This in-person weekend workshop invites you to deepen your embodied relationship of the vagus nerve alongside other key subtleties for healing our nervous system, for restoring and re-storying our fundamental connectedness. We explore how the vagus, as informed by the Polyvagal Theory and the Social Engagement System, functions as a script for our nervous system.
Presented by: Jenny Tracy, PhD Candidate California Institute of Integral Studies
Location: Sunrise Ranch, Loveland, CO
Dates: September 8-10, 2023
Event link: https://sunriseranch.org/event/the-embodied-vagus/
Register Here
While contemplative thought and mindfulness are useful spiritual practices, for people with histories of trauma establishing safety can be foundational to an embodied relationship with the interconnected/ “reciprocally embedded” nature of reality. This necessitates facilitating the shift in traumatized individuals from a reflexive fear-based neuroception response to perceptual awareness rooted in a sense of feeling safe in relation to another. Supporting this shift toward a deeper embodied relationship to our interconnectedness, advancements in neurophysiology, as explained by the Polyvagal Theory, paired with in-body practices, aim to harness a union of mind and body while cultivating a deeply foundational sense of safety. This in turn has the potential to bring healing to all our relations, spiritual, environmental, and social, healing our world.
This weekend workshop invites you to deepen your embodied relationship of the vagus nerve alongside other key subtleties for healing our nervous system, for restoring and re-storying our fundamental connectedness. We explore how the vagus, as informed by the Polyvagal Theory and the Social Engagement System, functions as a script for our nervous system. A mix of instruction, embodiment & meditation practices, and dialogic inquiry aim to deepen both the mind and body's knowing of the vagus and its role in healing and transforming relationships to self, other, our environment, and the transpersonal. Attention and intention are focused on engaging with in-body practices, bridging mind and body, as a pathway toward greater understanding, healing, and transformation. My hope is that you will leave this weekend with tools that can inform and bolster your own healing process, and for those working in the field of trauma healing and relational/spiritual context. For those of others.
“If you want to improve the world, start by making people feel safer.”—Dr. Stephen Porges
Who is this workshop for?
This workshop is open to everyone. You may be a professional therapist, a healer or transformation guide and want to deepen your knowledge and experience as of how coming into a more embodied sense of the vagus nerve and Polyvagal Theory can enhance healing and wellbeing. Or perhaps you want to increase your own knowledge of your nervous system and improve your personal, interpersonal, environmental, and/or spiritual relationships?
Preparing for the workshop:
To get the most out of this weekend workshop, all participants are strongly encouraged to be familiar with some fundamentals of Polyvagal Theory. Though some basics will be covered during the introduction on Day 1, you will gain more by coming with a few basics in-hand. Once you register, you will be provided a list of resources you may wish to check out, and the instructor will be available for a 30-minute one-on-one chat prior to the workshop for any clarifying support.
Questions about the workshop? Contact Jenny at darkskiesyoga@gmail.com
Presenter Bio
Jenny is a 3rd year PhD candidate at California Institute of Integral Studies in the Transformative Studies department. Her PhD is transdisciplinary in nature and explores how the individual’s wellbeing is directly connected to social and ecological wellbeing. Her research explores how a deepening embodied sense of our fundamental connectedness to all things pivots around feeling safe in our mind and bodies especially for those with significant trauma. Spiritual pursuits and embodiment have guided her life. Being a dancer and rock climber did not privy her to being truly embodied and connected to her body, rather it was not until the silence of yoga and meditation came into her life with regularity that her body went from foe to friend. She has learned that to connect to life, to the interconnectedness of life, she must first deeply, intimately, bravely, connect to the subtleties of the self, her-self, both of beauty and shame. It is from this place of gratitude and grace that she teaches and offers an opportunity for others to do the same, to bravely be embodied, in themselves and in turn, with all things.
Registration
Register for the workshop at https://forms.gle/7KZRrp3ocxcmAvkM6
Early registration by June 1: $135
Registration after June 1: $175
