A Place of Healing & Mutual Respect
Welcome to East Coast Mindfulness
The mission of East Coast Mindfulness (ECM) is simple: to provide excellent online mindfulness programs for living authentic, healthy, happy lives.
When the Center for Mindfulness (CFM) at University of Massachusetts Medical School closed in July 2019 after almost 40 years, CFM Teacher Trainers Rebecca Eldridge & Margaret Fletcher formed East Coast Mindfulness (ECM) to continue offering programs globally.
Always online. Your space. Your time zone. Your life.
"East Coast Mindfulness provides expert online MBSR teaching and high level training for others to teach the MBSR course with high integrity and depth.”
In addition to offering online mindfulness programs through ECM, our teachers have provided mindfulness programs to organizations small and large, including corporations, medical schools and health systems, non-profits, and more.
Ongoing Programs
Take an MBSR Course Online
This course requires a commitment, but the experience can forever alter the way you experience yourself and your life. Most people who participate fully in an MBSR course report decreases in physical and psychological symptoms, an increased ability to relax, reduction in pain levels, an enhanced ability to cope with chronic pain, greater energy and enthusiasm for life, improved self-esteem, and an ability to cope more effectively with stressful situations.
Join the Mindfulness Grad Online Community
The Mindfulness Grad Online Community (MGOC) gathers monthly under the guidance of MBSR Teacher and Teacher Trainer Rebecca Eldridge, and MBSR and MSC teacher Cheryl Shah, for continued learning, practice, and community.
The MGOC is open to graduates of any organization's 8-week Mindfulness-Based course (such as MBSR, MBCT, MSC, and so on) that was held live either in person or online. Sessions are held on the second Sunday of each month (beginning September 8, 2024). Join as few or as many monthly sessions as you'd like.
During each session, we will explore various mindfulness topics through teachings, practice, silent reflection, and speaking & listening.
All graduates are welcome!
Join the Global MBSR Teachers' Meeting
The East Coast Mindfulness Global MBSR Teachers’ Meeting (MBSR-TM) will gather monthly for learning, professional development, and community building.
The MBSR-TM is open to MBSR teachers of all experience levels who want to learn, grow, and be in community with other MBSR Teachers and with MBSR Teacher Trainer Rebecca Eldridge. No matter when you initially trained to teach MBSR, or through which organization you trained (or maybe you’re still in the process of training), hopefully you never want to stop learning—about teaching MBSR and about yourself as a human and as an MBSR teacher.
During sessions, we will explore topics related to MBSR and teaching MBSR. These may include assumptions about what MBSR is and what it is not; what “good teaching” of MBSR is and what it may not be; what it means to practice mindfulness and MBSR; the underpinnings of MBSR curricula; best practices of teaching MBSR; your personal and professional experience of teaching MBSR; your questions and wonderings; your own meditation practice; and more.
How to Start a Mindfulness Meditation Practice
"When you dwell in stillness, the judging mind can come through like a foghorn...Imagine how it might feel to suspend all your judging and instead to let each moment be just as it is, without attempting to evaluate it as 'good' or 'bad.' This would be a true stillness, a true liberation. Meditation means cultivating a non-judging attitude toward what comes up in the mind, come what may.”
The next session starts on Sunday, November 17, 2024.
Free Online Intro to Mindfulness
Whether you’re new to mindfulness or exploring further, please join us for an hour of free mindfulness.
During this live online opportunity, you will—
- Learn about mindfulness
- Experience short practices to try out in your everyday life
- Learn about practice opportunities within an active online worldwide community
Free Worldwide Online Sit
This offering is open to all who have completed an MBSR, MBCT or MSC course, or have learned about mindfulness from some other source.
The session is held every Thursday, 12:15 - 12:45PM US Eastern Time. Once you register for this free offering, you will be emailed a Zoom link to use again and again. We’d love to have you participate every Thursday you’re able to be with us.
Graduate Offerings
East Coast Mindfulness is happy to offer ongoing opportunities for students to connect with a community of mindfulness practitioners and teachers.
Along with our free, weekly Worldwide Online Sit and our online retreats, we provide specialized programs for MBSR and MBCT graduates who wish to continue their learning and development in mindfulness.
Train to Teach MBSR
Train to Teach MBSR Online
“East Coast Mindfulness is offering an online course to train MBSR teachers to teach the MBSR curriculum online. I have every confidence that this valuable professional training can amplify and deepen your skillset and personal practice as an MBSR teacher, as well as the technical support necessary to extend your reach through the internet.”
We also offer a 3-day Introduction to Teaching MBSR Live Online course, to help new MBSR teachers identify what is essential in each class of an MBSR course, and gain practical experience in expressing the essence of those classes through the online format.
Mindfulness Training for Your Organization
Read more about organizations we've served.
Online One-to-One Mindfulness Sessions
Special Programs
Sitting for Life:For 8-week Mindfulness Graduates
Four Tuesdays beginning October 15, 2024 with Margaret Fletcher
Join Margaret Fletcher in this workshop in which we will focus on the practice, challenges and benefits of sitting meditation, all in service to waking up. Each week will include guided sitting practice, discussion and dialogue around intentions and experiences in a life of wakefulness. Between classes, assignments for formal sitting practice and inquiry in daily life will provide inspiration for our collective learning.
Margaret Fletcher trained and is certified to teach MBSR through the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School, where she also served as an MBSR Teacher and MBSR Teacher Trainer. She brings over two decades of experience in teaching meditation and mindfulness in corporate, small business, non-profit, church and community settings. Her personal practice began with her teacher, Norman Scrimshaw, with whom she co-founded and led a New Hampshire non-dual meditation community, White Mountain Sangha. Margaret’s elevator speech as a mindfulness teacher: I love to help people come alive.
Photo credit: © William Fletcher
Mindfulness, Grief & Loss: In Support of Healing
2 Thursdays: November 7 and 14, 2024 with Karen Jones
If we’re living life, at some point, we all experience loss. Loss comes in many forms—loss of loved ones, loss of the life we anticipated/planned, loss of homes/jobs/etc. Join Karen Jones in this 2-session course that will encourage participants to use mindfulness-based practices to identify and explore what comes up when we acknowledge and sit with grief and loss.
Various practices will be offered to support recognition of dysregulation, self-regulation, rebalancing, and refocusing. We will explore how the idea of wise attention can contribute to the potential for profound healing insights, and engage in mindfulness practices and self-discovery opportunities that can help us gain insight into what is supportive, stabilizing and healing.
Karen Jones is a Certified MBSR Teacher who holds a master’s degree in behavioral sciences and a bachelor’s degree in public health education. She uses mindfulness-based interventions to help others set intentions for, and achieve, optimal mental and physical well-being. In her work as a Professional Counselor, Karen has helped people address grief, trauma, anxiety, relationship issues, change, and other stressful conditions and situations. She recently retired after 30 years as an outpatient counselor in various settings and is the founder of Mindfulness and Motion, LLC where she focuses on teaching and mentoring about mindfulness.
The Soft Light of Nearness:A Day of Practice and Companionship Within the East Coast Mindfulness Community
Sunday, March 23, 2025 with Saki Santorelli
As the day unfurls, we’ll keep listening by learning to listen to our hearts, by drinking in the inspired words of the poets, and by wondering what their words and our listening have to say about our own lives and heartfelt aspirations. Then, as companions, toward the end of our time together we’ll draw nearer through dialogue arising out of our realizations.
From beginning until end, we’ll discover what unfolds individually and collectively when we shift our focus from striving to receiving, from seeking to being sought, from acting to being acted upon, allowing the soft light of nearness to become a living, breathing reality in our lives and relationships.
All are welcome...
Saki F. Santorelli, EdD, MA is an educator, meditation guide, writer, gardener, and pioneer in integrating meditation and mindfulness into medicine, health care, and the broader society. In 2017, he retired as professor of medicine, executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society and director of the internationally acclaimed Stress Reduction Clinic – the clinic of origin of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) - at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Photo credit: © Saki Santorelli
The Virtues & Challenges of Lying Down Meditation
With Jon Kabat-Zinn and Rebecca Eldridge
In this workshop, we will focus on the unique virtues of lying down meditations and how such practices can be seamlessly integrated into our daily lives.
Join Jon Kabat-Zinn and Rebecca Eldridge as they discuss the virtues, challenges, and opportunities of lying down meditation. Jon will also guide a brief period of lying down practice, and engage in dialogue with the participants about their experiences. This is an excellent opportunity to explore inwardly and outwardly what lying down meditation practices might hold for you.
Missed the live sessions? The recordings are now available on Jon Kabat-Zinn's website!
Photo credit: © Joshua Simpson