A Mindful Life Retreat
With Jean Vitrano
November 1 - 3, 2024
RETREAT BY INVITED PRESENTER
Are you yearning for a weekend to take the tools you practice in A Mindful Life to a deeper level? Join Jean Vitrano and the A Mindful Life community for an immersive mindfulness retreat, putting to work the tools needed to live with more presence, ease, and joy. With an emphasis on slowing down, this time away will allow for plenty of rest and space to meditate, listen, share, and remember what matters to you within a warm, supportive community of individuals.
“I am deeply grateful to Jean for her gentle, wise, rich, vulnerable guidance and tender hand she leads with. Curiosity is the path to peace!”
PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
This weekend retreat will offer you precious space and time to be yourself, get quiet, and cultivate greater awareness, self-kindness and compassion. In this supportive environment, you will practice being mindful of what is alive in you through reflective exercises and meditations. You will strengthen your ability to stay in the present moment, aware of how you speak and listen, how you move, what you consume, where your mind goes, and what seeds you water. This is your time away to cultivate stillness, embrace your true self and be in community. You will bring home a greater connection to yourself and to the community. It will help to cultivate greater presence and the ability to slow down and savor. It will also deepen your commitment to your practice.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
We ask that cell phones are turned off for the weekend.
Please bring something to share at our community sharing event on Saturday night (poetry, art, stories, music, movement, art, etc.). While this is optional, it does create a wonderful evening of connection!
CENTER HIGHLIGHTS
- Intimate setting with personal access to the teacher
- Interactive sessions with question and answer periods
- Delicious all-vegetarian meals with locally sourced ingredients
- Option to extend stay on Personal Retreat
- Extensive library of dharma books
- Expansive wooded grounds with beautiful paths, flora and fauna
PREREQUISITES
The retreat is exclusively for participants in Jean’s A Mindful Life groups online or at her Maplewood studio. It will be limited to approximately 22 people, with 4 additional commuter spaces available. Spots are expected to fill quickly.
SCHEDULE
(subject to change)
Friday, November 1
| 3:00-4:30 PM | Check in begins |
| 4:45-5:45 PM | Welcome and Introduction |
| 6:00-7:00 PM | Dinner |
| 7:15-8:45 PM | Session 1: Guided Meditation |
| Group Practice | |
| 8:45 PM | Noble Silence begins until after lunch |
Saturday, November 2
| 7:20-7:50 AM | Silent Meditation (optional) |
| 8:00-9:00 AM | Breakfast (maintaining Noble Silence) |
| 9:15-11:30 AM | Session 2: Guided Meditation |
| Group Practice | |
| 11:30 AM-12:00 PM | Personal Time (maintaining Noble Silence) |
| 12:00-1:00 PM | Lunch (maintaining Noble Silence) |
| 1:30-2:30 PM | Walking Meditation |
| 3:00-4:30 PM | Session 3: Meditation |
| Group Practice | |
| Deep Relaxation (optional until 4:55) | |
| 4:30-6:00 PM | Personal Time (maintaining Noble Silence) |
| 6:00-7:00 PM | Dinner |
| 7:15-8:30 PM | Community sharing (music, poetry, stories, art, movement) |
| 8:30 PM | Noble Silence begins until after breakfast |
Sunday, November 3
| 7:20-7:50 AM | Silent Meditation (optional) |
| 8:00-9:00 AM | Breakfast (maintaining Noble Silence) |
| 9:15-11:30 AM | Session 4: Guided Meditation |
| Group Practice | |
| Closing | |
| 12:00-1:00 PM | Lunch |
| 1:00 PM | Checkout and Departure |
Teacher
Jean Vitrano integrates her 25+ years of training in mindfulness practices, meditation, movement, and body therapies to assist individuals in living with greater awareness, ease, and joy. With an emphasis on discovering your own insight, Jean invites curiosity, kindness, and compassion in everyone who seeks to live a mindful life. Understanding that we all discover our inner wisdom, in our own time, she creates safe communities for people to explore, listen, and share. Through meditation and reflective questions and exercises, Jean invites you to pause, sense, and observe your thought and feeling patterns. Jean studied with the late Buddhist Zen…
Learn more about Jean Vitrano
