This program equips healthcare providers with embodied mindfulness skills to support self-regulation, autonomic settling, and sustained professional presence under stress. By cultivating interoceptive awareness — the ability to sense somatic cues of stress, emotion, and reactivity as they arise — participants build practical skills in attention, emotional regulation, and choiceful responding applicable to clinician self-care and psychoeducational use within professional scope of practice. Integrating somatic and mindfulness practices supports clinicians in maintaining regulated, compassionate engagement with patients and colleagues. Content is grounded in the peer-reviewed literature on mindfulness-based interventions, interoceptive awareness, and emotional regulation.

Learning Objectives for participating health care professionals

At the end of the program, you will be better able to: 

1. Describe the four foundations of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna — body, feeling tone, mind states, and mental phenomena) and their application as a clinical map for tracking present-moment experience in therapeutic and professional settings.
2. Describe and apply a mindfulness of the body practice, to anchor attention during distraction or discomfort.
3. Explain how cultivating somatic sensing of thoughts and emotions allows bodily awareness to precede and inform cognitive appraisal.
4. Describe and apply breath-based mindfulness practices that support present-moment awareness, stress regulation, and emotional balance.
5. Explain and apply a mindfulness practice centered on feeling tones (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) to increase emotional awareness and self-regulation.
6. Describe how attachment and aversion (approach and avoidance motivational states) manifest as somatic sensations, and explain how interoceptive awareness of these states supports earlier recognition and more adaptive emotional responding.
7. Describe a mindfulness practice focused on observing the mind, enhancing recognition of thought patterns and their influence on emotional states.
8. Describe and apply a mindfulness practice for observing mental phenomena — including thoughts, perceptions, and reactive patterns — to support clarity and reduce habitual reactivity.
9. Describe somatic states of physiological arousal and settling — including patterns of tension, ease, and breath change, and how awareness of these states supports self-compassion and reduced emotional reactivity in clinical and professional contexts.
10. Describe practices to cultivate awareness of subtle shifts of contraction in the body and breath, supporting mindful responses rather than reactive behaviors.
11. Utilize somatic mindfulness practices to support autonomic regulation and stress recovery, appropriate for clinician self-regulation and psychoeducational use within professional scope of practice.
12. Utilize embodied mindfulness and interoceptive awareness practices to reduce compassion fatigue, support self-compassion, and sustain effective engagement in clinical and caregiving roles.
13. Explain how contact with sense perceptions generates feeling tone and reactive patterns, and describe how mindful awareness of this sequence supports more deliberate responding.
14. Describe how mindfulness practices support recognition of impermanence in bodily sensations, emotions, and thoughts, and how this awareness supports acceptance and psychological flexibility.
15. Explain how cultivating curiosity and nonjudgmental awareness supports flexibility in responding to challenging internal experiences.
16. Describe how embodied mindfulness practices support choiceful responding rather than habitual reactivity in daily life and professional contexts.

Continuing Education content level: Introductory

Please note:

• Please visit our Continuing Education information page for complete provider details and additional CE information, including attendance requirements and our cancellation and grievance policies.
• If you hold a professional license that is not listed on our CE Information page, or if your license is issued by a board or professional association other than those listed, you are responsible for contacting your licensing board or association directly to request pre-approval or confirmation of acceptance of CE earned at Spirit Rock. Spirit Rock does not determine or guarantee CE applicability for licenses outside those listed.
• Continuing Education is awarded by Mindful CECs.
• Mindful CECs is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Mindful CECs maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• Mindful CECs is a provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider Number CEP17985 for 24 contact hours.
• Potential Conflict of Interest Statement: This instructor may have authored publications relevant to the subjects covered in this course, and may teach additional programs. The instructor might reference these publications and programs during the course, and the instructor may receive financial compensation if participants choose to purchase them.
• Attendance is demonstrated through a comprehensive assessment at the end of the course, with a passing criterion of at least a 75% score. The assessment may be repeated if necessary.
• For questions about course content, subject matter, or technical issues, please contact Mindful CECs at info@mindfulcecs.com. A knowledgeable staff member is available to respond to content-related inquiries within 30 business days.