Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

The original 8 week program for living with greater awareness, steadiness, and ease

Stress can become so familiar that many of us hardly notice how deeply it shapes the way we think, move, react, and live.

We offer the full Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program as a structured path for meeting stress with more awareness, clarity, and compassion. Developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, MBSR is the original 8 week mindfulness program and remains one of the most respected and widely taught mindfulness courses in the world.

What makes this offering especially meaningful is that it is held in a warm, embodied studio setting devoted to practice, learning, and genuine inner work.

What is MBSR?

MBSR is much more than a meditation class. It is an educational program that teaches mindfulness through sitting meditation, body awareness, gentle mindful yoga, walking meditation, group dialogue, and daily home practice. The aim is not to escape life, but to learn how to meet it more fully and more skillfully. Standard MBSR programs are eight weeks long and typically include weekly sessions plus a daylong retreat.

We offer MBSR as a meaningful process of study and practice over time. This is not a one time experience. It is an opportunity to develop practical tools for working with stress, anxiety, overwhelm, chronic tension, and the pace of everyday life, while also building a deeper relationship with the body, breath, and mind. Research and major health systems describe MBSR as supporting stress reduction, resilience, and improved well being.

Who teaches this program?

This program is taught by Maile Wicklander, founder of Tula Yoga Studio. Maile is a Brown University trained MBSR teacher, an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher, and holds a master’s degree in psychology. Her work is further informed by extensive study in mindfulness, somatics, trauma-sensitive practice, and therapeutic yoga.

She brings both depth and warmth to her teaching. Grounded, compassionate, and practical in approach, Maile supports students in moving beyond an intellectual understanding of mindfulness toward a direct, embodied experience of it in daily life.

What you will learn

Through the course of the program, participants are introduced to foundational mindfulness practices and to a new way of relating to stress and reactivity. We explore meditation, body awareness, mindful movement, and the patterns that shape how we respond to life.

Over time, many participants begin to notice greater steadiness, more clarity, and a stronger capacity to pause, feel, and respond rather than react. MBSR can be powerful not because it gives you something outside yourself, but because it helps you reconnect with qualities that are already there, including awareness, resilience, discernment, and presence.

Who is this for?

We offer this program for anyone who wants a more grounded and skillful relationship to stress and to life.

This course may be especially supportive for people who feel overwhelmed, anxious, depleted, burned out, chronically tense, or disconnected from themselves. It can also be a meaningful entry point for those who want a structured introduction to mindfulness and are ready to commit to a deeper process of practice over time.

No prior experience with meditation or yoga is required.

Program format

We offer the full 8 week MBSR format in person at Tula. The program includes eight weekly sessions, a daylong retreat, and guided home practice between meetings.

A different relationship to stress

So much of our suffering comes not only from what is happening around us, but from the ways we brace, rush, suppress, anticipate, and disconnect.

At Tula, we offer MBSR as a way to interrupt those patterns and begin relating to life with more awareness and less automaticity. With practice, many participants find that they are not only less reactive, but more present, more connected, and more able to meet both difficulty and joy with steadiness.

Join us

We would be honored to welcome you into this work.

If you are looking for a thoughtful, deeply grounded, in person MBSR experience in Chicago, we invite you to join us at Tula.

Dates of Sessions & Pricing

Fall 2026 Dates are Sundays, 3:00pm - 5:30pm, Sept. 13 - Nov. 1

All Day Retreat is on Saturday, October 24, 9am - 4pm

Class 1: Sunday, 9/13

Class 2: Sunday, 9/20

Class 3: Sunday, 9/27

Class 4: Sunday, 10/4

Class 5: Sunday, 10/11

Class 6: Sunday, 10/18

All-Day Retreat, Saturday, 10/24, 9am - 4pm

Class 7: Sunday, 10/25

Class 8: Saturday, 11/1

*Attendance in each session is very important as each week’s practices build upon each of the previous weeks’ lessons. Upon request, and participating in at least 6 of 8 weekly sessions, and the "All Day Retreat", participants will receive a certificate of completion.

Pricing: $599

Early-bird before August 15, 2026: $549