Mind-Body Skills Group: Practical Tools to Reduce Stress and Promote Resilience

Mind-Body Skills Groups use powerful and effective healing practices developed by the Center for Mind-Body Medicine to help participants develop skills that can enable them not only to come back from hardships they may have experienced but also to gracefully navigate difficulties that are yet to come. We will learn how practices like meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback, and self-expression in words, drawings, and movement can reduce stress and increase resilience.

Max capacity for this group is 10. If this group fills up, please email or call the office to be put on a waiting list. [email protected] or 707-578-2121

Mind-Body Skills Groups offer a safe and supportive atmosphere to sample many mind-body approaches, which often adds a deeper dimension to an existing practice, or a desire to incorporate a new skill into that practice. .The groups are small (7-10 people), which allows for a deeper level of connection, sharing, and support. The group is designed not only to teach mind-body skills, but also to help participants develop a deeper level of awareness in everyday experiences and, as a result, an increased ability to cope with the emotional, physical and psychological challenges that face us in our daily lives.

This 8-week group provides the opportunity for participants to begin to integrate the mind-body skills into their lives, with the support of the group to help them work through any difficulties along the way. Each 2-hour session is designed to be highly experiential and explores techniques such as Meditation, Guided Imagery, Autogenic training, Breath Work, Movement, Drawing, and other approaches in a supportive group environment.

Everyone can benefit from a Mind-Body Skills Group. The group offers participants support in making changes in their life, whether the desire is to decrease stress, manage anxiety or depression more effectively, increase coping ability, decrease pain (physical or emotional), or enhance immune function.

Alison Lobb: Before joining the Sonoma County Probation Department as a Program Planning and Evaluation Analyst (where she supports efforts to help clients live successful, crime-free lives), Alison Lobb worked internationally as a government advisor on poverty issues. She spent 13 years as a volunteer law enforcement chaplain and hospital chaplain. Alison currently volunteers as a co-facilitator of Alternatives to Violence Project workshops with inmates at Folsom Prison. This year, she was trained by the Sonoma Community Resilience Collaborative to become a facilitator of Mind-Body Skills workshops and groups. Alison has been a friend of The Journey Center for several years.

Dayla Fillmore: Dayla Fillmore has been working for the Sonoma County Probation Department for the past 12 years. As a Probation Officer, in her current position at the Day Reporting Center, she teaches Cognitive Behavioral Interventions, Aggression Replacement Training, and Advanced Practices to adult offenders. Prior to working at the DRC, Dayla worked with juveniles in Probation, at Juvenile Hall, and at the Sierra Youth Center, with a focus on programming and promoting positive behavior change. Through her commitment to helping people learn tools to live a safe and happy life, she was trained by the Sonoma Community Resilience Collaborative to become a facilitator of mind-body skills workshops and groups.