About the Course

Transform anger & anxiety into resilience & creative energy through the practice of compassion, mindfulness & meditation.

When stressful events come our way, evolution has hardwired us to go into the fight-flight-freeze response. This automatic process served us well in surviving across millennia as a species, but in modern life, unconscious reactivity often is counterproductive and even harmful to the things that matter most to us.

In reality, stress – the actual experience of tension, of demand – though it may be uncomfortable, doesn’t have to be a problem. In fact, a certain amount of stress is necessary to bring out our full intelligence, creativity and care. It’s the essential ground for us to wake up to our own full potential: to who we really are. When we cultivate our capacities for mindfulness and compassion, meeting the challenges of life actually helps us grow mentally & emotionally stronger, as well as physically healthier thanks to reduced inflammation responses.

A critical inquiry for us as humans is: When we get triggered and reactive, how do we shift from flight-flight-freeze, into “attend and befriend”? This is the evolutionary shift that reconnects us to ourselves and each other; and, globally, can help to end violence and heal our precious earth.

In this short course packed with practical teachings and scientifically validated meditation exercises, students will work directly with their real-life negative patterns and learn to relate to stress with an empowering, clear and caring presence.

What will you learn in this course?

  • Know your habitual, automatic reactions to stress
  • Access the resources of mindfulness and compassion
  • Make more conscious choices in pressured situations
  • Grow stronger and wiser right in the very midst of stress
  • Experience a larger, more empowered and joyful way of being in the world


Who would benefit from taking this course?

  • Anyone who feels plagued by stress
  • Anyone troubled by ongoing, mild-to-moderate anxiety
  • Anyone caught in repeating destructive behaviors
  • Anyone who'd like to handle relationship challenges more successfully


Flourishing in Stressful Times  

  • Contains 22 video lessons of 5–15 minutes each. 
  • All videos are closed captioned and transcripts provided.
  • An online, self-paced course, you will retain lifetime access.


This course was previously offered on Udemy. If you have taken this course on Udemy and don’t want to take it again, please explore some of the other courses here.

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Watch Intro Video

Flourishing In Stressful Times (sample video)

Transform anger & anxiety into resilience & creative energy through the practice of compassion, mindfulness & meditation.

Tara Brach

Tara Brach holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology and teaches meditation internationally. Founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC (IMCW), Tara is the author of the bestselling Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, Radical Compassion and her latest book, Trusting the Gold. For over 40 years, Tara has been exploring the interface of Buddhist and Western psychology in addressing the great suffering that arises when we close our hearts to ourselves and others. Tara's weekly podcasts are downloaded over 2 million times each month. Along with her colleague Jack Kornfield, Tara offers a certification program for mindfulness teachers with participants from more than 50 countries.

Course Curriculum

  • 1

    INTRODUCTION

    • Welcome!

    • Getting Started
  • 2

    Section 1: Bringing Presence to Stressful Situations

    • Lecture 1 - Course Overview

    • Lecture 2 - We Don't Have to Figure it Out

    • Lecture 3 - The Oak Is in the Acorn

    • Lecture 4 - Practice Exercise: Skillfully Attending to Discomfort

    • Lecture 5 - Practice Exercise: Ordinary Stressors
  • 3

    Section 2: Stress and Evolution

    • Lecture 6 - Stuck in the Mud

    • Lecture 7 - Benefiting from Stress

    • Lecture 8 - Major Stressors

    • Lecture 9 - Practice Exercise: How Did it Change You
  • 4

    Section 3: Intention and Attention

    • Lecture 10 - Intention

    • Lecture 11 - Practice Exercise: May This Serve

    • Lecture 12 - Attention - and a Shift in Identity (with Case Study)

    • Lecture 13 - Practice Exercise: Our Path is Through
  • 5

    Section 4: Building Heartwood

    • Lecture 14 - Less Lag Time

    • Lecture 15 - Big Squeeze

    • Lecture 16 - Mindfulness Counteracts Stress-Induced Inflammation

    • Lecture 17 - Case Study: Offensive Banter

    • Lecture 18 - Case Study: Parenting an Addicted Teen

    • Lecture 19 - Practice Exercise: Your Future Self Calling You
  • 6

    Section 5: Everyday Nirvana

    • Lecture 20 - 3 Ways to Cultivate Evolutionary Potential

    • Lecture 21 - Practice Exercise: Getting Familiar with Everyday Nirvana

    • COURSE COMPLETION, ADDITIONAL RESOURCES, FEEDBACK AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS