Proactive Mindfulness

Many clients in therapy understand their patterns and still feel stuck. We explore simple ways to foster the corrective emotional experiences that make lasting change possible.

This expands our definition of mindfulness as an embodied practice of active engagement in life. I describe how it plays out in my meditation practice, in therapy, and in other activities.

How to practice embodied therapy when the body doesn’t answer. A relational approach to somatic psychotherapy for therapists who want a practical way to stay present without forcing awareness.

Andrew Rosenstock and Serge Prengel explore the themes of mindful presence, embodiment, and the complexities of human interaction. They discuss the importance of self-regulation, the paradox of experience, and the negotiation that occurs in dialogue.

Serge Prengel and Bruce Nayowith explore the power of mindful human connections and their vital role in personal growth.

Andrea's journey as a mother to a daughter on the autism spectrum. This heartfelt conversation conveys a down-to-earth sense of the complexities and rewards of mindful parenting.

Engagement in everyday life involves being present in the moment. Here is a simple, down-to-earth example of how it works in everyday life.

Explore why embodied presence improves mindful engagement in everyday life and how to cultivate it.

We discuss how transference in the context of trauma therapy. Eric shares an experience that illustrates how this can lead to healing.

We delve into the importance of recognizing power dynamics and how they affect mindful living and spiritual growth.

In this video, people reflect on their inner experience when they have difficulty engaging compared to when they can engage more.

Steve Hayes is a developer of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Here, we talk about going beyond the specifics of any given therapy

Brenda Shoshanna and I are having a conversation informed by Zen, being present with our experience, as we discuss authority.

The Feldenkrais method teaches people to be aware of how they move so that they can change ineffective habits. Here, we're using these tools to put the method into practice, live.

I invited my friend and colleague Leslie Ellis to have a conversation about Active Imagination in therapy and in life.

Ven. Losang Gendun tells the story of a Buddhist monk who had been put in jail and tortured. The point of the story was how he responded to the situation.

Jeff Warren has an iconoclastic approach to meditation and what it's like to be human. Here, we discuss coming into the present, practicing what we preach.

Owen Flanagan is an expert in the philosophy of mind and ethics. For many years, he was also an addict. Here, we talk about addiction from both perspectives.

I share here what has shaped my understanding of what I now call Proactive Mindfulness.

Gregory Kramer and I set about to embody the attitude of not knowing as we stay present with what happens moment by moment.

This approach blends moments of meditation and moments of sharing our experiences of meditating.

I want to find a down-to-earth experience that helps me relate to non-duality.

I am going to describe to you a one-minute practice. Now, when I say one minute, it could be 50 seconds or five minutes.

Koshin Paley Ellison and Serge Prengel talk about connecting with others as a healing spiritual practice.

Peter Levine talks with Serge Prengel about his personal journey through trauma and how he came to develop Somatic Experiencing.

Serge Prengel talks with photographer Pablo Márquez about his meditative approach to photography. Pablo describes how his art emerges from his being present.

Serge Prengel talks with Linda Modaro and Nelly Kaufer about their gentle, inspiring approach to meditation practice and self-discovery.

Serge Prengel talks with Raja Selvam about developing the capacity for emotions by making more room for them in the body.

Serge Prengel talks with Seth Zuihō Segall about his journey, making sense of life through the practice of psychology, Buddhism, and philosophy.

Maia Szalavitz blends personal experience and years of investigative research into an inspiring perspective on addiction. Conversation with Serge Prengel about her perspective on addiction.

We do our best to avoid anxiety, and in so doing, risk missing out on the best of the depth and mystery of existence. We also risk compounding the very anxiety we hoped to avoid and becoming destructive as a result.

How does the Polyvagal Theory affect our understanding of mindfulness? Blake O'Connor, Education Director of the Polyvagal Institute, interviews Serge Prengel.

We talk about freeing meditation from pressures and welcoming every aspect of our inner experience.

Antonio Damasio described Nora Arikha as a poet and a painter with the soul of a scientist.

We discuss how we make sense of the world and our place in it, i.e. what is usually called spirituality & philosophy.

We explore a concept that is very important to Bruce Gibbs, finding the right distance from our experience.

This conversation with Ken Benau serves as an introduction to shame and pride-informed psychotherapy with adult survivors of relational trauma

We share with you what we like about the notion of "inquiry," and to do so by giving you a flavor of what we mean by it.

We start this conversation from the perspective that human beings are self-interpreting animals, and go on to explore what gives us a sense of meaning.

Jacqui Lewis & Serge Prengel talk about bringing a quality of fierce love to our life, as a person and as an agent of change.

Jeffery Smith describes a 5-step pathway to go beyond the fragmentation of the different schools of psychotherapy and define how psychotherapy works.

We talk about metaphors that Salvador Moreno-López uses to understand and orient interaction in psychotherapy and daily life.

Serge Prengel describes an embodied perspective on how we experience a sense of being (part of) something larger.

This conversation starts with a guided, experiential exploration. Then we talk about early developmental experiences, with a perspective informed by trauma therapy and mindfulness.

We talk about the process of mourning and how it relates to the human condition

Jan Winhall describes how therapists can respectfully understand addiction and treat trauma responses with deep embodied listening.