- $45/class, sliding scale. Pay what you can, no questions asked.
- 90 minutes each on Zoom
- Click “join a class” for current dates and times
COVID-19 Risk and Vigilance: When We’re Not on the Same Page
Have you found it difficult to manage your outrage when individuals around you seem to underestimate the danger of COVID-19, or don’t seem to take public health measures seriously? How about when others seem unreasonably fearful, rigid, or extreme? If so, you are far from alone. Differences in response to the pandemic are stressful in a way that is particularly difficult to manage. The impact is psychological and social, but the reasons are biological.
In this class we will slow things down, and explore in safety our internal responses to “just right” vigilance, as well as hyper- and hypo- vigilance. We’ll find ways to steady ourselves in the face of reactivity, so we can make decisions about how to respond. We’ll aim to build connection and resilience together.
Recommended preparation: Have your mask handy.
Coping with Touch Hunger: Social Distancing Alone
We all need human contact. Connection at a distance and through social media have to be enough for now if we live alone… but when we don’t have the touch we need, the longing and want can be hard to bear. In this workshop, we’ll meet that feeling with kindness and curiosity. We’ll bring skill and nuance to the (nonsexual) touch we can receive from our own hands. Even when the touch of another isn’t available, with the resources of our own body/mind/self we can feel held.
Some folks who are chronically lonely and/or touch-deprived paradoxically feel less lonely during social distancing and sheltering in place. If this is your experience, this workshop is for you, too. The relief you feel now can make new practices more available and more effective, building resilience for the return of in-person social life – and social pressures.
Touch Skills for Connection, Calm, and Co-regulation: Support Your Loved Ones in Stressful Times
We all have the wiring to soothe and be soothed by touch. Nondemanding touch produces oxytocin, the hormone associated with bonding and stress relief. However, what feels good or neutral in times of ease can aggravate in times of heightened activation. Practicing nondemanding touch as a skill makes soothing touch more available even when we’re not quite sure what to do. Knowing how to attune to each other through touch can help us meet complex situations with patience and continued openness to connection.
In this class, you and someone with whom you can practice will do less, sense more and tune in to your own and each others’ responses.
Please note that the class fee is per person, not per pair.
Recommended preparation: set yourselves up physically so that both of you can be relaxed while one person rests their hands on the others’ shoulders.
New Group Forming
Somatic Self Care: Weekly Group for Practice, Support, and Connection
In the single-meeting classes described above, some folks wanted a chance to practice together and connect and learn more. In each meeting, we’ll do a practice for settling into ourselves and connecting with each other; we’ll check in individually; and we’ll do a new somatic practice based on what people need help with or are curious about. Somatic refers to the living body that experiences whatever it experiences while we do what we do – move, imagine, remember, relate, work, play… or just be. We’ll meet for an hour weekly for 6 weeks and then decide if and how we want to keep going. The fee will be $30 per meeting ($180 for the first 6 weeks), sliding scale, pay what you can no questions asked.
