Jean Vitrano
Mindfulness Facilitator & Teacher
Current Classes:
In-Person Workshops
Two Dates To Choose From:
Wednesday, August 24, 2022 from 9:30-11:30 am
Thursday, August 25, 2022 from 6:30-8:30 pm
A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Suite B4, Maplewood, NJ 07040
$40
(Current members of A Mindful Life groups get a $10 discount with code MEMBERDISCOUNT)
The transition from summer to fall is a particular one as it coincides with the school calendar and a shift from a more playful, maybe relaxed, or spacious schedule to a more structured, full, and busy one. The fall is awesome AND while we may enjoy the season, we can also feel some anxiety over it as summer winds down. This workshop is an opportunity to digest the summer and set ourselves up to approach the new season with as much ease, grounding, inspiration, compassion, and presence as possible. Let's keep our mind and heart space healthy so that we can meet the fall months maintaining some peace of mind, humor, spaciousness and gratefulness. Feel supported by a mindful community as we come together in this mindful exploration of what arises in us as life picks up in pace.
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Workshops limited to 12 participants.
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Pre-registration required.
4 WEEK BEGINNING MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
4 Week Series on Zoom
Wednesdays at 11:15 am - 12:00 pm
Sept. 22, 29, Oct. 6, 13, 2021
Why meditate? I can speak from my experience and from witnessing so many others over the years that through meditation practice we become better equipped to handle life’s stresses because we gain more tools in staying in the present, not reacting habitually, realizing when we are losing presence and choosing to return. We become more curious and less judgmental about ourselves and about others because we have greater awareness of what goes on in ourselves and in the world around us. Pausing and being still allows us to see more clearly and compassion for ourselves and for others comes more readily.
For four weeks, I will give the basic instructions, lead you in a guided practice. We’ll have time for observations and questions and then we will practice again. Please reach out if you are interested. At the conclusion of these four weeks, we can find more opportunities for you to sit with a group, if you would like, on a regular basis. Being in community strengthens our commitment and practice.
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This is an in-person event. To be in person, you must be fully vaccinated (2 weeks after your 2nd vaccine). With changing conditions, masks are now required.
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Pre-registration required.
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$80.00
In-Person Workshop
Saturday, June 5, 2021
9:00-11:00 am EST
A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Maplewood, Suite B4, NJ 07079
What’s the secret to staying centered in any time despite what might be swirling around us, despite the constant uncertainty and change we face in being human? The answer can’t be outside of us. As the spring and summer unfolds and the world opens up, now is a great time to remind ourselves that we can always be our own refuge. In this workshop, we will lean into exercises and practices that remind us who we are, what matters to us, and what we value. We remember that presence, compassion, kindness, love are what we can rest on and they reside within us, not outside of us. When we remember who we are, we feel more grounded, solid, steady and capable. We will…
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strengthen presence with meditation
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lean into what we value and use that information to navigate fear
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recognize our non-separation and interdependence as a source of grounding
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reflect on what we want at this particular moment in time to stay connected to our purpose, energy and life force.
This is an in-person event. To be in person, you must be fully vaccinated (2 weeks after your 2nd vaccine). With changing conditions, masks are now required.
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$40.00
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Workshop will be limited to 10 participants.
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Pre-registration required.
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You can pay by credit card with the button below or Venmo me (handle @jeanvitrano).
Zoom Workshop
Third Saturday of Every Month
Next Date: Sept 18, 2021
9:00-10:30 am on Zoom
This four-week Zoom series takes the principles of A Mindful Life to couples. It’s an opportunity to practice the tools that strengthen awareness, self-reflection, gratefulness, self-kindness and compassion, but with the added benefit of working with your partner. You will have the chance to explore together and listen in ways that often get lost as couples stay together, and to find that sense of curiosity about the other and of the couple. We will start each session with a guided meditation and then go on journeys together. You will be developing mindfulness skills while sharing with your partner, asking questions of each other, and listening. We can let go of what we think we know of our partner and create a new space to be seen, heard, and held.
This time will ask you to slow down, to pause, to go inside, and to share from your genuine self. No meditation experience is needed, just commitment and the willingness from both individuals to be open, curious, and to want to strengthen the bond that makes you a “we.” This can be your time each week to be together in a connecting and meaningful way. This group is open to all couples regardless of sexual orientation or marital status.
WINTER 2021 SESSION
Please let me know of your interest by emailing me. If I have enough couples we can schedule.
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$30.00
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Workshop limited to 12 participants.
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Pre-registration required.
TRANSFORMING JUDGEMENT WITH MINDFULNESS
We all judge. Judgement helps us to discern what is needed, how to respond or act. The problem with judgement is when we use it to make the other wrong or bad, or if we use it to feel powerful. Often our judgement of another, a group, or a situation gets in the way of deepening communication, understanding, acceptance, and our ability to work together and grow. It often causes us and those around us to suffer. We can choose to work with our judgement when it arises and get to something deeper underneath that is worth investigating. If we want more peace in the world, we need to do the work of uncovering what gets in the way and move in the direction of compassion, empathy, and the acceptance of our differences. Join me for this Zoom workshop where we will practice meditation, followed by some guided reflective exercises to help us unpack this topic with a gentle, compassionate awareness.
New Year's Day Guided Meditation & Bell Ringing
Saturday, January 1, 2022
4:00 pm - 5:15 pm
A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Suite B4, Maplewood, NJ 07079
Please join Jean Vitrano and the mindfulness community for a guided meditation that reflects on the past year with gratitude and presence. With an open heart we will set our intentions for the New Year. This will be followed by the Buddhist tradition of ringing the bell 108 times. Let's come to peace with the year we just completed and start anew.
This is an in-person event. To be in person, you must be fully vaccinated (2 weeks after your 2nd vaccine). With changing conditions, masks are now required.
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Suggested Donation
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The retreat will be limited to 10 participants.
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Pre-registration required.
Zoom Workshop
Next Date TBA
9:00-10:30 am EST on Zoom
$30
Mindfulness & Creativity is a continually evolving workshop where we come together in community and see how we can bring the tools of mindful awareness, reflection, and deep inner listening to our creative selves. We will meditate and I will guide you through exercises that invite us into a space of curiosity, kindness, and compassion as we lean into our creative process and honor all of it -- the inspiration, the blocks, the movement and the stuck-ness. Whatever our creative outlet may be, we can explore together and feel the support of a mindful community. Each workshop will be different, evolving based on what questions and discoveries the participants unearth in the previous session.
Join us online for some meditation and mindful reflection. Let's slow ourselves down and gain awareness by leaning in and sharing in a supportive community. You do not need to be an artist by profession to attend! Dabblers and anyone who sees their life as creative (which it is!) are welcome.
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Workshop limited to 14 participants.
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Pre-registration required.
In-Person Workshop
Friday, December 3rd
11:30 am - 1:30 pm
A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Suite B4, Maplewood, NJ 07040
When your self-critic is loud, do you know how to respond? When you feel anxious, can you befriend the fear behind it?
We are often our biggest critics. Learning to respond to our self-critic with kindness is something we can strengthen. Join me and explore the ways you can be a friend to yourself. In this workshop, we will build the tools we can use to take care of ourselves with mindfulness and loving-kindness. Through awareness and compassion, we prevent ourselves from being dominated by voices that don’t serve us, the ones that get in the way of us living the way we aspire to live. We can free ourselves from self-limiting perceptions and tap into more joy and connection.
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$40.00
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Workshop limited to 12 participants.
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To attend in person, you must be fully vaccinated (2 weeks after your 2nd vaccine). Masks are optional.
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Pre-registration required.
MINDFUL REFLECTIONS & AWAKENED INTENTIONS
On Zoom
Thursday, December 30th 10:00 am - 12:00 pm EST
Let's be in community to reflect on the past year and set intentions for 2022. Jean will start us off with a guided meditation, followed by time to write out in detail our experiences of the previous year and what we would like to move towards in the New Year. With the mind of kindness and compassion let's be together as we start anew. When we take in what we went through and what arrived for us in a year, we get to see how we have grown, what was asked of us, what we are grateful for, what we want to let go of. We get to see how full the experience of living is. We can take in our resilience and see what we managed to make possible despite the challenges. We can digest it all so that we can begin again. Have something to write with. You may want your calendar on hand to refresh your memory. And, if you have it from last year, bring the intentions you had written for 2021, but don't re-read them yet!
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Pre-registration required.
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$35.00
New Year's Day Guided Meditation & Bell Ringing
Saturday, January 1, 2022
4:00 - 5:15 pm
St. George's Church -- Parish Hall
(entrance is at the back of the building, through the red door)
550 Ridgewood Rd, Maplewood, NJ 07040
Registration required for both options
Please join me and the mindfulness community for a guided meditation that reflects on the past year with gratitude and presence. With an open heart we will set our intentions for the New Year. This will be followed by the Buddhist tradition of ringing the bell 108 times. Please bring a meditation bell if you have one you would like to sound.
To attend in person, you must be fully vaccinated. Masks are now required. Jean will be unmasked in-person to accommodate Zoom.
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Suggested Donation $10-15
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In-person attendance limited to 40 participants. The full space will be used and people will be spread out to the best of our ability.
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There will be cushions and chairs, or bring your own cushion.
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The church can be chilly; bring layers. And if you need water, please bring it along.
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Please bring a meditation bell if you have one you would like to sound.
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Registration required for both options.
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Please avoid wearing perfumes.
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Please arrive early.
DEEPEN YOUR PRACTICE: DEDICATED SIT
In-Person Meditation
4-Week Series
Mondays 9:15-10:15 am
January 24, 31, February 7, 14, 2022
A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Maplewood, Suite B4, NJ 07040
Do you have trouble committing to your practice? Or, maybe you would like a dedicated place to sit in person, in community? Sometimes having the option to just show up to a group without having to sign up in advance makes it too easy to not do it! This will be a series that you can dedicate yourself to so that you know you will be there.
By committing to a weekly group you can deepen your practice. Anyone coming from the Beginning Meditation Series or anyone who has meditation experience is welcome. We will do a guided or partially guided meditation and there will be time for questions.
To attend in person, you must be fully vaccinated. Masks are now required (this may change if conditions change).
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Pre-registration required.
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Limited to 12
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$72.00 (no make-ups or refunds for missed sessions)
In-Person Workshop In Two Parts
Saturdays, March 19 & March 26, 2022
(must attend both sessions)
9:00 am-11:00 am
A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Suite B4, Maplewood, NJ 07040
A mindfulness workshop exploring our relationship to letting go of what is most dear to us to be more free, joyful, and loving while we are here.
In the 5 Remembrances, the Buddha taught that we are of the nature to grow old, get sick, and die, that we will have to let everything we love go, and that our only true belongings are our actions. The more we can peacefully accept this, the more free we are to live happily in this life. Our fear of losing our own lives and/or those who we love, is at the bottom of all fear. Fear is what keeps us from enjoying the present moment. It doesn’t always manifest as fear of death, but why else would we be anxious, why else would we worry, why else would we think we need to be more than we are, or that our kids need to be more than who they are, why else would we be afraid of sickness or failure, if it wasn’t for this fear that we will be separated from what we love? The more we can find a way of viewing our mortality and acts of letting go that we are comfortable with, the more ease and presence we can have. It takes willingness to look, to have the inner conversations, and to seek a perspective and understanding that makes sense to you. It takes time, reflection, and the ability to face what scares us, but the work ultimately allows us to be more joyful and free.
Join me for an intimate workshop that delves into letting go and the search for meaning in it that ultimately opens us up to the life that’s here. We will meditate and explore in writing and in sharing. I’ll give prompts and guide us into a felt sense of what you know to be true and discover what brings peace around letting go. We can break the silence around the subject that, when not faced, leads to stress, anxiety, sickness, addiction, unhealthy relationships, and division.
To attend in person, you must be fully vaccinated and boosted. Masks may be optional at this time depending on conditions.
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$80.00 for 2 sessions
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Pre-registration required.
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Limited to 12
New Date Coming Soon!
9:00 am - 12:00 pm
at South Mountain Reservation
& A Mindful Life Studio
697 Valley Street, Suite B4
Maplewood, NJ 07040
$40.00
Join me for a restful morning of mindfulness and give yourself a mini-retreat to unplug and come into silence and inner stillness. The morning will largely be in silence as we practice guided, silent, and walking meditation. Depending on the weather, we may meet at South Mountain Reservation for outdoor meditation and a walk and then return to the studio for more meditation, a reading, Q & A and time to share. The morning will end with a period of rest in a guided body relaxation scan. The morning is an opportunity to deepen your practices, come together as a community, and to rest in the present moment.
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The retreat will be limited to 8 participants
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Pre-registration required
In-Person Workshop
We just finished a workshop
It will be offered again soon.
Please let me know you are interested.
When your self-critic is loud, do you know how to respond? When you feel anxious, can you befriend the fear behind it?
We are often our biggest critics. Learning to respond to our self-critic with kindness is something we can strengthen. Join me and explore the ways you can be a friend to yourself. In this workshop, we will build the tools we can use to take care of ourselves with mindfulness and loving-kindness. Through awareness and compassion, we prevent ourselves from being dominated by voices that don’t serve us, the ones that get in the way of us living the way we aspire to live. We can free ourselves from self-limiting perceptions and tap into more joy and connection.
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$40.00
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Workshop limited to 13 participants.
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Pre-registration required.
Saturday, October 14, 2023
8:00 - 9:15 am
South Mountain Reservation
If there is rain, we will meet at
A Mindful Life Studio, Maplewood
$20.00
Join me for a Saturday morning pause to meditate, walk, and be in community. We will meet South Mountain Reservation (exact location to be announced). In the case of rain, we will meet at the studio.
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Session is limited to 13 participants
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Pre-registration required
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Please bring a blanket or cushion to sit on; picnic benches may be available; bug/tic spray and a hat if needed. We will try to sit in the shade.
MINDFUL REFLECTIONS & AWAKENED INTENTIONS
WORKSHOPS
In Person
Saturday, December 16, 2023
9:00 - 11:00 am
$40.00
A Mindful Life Studio, 697 Valley Street, Suite B4, Maplewood, NJ 07040
On Zoom Only
Thursday, December 28, 2023
7:00 - 9:00 pm EST
$40.00
Let's be in community to reflect on the past year and set intentions for 2024. Jean will start us off with a guided meditation, followed by time to write out in detail our experiences of the previous year and what we would like to move towards in the New Year. With the mind of kindness and compassion let's be together as we start anew. When we take in what we went through and what arrived for us in a year, we get to see how we have grown, what was asked of us, what we are grateful for, what we want to let go of. We get to see how full the experience of living is. We can take in our resilience and see what we managed to make possible despite the challenges. We can digest it all so that we can begin again and see what we want to nourish ahead. Have something to write with. You may want your calendar on hand to refresh your memory. And, if you have it from last year, bring the intentions you had written for 2023, but don't re-read them yet!
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Pre-registration required. In-person session limited to 13.
New Year's Day Guided Meditation & Bell Ringing
Saturday, January 1, 2024
4:00 - 5:15 pm
St. George's Church -- Parish Hall
(entrance is at the back of the building, through the red door)
550 Ridgewood Rd, Maplewood, NJ 07040
Please join me and the mindfulness community for a guided meditation that reflects on the past year with gratitude and presence. With an open heart we will set our intentions for the New Year. This will be followed by the Buddhist tradition of ringing the bell 108 times. Please bring a meditation bell if you have one you would like to sound.
-
Suggested Donation $10.00 - 20.00
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In-person attendance limited to 45 participants.
-
There will be some cushions and many chairs, or bring your own cushion.
-
The church can be chilly; bring layers. And if you need water, please bring it along.
-
Please bring a meditation bell if you have one you would like to sound.
-
Please avoid wearing perfumes, scents.
-
Please arrive early.
-
Registration required.