The Medicine of Mindfulness - Body-Mind Health Retreat

Mindfulness Meditation, Gentle Yoga and Qigong

with Shirsha Marie and Lisa Brown

at Sangsurya Retreat Centre, Byron Bay

In the Medicine of Mindfulness Retreat Shirsha Marie and Lisa Brown combine their many years of expertise to offer a relaxing and embodied journey of nurturing and revitalising body, heart and mind.

The restorative system of Yoga, the self-healing art of Qigong, and the liberating practices of Mindfulness Meditation will support you to manage stress, balance your nervous system, build resilience, and reconnect with inner calm and healing. The retreat incorporates scientific insights from western psychology and the evidence-based, trauma-sensitive Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Mindful Self-Compassion programs.

Why do we need a retreat?

To understand the nature of the heart and mind and make choices to cultivate inner wisdom and peace. Mindfulness meditation offers immense benefits for meeting increasing stress in the world, and our human response to this pain. Learn new ways to connect with our innate capacity for stillness and inner calm so we can live with greater compassion and care.

For more information, please see our website www.medicineofmindfulness.com

2023 Dates:

- May 12th to 17th, 2023

- September 15th to 20th, 2023

5 night Retreat Inclusions:

Stay in a stunning forest location overlooking the ocean
Relax in beautifully appointed, eco-friendly accommodation
Enjoy delicious local, organic vegan and vegetarian cuisine
Receive one complimentary massage or healing treatment
With daily classes of Mindfulness Meditation, Restorative Yoga and Qigong
Plus Wellness Talks and Guided nature walks (beach and forest)

All-inclusive Retreat Prices:

- Twin or Couple's Room + own bathroom - $2375 p/p 

- Deluxe Room + shared bathroom (between 2 rooms) - $2675 p/p

- Small Single Room + own bathroom – $2675 p/p

- Large Deluxe Room + own bathroom - $2875 p/p

Enquiries: phone: 0400 558 181

Email: shirsha@heartmindcentre.com.au

Shirsha Marie is an Integrated Somatic Psychotherapist (IBP) with over 35 years of teaching experience in a range of internal martial arts styles and meditations. She is a Senior teacher of the moving-meditation arts of Tai Chi and Qigong and holds advanced Black Belt qualifications in Hapkido, Hapkiyusul, Wu Shu and Soo Bahk Do.

Shirsha integrates Eastern systems of cultivating physical and mental energy with Western somatic psychotherapeutic processes in her teaching. Her inclusive approach enriches heart, mind and body and provides a vibrant, well-balanced path of personal development.

In 1986, Shirsha founded her own martial arts and meditation school, Heart Mind Centre in Byron Bay, and there for three decades taught a great many dedicated students. Since then, along with her therapy practice, she continues to teach the gentle system of Qigong for self-healing and awareness in action, and the Yang Style of Tai Chi in the traditional lineage of Cheng Man-Ch’ing and Huang Sheng-Shuan.

Her teachers include Patrick Kelly of Nine Clouds Taiji, Grandmaster Mathew Sung Su Kim of Australian Hapkido, Professor Wou Jong Woong of Korean Hapkido, Grandmaster Kim Yun Sang of Korean Hapkiyusul, Roger Cotgreave of Still-Point Tai Chi & Qigong, and Andrea Alexander of the Institute of Body Psychotherapy.

Shirsha is currently undertaking Post Graduate studies in Somatic Psychotherapy, and is a student in the Insight Meditation Mindfulness and Compassion Teacher Training Programme in Australia.

“I am dedicated to providing an embodied path of meditation, with practical and accessible tools to access inner stillness and peace in an ever-changing world. I bring to my work a distilled essence of the peaceful power of martial arts, the calm strength of Tai Chi, the joyful aliveness of Qigong, and the loving wisdom of Somatic Psychotherapy.

Teaching people how to build vitality and resilience, regulate the nervous system, balance emotions, boost the immune system, deepen awareness, open the heart and still the mind is the greatest privilege that I can imagine. I love to see the deep relaxation and enlivened presence of students at the end of each class.”

Lisa Brown is a Registered Psychologist, Yoga Teacher (IYTA), Certified Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Teacher (Brown University, USA), Mindful Self-Compassion Facilitator and emerging Insight Dharma Teacher. She is dedicated to helping people connect with their innate capacity for healing and wellbeing through practices which integrate ancient wisdom and modern science.

As an Adjunct Lecturer at Charles Sturt University, Lisa has taught mindfulness and retreats for post-graduate students and has a deep interest in the conjunction of western science, Buddhadharma and earth-based wisdom traditions in health, healing and trauma recovery. Her training as a Yoga Teacher provides integration of somatic healing practices, as mindfulness and meditation can be challenging when the effects of trauma are held within the body.

Her teachers include Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli of the Centre for Mindfulness, and Lama Tendar of the Medicine Buddha Centre in Victoria. Lama Tendar introduced her to expansive possibilities through Tibetan Buddhism and how understanding the mind and cultivating the energy of compassion creates an alchemy of healing and transformation.

As well as facilitating Mindful-Self Compassion groups and workshops, Lisa is a student of the Insight Meditation Dharma Teacher Training Program mentored by her friend, colleague and teacher Mal Huxter.

“I feel a strong connection with social and environmental activism and find inspiration to contribute to the resilience and development of our inner resources in meeting the challenges we face to find balance collectively on the planet.”

I find immense joy in being a grandmother and connecting with beauty through poetry, music, art, community and the beautiful Gumbaynggirr country where I’m blessed to live and work. It is my aspiration to contribute, as part of a collective, to a future where we remember our potential as human beings and our interconnectedness with all things to allow for the healing of relationship with ourselves, each other and the rivers, oceans, land and sky.”

Enquiries: phone: 0400 558 181

Email: shirsha@heartmindcentre.com.au