Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

The 8-week mindfulness training program that supports positive change in your body and mind and heart.

8 weeks x 2.5 hour classes + A "Day of Mindfulness"

2025 Dates to be announced... please enquire

Woodcroft-Morphett Vale Neighbourhood Centre, 175 Bains Road

The program that started the Mindful revolution…

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is an evidence-based, practical and empowering program that brings the principles of mindfulness meditation into everyday life. You will learn specific skills and practices to build your innate capacity to break cycles of anxiety, stress, unhappiness and other 'life-aches'.

This course provides an in-depth approach to shifting your habitual thinking mind into a new and freer framework.

Learn skills that will help you navigate the everyday challenges of life, relationships, illness, pain, lack of focus, burnout – all of the everyday stressors that occur in our busy world.

With mindfulness meditation practices and gentle movement as the core of this life-enhancing program, you will learn simple and highly effective ways to take better care of yourself towards the  living of a healthier, more skilfully responsive life.

As televised on Catalyst on ABC television – this is THE program that provided evidence-based research demonstrating the measurable benefits of MBSR.

I am pleased and proud to be offering this program through Openground Mindfulness, one of Australia's earliest and most recognised mindfulness-skills training organisations.

“Mindfulness-based stress reduction is a compelling generic approach to self-care, participatory medicine, and effective coping with stress, pain and illness. It provides a virtually universal framework for catalysing inner and outer learning about one’s own mind and body and relationship to the world and one’s place in it, which in turn promotes on-going growth, healthy living, and healing over the lifespan.”
– From Comparative and Psychological Study on Meditation,
Haruki, Y., Ishii, Y., and Suzuki, M., Netherlands, 1996

This Program is for you if ...

  • You are prepared and motivated to participate 100% (including suggested home practice)
  • You have ever felt the pace of your life is "out of control" or you're "just not feeling right"
  • You want more ease and peace in day-to-day life
  • You seek to enhance learning, concentration, creativity, personal resilience and professional effectiveness
  • You have job, relationship or family pressures that you find stressful, perhaps with symptoms such as headaches, irritability, high blood pressure, fatigue and sleep disturbance
  • You have more serious conditions including mild depression, anxiety and panic disorders, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, respiratory disease and/or chronic pain

A bit about me – Cherise Vallet

I came to Australia from Canada in 1989, on a personal adventure quest. Along the way, some difficult life circumstances led me to taking up a regular practice of mindfulness and yoga in 1998. Truly, this ongoing practice has sustained me through thick and thin over the intervening years.

The internal changes I’ve experienced were (and continue to be) compelling, and have led me to teacher training in yoga and its therapeutic application; and to Mindfulness Meditation training. Specifically the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program, which has a very particular, evidence-based curriculum.

I am a member of Meditation Australia, as well as a registered teacher of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course, through Mindfulness Training Institute of Australia. I am also a senior registered teacher with Yoga Australia. I specialise in teaching meditation techniques that support calm, resilience, and healthy choices in living. These include Mindfulness Meditation practices, specific breathing techniques, and therapeutic yoga.

What Others Are Saying...

"The Mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) course opened a portable toolkit that I never fully understood I (already) had. Cherise’s broad experience and inclusive approach combining simple yoga and guided meditation gives life and context to the structured elements of the course. The insights shared and establishment of regular practice has been both challenging and profoundly rewarding.

It’s a toolkit for life."

Phil Eckert

"I really loved the MBSR course, and Cherise was a fantastic facilitator. Her calm, warm and thoughtful approach was really appreciated. She was able to lead the group through not only the mindfulness practices, but the theory and group conversations. I would definitely recommend MBSR to anyone who is interested, has the opportunity and wants to invest in themselves."

Kate Hubl

Your Program Schedule

+  Week 1 – Recognising the Present Moment

  • interrupt your “automatic pilot”
  • slow down and pay attention to your immediate experience
  • use body sensations as an anchor in the present moment
  • move from ‘doing’ mode into ‘being’ mode
  • notice the flow of thoughts, feelings and sensations that arise in this moment.

    • +  Week 2 – Get Acquainted with your Breath

  • use the breath as a way to anchor yourself in the present moment, and recognise emotional states
  • cultivate a sitting practice using the breath
  • use hearing/listening to centre yourself and anchor yourself in the present
  • honour and accept all of your experiences – not just the ‘good’ bits

    • +  Week 3 – Practice, Practice, Practice

  • practice patience and acceptance of yourself
  • explore a moving practice
  • learn about the stress reactivity cycle and stress physiology
  • use movement practice to explore limits, and cultivate strength and flexibility of mind and body

    • +  Week 4 – Stress and Emotions

  • learn more about stress reactivity and emotions
  • explore emotions in a creative and accepting way
  • use metaphors to work effectively with strong emotions
  • use the bodily sensations of emotions as a way to ground in to the present moment
  • recognise and interrupt the thoughts which are associated with painful emotions
  • use the breath as a way of coping with intense emotions

    • +  Week 5 – Stress and Thoughts

  • remember that thoughts are not facts (even the ones that say they are!)
  • explore the process of thinking and get some perspective on your thoughts
  • recognise unhelpful patterns of thinking
  • interrupt ruminative thoughts with focus on the breath and sensations
  • use metaphor as a creative way to interrupt difficult patterns of thinking
  • oscillate between ‘thinking’ and experiencing the present moment
  • effectively label thoughts in order to make space between ‘you’ and your thoughts.

    • +  Week 6 – Interpersonal Mindfulness

  • pay detailed attention to the ‘other’
  • listen and see others in more flexible and accepting ways
  • use mindful contemplation as a way of cultivating acceptance and compassion for yourself and others
  • explore patterns of relating through mindfulness.

    • +  FULL DAY: Embed and deepen your Mindfulness Practices

  • cultivate sustained curiosity into the ‘waves’ of sensations, feelings and thoughts over the extended time period of the day
  • use silence as a path for ‘settling’ in oneself
  • cultivate a sense of community and connectedness through silent practice together
  • develop concentration and strength in practice
  • NOTE: This day may be held in-person or via Zoom, to be decided as a group

    • +  Week 7 – Living on Purpose

  • integrate what you have been learning in to daily practice
  • reflect on some options about caring for yourself and making choices in life
  • develop a clear picture of what serves you and what doesn’t
  • begin practising without the supplied recorded meditations… all on your own! (here is liberation, folks!)

    • +  Week 8 – Making Mindfulness a Part of Everyday Life

  • explore what you have achieved through the practice
  • recognise that living mindfully is a process of ongoing practice
  • explore choices about continuing to support this practice in your life
  • pay attention to how it feels to be ending the course
  • give your feedback about the program

    • Value for your money – your investment includes:

    • An initial phone interview with me to help clarify your goals for taking part in this program
    • 8 weekly 2.5-hour classes run in-person in a small group format
    • A ‘Day of Mindfulness’ to help deepen and embed your practice skills, as well as experience the profound power of silence in a group setting
    • A set of 10 pre-recorded meditations to keep and practice with at home
    • A carefully-curated manual packed with short readings, tips, exercises, poems, journalling prompts, and more, to follow along through the course and keep track of your progress.
    • A weekly email from me with additional tips and ideas for super-charging your home practice
    • Key pointers for spotting your habitual limiting patterns of thought and emotion; and how to transform them
    • In-depth guidance for setting up a life-long practice that can continue to support you.

    Your Investment to Enrol

    Join in this comprehensive Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program to participate in 26 hours of class time, plus the establishment and development of your lifelong practice of Mindfulness

    $695

    Please Note - if financial constraints are too great to invest this full amount in your training, please contact the registrar at Openground to discuss options for payment, or reduced payment.

    Click here to enroll:

     Openground Mindfulness

    As part of international guidelines for this program, a pre-enrollment interview is part of the process. This gives us a chance to discuss aspects of the program and how I may support your participation as well as any questions you may have. Once I have received your registration, I will contact to you arrange this interview. Looking forward to connecting soon.