About Us
We are a not-for-profit organisation who have collaborated on projects, events and gatherings/workshops focusing on social and environmental wellbeing in Australia and North America since 2009.
Our work is an alchemy of trauma informed, evidence-based science and ancient wisdom, deepening our understanding of what it means to be human. Through this process we gain choices and enhance our capacity to contribute to social and environmental wellbeing through the development of skills and tools necessary for flourishing.
In the area of mental health, BHN offer training programmes including mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs), cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), relaxation training, mentoring, psychoeducation, counselling, communication skills, understanding the nature of mind, neuroscience education, dealing with difficult emotions, nutrition and exercise, and, the prevention of disease, violence, addiction and suicidality.
BHN group members are counsellors, psychologists, academics, Indigenous community leaders, trauma specialists, administrative managers and senior qualified mindfulness teachers. We began as friends freely donating our time and energy sharing a common aspiration and purpose to help human beings find balance amidst the uncertainty of the times we are living through.
We have strong partnerships with The Centre for Ecological Learning (CEL), Charles Sturt University (CSU) and Harbour Therapy Clinic (HTC).
Lisa Brown
Lisa is a Registered Psychologist, Yoga Teacher (IYTA), Certified Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Teacher (Brown University, USA) and Trained Mindful Self-Compassion Facilitator. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Charles Sturt University where she has taught mindfulness and retreats for post-graduate students and has a deep interest in the conjunction of western science, Buddhadharma and earth-based wisdom traditions in health, healing and trauma recovery. Her teachers include Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli of the Centre for Mindfulness, and Lama Tendar of the Medicine Buddha Centre in Victoria. Lisa is currently a student in the Insight Meditation Dharma Teacher Training Programme in Australia and works in private practice, facilitating groups and workshops on Gumbaynggirr Country, Coffs Harbour.
Wendy Haynes
What will strike you immediately upon meeting Wendy, whether at work as a celebrant, in the class room or online, or in the street, is her warmth, kindness and innate ability to understand and listen deeply. Wendy has been a family celebrant for 26 years and since 2003, she has provided professional development, celebrant mentoring and resources to celebrants around the world.
Wendy is a qualified Yoga Teacher and Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) facilitator. She is also trained in Nonviolent Communication and regularly hosts the Ongo: Everyday Nonviolence program.
Wendy developed the acclaimed six month program, 'Celebrating this Precious Life, Honest Conversations about Death and Dying' bringing together her skills in celebrancy, mindfulness and NVC. Wendy's underlying commitment is to mindful presence and supporting individuals and groups to engage in honest conversations even if they are difficult.
Bernard Kelly-Edwards
I am a multimedia artist, I work with paint, film, photography, story-telling, poetry and digitally.
Always inspired by Wajaarr (Country) Dawaandi (reflections) my work is finding a voice for the patterns of country and their meaning in the connection space of our existence. I love sitting in forest and beach landscapes allowing country to share it’s essence with me and then it is there that I follow the feeling of telling that story which is mainly a poetic expression.
I mix photography with paint, and poetry. Recently I recorded a few poems backed by drums, guitar, classical piano and cello.
For the last 6 years, I have mainly painted acrylic on canvas, more recently I have been working digitally with Fresco, it feels progressive and experimental.
Art has always been a place that allows my expression to dare, to bring in new ways of doing art.
My art is about a creating a deeper connection to not only the art but the story of country sharing its essence with me and you.
Blending my Art with facilitated workshops I’m finding a deeper connection with groups/individuals who gain greater understanding to the importance of connecting and exploring who they are and where they are at in this world.
Jude Baderle
Jude is a somatic therapist, a Mindfulness Based Hakomi therapy graduate, Internal Family Systems level 1 practitioner, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction facilitator, life coach and visual artist.
She has taught mindfulness and meditation classes for the Women’s Health Centre, Mindfulness Works Australia and Insight meditation.
Jude’s interest in Buddha Dharma goes back several decades and inspired her to travel to India to deepen her practice. Jude has organized retreats and other programs on the north coast and participated in the Dharma Facilitators Program. She was also a mentor for the online Mindfulness Training course and has been a teacher at the annual Women’s Retreat.
Jude has a love of nature, beauty and art and brings creativity and playfulness to her work.
Malcolm Huxter
Mal Huxter is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a Dharma teacher. He is the author of “Healing the heart and mind with mindfulness. Ancient path, present moment”, Routledge 2016. He designs and conducts courses, workshops and silent retreats. He has been teaching mindfulness and the four heart qualities (benevolence, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity) to the general public, clinical populations, therapists and other professionals since 1991. As a psychologist he is a teacher of MSC and CEB and trained in a range of therapies including CFT. As a meditator and meditation teacher he began training in Buddhist meditation practices in 1975, living in Thailand as a Buddhist monk in the forest tradition for two years in the late 1970’s. Though mostly within the Theravada he has also practiced within Tibetan Mahayana and Zen traditions. For more info about Mal go to: https://www.malhuxter.com/
Veronica Moore
Veronica brings a lifetime of experience as a humanitarian advocate working for change in the world. Her organisational abilities combined with her kindness and sensitivity are immense.
Veronica aspires for young people to have hope for a future that brings a sense of ease and wellbeing where they know they have the collective power to bring about change in this world.
Tenzin
(Dr. Alex Anderson)
Tenzin ( Dr. Alex Anderson) began his path focused on an intellectual understanding of interdependence, in the science of climate change impacts on biodiversity. The rainforest is a powerful meditation teacher however, and soon led him to Buddhism. Ordained as a monk in the Sakya Tibetan tradition, he feels fortunate to have had opportunities to also study and practice under Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh at Plum Village, and at Pa Auk Tawya in the Burmese Forest tradition. Guided by his main teacher Bhante Dhammadipa, he finds great complementarity between Theravadin, Zen, Vajrayana and Hatha Yoga perspectives. In Deep Ecology he finds a beautiful nexus between the path of awakening, the science of ecology, and environmental activism, as well as vital practices for connecting with an “ecological self” in this time of crisis. http://www.gaiaforest.org
Karen Plumbe
Karen brings a strong commitment to changing the world through Mindful Self-Compassion.