(closed)
Come join Melissa in Collaboration with Samantha Sese at Tree Pose Yoga Studio. Melissa Howden teaches at Mangrove Yoga Retreat Centre and has extensive training in Mindfulness.
Melissa will guide you through breathing and meditation techniques to help you become aware of automatic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, and learn to respond more effectively. Mindfulness training allows individuals to develop a deeper understanding of the mind and a more accepting and compassionate relationship to their internal and external experiences.
What are the benefits
What to expect
Melissa will guide you through breathing and meditation techniques to help you become aware of automatic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving, and learn to respond more effectively. Mindfulness training allows individuals to develop a deeper understanding of the mind and a more accepting and compassionate relationship to their internal and external experiences.
What are the benefits
- calmness
- clarity of thought
- relaxation
- stillness
- self-control
- awareness of thought
- learn different breathing techniques
- learn different meditation techniques
- learn how to use different types of yoga props
What to expect
In this workshop, Melissa will take you through different breathing and meditation techniques to help you bring awareness to your mind & body. It's through awareness that we can begin to be mindful of our actions and thoughts. Through this process, you may begin to bring Mindfulness into your daily practice.
Melissa in her own words
Melissa in her own words
It felt like I had always ‘done’ yoga, but it wasn’t until being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness 6 years ago that I got serious. With hindsight, I can see that I had been playing on the river banks for many years, but now there’s no doubt about it, I have dived in, and yoga is at the heart of everything I do. And I couldn’t be happier.
After a 20-year career as a music teacher in both Australia and the UK, I went to live at Mangrove Yoga, an ashram-style retreat centre just out of Sydney. Living here was a time of renewal for me, and I found the yoga lifestyle really suited me. In 2015 I completed the two-year Diploma of Satyananda Yoga Teaching, and then went on to undertake Mindfulness Teacher Training with the Gawler Foundation in Victoria, a centre renowned for its work with cancer patients. I love sharing meditation and relaxation techniques to support and help improve outcomes for cancer patients. I facilitate the meditation groups at The San Hospital and run cancer and meditation days at venues in both Sydney and Hobart. Knowing how the practices of mindfulness can make a profound difference to people in these circumstances, you can imagine that the sky is the limit for those of us who are already well.
For me, the gift of yoga and mindfulness is the development of awareness. There is the formal practice, and then there is the application in life. Meditating on a regular basis has given me more clarity, more peace of mind, more understanding and compassion for myself and others. Life has become simpler. There is more trust, less worry. More creativity, fewer head trips. More being, less doing. More sleep, more peace, more health.
My favourite quote: “The meaning of life is to find your gift; the purpose of life is to share it.” One of the benefits of regular meditation practice is the development of a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life, which gives solid ground to stand on and a solid place to live and share from.