root causes of these barriers, and help create sustainable structures that reduce suffering over the short term and long term.
