31st Annual Education Day:
Wellness Day for the Healthcare Community
New date: Tuesday, September 20, 2022, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. EST
Online over Zoom
If you're not able to join us for the whole day, please feel free to register and drop-in for whatever sessions work with your schedule.

Only the session with Frank Ostaseski on "What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully" will be recorded. The other sessions will not be recorded.
Introduction to Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC)
9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. with Jennifer Innes
Research shows that self-compassion is strongly linked with improved emotional well-being, healthy habits like proper diet and exercise, more satisfying personal relationships, and reduced anxiety, depression, and stress.

This three-hour workshop will give participants a taste of mindful self-compassion, covering the following themes:

  • What is self-compassion?
  • The misgivings 
  • The physiology of self-compassion
  • What is mindfulness and what is resistance?
  • Strategies for working with difficult emotions
  • Self-compassion and burnout
  • The pain of connection
  • Empathy vs. compassion
  • Self-compassion skills and tools to draw upon when you need it most.
 
The program will weave together conceptual teaching, short experiential practices and exercises, and inquiry/opportunity for Q&A.  
 
Jennifer Innes is the founder of Ottawa Meditation & Wellness which offers programs in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindful Self-compassion (MSC), and Mindful Eating.

She is a skilled teacher who has experience working in many organizations and with adults with a range of challenges such as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, trauma, as well as for the many who are simply looking for new tools to build resilience and meet the stressors inherent in daily life.
Art for Self-Care: Building a Creative Toolbox
1:00-2:00 p.m. with Julia Vlaming
**Please bring:

• Old greeting/birthday card

• Paper

• Scissors

• Tape (or stapler)

• 4-6 different coloured writing utensils (could be pens, pencil crayons and/or highlighters).

When your ideal self-care calls for 6 weeks vacation in a luxury villa, but neither management nor your budget allows for it, tap into your creativity by making a quickly accessible toolbox. This workshop is all about personalized self-care, a hint of fun, and crafting our way to intentional mental wellness.  
Julia Vlaming is a Registered Psychotherapist (CRPO), Behavioural Therapist, and Art Therapist (CATA). She has worked with a variety of populations from all paths of life. She is passionate about building connection, wellbeing, and increasing functionality through the creative journey.  
Art for Self-Care: Soul Collage
2:15-3:15 p.m. with Mindy Alexander
**Please bring:

• Old magazines or flyers (or if you don't mind cutting out of them you can bring old books).

• Scissors

• Glue

• 4 pieces of paper (size A4)

• A pen

When your spouse, coworkers, and children have limited their communication to memes it's time to respond in soul collage. The practice of soul collage is about building narrative, developing creativity and intuition, encouraging self-discovery, and providing personal guidance.  
Mindy Alexander is an Art Therapist (CATA) and Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), with an MEd qualification in Environmental/Sustainability Education. She facilitates practice that involves connecting the experiential piece of art making to problem solving and how we can better relate to our environment.  
What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
3:30-5:00 p.m. with Frank Ostaseski
In this interactive session, Frank Ostaseski will introduce his The Five Invitations, principles that show us how to wake up fully to our lives. Best understood as practices for anyone navigating a life transition, coping with loss or serious illness or a personal crisis, The Five Invitations guide us toward appreciating life’s preciousness.

Weaving together pragmatic tools, real life stories and ancient wisdom, Ostaseski helps us discover how an awareness of death can be a valuable companion on the road to living well, forging a rich and meaningful life free of regret. Sharing the distilled, hard-won lessons synthesized from 30 years of being with dying, this highly interactive program is based on relationship-centered, compassion-focused and mindfulness-based approaches.
Frank Ostaseski is an internationally respected Buddhist teacher, cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, and founder of the Metta Institute. He has lectured at Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, leading corporations like Google and Apple Inc., and teaches at major spiritual centers around the globe. Frank is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Humanities Award from the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

He has accompanied over 1000 people through the dying process and trained thousands of healthcare clinicians and family caregivers around the world. His groundbreaking work has been featured on the Bill Moyers PBS series On Our Own Terms, highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and honored by H.H. the Dalai Lama. He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.
There will be an opportunity for participants to ask live questions to Frank Ostaseski. Frank prefers live interaction to chat questions. If you are interested in asking a question to Frank with your video and audio on, you can raise your hand within Zoom and we may call on you. Please wait for us to call on you before asking a question.

Note that the session with Frank Ostaseski will be recorded and uploaded to our YouTube page, so if you ask a question, your question will be recorded and included as part of the YouTube video.

Only the session with Frank Ostaseski on "What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully" will be recorded. The other sessions will not be recorded.