There has been some discussion recently on this thread and on other threads about PTSD. I've been following them because I'm being treated for PTSD related to BD and also for complex PTSD related to childhood trauma.
The therapist I'm seeing specializes in treating trauma and dissociative disorders and she teaches courses in trauma therapy at a large area university. She also teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). She has told me several times that MBSR is helpful for people with my issues; PTSD, complex PTSD, abandonment issues, attachment disorder, anxiety, and depression. I've considered attending one of her MBSR courses but it takes me 90 minutes just to drive from my home to her office. It's hard to make the trip every other week so I don't think I could manage to attend one of her twice a week MBSR courses.
I enjoy taking online video courses through the Udemy website. You have to pay for most of the courses, and I've paid for my share of them, but they do have some free courses that are very good. I just started a free course through Udemy called
Learn Mindfulness Meditation for a Calmer and Clearer Mind.
I just started the course so I can't tell you too much about it, but it seems pretty good so far. Udemy reports 19,941 enrolled students and 251 reviews with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5. The course includes 3 hours of video lessons and 7 hours of guided audio meditations. The course is based on the standard 8 week MBSR course that my therapist teaches but also includes some supplementary material. In addition to watching the weekly videos and doing the twice daily audio meditations the instructor recommends keeping a daily journal. The course also has a website for additional information and a FB page for course related discussions.
In one of the first videos the course instructor states that he had lived a typical, happy life until about 7 years ago when his marriage fell apart, he lost his job, and he had a "spectacular midlife crisis". Can you imagine the look on my face when I watched this? He said that he eventually attended an 8 week MBSR course and it saved his life and turned him around. He became an MBSR instructor and created this course so that he can freely share with the world this program that helped him so much.
Once again, this is a free course, so I thought I would post about it here in case anyone is interested in it. If there is enough interest, maybe a group of LBSes might like to take the course together and maybe share about it and support each other on this forum.
The course can be found at
https://www.udemy.com/mindfulness-stress-reduction/