Anam Cara
Spiritual Mentor Training

Starts January 20, 2026

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Who is an Anam Cara mentor?

Spiritual Journey

Someone who is committed to serving as a spiritual mentor in a reciprocal and intergenerational manner to support the journey of awareness and liberation, individually, relationally, and collectively.

Deep Listening

Someone with the skills to listen to themself and to deeply listen to others, building the skill of presence and embodiment as we relate with others, human and non-human.

Sustainable Change

A mentor who is committed to developing safe spaces as they weave and build community centered around the reality of the world while applying spiritual wisdom.

What makes this training unique?

Focus on embodiment

Learning your nervous system and how to regulate it. Explore trauma resiliency and grow your capacity to hold space for others.

Explore safety and co-regulation

Establishing safety in the group and exploring how “who am I” is in service to the we. Learn to co-regulate in community and in 1:1 experiences.

Non-hierarchical mentoring

A collaborative approach where mentorship is dictated by mutual respect, shared knowledge, and collective growth.

Program details

Timing

  • January 20–March 31, 2026

  • Live classes on Tuesdays, every other week, 11:00am–1:30pm ET

  • New this year: Half-day online retreat on Saturday, Feb 28 for mapping the spiritual journey

  • Dates for all six classes and the retreat are listed in the FAQs below

Pricing

  • Full price: $750 USD (or three monthly installments of $250)

  • Scholarships available for under 35, BIPOC, and the Global South—fill out request form

  • Discounts for Lotus members—email us

Format

  • Live and on-demand with classes recorded

  • Partner practices

  • Discussion spaces in the course platform, Circle

  • Alumni moderated sessions

Note: After clicking “Register Now,” you’ll be redirected to Circle—the course platform we use for registration, payment, and access to class materials and forums.

Register Now

Meet your teachers

  • Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward

    PRIMARY TEACHER

    Dr. Peggy Rowe Ward (she/her) is the co-founder of The Lotus Institute, a senior teacher in Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s Plum Village tradition of Engaged Buddhism, and the author of Love’s Garden: A Guide To Mindful Relationships. She has her doctorate in adult education and an MA in counseling psychology. Through meditation, movement, and art, Peggy offers a path of deep insight that enables her students to discover and embody their most creative and authentic selves.

  • Mona Abutaleb

    CO-TEACHER

    Mona's practice as a Somatic Therapist focuses on touch and the power of co-regulation and safety that can happen from being in contact with one another. She trusts and believes that healing always happens in community. What moves her is curiosity and a belief that ancient wisdom is held within our bodies and that by using practices guided by the wisdom of our bodies, we can actively heal and bring the collective back to a place of harmony.

  • Tamara Cress

    CO-TEACHER

    Tamara Cress is a certified trauma-informed yoga and meditation teacher, life coach and speech-language therapist. She is a nomadic yoga teacher, who brings mindfulness based practices to community spaces including schools, churches, support groups, community centers, football fields and family reunions. Her teachings help people connect to their own inner wisdom and to each other through fun, movement, stillness, and the breath. Tamara understands the transformative power of rest, joy, community and compassion to renew, recharge and restore us.

  • Brett Cook

    CO-TEACHER

    Brett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who uses storytelling as a vehicle to distill complex ideas and creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. Using inquiry-based approaches he designs inclusive processes and products that promote awareness and embody the complexity of loving communities. His objects feature painting, drawing, photography, and elaborate installations to tell pluralistic stories with broad representation. His public projects typically involve community workshops featuring arts-integrated pedagogy and contemplative strategies along with music, performance, and food to create fluid boundaries between art making, daily life and healing. You can find out more about his work at brett-cook.com.

Testimonials

  • This course for me was designed to guide me to go even deeper, deeper, deeper still. I have taken the Earth Gate and the Windgate and now Anam Cara. I highly recommend them. All three contain much information and skills that builds on each other. I was not taking this course to be a mentor and yet with diligient practice which for me is necessary, I can become a person who is approachable and may be bring comfort and ease to a fellow being that is suffering.

    Laurie Payton

  • Anam Cara is a beautiful invitation to ourselves. Through exercises, meditations, and conversations we connect with our foundation which then allows to be fully present for others.

    Jamie Kokot

  • Anam Cara is an inspiring and uplifting journey. The guides exemplify the teachings, each gathering is held in a sacred and mindful way, and the global reach is motivational. Grateful that so many want to navigate and serve others, from their Heartspace❣️ I'm honored to be a part of the Anam Cara Circle of Love and Light❣️🙏🏽🥰

    Lindsey Beumer

  • Anam Cara is a beautifully held and crafted experience with a lot of love and care from the Lotus team. Worked on levels of my being which I’m still trying to fathom.

    Keith Finley

  • A portion of the current and ensuing global non-communication and chaos is due to the dilution and capitalist commodification of the soul under the guise of trauma-recovery and meditation practice. The Lotus Institute is not selling anything. Not buddhism, or friendship, or salvation. Their teachings are frank, warm, generous, non-pretentious and authentic. I didn't know why I enrolled in Anam Cara; I could not name the thing that seemed missing. But something happened. My own students of body consciousness have said, without my asking, that there is something warmer and gentler in my way. They feel less starved for connection, affirmation, or inspiration when they go back to the world. And so do I.

    Student, 2024 Cohort

  • Shedding my notions of what a mentor should be and discovering my own unique strengths was such a gift. Being an Anam Cara is not a role that I step into, but an organic, reciprocal relationship that is difficult to describe with words and much easier to be felt in the silence between the words, in our presence for each other.

    Student, 2024 Cohort

  • This was a very beneficial, spiritual, learning experience. The presentations were relevant and clearly presented. The opportunity to work one on one took the topics deeper. The resources were amazing., and the homework structured, again, to deepen the essentials of the program. I intend to re listen to much of what was taught, shared. I look forward to the Lotus Institute’s next offering.

    Student, 2024 Cohort

  • Truly an inspiration for choosing to be spiritual mentors. The insight of deep listening and the many ways to be present in this relationship to another offers a new perspective for even the most experienced coach/counselor/therapist. My life is changed into an a journey of ever- expanding experience in every new encounter. Genius creativity created this course to be shared for use by helers in these times of tumultuous chaos, as a light shared on the path.

    Student, 2024 Cohort

FAQs

  • We have a limited number of partial and full scholarships.

    Scholarships are reserved for young people (35 and under), BIPOC, and those from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

    To request a scholarship, please fill out the request form.

  • Live classes run biweekly on Tuesdays from 11:00–1:30 PM ET. In total, there are six classes and one retreat.

    Class dates:

    • Tuesday, January 20

    • Tuesday, February 3

    • Tuesday, February 17

    • Saturday, February 28 (half-day retreat)

    • Tuesday, March 3

    • Tuesday, March 17

    • Tuesday, March 31

  • We will move through six different modules:

    • Module 1: Who am I?

    • Module 2: Body and trauma

    • Module 3: Grief

    • Module 4: The spiritual journey and toolkit

    • Modul 5: Wise attention and deep listening

    • Module 6: The art of holding sacred space

    • Module 7: Singing each other home

    Between each module, there will be some special offerings and opportunities to meet with other students and to practice the learnings. There will also be homework throughout the modules.

  • Open to all ages

    For people who feel called to become a mentor or spiritual guide.

    For people who have an existing coaching or spiritual practice and wish to explore and deepen their understanding and knowledge in new ways.

    For those who are interested in weaving/building a community centered around our current world reality.

    For anyone wishing to develop the skills of sincere friendship and applying those in a practical level to their workplace, how they show up as a leader, practitioner, neighbor, or friend.

  • From self-discovery to creating sacred spaces and navigating grief, each module offers a transformative journey towards new understandings of identity. Through story-catching, deep listening, wise attention and contemplative practices, participants will look within to uncover their inner selves, ultimately learning how to become a spiritual mentor and inspire within others a passion and motivation to create places, digital and in-person, where we can all experience mutual support, belonging, justice and liberation.

  • You are expected, although not required, to attend each teachng live. This enables an effective buddy practice which is an essential piece of this mentoring program.

    All teachings will be recorded. You also will be expected to participate in the community, work with your peers, and complete the homework in advance of the live lessons.

    You are expected to show up with grace and consideration for all other participants involved, regularly exploring your own patterns and biases.

  • This training program to applicable is relationships at work, with family members, friends or people in our community where we sense we could go deeper in supporting them and learning from one another. While the course has been designed for a mentorship with a focus on engaging with someone at a pivotal moment in their life, the skills learned and practiced in our time together can strengthen connections in all areas of your life

  • Yes! Please share this course with your community and network.

    Or, better yet, bring a buddy! Join the program with a buddy and get a special discount. You can email support@thelotusinstitute.org for more information.

“The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

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