Free Webinars

We offer monthly webinars on a variety of topics designed to help you take charge of your health and wellbeing. Webinars are free but registration is required.

To make disability-related accommodations, please contact the Bakken Center's community relations office ([email protected], 612-625-8164).

Upcoming Webinars

Bakken Center Mindfulness Programs Information Session

June 7, 2023 • Noon - 1 p.m. Central

This webinar, led by Bakken Center Mindfulness and Wellbeing Instructor Mariann Johnson, will provide an introduction to mindfulness meditation and will be particularly relevant to those new to the practice or simply curious about the possible benefits of a mindfulness practice. Participants will have an opportunity to practice a short mindfulness meditation, to share their experiences, and to ask questions. Examples will also be provided for practicing "everyday" mindfulness, at work and at home. The webinar will conclude with an overview of the Bakken Center's mindfulness resources and programming.

The Role of an End Of Life Doula With Janet Brown

June 15, 2023 • Noon - 1:00 p.m. Central

End-of-life doulas provide non-medical, holistic support and comfort to the dying person and their family. This may include education and guidance as well as emotional, spiritual or practical care, from as early as initial diagnosis through bereavement. In this webinar led by Janet Brown, Founder of Good Death Doula, LLC and a Zen Buddhist Chaplain in training, you will learn more about how this role is growing and how it can integrate with hospice and the medical team to support those at the end of their life and their family members to transform the dying process.

Integrative Nursing | An Evidence Based Design Approach to Creating a Healthy Work Environment

June 28, 2023 • Noon - 1:00 p.m. Central

The content of the webinar is designed for nurses. Other health professionals are welcome.

The nursing workforce, more now than ever before, is providing care for their patients at their own wellbeing expense. To increase nurses wellbeing, aspects of the nurses' work environment are currently under examination and study. However, most authors miss the relevant discussion of how aspects of the built environment impact nurses.

This presentation led by Terri Zborowsky, PhD, RN, EDAC, CPXP, will discuss and describe the research available to explore how aspects of the built environment impact nurses in all aspects of their wellbeing. It also will cover how nurses can leverage this type of research.

Death and Dying as a Pathway to Generate Resilience and Cultivate Compassion with Tenzin Namdul, TMD, PhD

July 12, 2023 • Noon - 1:00 p.m. Central

This webinar presents how our attitudes toward death and dying have direct implications on how we die and care for others who are dying. Based on 18 months of living with and closely studying the Tibetan Buddhist community in southern India, Dr. Tenzin Namdul will show how death and dying is viewed as a potent cultural reference and source of moral motivation rather than a morbid, fearful course of life. For this community, death and dying is a pathway to investigate both inter- and intra-personal relationships and provides an opportunity to foster resilience and cultivate compassion toward oneself and others. Further, Dr. Namdul will explicate on the “Tibetan Buddhist Model” of death and dying and underlying factors that animate the mechanism and cultural utility of the model.

Dr. Namdul will conclude the webinar with a guided tonglen meditation, which is employed by Buddhist practitioners to empathize and develop profound compassion toward others as one goes through the stages of dying.

Utilizing Abstract Nature Imagery in Healthcare Settings and During Mindfulness-Based Meditation with Craig Blacklock

August 16, 2023 • Noon - 1:00 p.m. Central

In this webinar led by renowned fine art landscape photographer Craig Blacklock, he will discuss and show examples from his nearly 50-year journey in sharing our natural world through his photographs and how they have been utilized in healing spaces and mindfulness-based meditation.

The session will include Craig’s newest still and video work titled "Light Waves—Abstract Photographs of Reflections from Lake Superior". He will explore how abstract images of nature can provide a space quite different from traditional nature photography.

Craig describes "Light Waves" as a series of images isolating the complex mirror of Lake Superior’s surface, producing a purely abstract representation of the palette and textures lying outside of the frame. In the same way the barely recognizable melodic fragments of a jazz interpretation reference the original song, these images derive their structure from and pay homage to the landscape and the freshwater it is reflected in.

Wellbeing Series 2023 - Medical Musician: A Storyteller In Sound with Andrew Schulman

September 28, 2023 • Noon - 1:30 p.m. Central

This session led by accomplished professional guitar player and medical musician Andrew Schulman will explore the healing power of music in critical care units. He will share his inspiring personal story, including how music saved his life while in a medically-induced coma, critically ill and given very little chance of surviving. This experience inspired him to give back to the medical staff who cared for him by returning to the ICU as a musician and using music to help heal patients. Learn more about the Wellbeing Series 2023.