Care Kit · Steadying the Restless Mind
If you are someone whose mind is often in overdrive predicting the future, anticipating problems, or trying to fix past conversations, this Care Kit is for you. Often, we assume something is wrong with us when our minds won't stop, but this is essentially a very human strategy of the mind to keep you safe and prepared. This program is not about trying to forcefully silence your mind or completely eliminate anxiety, because our minds are designed to think. Instead, we explore how to build a steady mind that can hold anxious thoughts and work with them differently. Through brief, evidence-based practices, you will learn to step back from relentless thinking loops and meet your everyday experience with greater presence, clarity, and compassion.
-
-
Introduction
Learn to stop trying to forcefully silence your overactive mind, and instead build the steady awareness that can hold your anxious thoughts and work with them differently.
Learn to stop trying to forcefully silence your overactive mind, and instead build the steady awareness that can hold your anxious thoughts and work with them differently.
-
Day 1: Recognition
Take a counterintuitive approach to overthinking by learning to simply notice your mind's protective thought loops instead of trying to force them closed.
Take a counterintuitive approach to overthinking by learning to simply notice your mind's protective thought loops instead of trying to force them closed.
-
Day 2: Sensing Into the Body
Discover how to use your body as a stable home base, teaching your nervous system that you can stay present with anxious feelings without being overtaken by them.
Discover how to use your body as a stable home base, teaching your nervous system that you can stay present with anxious feelings without being overtaken by them.
-
Day 3: Creating Space from Thoughts
Step onto your mind's observation deck to Notice, Name, and Navigate your thoughts, learning to see them as passing mental events rather than absolute facts.
Step onto your mind's observation deck to Notice, Name, and Navigate your thoughts, learning to see them as passing mental events rather than absolute facts.
-
Day 4: Meeting the Mind with Kindness
Instead of fighting your thoughts or automatically believing your harsh inner critic, experiment with meeting your mind's protective urges with genuine, kind awareness.
Instead of fighting your thoughts or automatically believing your harsh inner critic, experiment with meeting your mind's protective urges with genuine, kind awareness.
-
Day 5: Review, Reflections and Moving Forward
Integrate your new skills into a simple, distilled plan for daily life: pause, take a deep breath to notice what is there, and respond with awareness and kindness.
Integrate your new skills into a simple, distilled plan for daily life: pause, take a deep breath to notice what is there, and respond with awareness and kindness.
-
Steadying the Restless Mind
What You’ll Learn
You will learn to notice when your mind is caught in an anxious thought pattern without being overrun by it or trying to forcefully silence it, creating the first step toward steadiness.
Recognize the Thinking Loop
You will develop a highly portable toolkit of brief, grounded practices designed to help you intentionally pause, break the cycle of overthinking, and steady yourself in micro-moments throughout your day.
Build Practical, Evidence-Based Tools
You will discover how to fundamentally change your relationship to your thoughts, learning to meet your mind's protective loops with kind awareness rather than fighting them or automatically believing your inner critic.
Learning New Ways of Relating
Develop a more balanced and compassionate way of responding to your inner experience, especially in moments of self-criticism or doubt.
Cultivate a Steadier, Kinder Mind
The Instructor
Victoria Fontana
Victoria Fontana is a mindfulness and compassion teacher and Executive and Leadership Coach, PCC. She is certified in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and Compassion-Based Resilience Training (CBRT). She teaches mindfulness-based courses for The Mindfulness and Health Institute, as well as collaborates with the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science and offers courses in organizations and privately.
As an adjunct professor at IE University’s Center for Health, Wellbeing & Happiness and the Master in Management, she has developed courses in mindfulness, compassion, well-being, and Authentic Leadership. She also co-founded and oversees the Spanish-language International Mindfulness Day, introduced in 2020. Victoria has coached faculty members and academic leaders as well as in organizations. She serves as an Executive Coach at Harvard Business School.
Trained internationally in mindfulness, compassion, and embodied practices, Victoria holds an MSc in Mindfulness-Based Approaches from Bangor University, an MA in Education from the University of Washington, and a Certificate in Contemplative Psychotherapy from the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science.