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Enrolling in a workshop in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) at Star Island is a way to both take a vacation on an island and make a short-term investment that will bring life-long-benefit to help you live your life with greater ease, joy, depth, and balance.

Mindfulness is both a meditation practice and a quality of being that can help you to be alert, not only to what goes on around you, but also within yourself. This practice teaches persons in a gentle, consistent way to calm and steady our minds by grounding our attention in the present moment. When the mind is calm, it is fit to look into itself as well as all of life with more openness and clarity. This clarity can lead to insight, which can enable us to be free from out own reactive patterns that are so much of our suffering. Over the past three decades, MBSR has been taught to adults in hospitals and clinical settings to assist in pain management, stress reduction, and healing. It is now actively being introduced into all levels of school curriculum as an effective means to health and well-being.

This MBSR workshop is based on the lessons of an 8-week MBSR program originally offered in 1979 by Jon Kabat Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Highly regarded in the medical community, this program supports health enhancement and wellness with a focus on prevention and learning how to be active in self-care through learning mindfulness skills.

The Star Island MBSR workshop adapts the lessons of the MBSR 8-week course into a seven-day intensive format, enabling participants to learn and practice mindfulness skills in a safe, supportive, and highly participatory, structured learning environment. Through group and individual participation, you will learn step-by-step how to practice and integrate mindfulness into your daily life. You will learn, through teachings, meditation practices, and dialogue, how to bring joy and ease to your own mindfulness practice and learn skills to sustain this practice through good and turbulent times, keeping the spirit of your practice nourishing and alive.

Registering for this conference

How to register

1. Download the 2011 Registration Form.
2. Fill out both sides of the registration form.
3. Send to the Conference Registrar as directed below, along with one check for the Room and Board Deposit and Conference Programming Fee (both specified above).
4. The Conference Registrar will be in touch with you after your registration is received.

Registrar: Dr. Robert J. Cox, email hidden; JavaScript is required, (978) 621-8860, 240 Islington Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801.

If you are interested in enrolling in the Star Island MBSR workshop, please follow the Star Island enrollment procedures as well as writing a letter to Dr. Cox that includes a brief summary of your life experience as well as your reasons for wishing to enroll in this course at this particular time in your life. This letter is mandatory for all participants wishing to enroll in this workshop. If you are currently struggling with suicidal ideations, severely depressed, actively hallucinating, or currently dependent on drugs, this may not be the right time in your life to enroll in this course. A confidential consultation with your therapist or doctor may be useful and necessary in helping determine whether participating in this course will be helpful to you.

Originally trained as a neurophysiologist, Dr. Cox received ministerial training and then completed his doctoral work in psychology. Wearing “three hats,” he brings a breadth of understanding and sensitivity to his work, naturally integrating concern for body, mind, and spirit. Dr. Robert J. Cox is an experienced, ethical, and humane practitioner. He is a licensed psychologist, an accredited Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, a member of the American Psychological Association and the New Hampshire Psychological Association.