Mindful Movement/ Talking Story on the Big Island of Hawaii (Annual Retreat Week)

Mindful Movement Talking Story is a workshop dedicated to exploring the confluence of movement, words, and embodied witnessing: listening to the stories that the body carries, to the movement of the body that longs to be expressed, and to the impulses of the body that most deeply represent what is meant by the idea of the 'self' as an awareness created through relationship.Each of our six days of this retreat is divided up into a morning of movement exploration of autonomy  and communion, evening council focusing on group-supported individual explorations, and afternoon water adventures.

In morning sessions, participants are guided through explorations of free-form improvisational movement inspired by music, silence, and deep compassionate witnessing. In the tradition of  Medicine Dance (www.medicinedance.com), participants are encouraged to find and follow their body's own deepest impulses rather than follow imperatives of choreography or other people's expectations, even when in partnership. This attention to somatic signals allows participants to gain a deeper experience of the shifting awareness and differentiation among sensations, feelings, emotions, and cognitions, inspiring what Somatic Psychology describes as bottom-up processing.

  By practicing moving the body in community and relationship while always in the context of autonomy, participants of this workshop hone the skills essential for psychological and spiritual growth and healing: empathic attunement, embodied witnessing, differentiating and integrating sensation/emotion/cognition/self and other; supporting profound healing through a liberation of the body's eloquent but wordless impulses.

 Afternoons we move as a group into the thrilling coastal environments nearby, investigating the intersections of the natural world with psyche, especially using the local lava-heated warm ponds to practice partner and group trust-work of assisted floating and water meditation.  

       Evening sessions integrate the morning’s somatic awareness practice with the stories we carry consciously and unconsciously. In the group tradition of  the Threefold Way (www.threefoldway.com), we explore eliciting, holding, and embodying the narratives that implicitly mold and define our sense of our 'self' and each other. Compassionate witnessing and holding allows us to release the unconscious psychic and somatic adaptations we once had to make to survive our developmental challenges. Together we explore different modes of holding a container for other people’s stories, through group limbic attunement, role playing, group movement, music making, and aspects of therapeutic touch.

Mindful Movement Talking Story is dedicated to the cultivation of skills for facilitating and integrating:

1)Embodied Self-awareness (through movement, touch, embodied verbal processing, and relational limbic attunement)

2)Embodied Intersubjective Awareness, through exploring the idea of the “self” as a co-created, biologically-based relational vehicle

3)Autonomy and Communion as simultaneous states.

4)Bottom-up Exploration of the unconscious (tracking sensations into feeling, meaning and cognition)

5) Authentic Communication as a compassion-based, present-centered intervention for healing developmental constrictions

6)Safe, non-sexual, attuned healing touch as a healing practice

     7) Practice forming and maintaining an engaged, mindful, body-centered group. 

Here's the DAILY PROGRAM:

     Saturday, August 10. Most people arrange to arrive on this day,

    and arrive generally in the evening. 

DAY ONE: Mindful Movement Talking Story

 Sunday, August 11

7:30-9 am                        Breakfast

11-noon                           Course Overview

Noon-1pm                        Lunch

Afternoon free (Good time to ground yourself)

6pm-7pm                        Dinner

7:30 pm-10pm             Forming an Engaged Group   

DAY TWO: Mindful Movement Talking Story

 Monday, August 12

7:30-9                               Breakfast

9:30-10:30                       Orienting Inner and Outer Worlds: Distinguishing Impulses  

10:30- 11                         Autonomy in Communion: Forming a Circle

15min break

11:15-noon                     Ordinary and Extraordinary Movement  

noon-1pm                         Lunch

2:00pm-4:30pm              Psyche in Nature I: Group Forming/Systems 

6pm-7pm                        Dinner

7:30-10 pm                     Embodying the Self— Introducing our Mind-Body Selves           

DAY THREE: Mindful Movement Talking Story

 Tuesday, August 13

7:30-9                        Breakfast

9:30-10:30            Improvised guided free movement

10:30- 11              Strengthening/stretching, more active movement

15min break

11:15-noon              Partnering as Autonomy Practice

noon-1pm                         Lunch

2:00pm-4:30pm              Psyche in Nature II: Dyad Floating

6pm-7pm            Dinner

   7:30-10                        Embodied Authentic Communication Practice 1

(Individual Exploration with group participation)

DAY FOUR: Mindful Movement Talking Story

Wednesday, August 14

7:30-9                        Breakfast

9:30-9:45         Wordless attunement; greetings, connectings, disconnecting

9:45-10             Self-Connecting

10-11:15            Mirroring/Witnessing/Physical Contact

15min break

11:30-noon            Embodied Council               

noon-1pm                         Lunch

2:00pm-4:30pm              Psyche in Nature III: Group Dynamics, Autonomy vs Communion 

6pm-7pm            Dinner

7:30-10                        Embodied Authentic Communication Practice 3

DAY FIVE: Mindful Movement Talking Story

 Thursday, August 15

7:30-9                        Breakfast

9:30- 11:15            Boundaries and Self-Care

15min break             

11:30-noon            Embodied Council               

noon-1pm                         Lunch

2:00pm-4:30pm              Psyche in Nature IV: Safety vs. Risk Assessment

6pm-7pm            Dinner

7:30-10                        Embodied Authentic Communication Practice 4 

DAY SIX: Mindful Movement Talking Story

 Friday, August 16

7:30-9                        Breakfast

9:30- 11:15            Ecstatic Impulses

15min break             

11:30-noon            Embodied Council               

noon-1pm                         Lunch

2:00pm-4:30pm              Psyche in Nature V:  Walking Meditation

6pm-7pm            Dinner

7:30-10                        Embodied Authentic Communication Practice 6

DAY SEVEN: Mindful Movement Talking Story

 Saturday, August 17

7:30-9                        Breakfast

9:30- 10:30            Exploring Stillness and internal sensation

10:30-11:15            Imaginal Journeying           

15min break

11:30-noon            Embodied Council               

noon-1pm                         Lunch

2:00pm-4:30pm              Psyche in Nature VI: Solo, Dyad, and Group Floating Meditation

6pm-7pm            Dinner

   7:30-10            Embodied Group Commencement: Taking Communion back into Autonomy

FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION PARTICIPANTS

                    CE's for Mindful Movement (click here!)

Continuing Education participants  in Mindful Movement Talking Story  will be able to:

1) Integrate impulse-inspired movement in clinical sessions                                                                                       (suggesting/demonstrating/participating)

2) Integrate safe touch and physical contact in clinical sessions

(supporting and modeling self-regulation during moments of painful affect; inspiring experimentation, role-play, inducing client  affect and somatic regulation)

3) Integrate music and music-inspired movement into clinical sessions

(inviting client's own choice of music and movement; including responding to music as part of an intervention repertoire)

4) Create greater range of affect resilience in clinical sessions

(through encouraging body-centered awareness, as well as movement as an alternative or alternation with stillness)

5) Practice the emergence of the embodied, authentic self

(through embodied support of sensation and affect)

WORKSHOP FEES:

Standard tuition price: $850

Commuter tuition price: $850

15 CE credits: $40

                Cancellation Policy: A $300 non-refundable deposit is required to secure your reservation. Deposit can be applied to future retreats if necessary.

                 For questions or concerns please email: Stephanhewitt [at] gmail.com

            Here are some reading resources that form the foundation of these practices:

Fogel, A. (2009). The psychophysiology of self-awareness: Rediscovering the lost art of body sense. New York: W. W. Norton

Johnson, S. (1994). Character Styles (1. ed.). New York: W. W.   Norton & Company Inc.

Levine, P. (2010). In an unspoken voice; How the body releases trauma and restores goodness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.

Reich, W. (1933/1945). Character Analysis. (M. Boyd, transl.) NY: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux.

Schore, A. (1994). Affect regulation and the origin of the self: The neurobiology of emotional development.  Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Sieck, M. from the Threefold Way website: www.threefoldway.com.

Sieck, M. (2106) Relational Somatic Psychotherapy; Collected Essays of Robert Hilton,  M. Sieck, Ed.  Redlands, CA:  Lulu Publishing