Welcome to the Level I Training

August 2025 - July 2026 

Overview

The Level 1 program offers a rich and thorough training in all the domains of learning that will equip you as a certified mindfulness teacher or to support the integration of mindfulness skills into your mindfulness-informed therapy.  You will develop skills and knowledge in the following domains of teaching:

1. Coverage, pacing and organisation of session curriculum
2. Relational skills - cultivating potency, confidence, warmth, engagement and containment
3. Embodiment of mindfulness - including presence, vitality and calmness, acceptance and present moment responsiveness
4. Guiding mindfulness practices - skills in leading the body scan, awareness of breath, sounds, thoughts and feeling, open awareness, kindness and compassion, approaching the difficult, movement practice
5. Conveying course themes through interactive inquiry and didactic teaching - inquiry skills including empathy, investigation, reflection, bringing salience and responding to the person's context
6. Management of group learning environment

We will draw on a range of didactic, experiential and small group work.  A strong emphasis in the training is on the development and integration of personal qualities and professional capacities which support authentic mindfulness teaching and learning. It offers a challenging and deepening process of exploration and engagement with self and others, using the ground of practice as our base. You will explore the rationale for how mindfulness works for a range of mental and physical health conditions including pain, stress, anxiety, depression and trauma.

Apply now for Level I Training 2025 - Australia Apply here

Apply now for Level I Training 2025 - New Zealand Apply here

Module 1: Exploring your practice

Writing task | Submission date no later than 4 July 2025, prior to commencing Module 2

Intro Day

With Mary McIntyre, Nadav Avny, Regina Gerlach and Timothea Goddard

Online via Zoom

Overview

This day is an introduction to the training. We will begin to get to know each other, and you will get a sense of the training process and how best to engage with it over the year.  We will develop guidelines for giving and receiving feedback, and using various reflection tools during the year. We will also explore together some of the basics about mindfulness and how the Mindfulness Based Programs work. 

Participation

• Complete pre reading
• Attend the day of practice, discussion, didactic and reflection
• Complete post-reading

Date and Time

Module 2: Guiding Mindfulness Practices

16 hours - teacher led over 6 sessions | 9 hours student dyads |  | 6 sessions over 2 months - August-November | Online via Zoom | With Nadav Avny

5 sessions of 2.5 hours each and 1 session of 3.5 hours plus students meeting in dyads to lead practice and receive feedback.

Overview

This module will provide you with rationale, instruction and practise so that your led practice is offered in a clear, alive and engaging way for participants. You will have lots of time to practice language skills, to develop your own style, to explore your questions with the teacher and learn how to give and receive feedback in a direct and clear way.  You will meet with the teacher for 6 sessions and in a practice dyad with another student each fortnight.

Participation

This module has three main elements:

• Attend a fortnightly teacher-led session to explore the intention, language and structure of each practice (2.5 hours a fortnight)
• Meet in dyads outside sessions fortnightly to lead and receive each practice and to give each other feedback.
• Complete a journal of your learning*

Dates and Times

Module 3: Exploring Curriculum and Pedagogy

22.5 hours teacher led | 20 hours video watching | Regina Gerlach | over nine weeks | November 2025 - February 2026 | Online via Zoom

9 sessions, 2.5 hours weekly plus watching a recording of the 8 week course

Overview

This module will provide you with an opportunity to familiarise yourself with the week-by-week curriculum elements of a mindfulness based program and be enable you to articulate the key theoretical features that are implicitly and explicitly expressed in the curriculum. We will draw from principles of Buddhist psychology, education theory, understanding of stress psychology and physiology, and and the neurobiology of mindfulness and how these are applied in the context of a class.

We will explore the four foundations of mindfulness and how they provide the structure and rationale for the didactic and experiential aspects of the programs of MBSR and MBCT. We will also explore how how the course unfolds in a relational field involving dialogue, inquiry and didactic elements and how all of this contributes to learning, and also safety and intimacy in the group.

Participation

• The Exploring Curriculum and Pedagogy Module has four main elements:
• Daily practice of the MBP practices over 8 weeks
• Viewing a weekly class, over the eight weeks (2.5 hours a week)
• Reading material each week (1 hour or more, variable)
• Attending a live online seminar for discussion and exploration (3 hours a
  week).
• Keep a journal of your learning*

 

Session	Saturdays	Time (AEST) / (NZST)
Session 1	15 November 2025	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 2	22 November 2025	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 3	29 November 2025	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 4	06 December 2025	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
BREAK WEEK		BREAK UNTIL 31 JANUARY
Session 5	31 January 2026	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 6	07 February 2026	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 7	14 February 2026	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 8	21 February 2026	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)
Session 9	28 February 2026	9:00am - 11.30am (AEST) / 11:00am - 1:30pm (NZST)

 

 

Module 4: Core skills: listening, understanding and responding 

 

Live online | seven half days | fortnightly | Nadav Avny and Mary McIntyre

7 sessions of 3 hours each over 7 days.  

Some core skills are required to skilfully meet people where they are at in MBP courses.  This training will clarify your own ways of making sense of other people’s experience, and assist you to truly listen to their inner and outer world, so you can respond in a salient way in the moment. The course will be strongly experiential -  drawing on teacher demonstrations and student practice sessions.  

The core skills we will explore are: 

• Presence – meeting the moment with all the senses
• Attunement – with gesture, sounds, timing
• Listening – for affect, meaning and agency
  Understanding – making sense of another person’s soma, words and story
• Responding – what do I say now?
• Inquiring – where should I direct the person’s attention?  

Participation 

• Attend 7 x 3 hour teacher-led seminar sessions
• Practice the skills with others students
• Keep a journal of your learning
• Some reading will be required 

Dates and Times 

Here is a time zone calculator for other locations.

Session		Saturdays		Times AEDT / NZDT
Session 1		14 March 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)
Session 2		21 March 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)
Session 3		28 March 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)
BREAK WEEK				Easter Break for two weeks
Session 4		11 April 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)
Session 5		18 April 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)
BREAK WEEK				Anzac Day Weekend
Session 6		02 May 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)
Session 7		09 May 2026		9:30am - 12.30pm (AEDT) / 11:30am - 2:30pm (NZDT)

 

Module 5: Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness 

Two half days days | June 2026  | with Regina Gerlach | Online via Zoom
2 sessions of 3 hours over one weekend

Overview

In this day we will explore the nature of trauma and how to think through how to adapt and titrate practices for people experienced trauma which is impacting their ability to practice. It will offer some relevant theoretical frameworks and practical experiential work.

Participation

• Preparatory reading
• Attend one-day seminar
• Keep a journal of your learning

Dates and Times  

Module 6: Four-day Residential 

 Friday 3 - Monday 6 July 2026  | Bowral, N.S.W  | With  in Australia 

All students should plan to attend this in-person residential in Bowral Australia.   If there are sufficient numbers, an Intensive program will also be able to be offered in New Zealand. 

Overview

This four day Residential will provide an opportunity for you to engage in live inquiry and teaching in a small group setting, and to practice and discuss salient responses to participants’ experiences and questions. The Residential will give you an opportunity to build your confidence and finding your own voice as a teacher, and learn about your own habits of relating, leading to more flexibility and aliveness in your responding in the classes.  We will also explore structures of power and issues of access and inclusivity in mindfulness teaching

Participation

This module will be offered as a face-to-face Residential in 2024

Click here for more information

Module 7 – Teaching Practicum

In this part of the program you will form a teaching group (of fellow students) and meet together to practice teaching the eight week course together over 9 weeks.

Participation

• Form a small group and organise the teaching schedule
• Prepare classes to teach
• Attend all 8 classes plus the Day of Mindfulness as participants, and share feedback as colleagues after each
  session
• Keep a journal of your learning

Module 8 - Learning Reflection 

Out of your experience and drawing on your learning journal, you will write a brief review of your skills and understanding in terms of the MBI TAC domains and this will be reviewed by a Faculty member. You will then have an opportunity to meet with a Faculty member to reflect on your learning and readiness to teach.

Participation

• Write a reflective piece on your current skills and understanding
• Meet with a Faculty member for a reflective session (20 mins meeting)

Teachers

Timothea Goddard

BA, Dip Psych (ANZAP) Workplace Trainer, Cert V, Yoga teacher (YA200H)

Timothea Goddard is recognised as a pioneer in bringing MBSR to Australia over the past 14 years being the first in Australia to complete the training and be accredited as an MBSR teacher through the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical Center, USA; she maintains strong professional links there. Timothea has worked in private practice for 30 years as a psychotherapist, educator and workplace trainer, having trained in humanistic, psychodynamic and body-based psychotherapy as well as comprehensive training in MiCBT, and basic training in ACT, Breathworks, .B, and Mindful Schools. Since 2007, she has been offering MBSR training and supervision for health professionals and others.

She is a long time student of yoga, Aikido and meditation and practices in the Insight tradition. She is the Director of Openground – an Australia-wide network of clinicians and teachers offering MBSR and related programs. She is a founding director of MTI and is currently the Director of Training. She is very interested in the interface of biology and psychology and how mindfulness practice can facilitate the integration between what we experience as "body" and "mind".

Mary McIntyre

Regina Gerlach

Regina is a passionate and committed Clinical Psychologist, a certified Mindfulness-Based practitioner, Qualified MSC Teacher and formally trained Mediator.

Regina has been trained by Mark Williams and Zindel Segal (MBCT), Jon Kabat-Zinn (aspects of MBSR and residential retreat), Saki Santorelli (ethics in Mindfulness), James Baraz, Rick Hanson (certified PNT practitioner), Russ Harris (certified ACT therapist), Elisha Goldstein (online Mindfulness training), and Bob Stahl (MBSR/MBCT practicum and retreat), and also trained in Mindful Schools Curriculum.

Regina has instigated and established a University-based mindfulness community at Curtin University in Western Australia. She teaches MBCT and MBSR and has developed several mindfulness-informed programs, i.e., the Mindfulness modules for the ‘My Happiness Project’, a Mindfulness-Based Conflict Response (MBCR) course, and a Mindfulness-Based Stress Management (MBSM) course (also available online), and a Self-Care with Mindfulness Program. She is the developer of the app Mindfulness2Go that is designed to enhance participant’s experience of mindfulness during MBSR, MBCT and similar courses.

Nadav Avny

MA(Hons) Clinical Psychology, Advance Diploma Integrative Psychotherapy (ADIP), Member of NZ Psych Society and UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)

Nadav works as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Adult Acute Mental Health Inpatient Unit of Auckland District Health Board (ADHB).

Nadav established and teaches an MBSR programme to mental health staff. He also leads sustainable implementation of mindfulness at ADHB Mental Health Services, including a Mindfulness Implementation Steering Group, Mindfulness Championing Group (working group) and supervises staff who completed the MBSR programme and are continuing to train as Mindfulness Based Programme teachers.

Nadav's clinical psychology training was psychodynamic. He also completed training in Integrative Psychotherapy (focusing on Gestalt and Existential Psychotherapy) and is a UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) registered psychotherapist. He provides psychological therapy to individuals, families and groups.

Nadav is Co Director of the Mindfulness Training Institute: Australia & New Zealand. He is an approved supervisor for people on the training pathway.