STILL QUIET PLACE ^{TM: Classes}

If you want to introduce your young child to the Still Quiet Place the best place to begin is to go to the GUIDED PRACTICES link and listen to some of the tracks.

If you would like to bring a mindfulness program to an elementary school in the San Franciso Bay Area please contact Dr. Saltzman.

Coming soon Still Quiet Place for Teens CD

Sometimes being a teenager sucks, and you need a place of your own, where you can kick back, chill, and just be yourself. The Still Quiet Place can be that place. It is a place of power and peace inside you that is completely yours. Resting in the Still Quiet Place is like going into a room of your own, with a true friend, and closing the door. The best thing about the Still Quiet Place is that is always with you- when you are taking a test, playing sports, laughing, performing on stage, arguing with your parents, listening to music, when you are feeling heartbroken, happy, angry, afraid, bored, confused.


You can find the Still Quiet Place by just closing your eyes and taking a few slow deep breaths. Give it a try. Close your eyes. Take one slow deep breath. See if you can actually feel the breath in your belly. Can you feel the very beginning of the in-breath when your belly starts to expand? The moment of stillness between the in-breath and the out-breath? The very beginning of the out-breath when your belly begins to contract? Another moment of stillness between the out-breath and the in-breath? Experiment, focusing you attention on the cycle of the breath- in, still, out, still, for four more slow deep breaths. How do you feel, now?

In just a few moments you have learned to watch the breath come and go. With a little bit of practice you can also learn to rest in the Still Quiet Place and watch your thoughts and feelings which come and go just like the breath. 25 years of research has proven that practicing this form watching helps people be calmer, more focused, and happier.

Mindfulness offers relief from the worries, fears, sadness, loneliness, jealousy, self-doubt, and anger we all experience. So often we look outside ourselves for relief from the stresses of daily life – we think that we will be happy if we get good grades, date that certain someone, make the track team, get the lead in the play…. Sometimes when that doesn’t work we look for relief in drugs or sex or self harming behaviors.

The secret is that real relief is always available inside of you. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything, or be any different than you are right now. Don’t believe me, give it a try and find out for yourself.

If you would like to bring a mindfulness program to your school, sports team or youth group please contact Dr. Saltzman

Mindfulness and Parenting:
Finding Grace amidst the Chaos


Do you find the combination of living, parenting and working in or out of the home stressful? Does having loads of laundry, late office hours, a full schedule of enriching activities, or “D all of the above” make you feel irritable and a bit crazy? Do you find yourself thinking “if only I were a better Mother (Father)”? Would you like to minimize the effects of daily stress on you and your children? Would you like to find some grace amidst the chaos?

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction is an ideal antidote to the stresses of life in the 21st century.

Dr. Saltzman is available to offer introductory lectures, workshops, and a six week course to parent groups including PTA's, mother's clubs, parents of multiples, parents of children with speical needs.

In these offerings the practice of Mindfulness is used to explore the territory of parenting. Particpants will get a sense of how applying Mindfulness to the complex, sometimes overwhelming responsibilities of daily life with children might actually allow for grace amidst the chaos.

As educators we face enormous stresses regularly, both in the classroom, and preparing for and following up after class. We are called upon to provide not only expert knowledge and extraordinary communication skills, but also to respond to your students personally with caring and sensitivity.

We need to care for ourselves as we attend to the needs of our students. In fact, learning to balance the emotional demands of teaching with other professional and personal pressures is central to the teacher’s art, and vital to professional longevity.

Mindfulness helps us develop the skills necessary to avoid mental and emotional depletion, and allows us to restore and maintain a sense of balance.

Dr. Saltzman is available to offer introductory lectures, workshops, and a six week course to teacher groups

In these offerings you will gain specific skills for reducing stress and cultivating health and well being. You will also learn how to promote these essential skills in your classrooms.

The practice of Mindfulness enables us to quiet and calm our minds and bodies by paying close attention to our moment to moment experience in an open and non-judging way. We will use the practice of Mindfulness to explore the unique territory of teaching, and the universal territory of life. You will get a sense of how applying Mindfulness to the complex, occasionally overwhelming responsibilities of life inside and outside the classroom might actually allow for grace amidst the chaos.

Attending to the Dying:
Applying the art and science of mindfulness
to death and dying


During this course we will use the principles of mindfulness, paying attention in the present moment, to explore death and dying.

We will
•discuss our own experiences with death and dying, as physicians and human beings.
•explore our fears and hopes regarding our own inevitable deaths.
•use formal meditation practices to cultivate present moment awareness.
•discover how these practices and conversations might inform the way we attend to, and tend to, our dying patients, and support their loved ones.
•review the scientific data regarding the benefits of mindfulness for patients with chronic pain and illness.
•and perhaps learn to live more fully in the process.

This course can be offer in a day long (9 CME) or 6 week (24 CME format) and
fulfills the California State requirement for course work on death and dying