ExplO+re Class: Mindfulness Based Recovery

This class will focus on wellness and recovery through the lens of Mindfulness based practices. This is a Harm Reduction based program meaning that it is open to all who are interested in wellness not just abstinence. The main inspiration and guiding philosophy for this program are the teachings of Siddhartha (Sid) Gautama, a man who lived in India twenty-five hundred years ago. Sid was a radical psychologist and a spiritual revolutionary. Through his own efforts and practices he came to understand why human beings experience and cause so much suffering. He referred to the root cause of suffering as “uncontrollable thirst or repetitive craving.” This “thirst” tends to arise in relation to pleasure, but it may also arise as a craving for unpleasant experiences to go away, or as an addiction to people, places, things, or experiences. This is the same thirst of the alcoholic, the same craving as the addict, and the same attachment as the codependent.

David McNamara is a Certified Recovery Coach, filmmaker and Zen practitioner. David has worked and volunteered in the recovery field for over 10 years as well as having extensive training in Mindfulness therapy and meditation. Prior to this he was a filmmaker for over 30 years. After many years into his own recovery he began to see the need for alternatives in the way that we treat addiction and the trauma underlying the addiction. In keeping with the contemporary wisdom for the treatment of addiction, David has spent much of his career investigating how recovery, spirituality and creative expression are integrally related. He began to develop a practice based on his own experience of recovery. Using his extensive Zen meditation experience, DBT training, martial arts training and Harm Reduction Psychotherapeutic techniques he began a program called Mindfulness Based Recovery. He has implemented this practice into his work at a traditional Drug Treatment center last year with some very promising results.

Last year David embarked on a documentary film called “Disconnected” (Healing an addicted society). In the making of the film he has found an incredible group of people, teachers, mentors and advisors. One of those people, Noah Levine, created in 2008 a community based recovery program called Refuge Recovery. Refuge Recovery is a non-theistic Buddhist inspired group that is based in compassion, wisdom and community. I am excited to be able to bring this program to the people in our local communities.

www.samadhiny.org