Mindful Mondays is an 8-week mindfulness course to help teens cultivate presence, improve focus and attention, reduce emotional reactivity, build stress resilience, increase self-awareness, foster healthy relationships, and enhance overall quality of life.

Students will build mindfulness skills by exploring the 8 attitudes of mindfulness and practicing a variety of meditation techniques they can use in daily life. Students will learn through lecture, discussion, games, storytelling, and journaling exercises. No prior experience with mindfulness is necessary to attend this class. Experienced students may deepen their practice through focus on cultivating the mindful attitudes in daily life.

We will begin and end each class with a short mindfulness practice. The remaining 30 minutes will consist of lecture and discussion on that week’s mindful attitude.

Week 1: Nonjudgement

Week 2: Patience

Week 3: Beginner’s Mind

Week 4: Trust

Week 5: Nonstriving

Week 6: Acceptance

Week 7: Letting Go

Week 8: Gratitude

Students will be given journal prompts each week to promote self-reflection and accountability throughout the course. Journal prompts will be sent out after each class is finished to help encourage full presence and mindfulness during our time together.

Students are encouraged to practice the meditations learned in class throughout the week to build mindfulness skills. At least 10 minutes of daily meditation is highly recommended. The more time a student invests in the practice, the more benefits he will receive in his daily life.