This February issue provides an overview of upcoming training events, such as Pathways to Gratefulness on Wednesday, February 11 with Brother David Steindl Rast (10 am - 11:30 am Pacific live; anytime audio playback). We include several opportunities for professionals, especially the Energy Psychology conference in Orlando, Florida May 28-June 1st, and NICABM courses. News from the Pain Front presents findings about Mindfulness and Gratefulness practice.

Please be well and stay well,

I am so excited about the February 11th Pathways to Gratefulness seminar with Brother David Steindl-Rast. My challenge is to find a way to express to you what a powerful experience this will be! Brother David has written or co-authored more than 8 books, including A Listening Heart, Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer and The Ground We Share: Buddhist and Christian Practice (co-author) and has contributed to more than 30 additional books that have been translated into many different languages.

He has spoken to an incredibly broad audience, including starving students in Zaire and faculty at Harvard and Columbia Universities, Buddhist monks and Sufi retreatants, Papago Indians and German intellectuals, New Age communes and Naval Cadets at Annapolis, missionaries on Polynesian islands and gatherings at the United Nations, Green Berets and participants at international peace conferences. Can you see why I think he will be able to speak directly to YOU? Learn more about Brother David at www.gratefulness.org/brotherdavid/bio.htm. Five reasons you should attend: (sign up now at www.maggiephillipsphd.com/courses_teleseminars_dsr.html)

1. To learn why gratefulness is the heart of healing
2. To discover how to find more purpose and meaning in your life, and how to share this with others
3. To explore how gratefulness is a sure path to happiness
4. To understand how gratefulness is the perfect antidote to pain and suffering
5. To invest in building the best infrastructure for living, which is unlimited and completely free to you

This year's energy psychology conference, Intention, Transformation and Change, will be amazing! From May 29-31st in Orlando, Florida, there will be an incredible array of 54 breakout sessions during the main conference, including my session on "Ten Ways to Stop Pain from Stopping You." Listen to this lineup of plenary speakers: Larry Dossey, Jean Houston, Beverly Rubik (leader biofield researcher), and Lama Surya Das. I will be doing a pre conference workshop on Wednesday, May 28, Healing the Heart of Pain: Transforming Suffering During the Aging Process, and there are many other dynamic pre and post workshops.

Here's one of the best parts: From now through February 15, you can enroll at considerable savings by registering by the early bird deadline. Take just 5 seconds and click on this link, check out this stellar program, and various bonuses for different types of registration: energypsych.org/displayconvention.cfm?conventionnbr=6148.

If you have been curious about Energy Psychology, now is your chance to start your learning adventure or to further develop your skills. And, if you have a schedule conflict and can't attend at the end of May, or you want an excellent, intensive learning experience, please sign up for my online course, Advances in Energy Psychology, to be held May 3-June 28. This 8 week course is self-paced, can be accessed 24 hours a day at your convenience, provides professional CEU's, and will help you build an extraordinary foundation for integrating Energy Psychology into your healing practice. Go now to find out more at www.nicabm.com/?course=ene.

Here's what participants have said about my online class:

"This was an extremely well planned course that allowed me to learn the basics and then build upon my progress each week. Maggie Phillips certainly knows her subject! I not only accomplished my goals for this course, but exceeded my expectations. Even though we've never met, it was fascinating how the student's personalities came through in the message boards. I'd recommend this course without hesitation -- and already have!"
--Beth O'Boyle, Hoboken, NJ

"Maggie Phillips is an excellent instructor-her warmth and sense of humor, as well as her personal approach made this training a true learning experience."
--A. Motilal, Student, Wylie, TX

Free Reports
NICABM, a the cutting edge provider in the field of mindbody healing, is offering two free reports. First, claim an excellent report on mindfulness. Go to www.nicabm.com/mindfulnesswhatisit/?affid=spkrgMs14ig. And if you like what you read, consider signing up for the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy online course with Ron Siegel March 1-April 26 at www.nicabm.com/?course=mp&menu=course.

Then claim your second free report from NICABM on The Science of Happiness. Go to www.nicabm.com/happiness/?affid=spkrgMs14ig; if you'd like more, consider signing up for the Science of Happiness course with Bill O'Hanlon from March 1-April 26 at www.nicabm.com/?course=soh.

Please remember you can copy and paste any link into your browser to activate it, if needed.

Combining mindfulness and gratefulness practice is an unbeatable combination. Regardless of the problems or symptoms you are dealing with, using your powers of mindfulness to form a wholistic focus and then turning your mind toward gratefulness is a powerful, transformative intervention.

Mindfulness is a simple way of relating to all of our experience -- thoughts, sensations, emotional feelings, images, and spiritual awareness -- that can diminish suffering and set the focus for positive transformation. Its roots lie in the 2500 year old tradition of Buddhism.

Mindfulness comes from the Pali word "sati" which is defined as awareness, attention and remembering. Just by becoming aware of what is happening within and around us, we can begin to untangle ourselves negative thought patterns, painful sensation, and difficult emotions. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose in the present moment. Ron Siegel, who wrote the free report distributed by NICABM mentioned earlier, defines mindfulness as awareness of present moment experience with acceptance.

Mindlessness, on the other hand, refers to deliberate attempts to escape the present moment. We often become impatient with what we believe are obstacles to the "good stuff" in life. Yet, if you stop to reflect honestly about experiences in your life that you have fully valued, they were probably moments in which you were fully present, noticing all that was happening in your experiential field.

Here are some myths about mindfulness practice:

Having a blank mind: While some meditation practices are designed to empty the mind, mindfulness practice involves training our minds to be aware of what we are doing at all times.

Becoming emotionless: Because we train our minds to notice our emotions more fully and vividly, we actually become more aware of them. Our ability to recognize how we feel actually increases when we practice mindfulness.

Withdrawing from life: Although it's true that mindfulness is often practiced in a retreat setting, most often the practice of mindfulness occurs in everyday life. Rather than withdrawing, we experience the fluctuations of life experiences more vividly because we're choosing to pay more attention to our moment-to-moment experience.

Escaping pain: Rather than helping us to escape stress, pain, or unpleasantness, mindfulness helps us to increase our ability to accept and be with it. As we explore and accept undesirable experiences, we discover that they are quite different from suffering. We begin to understand that suffering arises when we react to pain with resistance, protest, or avoidance.

One simple exercise is to name for yourself what you are aware of at the moment you are reading this. Name any body sensations, thoughts, images, emotional feelings and so on. Then make the statement, "I'm willing to accept with kindness and compassion that I feel _____, see ____, think _____," and so on. Take a deep breath in, and as you do, hold all of your awareness along with your breath and when you're ready, let it all go as you breathe out.

With the next breath in, allow yourself to step into a new moment as if for the very first time and begin to explore the different elements of your experience in this next moment. Name what you feel, see, think, imagine, and so on. Then take another deep breath in and hold all of your awareness along with your breath, and when you're ready, let it all go as you breathe out.

Continue this for 5-10 rounds. Notice what is different. With practice, you can develop full presence more of the time and feel less distressed and reactive to your negative experience.

Once you have learned that it is possible to notice and accept the totality of your experience, you will be ready to focus your attention on the practice of gratitude. Brother David will be sharing specific gratefulness practices in our February 11 seminar, To get an idea of what these are like, please click on www.gratefulness.org/p/uniqueness.cfm. There, you will be invited to experience a 4-step process of being grateful for your uniqueness. This will give you a very real sense of how Brother David will guide us next Wednesday.

For more information about mindfulness, please refer back to an earlier report in the October 2008 newsletter. Other resources are chapter 5 in Reversing Chronic Pain (for more information on my book, click here) and module 5 of the Reversing Chronic Pain online program (www.reversingchronicpain.com).

Thanks so much for reading this email. I hope to find you at our teleseminar on February 11 from 10 am -11:30 am Pacific time. One more time, the link to sign up is www.maggiephillipsphd.com/courses_teleseminars_dsr.html

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