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Take a break from the hustle and bustle of daily life to focus on your wellbeing and inner peace. This one-day in-person retreat is the perfect opportunity to unwind, recharge, and connect with like-minded individuals — held at the beautiful Bournemouth West Cliff Hotel & Spa, just a 10-minute walk from the sandy beach.

This retreat will teach you how to improve your mental focus, develop emotional balance & resilience and increase your self-compassion.

The trauma sensitive retreat is co-facilitated between Ahbay Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist master with a Ph.D. in Buddhist studies who has been a monk for 45 years, and Robert Gebka, a Specialist Psychological Therapist, former Zen monk, director of the MIRO Institute for ADHD and an accredited member of NCPS (https://ncps.com/)and BAMBA (https://bamba.org.uk/). Read more about their bios below.

"There is a quiet returning available to each of us — beneath the striving, beneath the self-judgment, a place that has been waiting patiently for our attention."

During this retreat :

You will discover how to cultivate mindful awareness — the first step toward a healthier, happier life, bringing greater clarity, focus, and the mental fitness to respond rather than react.

You will discover how to regulate your nervous system and emotions — building resilience, easing fear, anxiety, anger and distress, and discovering deeper calm under pressure.

You will discover how to increase your self-compassion — the quality that lets you be patient with the process, understanding with your own struggles, and gently sustained through the time healing requires.

Come as you are. Leave lighter and calmer

Learn practical mindfulness and self-compassion practices to carry into daily life

Release patterns of harsh self-criticism and inner tension

Deepen emotional resilience and calm in the face of stress

Reconnect with a felt sense of warmth, safety, and self-acceptance

Draw on the combined wisdom of contemplative tradition and modern psychological practic

Each retreat particiapnt will also receive the following:

Tibetan meditation mala (beads)

Red blessing cord, and a protection necklace

Audio CD with Rinpoche's authentic Tibetan Buddhist chanting

£50 by Donation

Dāna is the Buddhist practice of generosity — a gift offered freely, supporting Rinpoche's monastery in India and Tibet.

No one is turned away for financial reasons.

Held at the Bournemouth West Cliff | Spa Hotel in Bournemouth (https://bournemouthwestcliffhotel.co.uk/)

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About Rinpoche and Robert

Ahbay Rinpoche is recognised by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the revered hermit Lama Ahbay Lobsang Tenzin, and serves as head of the Yega Choling Monastery, a spiritual home to many monks exiled from Tibet, now based in South India. Born in Darjeeling in 1973, he entered monastic life as a monk at the age of seven, took his full ordination vows at nine, and at just twelve years old was formally recognised as this reincarnation and ceremonially enthroned as Lama Ahbay Tulku Rinpoche Jigme Thupten Tendar. He also holds a Geshe degree, the traditional monastic equivalent of a PhD in Buddhist studies, a title and qualification he has carried with quiet dignity ever since his enthronement.

Robert Gebka is a specialist psychological therapist and mindfulness facilitator with 25+ years' experience. His own experience of PTSD led him to "the inner work" that now drives his passion for helping others. He's trauma-informed, trained in EMDR Resourcing, IFS, Schema Therapy, ACT and Compassion Focused approaches, and has worked across the NHS, community mental health and workplace wellbeing. He is an accredited member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society (NCPS) and the British Association of Mindfulness-Based Approaches (BAMBA). He wrote Managing Depression with Mindfulness for Dummies, is currently working on his second book, ran the Dorset Mindfulness Centre for 12 years, and now leads the MIRO Institute. He is currently researching the MIRO for ADHD approach as part of his M.Sc at Liverpool John Moores University. (Aleft Trust) (https://www.aleftrust.org/)

Robert and Rinpoche's friendship goes back to 2010, when Robert — having spent five years in a monastery himself — felt an instant bond with him. Rinpoche encouraged him to start the Dorset Mindfulness Centre, visited Bournemouth many times over the years, and even blessed Robert's daughter Ayana before and after her birth. She's seven now, and thrilled to see him again this October.

Picture below: Rinpoche and Robert, Bournemouth 2017.

Description supplied by the event organiser.