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"A great tenderness for myself and the world opens inside me, and I know I belong to this time, to these people, to this earth, and to something that is both within and larger than all of it, something that sustains and holds us all. I do not want to be anywhere else. I am filled with commitment ... and compassion." ~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer
The Buddha taught that our experience of feeling like a "separate self" creates our deepest, most profound wounding ... and, that one of the main antidotes to this suffering is to nurture a sense of compassion - both for ourselves, and others.
This summer and fall,
I'll be diving deeply into the practices of compassion, and exploring how it can help us to open our hearts to more connection, love, and joy in our lives.
The theme of compassion
will be central to two residential retreats I'll be offering this summer:
I hope you might join me for some of these!
With warmth, kind wishes, and many blessings, ~ Shell
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UPCOMING OFFERINGS
CLASS: Guest Teacher for Jonathan Foust's Class in Arlington, VA. Talk:
Our Interconnectedness
5-DAY MEDITATION RETREAT:
Opening the Heart in the Divine Abodes
CLASS: Mindfulness in Nature: A Guided Walk at Blandy Experimental Farm
WEEKEND WOMEN'S RETREAT: The Beauty of Beginning Again
DAYLONG RETREAT: Nurturing Self-Compassion
MBSR Workshops: Two new 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction workshops begin
CLASS: Guest Teacher for Tara Brach's Class in Bethesda, MA
Oct. 28, Sat., 9:30-4 p.m.
MBSR Retreat (
For MBSR students only) Shell's former MBSR students are welcome to join us for this! Please just
email Shell to let her know.
DAYLONG RETREAT: Full Surrender: Learning to Ride the Waves
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SUMMER RESIDENTIAL RETREATS - 3 & 5 Days
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July 20-24, 2017
5-DAY MEDITATION RETREAT
w/Ruth King & Mary Aubry
Seven Oaks Retreat Center
Madison, VA
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Aug. 25 - 27, 2017
WEEKEND WOMEN'S RETREAT
Claymont Court Mansion
Charles Town, WV
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UPCOMING SATURDAY RETREATS
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SEPT. 9 DAYLONG RETREAT
Nurturing Self-Compassion
"This revolutionary act of treating ourselves tenderly can begin to undo the aversive messages of a lifetime." ~ Tara Brach
The Buddha taught that you can search the entire universe for someone more deserving of your love and affection than yourself, and you will not find that person anywhere.
And yet, so often for many of us, it seems much easier for us to offer our care, compassion, and even forgiveness to others than to ourselves.
We tend to beat ourselves up, or give ourselves an unnecessarily hard time for our "perfectly human" imperfections.
During this silent retreat, we'll be exploring a variety of different ways that we can offer more of our love, care, and forgiveness to the person we spend the most time with - ourselves.
LEARN MORE & REGISTER HERE
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NOV. 11 DAYLONG RETREAT
Full Surrender:
Learning to Ride the Waves
All phenomena is constantly changing, arising and passing and arising and passing again into something new - including ourselves.
"Life" is really a continuous flow; a verb instead of a frozen noun. Yet so often we suffer because of our very human tendency to grasp and cling to what is essentially in motion - especially our own identity as a solid and unchangeable "self."
Freedom and ease comes from being able to recognize, allow, and align ourselves with this minute-by-minute, second-by-second flow, and to identify more with the vast, loving ocean of awareness that is simply riding the waves of experience.
During our time together, we'll be exploring a variety of guided and silent meditations to put us more in touch with the changing flow of phenomena - which includes our own sense of self - to help bring a more natural and open ease to our lives.
LEARN MORE & REGISTER
HERE
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SHELL'S MEDITATION TALKS PODCAST
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You can listen to these weekly talks via a page on our
which also links to iTunes, and are downloadable.
Newest talks:
Wise Discernment Vs. Judgment
When we're practicing wise discernment, we're mindfully choosing to listen closely to our hearts, and make choices or decisions on what to say or do based on what we discern is true, useful, and helpful, as well as what we believe is going to bring more happiness, and less suffering for all.
Instead of judgment (which closes us off from our hearts and others) wise discernment can create a real sense of opening, and peace. This talk explores how we can use our practice to make decisions that reflect our care and wisdom, rather than on our aversion, fear, and judgment.
Making the decision to experience an extended period of silence with others doing the same- whether it's for one day, three, or longer-is a powerful commitment to yourself, your practice, and your life.
In order to make the most of this precious time, it can be useful to know what you might find once y
ou're there, and what to bring along with you-including attitudes and expectations. This
talk explores the experience of being on retreat.
Falling Awake: Working With Sleep in Practice
There are a multitude of reasons why we fall into sleep or a kind of dreaminess or even a sense of "nothingness" during meditation, and it's helpful to know what these are so that we can use our practice to work with these states, and discover more clarity, energy, and wakefulness - not only in our practice, but in our daily lives.
These talks are added on a weekly basis.
(You can subscribe to these talks through the the iTunes link.)
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TUESDAY NIGHT MEDITATION GROUP
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Unitarian Universalist Church
of the Shenandoah Valley
Stephens City, VA
This open, weekly, donation (dana)-based meditation group (sangha) includes:
- 15-20 minutes of guided meditation
- 20-25 minutes of silent meditation
- 10 minutes of walking meditation
- A 40-minute dharma talk or Q&A
*Note: Emails that relate directly to the meditation group are often sent out; please let Shell know if you'd like to be included on that list! :)
UPCOMING TALK SCHEDULE:
*Every 1st Tuesday, instead of offering a talk, Shell opens the group up for a 40-minute Q&A session about practice.
July 4: 40-minute Q&A session with Shell
July 11: The Zen of Meditation
July 18: Sleep is the Best Meditation
July 25
: No Self; No Problem
Aug. 1: 40-minute Q&A session with Shell
Aug. 8:
**NO GROUP (
Shell will be away on retreat)
Aug. 15: Purging The Poison of Greed
More soon!
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ABOUT MSV's TEACHER: Shell Fischer, founder and guiding teacher of Mindful Shenandoah Valley (www.mindfulvalley.com), offers more than 25 years of mindfulness practice and study. She's a full teacher and senior practitioner with the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW), trained in the two-year Meditation Teacher Training Institute of Washington, D.C. in the Theravada Buddhist tradition by IMCW's founder and guiding teacher, Dr. Tara Brach - one of the nation's leading Insight teachers. She's a 1993 graduate of Naropa University, and a graduate of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher-training program led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR and the Stress Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She's also an educational partner with both Valley Health and the Foundation of the State Arboretum of Virginia. Prior to teaching, Shell wrote about mindfulness and yoga for national magazines such as Tricycle Magazine, Yoga International, and more ...
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