The six-week lived journey.

01 BEFORE YOU BEGIN

A little preparation before the group meets.

Before the program begins, you complete a short questionnaire about what brings you here and what you are hoping to explore.

You then meet individually with Kirsty for the first of your four psychology sessions.

This gives you an opportunity to speak privately before the group begins and helps Kirsty understand the context you are bringing into the program.

You will also receive an introduction to the mindfulness practice and begin a simple private journal.

Your journal belongs to you. You are not expected to hand it in or share its contents.

02 WEEKLY GROUP SESSIONS

Two hours together each week.

The group meets once a week for six weeks.

Every session is facilitated by both Leon and Kirsty.

Leon leads the mindfulness practice and contemplative teaching.

Kirsty brings psychological and psychodynamic reflection, helping the group consider pattern, relationship and context.

Sessions may include guided meditation, teaching, conversation, reflection and time for questions.

Groups are small: minimum 4, ideally 6, maximum 8 people.

03 BETWEEN SESSIONS

The program continues in ordinary life.

The work does not stop when the weekly session ends.

Between meetings, you continue with mindfulness practice and simple reflection exercises.

The journal gives you a private place to notice what is happening: what repeatedly catches your attention, how you respond to difficulty, what appears in relationships, what changes and what stays familiar.

You may receive home practice from both the contemplative and psychological sides of the program.

Later in the course, we may ask structured questions about what you have noticed through practice and journalling.

We do not ask to read your private journal.

04 INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY SESSIONS

Four individual psychology sessions with Kirsty are built into the program.

There is:

• one session before the program begins
• two sessions during the six weeks
• one session after the program ends

These sessions create a private space to reflect on your own experience and on anything arising through the program that is better explored outside the group.

Where appropriate, Kirsty may recommend additional psychological support, further assessment or referral.

The four individual sessions with Kirsty form a distinct professional psychology component of the program.

They are billed separately at R1,300 per session and may be claimable from medical aid, depending on your scheme and available benefits.

Medical-aid reimbursement cannot be guaranteed.

05 CONTEMPLATIVE SUPPORT

Space to work with the practice itself.

If you would like additional help with meditation or contemplative practice, an optional one-to-one session with Leon is available.

This is separate from the psychology sessions with Kirsty.

It can be used to explore questions about practice, difficulties that arise in meditation, or how to establish a practice that is workable in everyday life.

06 BRINGING IT INTO LIFE

The point is not to become good at a course.

As the six weeks unfold, attention increasingly turns towards what happens outside the program.

What do you notice sooner?

Which patterns become easier to recognise?

What happens in relationships?

Where do you still react automatically?

Where is there a little more room for choice?

The aim is not to produce a perfectly calm or permanently mindful person.

It is to allow practice and reflection to become useful in the life you are actually living.