Online Retreat: 1 Day - Mindfulness for Challenging Times

Ben Murray

Ben has spent much of the last ten years wholeheartedly exploring meditation, Buddhist practice and communal ways of living. 

He was recently a volunteer coordinator at our Barn Retreat centre for 20 months and he delighted in being able to facilitate people's journeys in discovering meditation and cultivating connection with each other and the natural world. 

In 2017 he completed a one-year internship at Plum Village mindfulness practice centre in France. He shares the practices of meditation and community with a gentle, playful and inclusive approach.

Ben is also an artist, songwriter, children's book author and has completed training as a song therapist. He currently lives at Holy Isle retreat centre in Scotland where he finds joy from being close to nature and being of service to others.

Martyna Raczka

Martyna is a qualified MBSR, MBCT-L and Finding Peace in a Frantic World teacher. She has delivered online and live courses and retreats to adults and children. Martyna spent a year at the Coach House as a volunteer mindfulness and nature connection retreat leader.

Martyna is passionate about supporting participants as they begin to make conscious steps towards transformation and discovering their full potential. She has a genuine compassion and empathy for the challenges that bring people to mindfulness. She is an advocate of openness and awareness as the first steps towards realising one’s full potential as we begin, without judging ourselves, to recognise how the consequences of long-held habits might hold us back. 

Nadia Abdel-Karim

Nadia Abdel-Karim has practised mindfulness and meditation since 2015, influenced primarily by Insight Meditation and Mahayana Buddhist traditions.

As a freelance mental health worker, she spent several years facilitating support groups and offering one-to-one crisis support across London for the mental health charity Mind.

After training as a Mindfulness Practitioner in 2019, she began co-facilitating 8-week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction courses specifically for people experiencing depression and anxiety.

Nadia relocated to Devon to live at The Barn Retreat Centre, where she spent almost two years co-leading meditation retreats. Alongside leading retreats for Sharpham, she works as a Focusing Practitioner and facilitates spaces for people to connect with their grief.

Her journey continues to be guided by her love for exploring and understanding spiritual traditions and practices.

Nicky Mason

Nicky has over 20 years’ experience of practicing meditation, initially influenced by Mahayana Buddhism. She is a qualified mindfulness and compassion practitioner and integrates this with her work as a counsellor. She is also a nature connection facilitator.

Nicky spent 18 months living at Sharpham as a volunteer coordinator, facilitating mindfulness and nature connection retreats at the Coach House. In her free time, Nicky loves travelling, yoga and spending time with animals and in nature.

Patti Summerville

Patti Summerville has been cultivating a personal meditation practice for over 25 years in both Buddhist and secular settings.

She volunteered as a co-ordinator at The Barn Retreat Centre, an Insight Mindfulness Meditation Retreat centre at Sharpham in 2013. She went on to complete Mindfulness Teacher Training Level 1 and 2 with Exeter University and is a Hatha Yoga teacher and Occupational Therapist. From its opening to 2024, Patti was the manager of The Coach House.

On a personal level, Patti has found great benefit integrating mindfulness practice into her everyday, private and professional life as an Occupational Therapist and Sharpham Trust retreat leader. She is passionate about supporting others on their journey towards more contented, peaceful and compassionate lives.

Will Evans

Will has been meditating in various Buddhist and Non-Dual traditions for a decade, guided by a spirit of exploration and experimentation and a sense of wonder and possibility. He mostly finds his home in the Insight Meditation tradition. In 2019 he trained as a mindfulness teacher with the Mindfulness Training Institute under Martin Aylward and Mark Coleman, and in 2020 he joined the team at the Barn Retreat, where he spent over a year facilitating both online and in-person retreats. He has a passion for helping people find approaches and relationships to meditation that work for them, with the view that meditation practice is not a fixed path but a vast landscape to explore.