Mindfulness Grad Online Community (MGOC)
with Rebecca Eldridge

6:45-8:45pm US ET, second Sunday of each month
Sessions recorded and shared with all who register.
By Donation: $10-$25/session
Next session: Sunday, July 12
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The Mindfulness Grad Online Community (MGOC) will gather monthly under the guidance of MBSR Teacher and Teacher Trainer Rebecca Eldridge for continued learning, practice, and community.

During each session, we will explore various mindfulness topics through teachings, practice, silent reflection, and speaking & listening.

As members of the MGOC, we all will—

  • Participate. Your presence and participation matters. Our live interaction and in-the-moment bonding will provide the buoyancy for good learning, good community, and good care-taking of ourselves and each other. Each session will also be video-recorded and shared with everyone who registers. Each session's recording will be available for review until the next month's session.
  • Speak & listen. We will show up ready to truly wonder; to speak from direct experience about what we know, as well as what we don't know or aren't sure of—and to listen deeply as others do the same.
  • Practice between sessions. We will each maintain a personal practice that fits our life, and consider how formal and informal practices of mindfulness are informing our life.
  • Explore between sessions. We will explore various topics both during and between sessions—through our day-to-day experiences, through contemplation and practice, reading and studying, and more.
Prerequisites
  • You graduated from any organization's 8-week Mindfulness-Based course (such as MBSR, MBCT, MSC, and so on) that was held live either in person or online.
  • You want to be part of a community of mindfulness practitioners willing to be seen as human—perfectly imperfect and totally okay.
The Weekly Process:

Engaging a process at each session will provide a structured freedom to move us toward understanding, acceptance, action, further wondering, connection, and other things we can’t possibly name until they arise in our midst.

The process, with approximate times—

  • Landing & welcome: 5 min.
  • Brief check-in from each person: 10 min.
  • Introduction of topic, brief teaching: 15 min.
  • Mindfulness practice: 20 min.
  • Silent reflection on topic: 10 min.
  • Speaking & Listening: Small & Whole Group: 20 min.
  • PAUSE: 5 min.
  • Gathering: What do we know now? 20 min.
  • For next time: 10 min.
  • Closing: 5 min.

NOTE: Everyone (those present and those who registered but have to miss) will receive an email after each session, with a link to the recording of that session and what to focus on for next time.

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Rebecca Eldridge

Rebecca served as an MBSR Teacher and MBSR Teacher Trainer at the Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical School, creating and training their teaching faculty to deliver their first online MBSR course in 2016. She is certified as a calibrated rater for assessing MBSR teaching, and is a member of the International Mindfulness Integrity Network, a worldwide group of teacher trainers exploring ethics and standards of mindfulness training programs.

Beyond teaching MBSR and training MBSR teachers, Rebecca works with organizations to develop and deliver mindfulness programs for living with more authenticity, resilience, and joy; and meditation guidance for promoting restorative rest and sleep. Her personal practice is guided by her teacher, Pema Chödrön, and she was featured giving meditation instruction in two courses taught by Pema Chödrön: Making Friends with Yourself and How to Live with Compassion and Courage. She also loves growing things—from fruits, vegetables, and flowers; to a personal meditation practice that doesn’t fizzle out; to communities that welcome and encourage people as they are.

Register Schedule & Topics

To register for Sunday, July 12, 2026:

1. Make your donation.

2. Receive an email from East Coast Mindfulness containing the Zoom link for the session (please check your Junk/SPAM folder in case you do not see this email).

Your donation makes it possible for us to continue this offering. Thank you!

All times shown are US Eastern:

Dates Times Topic
Jul 12
2026 		6:45-8:45PM Beyond Self-Improvement

We receive messages throughout our lives that how we are right now is somehow wrong or lacking: that we need to be happier, calmer, healthier, more productive, or somehow better. This impulse can find its way into mindfulness practice as well, where it can turn even meditation into a “sanctioned” form of self-aggression without our even realizing it.

While mindfulness does support growth and change, that growth and change comes about not from getting rid of what’s here, but from learning to acknowledge and make room for all of it.

To prepare—
  1. Read Tara Brach's article, Awakening from the Trance of Unworthiness.

  2. During formal practice this month, notice moments of striving, self-judgment, or self-improvement. When these moments arise, gently ask:

    • What am I trying to improve right now?
    • What am I unwilling to acknowledge and make room for right now?
    • What if I let this belong for even a few breaths?

  3. Throughout the month, notice moments when you're trying to become someone or something else. Also notice moments when you're letting yourself be as you are. You might keep a few notes and bring them to our gathering.
Please come prepared to share what stood out in the reading, what you noticed about striving and self-improvement this month, and any discoveries, challenges, or insights that arose during your exploration.

Also, bring whatever you need for practice, as well as paper and pen or pencil.
Jun 14
2026 		6:45-8:45PM Training in Ordinary Beauty
Apr 12
2026 		6:45-8:45PM "Don't Know" Mind
Mar 8
2026 		6:45-8:45PM Retreat In Everyday Life: 2-Hour Home Retreat
Feb 8
2026 		6:45-8:45PM Haiku as Mindful Practice
Jan 11
2026 		6:45-8:45PM Sitting Together in Joy and Pain
Dec 14
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Open House: Meet Other 8-Week Grads
Nov 9
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Standing & Walking Meditation
Oct 12
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Unfixing Fixed Mind
Sept 14
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Retreat In Everyday Life: 2-Hour Home Retreat
Aug 10
2025 		6:45-8:45PM 9 Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness, from Jon Kabat-Zinn (continued from July)
July 13
2025 		6:45-8:45PM 9 Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness, from Jon Kabat-Zinn
June 8
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Poetry and Mindfulness
May 11
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Loving-Kindness as a Formal Practice
Apr 13
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Mindfulness of Feeling Tones: Pleasant, Unpleasant, Neutral
Mar 9
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Listening & Speaking
Feb 9
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Mountain Meditation
Jan 12
2025 		6:45-8:45PM Body Scanning
Dec 8
2024 		6:45-8:45PM Loving-Kindness Meditation
Nov 10
2024 		6:45-8:45PM 4 Foundations of Mindfulness
Oct 13
2024 		6:45-8:45PM Self-Compassion
Sept 8
2024 		6:45-8:45PM Establishing & Re-establishing Practice

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