Belonging to Ourselves: Understanding Attachment Trauma and Building Resilience with Mindfulness and in Community

This is an online meditation workshop on attachment trauma, mindfulness and resilience, offered as a daylong by Spirit Rock Meditation Center of Woodacre, California. It is led by Pawan Bareja, PhD, and Diane Poole Heller, PhD, and is open to anyone who wants to understand how early and later relational wounds shape adult love, and how mindfulness and community can help mend them. Prior meditation experience is not required. Therapists, counselors, nurses and other health care professionals can also take it for continuing education credit.

What to Expect

The day rests on a simple idea: we do not heal in isolation. Our nervous systems are social, wired to find safety, warmth and co-regulation in the presence of others. Through guided meditations, gentle reflection and supportive group connection, participants look at the protective walls built around old grief, from a painful breakup to a childhood that lacked love, and explore how to loosen them.

The program runs from 10:00am to 4:00pm Pacific Time over Zoom. It opens with a meditation and foundational teachings on attachment. The morning continues with guided practices and reflection on protective patterns. After a midday break, the afternoon brings nervous-system-informed teaching from Diane Poole Heller, followed by group connection and integration before the close.

Participants will practice loving-kindness to ease relationship anxiety, learn to describe patterns of secure and insecure attachment and how they influence adult relationships, and work with two mindfulness-based practices for building psychological resilience and lessening perceived stress.

About Pawan Bareja, PhD

Pawan Bareja has practiced vipassana meditation since 2001. She is a graduate of the Spirit Rock Teacher Training, a Buddhist Ritual Minister and a Community Dharma Leader at Spirit Rock. She has served on the board of Braided Wisdom and on the Teacher Council at Dhamma Dena.

About Diane Poole Heller

Diane Poole Heller, PhD, is an internationally recognized speaker, author and expert in child and adult attachment theory and trauma resolution. Her trauma work has supported survivors and families of 9/11 and the Columbine shootings, and she is sought after as a consultant, speaker and presenter for organizations worldwide. Her hour-long afternoon session offers a practical, embodied complement to the day's teachings. That session is not eligible for CE credit.

Before You Go

This is an introductory-level program suitable for all skill levels, with guided meditations and accessible teachings throughout. Meals are not included, and the day is not a substitute for one-on-one therapy or clinical consultation.

Registration includes unlimited access to a recording, available about ten days after the program. Sliding scale rates support the teachers and Spirit Rock, and no one is turned away for lack of funds, as space allows.

Four continuing education credits are available for an additional fee, sponsored by Mindful CECs. CE participants must register and pay for credit before the program begins, attend the entire program live, and sign in to Zoom with the email used for registration, using the Zoom app or a web browser rather than a phone dial-in. Credit covers instructional time only, and participants should confirm that their licensing board accepts it.