Each person’s way of being in the world has its own physical shape and felt qualities. These unique patterns influence every moment of our lives—yet they are largely habitual and therefore unknown to us. Embodied Listening is a transformative, multi-modal approach to bringing life-enhancing awareness, insight, empathy and energy to ourselves and to our relationships with others and the world around us. During this three-day training you will:
Practice Mindfulness as the ground of being alive and present in every moment. Mindfulness-awareness meditation strengthens and calms the mind, expands awareness, and gives us the tools to truly make friends with ourselves. Basic meditation instruction will be provided as well as opportunities to receive individual guidance.
Experience living more fully and comfortably in your body through the Alexander Technique. This powerful body-awareness work led by Hope Martin cultivates ease, balance and non-striving. It relieves tension and pain by bringing about proper alignment and increases awareness of unconscious holding patterns in the body, teaching the subtle, counter-intuitive skill of how to let them go. It is tremendously helpful for people doing sitting meditation–Hope adjusts each participant several times during sessions of mindfulness practice. The principles learned can be applied to any activity.
Access your “felt sense”–the intuitive wisdom of the body–with the practice of Mindful Focusing. Led by David Rome, this contemplative technique puts you in touch with the subtle ways your body holds and “knows” all that occurs in your life. Recognizing non-conceptual “felt senses” and developing a mindful, friendly relationship with them brings intuitive insights and bodily-felt releases of blocked energy. Mindful Focusing can be applied directly to the resolution of all kinds of immediate and long-term problems, relationship issues and creative challenges.
This program is highly experiential, within a supportive and caring environment. It includes periods of sitting meditation, short presentations by the workshop leaders, guided body awareness including gentle hands-on instruction, felt sense exercises, one-on-one listening partnerships and group discussion.