Transforming Depression and Anxiety: A Path of Skillful Compassion, Online 1/20–2/10

Practice Center
Date / Time
Jan 20, 2026 / 5:30pm - Feb 10, 2026 / 7:30pm
Event Type
Classes & Extended Courses
Description

The Zoom link to participate in this event will be provided at least 24 hours before it begins. Please call 415-354-0360 if you have any questions.


We offer this course regularly because of high demand.

Suzuki Roshi said, “To be you is enough, you know…”

Weaving together mindfulness and contemporary psychology, this course explores how to best take care of ourselves by relating to depression and anxiety with compassion and understanding. Our purpose is for participants to learn and practice how to interrupt conditioning that hinders feeling better and noticing what is good in our lives. We encourage each student through skillful means to cultivate common sense practices that help us manage and prevent chronic feelings of unhappiness. By focusing on direct experience, we learn to see and disrupt habitual mind patterns that lead to depression and anxiety.

Each week will consist of two sessions:

  1. A 2-hour class on Tuesdays combines presentations, guided meditations, experiential exercises, and group discussion.
    • 5:30-7:30 pm PT
    • January 20, 27 and February 3, 10
       
  2. Each Thursday, a follow-up one-hour practice session includes a short guided meditation, a brief practice encouragement, and time for participants to ask questions and share about their practice experience since the last class. These auxiliary sessions are offered to support participants in deepening learnings from the previous class.
    • 5:30–6:30 pm PT
    • January 22, 29 and February 5

The focus for each week of classes and practice sessions will be as follows:

  1. Week One ─ Being in the Present Moment with Whatever Arises
  2. Week Two ─ Recognizing and Interrupting Reactive Habit Patterns
  3. Week Three ─ Relating to Difficulties with Compassion and Lovingkindness
  4. Week Four ─ Strategies for Taking Care of Ourselves

During this class series, you will discover how it is possible for you to:

  1. Be released from the limiting storylines that you and others have told you about yourself
  2. Learn new skills that help untangle painful thoughts and self-criticism
  3. Build the capacity to be with emotional pain and distress with strength and courage
  4. Cultivate self-confidence and self-esteem as you practice using re-sculpting tools
  5. Learn to offer compassion and acceptance to yourself and others
  6. Cultivate a natural experience of peace, ease, and well-being
  7. Experience deeper authentic connection, presence, and vitality
  8. Feel better and have a more satisfying relationship to life

Recordings:
Tuesday sessions will be recorded, and registered participants will receive temporary access to the recordings for later viewing.

Fee Information
  • General: $308
  • Current SFZC Members: $277
  • Sliding scale 1: $185
  • Sliding Scale 2: $77
  • Current SFZC residents and qualified SFZC retirees may attend this course for free. To register, please email onlineprograms@sfzc.org at least 72 hours before the program begins.

Register Online

Or call 415-354-0360.

About SFZC Public Programs, Fees, and Cancellations