“The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.”
Mark Van Doren
THE Heart of Listening
On Behalf Of Our Collective
February - August 2026
2 Saturdays a month at 11-12:30 pm PT, 2-3:30 ET. The Zoom room will be left open for an additional 30-minutes for optional practice time in small groups.
February 7th & 21st, March 7th & 21st, April 4th & 18th, May 2nd & 16th, June 6th & 20th, July 18th & August 1st, August 15th & 29th
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, until October 1, 2025.
This embodied leadership training is limited to 24 people and includes personal mentorship sessions with Eden.
Prerequisite: Reading Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other and the Planet
Listening is the most subtle form of love. It is also the foundation for justice and sacred activism.
This program offers a unique and deep journey into deep embodied listening as a way of life. How we listen is how we perceive. Our capacity to see with the heart - and respond skillfully and courageously - stems from the quality with which we listen, within and out, to ourselves, each other, and the natural world. There are personal, interpersonal, transpersonal, societal, ecological, and mystical implications to this way of listening.
Who this program/mentoring is for:
This is an embodied leadership program anchored in Buddhist teachings, for those who are ready to go much deeper in their embodiment of presence, courage, deep listening, relational intelligence, and regenerative leadership on behalf of collective liberation. The paradigm of leadership taught in this course is not “power over” but “power with” or shared power.
It is for experienced practitioners and those who facilitate meditation, mindfulness, or other forms of awareness practice or healing. It is also appropriate for community leaders and activists with a spiritual practice. Personal growth is also a welcome motivation for joining this program. Those who do not currently facilitate but are ready to embody shared presence more fully in their everyday life may also apply. Please do not be intimidated if you are not currently a facilitator. In this age of accelerated change, we are all called into leadership, each in our own way. This program will support you in your unique essence expression of leadership.
This is an opportunity to work closely with Eden to expand your capacity as a facilitator of compassionate awareness and truth in changing times. This training will help you to cultivate your capacity to access relational intelligence and intuitive knowing in everyday life; to hold a heartbased, inclusive, earth honoring, and transformative space for others; and to guide compassionate Mindful Inquiry with individuals and groups. It will support you in the art of truth telling and speaking from the heart. Eden will help you to identify and address the areas that you need to grow in personally as a practitioner, facilitator and leader, and will offer demonstration of how to skillfully use the tools she offers.
This training does not offer a certificate, it offers an invitation to work intimately with Eden and a community of experienced practitioners on behalf of our collective. It is about being of service in an age of global uncertainty, rather than collecting an external credential. This training will impact every aspect of your life, and not just your work as a facilitator. It offers an exploration of the integration between presence, relational intelligence, and collective transformation.
The Heart of Listening draws from the wisdom streams of Zen Buddhism, Relational Mindfulness, Regenerative Leadership, Sacred Activism, Animism & EcoDharma, and the Work That Reconnects. Participants have included meditation and mindfulness facilitators, Buddhist teachers, climate crisis and social justice activists, educators, therapists, non-profit leaders, healers, leaders seeking to bring change to corporate environments, parents, and meditators seeking to be of greater service in the world-at-large.
There are 4 basic understandings that are prerequisites for this course:
1 - We can only ever teach what we know deeply. Empowering oneself as a facilitator requires deepening one’s personal practice, and understanding facilitation as a sacred expression of presence.
2 - Being of service as a leader or facilitator requires the willingness to “get out of the way” and allow oneself to be guided.. Being open to receiving guidance requires an understanding of the interplay of both the light and dark elements of the human experience.
3 - The dominant paradigm follows a leadership model that affirms “power over” rather than “power with.” Practice offers a path for investigating and releasing collective biases that stem from patriarchy, colonialism, and individualism and that affirm the lens of separation, hierarchy and domination/subordination. We see these biases reflected in systemic oppression throughout our world and in a “top down” approach to leadership. The Heart of Listening offers a radically different approach.
4 - We are living in an age of global uncertainty. The times we are living in provide a unique set of circumstances and an incredible opportunity to expand our embodiment of true nature, resilience, right action, conscious grief, acceptance, and collective healing.
ALL SESSIONS ARE RECORDED, IF YOU NEED TO MISS ANY.
This program acknowledges that many of us are navigating full schedules and demanding life circumstances. While some trainings are designed in a linear, rigorous way, this program is designed and led to be restorative and regenerative. There will be a small amount of mandatory practices and reading offered between sessions; however, it is designed not to be overwhelming. There will be optional assignments and readings for those participants who have more free time. This program emphasizes relational forms of knowing and care for our bodies and beings as we learn.
THE HEART OF LISTENING TRAINING INCLUDES:
One pre-recorded video teaching each month, as well as handouts, readings, and recorded practices.
An interactive and experiential group session teaching twice monthly. Every session will be recorded.
A Practice Partner who you will meet with for a monthly call.
Access for 6 months to a full library of teachings and resources (video, audio, and written) to support you in going deeper.
Participation in an ongoing Heart of Listening Graduates community.
Four (4) 1:1 personal mentorship sessions with Eden.
Participation in the Fierce Compassion Sangha for free for extra practice support throughout the course. More information can be found here.
*FYI Heart of Listening is a prerequisite to apply for training to be a Relational Mindfulness facilitator.
Topics include:
Getting Out of the Way: Deepening Your Commitment to Leading from Presence, Rather than Ego
Cultivating Deep Embodied Listening and Learning to Attune to Both Individuals and Groups
Mindful Inquiry: Learning to Assist Others Through Their Own Organic Transformation
Developing Both Soft and Fierce Compassion: Deepening Your Capacity to Holding Space for Difficult Emotions, Grief, and Unmetabolized Pain
Cultivating True Humility and Genuine Confidence on Behalf of Our Collective
The 9 Principles of Relational Mindfulness
Deep Listening, the Natural & Invisible World, and the Practice of Animism
Inclusivity and How to Cultivate Brave Group Spaces
Learning How to Address the State of the World: Making the Connection Between Personal Practice, Systemic Biases, and Collective Healing
Authentic Power and Post-Patriarchal Leadership: Shifting the Paradigm from Power Over to Power Within a Complex World
The Balance of Conscious Allowing and Conscious Boundaries Required to be a Transformative Presence in the World
The Courage and Skill Required to Teach from Your True Voice
Right Action and the Integration of the Inner and Outer Work Required to be a Change Agent in Our World
Topics will also include self-care, personal sustainability, and avoiding burnout; creating sacred space, helping people to address shadow work through love and courage, power dynamics, and more. Time and space will be built in for the specific topics that you wish to have covered and address. Racial affinity groups will be held for certain topics.
Pricing:
Standard Rate: $2,500.00 USD
Generosity Rate: $3,400.00 USD
Financial Hardship Rate: $2150.00 USD
*Please contact us for scholarship opportunities. Price does not include $25 admin fee, which can be paid below upon applying.
Please note that due to the limited number of spots in the cohort, there will be a strict cancellation policy. We have a firm cancellation policy that once a training begins, there are no refunds offered. We can refund 50% of your tuition up to 1 month before training begins. This is because we have a set number of places in this training and we commit to someone's participation once they make their commitment, thus turning others away. Thank you for understanding. The $25 administrative fee is non-refundable. Due to the intimate nature of this training/mentoring, there is a mutual commitment from both parties--as accepting you into this cohort means turning another interested individual away.
For more information, email deborahedentull@gmail.com.
TESTIMONIALS
Taking the 6 month course “The Heart of Listening “ was one of the most inspiring ,nourishing and insightful classes I’ve participated in. My hope was to deepen my personal practice and in turn re-inspire myself as a longtime (10 years plus) sangha facilitator in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition. Each class was taught with so much compassion , understanding, wisdom and love , it uplifted and encouraged me on my path. It truly renewed my energy to keep on embracing all things in life, challenges , dreams and joy . Eden is a very gifted dharma teacher , my heartfelt gratitude to her for bringing awareness , guidance and compassion to our world.
- Ania Semper
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Grateful is an understatement for how I feel about the impact of you in my life. Eden’s teachings have completely transformed my professional work. Before, I used to feel the pressure of perfectionism, to lead different teams, knowing people were expecting a great deal for me. Through powerful practices and seeing environmental protection in a different way thanks to her teachings, I now approach my community building work using a “power with” paradigm. We do better, more powerful, more sustainable, more creative work when all people in the group are approached as leaders.
- Lena Adams Kim, Environmental Protection Agency
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Deep listening is a great revealer, and brings compassion to this ongoing investigation of healing our relationship with the self, with one another, and with our planet.
The course allowed me to connect to my inner voice with fierce compassion.
The guiding reflection and the lessons we engaged with as a community brought forward my voice as a strength.
As a survivor of sex trafficking and as an indigenous leader, this program also brought forth acknowledgment of resources and supported my commitment to serving the collective.
- Cari Herthel, Vice Chair Woman, Esselen Tribe of Monterey County
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There are so many reasons I would recommend Eden's Heart of Listening Facilitator Training.
True to Eden’s teachings in Relational Mindfulness, The Heart of Listening Facilitator Training Program guides us to trusting our true nature and stillness when it comes to facilitation and leadership. The training offers the safety of an unconditionally loving container in which I was able to explore both the gifts and shadows of what I bring to my life and to facilitation. I was able to see more clearly and thus move into a source of trust and strength that feels more like home than a goal outside myself to “achieve.”
I so appreciate the non-linear, intuitive, and powerful teachings I received and deepened in myself through this training. I wish every person who holds space for others had the opportunity to engage in these teachings. I have experienced a profound shift in how aI hold space as a facilitator. Perhaps the biggest surprise in this is seeing how engaging in the practices through this training impacts how I show up in all my relationships.
I am filled with gratitude for the mentorship I receive from Eden, for the connections I have made with the people in my cohort, and for the deepening of the connection with myself, others and the world. Thank you, Eden.
- Jodi Strock, LMFT
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The Heart of Listening Facilitator Training - how to describe this 6 month journey? It is at once a deeply personal exploration and an exploration of "How do I stand and serve in the world?"... a compassionate reckoning and opportunity for growth. Eden's true and easy presence and her incredible well of mindful inquiry applications blow me away each time we meet. Our group meetings were a forum to share what teachings we have applied to our lives, our partnership with a fellow students were a way to practice vulnerability and being deeply present with ourselves and the other, and our monthly calls with Eden allowed us to truly meet ourselves and step into the beautiful, imperfect, perfect being we all are. I have developed greater self-confidence in public settings, especially those contexts where I used to uncomfortable. I have learned to speak from a "this is who I am" place - more in touch with and settled into deep stillness. The Heart of Listening allows you to create your own artist's palette of how you love yourself and how you show up in the world - based on your formal mediation practice and on your informal practice of presence.
- Summer Meyer, Sustainability consultant and CEO of Imagine Mindfulness
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This program has helped reduce the pressure I feel in needing to be “the expert” when leading and to show up to guide groups as my full heart and full self. Eden is a remarkable, kind, and inspiring presence. I am very grateful for the opportunity to learn from her. Each course I have taken helps me remember who I am, get myself out of the way and tune in more deeply into service.
- Anne Johnston
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I have benefited deeply from this in-depth look into how I show up as a facilitator. The Heart of Listening has helped me really understand how to show up in an honest and authentic way, not only in sessions that I lead, but in my personal life as well. With Eden’s insight and thoughtful guidance, I have reflections that will not only help me to deepen my own practice, but will help all those I work with and interact with. I feel these teachings are the cornerstone to progressing into a mindful way of leading in unity.
- Angeliki Captain Townsend
For more testimonials click here.
