Empowered growth & self-care
Mindfulness & Compassion
Develop your own mindfulness practice
Every person comes to realise at some point or another that in the course of living life, we encounter joys as well as pain and discomfort - mentally, physically and emotionally. Often people discover Mindfulness and Compassion practices when facing some kind of discomfort such as stress, burnout or illness or when desiring personal growth, increased meaning, something spiritual or perhaps just out of curiosity.
What brought you here?
learning more about mindfulness,
looking to reduce stress levels
dealing with pain and difficulty or
trying to make a proactive investment in your wellbeing
Whatever your reason, you are welcome here as you are.
You can go straight to the upcoming group trainings page or read on to learn more about mindfulness and compassion.
Our approach to teaching mindfulness
Mindfulness is often taught using a one-size-fits-all approach and is offered as a panacea for all kinds of things. The truth is that mindfulness can have deep life changing benefits for many people. At the same time, no person is the same and we all bring different bodies, minds and life experiences to our practice. Our approach to teaching mindfulness is trauma-sensitive with an emphasis on freedom and compassion. We offer a range of tools and support so that you can develop a practice which is empowered, integrated into your daily life and functional for you.
Mindfulness and Compassion come from a rich tradition of practices which intend to reduce suffering. As such they are rooted in centuries old wisdom, actively researched and evolving with our understanding of them. As people we are a part of a larger ecosystem including all the other living beings in the world. At Collaborative Motion we seek to foster engaged mindfulness which supports reducing both individual and collective suffering. Mindfulness and compassion can help you discover new ways to relate to yourself, difficult things in life and others in ways that reduce unnecessary suffering. In the process, they can have very real affects on physical health, how you show up in the world and your overall resilience and wellbeing.
The benefits of mindfulness & compassion
Some of the known physical & mental benefits of mindfulness & compassion include:
increases in focus, self-awareness, self-regulation, emotional intelligence and empathy
increased relaxation, decreased stress levels and increased resilience
less rumination, better sleep quality
boosted immunity and lower blood pressure
greater sense of presence, peace, happiness and meaning
less reactive & more intentional in life
a kinder relationship with self and others
I’m not sure mindfulness is for me
Mindfulness is often associated with the idea of sitting still, trying not to think and feeling peaceful. Many people have “tried to meditate” and discover that their mind and body don’t want to be still or that they didn’t feel peaceful and they walk away feeling like a failure or that “mindfulness isn’t for me”.
In reality, mindfulness can be practiced in a wide variety of ways (and for a wide variety of reasons). You don’t have to sit still, you don’t have to chase away thoughts and you don’t have to go live in a secluded place. Mindfulness can be developed in the course of your daily life in all its complexity, beauty and mundanity. In our courses and our 1 on 1 sessions, we will support you in discovering what your mindfulness looks like in this season of your life.
Our offerings
We integrate compassion into all of our mindfulness offerings and we offer specific compassion focused training.
Private 1 on 1 mindfulness/compassion sessions (Please contact us or book a free consultation to get started)
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program (open enrolment or adapted for organisations)
An 8-week experience-based group training developed and heavily researched since 1979. Used in public and therapeutic settings. Sign up here.Mindfulness Based Compassionate Living Program
An 8-session program for deepening compassion and mindfulness together. Used in public and therapeutic settings. You can read more about the program here.
Custom programs and events.
Want to explore more?
You can book a private session below or you can:
Check out our events page to find out about upcoming group offerings (online and in person in Haarlem, The Netherlands).
Contact us for a free consultation or to explore how to bring this to your organisation.
Explore our Yoga based offerings
Take control of your self-care.
You can get personalized guidance to find your yoga. Whether you are looking to enjoy yoga in a safe private way, build strength and flexibility, learn to rest and relax, change unconscious behavior patterns or manage energy throughout the day, we are here to support with 1 on 1 or small group sessions - online or in person.
The Collaborative Motion Difference.
Accessible empowered self-care
We experience daily the benefits of yoga in our own lives. As a result, we are passionate about making the benefits of yoga available to those who want to explore but for whatever reason don’t feel like they fit into the traditional studio system. Our goal is to support you in getting the knowledge and tools you need to safely experience the benefits you want. This means we aren’t just looking to guide you through a yoga class but to ensure you know how you can use yoga yourself with or without the guidance of a teacher.
Yoga for all
We aim to offer yoga for all bodies, backgrounds and walks of life in a safe space (online or in-person) with a safe teacher. Our passion is to offer yoga in a way that is accessible to anyone. Whatever brings you to yoga, we will work with you to develop a practice which supports your goals. Practically this means we look to understand you, your goals, and your current health as well as any limitations. In this way we can help you focus on what will be safe and beneficial.
Sustainable practice
We’ve noticed that many committed yoga practitioners experience injury along the way or struggle to adapt when physical limitations arise. We aim to support you in developing a sustainable yoga practice that reduces risk of injury and can adapt to any limitations you might experience.
Rather than try to push you into the most advanced pretzel shape we can find, we keep our focus on what is safe and accessible for your body. One of the tenets of yoga philosophy is the practice of non-violence. Developing a sustainable practice is one of the ways we put this into practice.
While there’s nothing wrong with working to master advanced yoga poses, many poses are not accessible to the majority of bodies and so they are not our core focus. This isn’t to say you won’t be challenged. In fact, growth and knowledge are developed by approaching your physical and mental edges.
Self-discovery
Another tenet of yoga philosophy is self-study. We invite you to become compassionately curious about yourself both on and off the mat. Rather than tell you what to feel, we hope to guide you to your own experience of your body. The awareness that arises can be used to make conscious decisions about what is good for you and your body. In this way every success, challenge and limitation is a chance to develop a deeper understanding of yourself and practice new ways of being and doing.
Mindfulness
The only way to develop a sustainable practice of self-study that results in creating the optimal conditions for health and wellbeing is to begin in this moment. In this moment, we experience our capacity and our limitations. In this moment, we find how things actually are rather than how they were or how we wish they would be. The word mindfulness describes the practice of bringing our attention to the present moment and has numerous demonstrated benefits on overall health, self-awareness and self-regulation. In our work we often extend the invitation to practice being in this moment, meet whatever arises with compassion and wise action.
