Windvane

Channeling our natural energies, activating their power

Rose Mina Munjee

About Rose Mina Munjee Reflect and Practice Learn More

Professional Biography

Rose Mina Munjee is a Registered Psychotherapist in private practice, experienced mindfulness teacher, mentor, corporate trainer, and therapeutic, trauma-informed yoga teacher. She teaches at the Center for Mindfulness Studies, Center for Mindful Self Compassion, University of Toronto, Union Yoga, several organizations, and is a managing director at Mindful Wellness. Rose Mina facilitates evidence-based mindfulness programs including MBSR, MBCT, and MSC. She also has a private practice and does clinical work in health-care and public health settings in trauma-informed care, mindfulness, and psychotherapy. Her focus is on trauma-informed care, somatic, affective, neuroscience-based practices including craniosacral techniques, therapeutic and restorative yoga, social justice, and cultivating greater diversity, inclusivity, and belonging for marginalized populations. Rose Mina is researching and writing about mindfulness, compassion, equity and social justice, and she is in her final term of a Master’s at the University of Toronto.

Learn more at https://roseminamunjee.com/

Reflection Questions

What supports do you use to help you manage your roles and responsibilities? What other supports might you seek out?

What was the experience of doing a body scan like for you? What emotions and sensations came up for you? Were there any challenges?

What does the intersection of mindfulness and social change make possible for you?

How do you raise awareness of issues that affect you?

When was a time that you ‘spoke up’? What was that experience like? What did you learn about yourself and your values?

What is it like for you to express your emotions? 

When you are experiencing a difficult emotion, how do you respond?

Are you able to “sit in” or stay present with difficult emotions?

How are you gentle and kind to your body?

How do you feel about taking up space?

Further Resources

Mindfulness and Compassion as Resources for Race-Based Trauma – In recent history, the world has not just faced this viral pandemic, but a racial pandemic. In this presentation, Rose Mina provides participants an opportunity to acknowledge their lived experiences and to engage in mindfulness and compassion practices to support dialogue about how racism can be transformed, and how inclusion and belonging can be cultivated.

3 Ways to Forgive & Let Go—of Ourselves, or those who Hurt Us. This blog post explores the kind of liberation we may experience when learning to forgive ourselves and others. 

Letting Go – Talk and Guided Meditation A dharma talk and guided meditation on letting go, inspired by the teachings of Jack Kornfield.


Introducing Rose Mina Munjee

Ms. Munjee speaks about her experience of the pandemic and managing her many roles and activities with the support of her mindfulness practice. She reflects upon her own personal and family history of colonization and immigration and how these experiences inspire her to help other colonialized, racialized and marginalized individuals and communities through her mindfulness teaching, writing, research and private practice. 

A Mindfulness- and Compassion-Based Body Scan Practice

Ms. Munjee guides the listener through a compassion-based body scan practice.

Helping Ourselves and Encouraging Others

Ms. Munjee speaks about using mindfulness to address social injustices, such as through allyship, forming communities and encouraging others to speak up for social change. She discusses the critique that mindfulness, a secular practice centred on the individual, places responsibility on the individual to feel better rather than on the structures which cause people to feel bad. Ms. Munjee advocates instead that mindfulness can be used to raise awareness and acknowledgment of the problem, rather than sweeping issues under the rug. 

Dealing with Difficult Emotions

Ms. Munjee speaks about managing difficult emotions such as anger, shame, fear and grief, and suggests that these emotions should not be treated as ‘bad,’ but rather they can be a motivation for change, depending on how they are expressed. She talks about healthy and unhealthy ways to express difficult emotions, for example through movement, and the importance of having a community to share our emotions with. She invites listeners to notice where they feel their emotions in the body, and to seek professional supports when they need help exploring and dealing with difficult emotions.  

Learning to Take Up Space

Ms. Munjee speaks about when trauma is experienced in the body and suggests gentle somatic practices, such as moving to the breath, walking, or doing a body-scan, to help individuals feel present to their own body and the space that they occupy. She explains how learning to take up space and feeling empowered to take space, helps us become more able to set boundaries and stand up for ourselves as we move in the world.