Mindful Shenandoah Valley - Meditation Community

Home
United States
Stephens City, VA
Mindful Shenandoah Valley - Meditation Community

Prior to teaching, Shell wrote about mindfulness and yoga for national magazines.

Meditation classes and retreats in VA & WV, led by Insight Meditation Teacher Shell Fischer, Founder & Guiding Teacher of Mindful Shenandoah Valley www.mindfulvalley.com, with 30+ years of experience. Shell is a Buddhist teacher, trained in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition at Naropa University – the nation’s leading contemplative university – and in the Theravadan Vipassana (Insight) tradition by Dr. Tara Brach – one of the world’s foremost Insight teachers. She is a graduate of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher-training program led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR and the Stress Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She teaches Insight Meditation, or Samatha-Vipassana, a popular form of mindfulness meditation that helps the mind attain deeper levels of calm concentration (samatha) through sustained attention on the breath, then combines this with the crucial aspect of insight (or vipassana) through contemplation of the mind and body and all of its changing and impermanent senses, emotions, and thoughts. Literally meaning "to see clearly," Insight Meditation trains us to live more mindfully in the present moment, enables us to experience life from a greater stillness, and aids us in relating to both ourselves and others with increased clarity and compassion, and less fear, anxiety, and stress. While offering these teachings, Shell places great emphasis on the metta (loving-kindness) practices. Her hope is to guide you in nurturing even more kindness and compassion for yourself, others, and for all the situations you find yourself in throughout your life, through the heart-teachings and practices of mindfulness meditation. She warmly welcomes the inclusion and participation of people of diverse identities, including those of all races, ethnicities, cultures, sexual orientations, gender identities, classes, religions, abilities, and ages … with the aspiration that all feel welcome, safe, and respected as we practice together in community. You can learn about Shell's upcoming classes, retreats, and MBSR workshops at www.mindfulvalley.com. You can also email us directly at retreats@mindfulvalley.com if you have any questions.

02/09/2026

Lately, during so many conversations I’ve been having with both friends and students, similar questions seem to keep arising, things like: “How can I help, without also losing myself?” Or, “How can I stay involved, without falling into anger or despair?”

The challenge is this:

On one hand, so many of us have been feeling pulled in some way to roll up our sleeves and try to help alleviate some of the suffering that’s been happening in our world right now - even if we might not be exactly sure how best to do this.

On the other hand, there seems to be an equally powerful need for us to prioritize self-care, and work on nurturing and calming our own minds, bodies, and hearts.

And here, it might be helpful to know that this is truly an ancient human struggle: our effort to discover this balance.

It’s actually something the Buddha was highly aware of during his lifetime - a time that was also filled with conflict, strife, and societal distress.

In fact, even after he had become enlightened, the Buddha confessed that he, too, experienced both fear and despair when witnessing some of the human battles that were taking place all around him.

Gratefully, though, he was able to discover a healthy way to work with this, and offered us some very sage advice about how we too can learn to find this balance in a way that can help us experience more compassion, peace, and ease – and then offer it out to others.

This month’s new talk – Balancing Care for Self & Others: Buddha’s Advice – dives into some of his most important teachings on this subject.

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve.

Just a few heads up!

1) The next daylong retreat on MAR. 7, "True to Your Heart," will be in Berryville, VA, and seats are almost full!

2) The next residential retreat APRIL 23-27, "KEEP CALMLY KNOWING CHANGE" in Romney, WV is less than 3 months away! And spots have been filling quickly! ...

3) I'm still in the process of looking for a venue for a new weekly meditation group I plan to start in Wi******er this year (I promise!) ...thank you for staying tuned!

In the meantime, we hope that you can join us!

With care and much metta (loving-kindness),

~ Shell 🙏🏽💕

Email from Mindful Shenandoah Valley Warm greetings, Lately, during so many conversations I’ve been having with both friends and students, similar questions seem to keep arising, things like: “How can

11/12/2025

Friends, this retreat is full with a long waiting list BUT ... there is still time to join us ONLINE! (And, once you have the link you can watch it later, too, at your convenience.) We hope you can join us!

During our time together, we'll explore a variety of different mindfulness methods that can help us nurture more loving-kindness.

08/13/2025

🙏🏽 🧘🏻‍♀️Friends, there is still time to join us ONLINE for this daylong meditation retreat on Finding Peace in the Chaos - (the link will be available to watch after the day of the retreat, too!) https://www.mindfulvalley.com/retreats/aug-16-2025-meditation-retreat-finding-peace-in-the-chaos/

07/10/2025

🙏🏽Want to join us for a meditation retreat you can listen to anytime, in the comfort of your own home? You have until tonight (Thursday, July 10) at 7 p.m. to sign up for this retreat on Awakening Joy, to be held this Saturday, July 12 in Great Falls, VA - both in-person or online! More information is below:

We'll explore some of the Buddha's more profound teachings on joy, and how we can bring even more happiness into our lives and our world.

06/27/2025

🙏🏽During this daylong meditation retreat in The Plains, VA, we’ll begin to tap into the many ways that we can learn to accept and welcome each moment – life as it IS – with as much peace, compassion, and grace as we can muster, without falling into despair and resignation, and without making anything wrong – especially ourselves. All are welcome!

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE: https://www.mindfulvalley.com/retreats/aug-16-2025-meditation-retreat-finding-peace-in-the-chaos/

06/26/2025

Friends, there is still time to join us for our summer & fall retreats - all of which have been filling quickly!

(FYI: the July 12 daylong meditation retreat "Awakening Joy" in Great Falls, VA is almost full!)

🙏🏽 We hope you can join us!

Learn more here:

Email from Mindful Shenandoah Valley Friends, there is still time to join us for our summer & fall retreats - all of which have been filling quickly! (FYI: the July 12 daylong meditation retreat in Gr

06/21/2025

Especially for those of us who tend to carry the world on our shoulders, training ourselves to look for joy in a world that’s experiencing a lot of chaos and suffering can often feel self-centered, or maybe like we’re sticking our heads in the sand.

But so often, these kinds of beliefs tend to stop us from looking for joy altogether.

As the Buddha so wisely reminded us, if we only focus on the difficult situations in our lives or in our world while overlooking or maybe even depriving ourselves of the beauty and goodness that it also contains, it’s only going to cause us to pull back from life … which means we aren’t going to be very helpful for anyone — including ourselves.

During this daylong meditation retreat in Great Falls, VA, with Insight Teacher Shell Fischer, we’ll explore some of the Buddha’s more profound teachings on joy, how we create obstacles to it, and how we can bring even more happiness into our lives and our world.

Learn more here: https://www.mindfulvalley.com/retreats/july-12-2025-meditation-retreat-awakening-joy/

06/17/2025

We all tend to seek out and hope for gain, status, praise, and pleasure, and resist or fear loss, disgrace, blame, and pain – even though all are inescapable, and visit each of us in different forms throughout our lives.

And how we relate to these hopes and fears – often called the 8 Worldly Winds – often dictates how we experience our entire world.

This new talk from Shell explores how paying closer attention to these various winds can help us learn to allow them to rise and pass without clinging so tightly to any of them, and therefore, discover more freedom and ease in our lives.

It includes a meditation at the end. 🙏🏽

https://www.mindfulvalley.com/listen-to-talks/shells-meditation-talks/

06/13/2025

Friends, this new daylong meditation retreat in Great Falls, VA, has been filling quickly ... don't miss your spot! (P.S. There are comfortable pews, and also plenty of carpeted floor spots if that's your preference.)

We'll explore some of the Buddha's more profound teachings on joy, and how we can bring even more happiness into our lives and our world.

03/31/2025

For the past few weeks now, what I’ve been noticing during my meditation practice in particular is that my mind has been getting frequently caught up in loops and loops of what in Buddhist psychology is called “discursive thought,” or “discursive thinking.”

In meditation parlance, this experience is commonly known as “busy mind,” and it’s generally characterized by a lot of anxious or repetitive mental chatter that tends to keep us locked in the realm of the past or the future, and therefore, mostly distracted from the reality of the present moment, or … the life that we’re actually living.

In the teachings, this type of thinking is also sometimes referred to as “monkey mind,” - or “kapicitta” in the Pali language - and it’s described as a mind that’s just sort of jumping or swinging from one thing to another, without a lot of pause in between.

Predictably, what’s usually lying right underneath these types of thoughts is a sense of anxiety, or worry - which I know so many of us have been feeling these days, about so many things.

It’s like, when something big happens, or there’s a lot of change or maybe just a sense of overwhelm in our lives or in our world, it can often feel like it’s just too much to process, and so the mind sometimes just doesn’t know how to relax in the present moment, as it is.

Instead, it tends to want to keep on swinging … grabbing onto one thought and then another.

The good news is that, recognizing and mindfully observing that we’re experiencing this difficult mind state is the first step towards helping us to work with it.

This month’s new talk, “Just Thinking, Sweetie: Working With Busy Mind,” explores how this particular mind state is created, and how we can use our mediation practice to mindfully observe it, eventually slow down the flow of thoughts, and in turn bring a sense of calm to both the mind and body.

It includes a meditation at the end. As always, I hope that it will serve.

Just a few heads up!

1) In-person registration for the daylong retreat, "Freedom From Fear & Worry" to be held on June 7 in The Plains, VA, is now almost half-full!

4) The weeklong retreat Sept. 18 - 24, 2025 "THIS IS IT: The 4 Foundations of Mindfulness," in Romney, WV has been starting to fill!

We hope that you can join us.

With care and much metta (loving-kindness),
~ Shell 🙏🏽💕

Email from Mindful Shenandoah Valley Dear Shell, For the past few weeks now, what I’ve been noticing during my meditation practice in particular is that my mind has been getting frequently caught up i

03/05/2025

Friends, there is still time to join us from the comfort of your home for this daylong meditation retreat on Self-Compassion THIS SATURDAY, Mar. 8! We’ll be exploring a variety of different ways that we can offer more of our love, care, and forgiveness to the person we spend the most time with in this life – ourselves.

The format will include both guided and silent meditations, a dharma talk, and walking meditation. Please join us!

https://www.mindfulvalley.com/retreats/mar-8-2025-meditation-retreat-the-heart-of-self-compassion/

03/03/2025

🙏🏽 The new meditation retreat on June 7 - "Freedom From Fear & Worry" is now open for registration! THIS Saturday's Mar. 8 retreat - The Heart of Self-Compassion" is still open for online registration - Learn more and about other 2025 retreats here:

Email from Mindful Shenandoah Valley UPCOMING MEDITATION RETREATS MARCH 8 The Heart of Self-Compassion The Buddha taught that you can search the entire universe for someone more deserving of your love

Address

Stephens City, VA

Website

http://www.mindfulvalley.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Mindful Shenandoah Valley - Meditation Community posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Stephens City?

Our Story

This open meditation community in the Northern Shenandoah Valley began in September 2010, and includes both beginners and experienced practitioners. Most nights there are 30-45 of us. All are welcome. We meet every Tuesday from 7-8:45 p.m. in the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Shenandoah Valley, 6380 Valley Pike, Stephens City. The group is free to all, though there is a $10-20 suggested donation (dana) to the church for providing the space. While the forms of meditation we practice are rooted in Buddhist teachings, the study and practice of mindfulness is applicable to anyone from any background or religion. The community (sangha) is led by Insight Teacher Shell Fischer, founder and guiding teacher of Mindful Shenandoah (www.mindfulvalley.com) who offers almost 30 years of extensive mindfulness practice and study. She is a Buddhist teacher, trained in the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition at Naropa University – the nation’s leading contemplative university – and in the Theravadan Vipassana (Insight) tradition by Dr. Tara Brach – one of the world’s foremost Insight teachers. She is a graduate of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher-training program led by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of MBSR and the Stress Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She’s also an educational partner with both Valley Health and the Foundation of the State Arboretum of Virginia. Prior to teaching, Shell wrote about mindfulness and yoga for national magazines.

Shell’s main focus as a teacher is on metta (loving-kindness) practice. Her hope is to guide her students in nurturing even more kindness and compassion for themselves, and for all the situations they find themselves in throughout their lives, through the practice of meditation and mindfulness – which she believes everyone can learn. You can learn about Shell's upcoming classes and retreats at www.mindfulvalley.com. WE PRACTICE INSIGHT MEDITATION, or Samatha-Vipassana, a style of meditation that helps the mind attain deeper levels of calm concentration (samatha) through sustained attention on the breath, then combines this with the crucial aspect of insight (or vipassana) through contemplation of the mind and body and all of its changing and impermanent senses, emotions, and thoughts. Literally meaning "to see clearly," Insight Meditation trains us to live more mindfully in the present moment, enables us to experience life from a greater stillness, and aids us in relating to both ourselves and others with increased clarity and compassion, and less fear, anxiety, and stress. The format includes a 15-minute guided meditation, followed by a 25-minute silent meditation on wide, comfy, padded chairs (or cushions/benches if you bring your own), and a 10-minute walking meditation. Following the meditation period, a 40 minute teaching is offered. The group is not recommended for those under age 18. Please feel free to email Shell at shell@mindfulvalley.com if you have any questions at all.