Awakening Joy – Course 2025 Christchurch
Register now for our 2025 by emailing loiscowan@gmail.com
Dates: 20th May to 23rd September / 10 Sessions
When: Fortnightly meetings, Tuesdays 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm.
Where: Manuka Cottage, 70 Harman St. Addington
Enquire / Registration: loismcowan@gmail.com
Cost: $250. If cost is a barrier to attending, please email Lois to discuss.
The Awakening Joy course is based on the book “Awakening Joy – 10 steps to happiness”. The ten different steps incline the mind towards wholesome qualities, such as gratitude and mindfulness. The course provides an opportunity to consider the steps and relate each to your personal life. Ways to cultivate joy and meaningful engagement are explored in this course.
James Baraz creator and teacher of Awakening Joy has been a meditation teacher since 1978. Co-founder and Teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Centre, California.
James vision and motivation for offering this course is the following “I believe our task these days is to develop consciousness, love and caring in ourselves and help remind others of all the good inside and around them. I believe this motivates and empowers people to make this a better world.”
Lois Cowan and Emma Brinded look forward to presenting the Awakening Joy in Christchurch in 2025.
Lois Cowan has completed the Awakening Joy Teacher training course. She is a mental health nurse, worked in education, and completed training and practice in mindfulness. Her involvement in the Awakening Joy has reinforced her orientation towards gratitude and deeper compassion for others and self
Emma Brinded is a Clinical Psychologist with 26 years of clinical experience. She trained with Chris Germer to teach the Mindful Self-Compassion Programme and helped teach the Sankalpa Meditation Based Wellness Program for Nurses, with Nicholas Yu. She has a long-term personal meditation practice and uses the principles of Awakening Joy in her everyday life.
Participant feedback.
“I have noticed how much more joy is available to me, and how I am more connected with my own body and heart, as well as with other people and nature. This now happens in easeful and more tricky times, and notably and perhaps surprisingly in facing up to personal and societal challenges and crises” (previous course participants)
The trainers provided their own understanding, experience, and examples, that made key messages from each chapter of the book so much more relatable and lasting in practice than simply reading the book. They were very inclusive and very safe in providing a supportive group container.
James provides a video preview of the Awakening Joy course (online) and other course related information in the follow link https://www.awakeningjoy.info/ The Awakening Joy course in Christchurch will be in person not online.