Eight-Week Mindfulness and Meditation Training and Practices for Latinx Immigrants and First Gen.
The overall goal is to allow practitioners to manage stress and leave with a sense of belonging to themselves, their families, their communities, and their country.
OBJECTIVES
- Understand the importance of mental health hygiene
- Understand the mind
- Understand stress and self-regulation
- New perspective on life
- Develop culturally-attuned Meditation and mindfulness practices
- Understanding of our basic emotions: Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Joy
- Cultivate compassion and empathy
- Build a strong sense of belonging
WHY
Being an immigrant is not easy...There are many moments when we feel lost and don’t know how to cope, and no one acknowledges that life as an immigrant can be hard!
What can we do? What tools might make it better? How can we feel like we belong? How can we feel a sense of life and work balance?
Research has shown that mindfulness and meditation practice can help. These are some of the benefits of practice:
Criss Cuervo
Author
Criss was born in Venezuela to Colombian parents. She migrated to the US when she was 15 years old, and she has spent most of her adult life living around the US, LatAm, and Spain.
Professionally, Criss spent over a decade in corporate America working in hispanic television sales, production, and operations. In 2016, after much inner work and reflection, she fully transitioned into a career that allowed her to spread mindfulness and emotional Intelligence around the world – initially through running her own startup and now through her work at the Greater Good Science Center. With purpose and passion she aims to create and sustain spaces where people make meaningful connections and feel like they belong.
In addition to having a Master’s Degree in Mindfulness Studies from Lesley University, she is a certified teacher of Search Inside Yourself, a leadership program developed at Google. She is also a self-published author of “PERTENÆCER: Eight-Week Mindfulness and Meditation Training and Practices for Latinx Immigrants in the United States ©”, and co-author of “Building a more Diverse and Inclusive Science: Mindfulness-based Approaches for Latinx Individuals,” which was published in the Mindfulness Journal. She is also a Mindfulness Mentor having been trained by the renowned teachers Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield.
Criss has been offering mindfulness and emotional intelligence workshops with cultural modifications and adaptations for almost a decade. Criss has had the honor to work with professionals, leaders, and executives of organizations such as Meta, Airbnb, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Telemundo, Lideramos, CORO, Databricks, Datto, Latinas in Tech, Nordstrom, and many more.
In her offline time she enjoys practicing meditation, reading, traveling, walking in nature, doing yoga, rollerblading, and playing tennis. Criss currently resides in Dallas with her husband.
Decreased stress & anxiety
Emotion Regulation
Decreased reactivity
Faster recovery after negative experiences or emotions
Enhanced self-insight, morality, intuition, and fear modulation
Improved well-being
Increased ability to focus
Greater Empathy and Compassion
Sources: Varied can be found at the American Mindfulness Research Association
HOW?
READ AT YOUR OWN PACE!
Each week has a topic and a theme, after each week, the reader has seven (7) days until the next chapter to:
- Practice assigned mindfulness activities
- Practice guided meditations
- Optional: Keep a personal Journal
Week 1 - How are you?
- Mental Health and the Mind
- Mental Hygiene and Mental Health
- What is Stress? What is the flight or fight or Freeze mode?
- How does stress manifest in our bodies?
- What is acculturative stress?
- The Power of Breath
Week 2 - Connecting with My Story, My Ancestors, and My Culture
- Immigration Circumstances
- Balancing and Negotiating Cultural Values
- What is a collectivist culture?
- What is an individualistic culture?
- Learning a New Language
- Battling Feelings of Isolation and Not Belonging
Week 3 - Embracing a New Perspective
- What is Mindfulness?
- What is a Mindfulness Practice?
- What is Meditation?
- Benefits of Mindfulness and Meditation
- Mindfulness and Meditation as Mental Hygiene Tools
- Mindfulness of Body
Week 4 - Reigning the Mind and Body
- What is Mental Health Stigma?
- Identify Mental Habits and Patterns
- What is a Stressor?
- Self-regulation
Week 5 - Getting to Know Emotions
- What is an Emotion?
- Understanding Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Joy
- Mindfulness of Emotions
Week 6 - Belonging in Me, My Family, and My Community
- What is Compassion?
- Compassion in Spirituality and Religion
- Cultivating Compassion
Week 7 - We are One World
- What is Interconnectedness?
- Interconnectedness
- Understanding Empathy
- Cultivating Empathy
- Transforming Shame
Week 8 - Belonging in Life Mindfully
- What is Hope?
- What is Optimism?
- The Power of Mindfulness and Meditation in Everyday Life