Reflections & New Year Anticipations
Despite the challenges 2020 presented, the NeuroMeditation Institute (NMI) experienced some positive developments this past year, and we have some exciting prospects for 2021.
NMI Expansion
Despite some COVID-related economic challenges, NMI added two new staff members this year.
Kendra Vita is our Program Manager. In addition to her role in coordinating our offerings, Kendra works with individual clients in our main office and helps teach NeuroMeditation classes. Mandy Gettler is our Office Manager. She does everything, and I am honestly not sure how we survived without her!
In the next year, we plan to move our physical office. We will remain in Eugene, Oregon, but need more space. A new location will allow us to offer larger in-person workshops and retreats. We hope to open our doors in mid-summer 2021!
New Certificants
This year, we certified 11 new NeuroMeditation Instructors. These Instructors come from all over the United States as well as Canada and Germany. Our Instructors have grown into an amazingly talented and supportive community. I am so grateful for everything they bring into this world! We also have about 15 more Instructors in the process of completing their certification requirements.
Updated Certification Program
In response to a growing need to expand our training, we have modified our certification program and workshops. And – don’t worry – if you are already certified, there are no additional requirements.
Much of the basic framework remains the same. We have added a requirement for everyone in the certification program to experience NeuroMeditation themselves either by working with an individual NMI Instructor or by participating in one of our 6-week classes. We believe the personal experience requirement will serve as a great foundation to understand how to use the NeuroMeditation process in an applied way.
New Workshop Offering
We will be offering a new workshop for clinicians, Level 2 Clinical Applications Workshop. This workshop takes participants through assessing a new NeuroMeditation client, designing a personalized approach, and assessing progress. The workshop is a hands-on experience designed to provide health professionals a more in-depth exploration of how to use NeuroMeditation with clients.
Training to Lead NeuroMeditation Groups
NMI already offers 6-week classes in each of the 4 NeuroMeditation styles. Each class meets for 2 hours per week, providing a balance of education and practice. These classes are a perfect addition to any clinic and a great way to support EEG NeuroMeditation training.
If you are interested in learning how to teach these classes yourself, we invite you to be part of our leadership training program. In the Leading Group Series, you select 1 of the 4 NeuroMeditation styles, attend the 6-week class as a participant, and meet for an extra session each week for an exploration from the perspective of the group leader. In addition, you will receive all the materials needed to run the group yourself. The mentoring hours from this training also count as 3 of the hours needed for certification. For those of you still needing hours, this may be a good way to get the hours in.
Research
NMI has been involved in several augmented-reality meditation studies in the past year. Two of them are currently under review for publication.
In the next year, we are focusing our research efforts on an examination of the impact of the 6-week classes. Each class participant will have the opportunity to complete pre- and-post-testing to examine levels of depression, anxiety, and coping self-efficacy, as well as cognitive testing. Participants will receive a personalized report of their changes to encourage their growth and motivate continued practice.
If you plan on teaching an NMI class in the next year and would like to be involved in the research, please let us know!
EEG NeuroMeditation
All of our EEG NeuroMeditation workshops were conducted online in 2020. This approach seemed to work quite well, as it allowed us to stretch the training over several weeks and gave everyone time to practice in between sessions. Our next online workshop begins February 5.
We have refined several of our EEG protocols, and we will be updating our protocols in the New Mind system. Available in March 2021, these updates will be a game changer: a sophisticated auto-thresholding option as well as meditation analysis metrics will be included.
Perhaps the most exciting prospect for the New Year is work we are doing with Divergent Technologies. NMI Trainer Heather Hargraves and I are working to help develop a new NeuroMeditation software that will be accessible through a smart phone and used through a portable, wireless EEG headset. We are hoping that the first version of this project will be available in March or April 2021. Stay tuned!
Thank You
Thanks for being part of the NMI community this year. As an expression of our gratitude, we're offering an additional 10% discount code on our 6-week classes. This discount is on top of our usual 20% early bird rate, for a total of 30%.
Use discount code NEWYEAR10 during check out.
On behalf of all of us at NMI, thank you for your support of our programming. We are grateful to support you and see the value that you place in this work.
I hope you have a safe, healthy, and happy New Year. As always, if there is anything we can do to support your process, please let us know.
With love,
Jeff and the NMI team