Full Conference Schedule

About the workshop:
Yes, you are not the only one who struggles with self care. For both therapists and clients, it is crucial to develop a routine and practice that enables us to meet our own needs. First, we can’t give to ourselves what we didn’t receive as a child. With unpacking the layers of our resistance, shame and self-criticism we can develop a truly nurturing and loving relationship with ourselves. We become the parent to ourselves we never had. At that point self-care becomes the act of self-compassion. Here lies the importance of self care. Until we develop a firm and nourishing self care routine, we rely on other people to meet our needs and we struggle with self-compassion. We are pushing down our true self, authentic showing up in our real life, expressing emotions with our parents, simply asking for what we need. We are still that little child, exchanging authenticity for attachment. The emphasis from CI is to focus on self care for 30 minutes a day. This gives us the base and fundamental for deeper CI work that we can do. Self-care goes also beyond the CI program. Self-caring stays with you for the rest of your life. What happens when we struggle with self-care? It is reenact of trauma. We had to abandon ourselves as a child to keep attachment, connection or a sense of belonging. Do we belong or we make ourselves fit in? This is going to be one of the questions that we will explore in our workshop. This will be a highly dynamic playful workshop, where you will engage in a powerful experiential practice of self-compassion, playfulness and self-care. This experiential workshop will provide practical and empowering well-being tools to nourish the nervous system for yourself or your clients.

Learning Objectives:
– Learn and gain insight about the barriers that prevent us from being efficient in our self care.
– Become aware of your inner dynamics on belonging vs fitting in.
– Gain simple strategies to help you and your clients be more compassionate to yourself when struggling with self care.
– Experience short and effective self-care practices that will support you as a CI practitioner and assist your clients.
– Experience being present to what is.
– Structure your daily routine for effective self care. Tool that can be used for yourself and your clients.

About Doris:

Doris is first a mom to two daughters, driven by desire to create a better future. She does that by exploring all shades of life. After a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry, she decided to go on a journey with Compassionate Inquiry in 2020, which is still ongoing. She decided to enroll in CI to learn about her own inner dynamics of allergies and asthma. As a Psychotherapeutic Coach she offers coaching, workshops and lectures on self care, compassion and gratitude. Her life philosophy is: with compassion and gratitude through all the challenges of life.

About the workshop:
“So many of us are not in our bodies… really at home and vibrantly present there. Not are we IN TOUCH with the basic rhythms that constitute our bodily life. We live outside ourselves – in our heads, our memories, our longings – absentee landlords of our own estate.” Gabrielle Roth
We will explore TOUCH from different perspectives. In motion through the 5Rhythms lens: from being IN TOUCH with and being TOUCHED BY ourselves, our dance and the group; to how we respond to the environment around us that we TOUCH. The rhythm of stillness, the last in the 5Rhythms cycle, will lead us into an exploration of SELF-TOUCH as a resource for attunement and regulation via specific TOUCH POINTS. Tuning into our interoception, neuroception and capacity for social engagement we will experience how our senses form perceptions. We will explore how our bodies want to be held, nurtured and received with compassion. Learning techniques to bridge verbal and non-verbal communication will support early developmental and relational trauma, creating safety and space for the implicit and unconscious to move into conscious awareness and opening the heart and gut connection. IN TOUCH will support practitioners’ somatic awareness and increase their capacity to work somatically with clients who want to feel, heal and renegotiate developmental and relational trauma.

Learning Objectives:
Self-resourcing, self-awareness, presence, self-care, attunement, attention, sensory awareness, connection, exploration, self-inquiry, self-reflection, self-regulation, curiosity, imagination, creativity, responsibility, choices, liberation, listening, following, witnessing, relationship with self and others, intuition

About Lucy:

“My vision is to support an holistic approach to ease, expansion, wholeness, vitality and wellness through the individual modalities and appropriately blending the practices I am trained in, My mission is to support inclusion and accessibility of these practices to new and diverse audiences. As a somatic, trauma-informed practitioner, bodyworker and educator I offer presence, holding and spaciousness to regulate and facilitate exploration of the stories, perceptions, beliefs, behavior, emotional, physical and nervous system patterns that are implicitly disconnecting with the vulnerability ad suffering underneath. Restoring the connection between the inner child and adult self that was broken or missing, creates new possibilities, healing and expansion into authenticity and freedom. This reveals the unconscious dynamics that influence choice, possibilities, lifestyle and wellbeing patterns and ways to liberate the self from them. The 5Rhythms nourishes my awareness, health, growth, healing, presence and embodiment on and off the dance floor. I teach two, weekly, drop-in classes, a monthly family class alongside workshops and sessions with groups like Recoverist Theatre Project for Adults in Recovery and patients with life-threatening illness. My classes are a mixture of in-person and online attendance so they are accessible, global and everyone is welcome as they are.

About the workshop:
The body is a natural healer. If you cut yourself, you can watch your body heal itself. When you have the flu or a cold, it helps to get a rest and drink water and
eat healthy. The body is also its own mental and emotionally healer as well, and you can unlock your inner healing.
In this workshop, you will find the core elements you need to know to master your breath. Inside, we will explore the different techniques to increase your energy, chill out your nervous system, manage your emotions and help you relax when you need it.

Learning Objectives:

About Barbara:

Barbara is a Metta-therapist, a compassionate and mindfulness-based approach, with a strong somatic component. Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, and sustained by the scientific knowledge of modern psychology and neuroscience, Barbara creates a safe support to your process, to release emotional issues, improving mental health and sense of wellbeing. Barbara merges mindfulness practices, and other eastern and western ancient wisdom, with several trauma-informed approaches (e.g. Compassionate Inquiry, IFS, Polyvagal Theory, Somatic Experience, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, MBCT, MSC and MBSR.). She is currently working with clients from all over the world.

About Sat Dharam:

Sat Dharam Kaur ND has supported Dr. Gabor Maté in structuring the Compassionate Inquiry approach and developing the online training. Sat Dharam is a naturopathic doctor, teacher and author, who combines naturopathic medicine with Compassionate Inquiry, yoga, breathing practices and meditation to support others in healing and integrating mind, body and spirit.

About Cristina:

Cristina is the Director of the CI Romanian program, Facilitator and Circle leader. She is trained in the Neuro Affective Relational Model (NARM), working with complex trauma and currently training in dance and movement psychotherapy.

About the workshop:
Our relationship with food has a lot to teach us about ourselves and our relationship with the world. Behind behavioral patterns such as “controlling what we eat,” “avoiding food,” “binge eating,” “compulsive eating,” or any other form of “disordered eating,” there is a message that deserves to be heard. “Healing the Relationship with Food” is an invitation to explore the deeper messages behind those behaviors; and to open ourselves, from a compassionate approach, to the possibility of building a relationship with food that is pleasurable, enjoyable and satisfying. 

Learning Objectives:
We will explore the difference between our physical and emotional hunger through the connection with our mind-body-heart; explore resources to find safety and satisfaction in our bodies; understanding the function of our eating behaviors; and attending to our true needs.
This workshop is partly theoretical and partly experiential. Please bring a cup of tea.

About Sanjog:

Sanjog is a Kundalini Yoga instructor, anthropologist, translator and therapist. Sanjog is part of the CI Founding Facilitators team. She is currently the Director of the CI Spanish program, as well as a CI Facilitator and Mentor in both the English and Spanish programs. Her past experience of having an eating disorder inspired her to commit to the field of physical and mental health care for the past 13 years. She is trained in IFS, Brainspotting and Art Therapy. She’s also a Psychology of Eating Certified Coach. Sanjog also nurtures her work with her previous training in Anthropology and Gender Studies. She lives and works from Ecuador, where she offers individual and group therapy processes.

About the workshop:
“Birth is a sacred right of passage, a time of transformation. When the sacredness of the feminine is honored, the magic of birth can unfold, the person giving birth is empowered in a process that is physical, mental, emotional, as well as spiritual. And when birth becomes mechanical, the sacredness forgotten, something in the soul breaks and trauma is the result, for the woman/person giving birth, their partner, the baby, those in attendance, and society at large. Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences are implicit, they are even more powerfully influential than the experiences we do remember. Our body remembers everything that we experienced even when we don’t consciously remember. These early memories create a filter through which we experience ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. As practitioners, we can learn to recognize the signs of perinatal trauma when working with our clients, and how to safely support them in integrating these traumas. This, of course, begins with working with our own early implicit memories.

Learning Objectives:
– Understand how to support safety and health in the perinatal period, and be present to the sacredness of birth and the feminine.
– Understand perinatal trauma and its impact.
– Explore your own early trauma and experience what your little one has been needing.
– Recognize when your client is unconsciously accessing early trauma, and gain skills to support them in moving through and integrating these implicit traumas.
– Gain knowledge and skills to safely support parents-to-be in having the most empowering and trauma free conception, pregnancy, birth, postpartum and early parenting experience possible.

About Laura:

During pregnancy and birth there is no separation between the fetus and newborn and their mother/parent. What the mother/parent experiences is what the infant experiences. This is when the mother’s/parent’s unintegrated trauma, including transgenerational trauma, is sensed and taken in by the newborn. Our hope is to advocate for the awareness and support that is so needed by pregnant and birthing women and people, and fathers/partners. This knowledge supports professionals in holding an empowering space for people to trust in their innate ability to birth, bond, and nurture their child. Birth becomes a doorway of initiation, an empowering journey of transformation into motherhood/parenthood.” Laura is a midwife with over 15 years experience, an international speaker, and a Certified Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner. In 2008, following her desire to discover more about midwifery & birth and so she went to Burundi then continued her work with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as a manager of maternity hospitals in Malawi (2010), in South Sudan and Kenya (2011), and then in Afghanistan (2015), where she led international projects to promote a culture of gentle, respectful births and parenthood. In London (2012-2016), Laura was a community midwife and later a midwifery team leader at the NHS. In 2016-2020, she joined the MSF Medical Unit as Women’s Health Advisor, providing technical expertise for the maternal and newborn activities in countries such as Bangladesh, Nigeria, Chad and more. In 2021, she was a Consultant Midwife in Wales, UK. After traveling the globe supporting more than 2000 women in 4 different continents, she learned that birth is a sacred right of passage that needs to be respected. She supports women and people to come back to themselves and their innate ability of being loving, attuned mothers. All women and people are worthy of receiving the support they deserve, surrounded by love and compassion.

About the workshop:
The intersection of polyvagal theory, CI and yoga provides opportunities for both Compassionate Inquiry
Practitioners and their clients to complement therapy with bottom-up processes to enhance self-
regulation and develop a felt sense of safety within the body.

Learning Objectives:
In this workshop you will learn:
– About the bidirectional function of the vagus nerve
– The differences between the dorsal and ventral vagus, and the sympathetic nervous system
– How interoception works, and how to enhance it through yoga practice and pranayama
– How one’s nervous system responds to safety vs threat
– How to increase the experience of safety within one’s own body through yoga
– The physical and mental health benefits of increased vagal tone and increased heart rate
variability
– How yoga can provide top-down and bottom-up approaches to activate the vagus
– How to integrate simple yoga practices into your work as a CI Practitioner

About Sat Dharam:

Sat Dharam Kaur ND has supported Dr. Gabor Maté in structuring the Compassionate Inquiry approach and developing the online training. Sat Dharam is a naturopathic doctor, teacher and author, who combines naturopathic medicine with Compassionate Inquiry, yoga, breathing practices and meditation to support others in healing and integrating mind, body and spirit.

About the workshop:
How do we find safety within ourselves, in the relationship with our clients and in our day to day lives? Through this workshop, we will be climbing the Polyvagal ladder through dance and movement, guided by CI questions.

Learning Objectives:
– How to find safety within ourselves
– What are the different states of the nervous system
– How to come back to regulation activating the social engagement system
– How to use the body as a tool of awareness
– How to use dance and movement as a way of getting unstuck from a helpless state

About Cristina:

Cristina is the Director of the CI Romanian program, Facilitator and Circle leader. She is trained in the Neuro Affective Relational Model (NARM), working with complex trauma and currently training in dance and movement psychotherapy.

About the workshop:
Our traditional culture, practices and knowledge is extremely important and a vital part of our well-being. We can never be other than who we are. We must preserve our cultural teachings and strive to maintain our identity so we can live holistically in this world. As North American Indian people, as the original people of the continent, we have great diversity in our cultural and in traditional teachings/knowledge. However, we share this land with, as well as the common experience of being oppressed, by a colonialist society which is widely known historical data. We are and were impacted by this different worldview and in effect have felt marginalization and intergenerational trauma throughout generations.

Learning Objectives:
– PHYSICAL – we will touch upon key areas of the physical aspects of our being that help us to stay in balance, be well, and what does our physical behavior express in our being.
– EMOTIONAL – learn about emotional behavior and what are thoughts, perceptions and feelings and how emotional behavior is expressed through our attitude and relationship with our self.
– SOCIAL – what activities to pursue to feel happiness and serenity in our lives and in ourselves.
– INTELLECTUAL/mental – what are some of the ways we achieve wellness through understanding ourselves and others.
– SPIRITUAL – will focus on value, belief, identity and reflection of a higher power.

About Stella:

Stella is an Ojibway woman and a registered First Nation member of Keeseekoowenin and originates from the Sandy Bay Treaty 2 Territory. She has 4 daughters, 1 son and 10 grandchildren. Stella is a registered Social Worker in the Province of Manitoba and has 34 years of experience working with children and families. She is currently the Executive Director of a child welfare agency for the past 29 years. Stella is a graduate of Compassionate Inquiry in 2022. She has taken training for 15 years in Psycho Drama Body Works and completed the advanced level. Stella is also a facilitator for the Indian Residential School Training.

About Laury:

Laury is an Ojibway Woman and a registered First Nation member of Keeseekoowenin Treaty 2 Territory. Laury has 6 children and 3 grandchildren. Laury has experience in Research and has been employed with West Region Child and Family Services for the last 35 years. Laury is a graduate of Compassionate Inquiry in 2022 and is presently in the Internship and Mentorship Program that started February, 2023. Laury has taken training for 15 years in Psycho Drama Body Works. Laury if also a Knowledge Keeper and Cultural Therapist for a Detox Centre and flies to 2 remote communities in the North to provide therapy.

About the workshop:
The awareness of the Principles of Relationships of Family constellation has deepened my CI qualities and skills, and CI Stepping stones have deepened my Constellation practice. Agreeing to what is exactly as it is forms the foundational philosophy of Family constellation work, and it is also, is a core aspect of CI. In this particular offering, I wish to share the family constellation wisdom of Principles of Relationships, Conscience of Guilt and Innocence, and Art of Helping as a way of deepening the Qualities and Skills of CI Practice. Then I will also, facilitate simple constellation founded activities to explore the phenomenology of Agreeing versus Acceptance of What is in the here and now, and how it emerges in the experience of Attachment versus Authenticity, navigation of Guilt, and the maturing of the Adult Awareness.
Learning Objectives:
– To develop a systemic lens of seeing.
– To cultivate the phenomenology of Non-Attachment
– Deepening the Wholeness of our Adult Awareness as a practitioner
– Recognizing the phenomenology of coming from Attachment versus Authenticity
– Recognizing the phenomenology of coming from Accepting to Agreeing of the now

About Rekha:

I practice as a Trauma-Aware Systemic Integrative Phenomenological Therapist and Keeper of the Cyclic Earth Wisdom traditions. Through my initiatives of She Stands Tall Project and the Ordinary Human Project I offer a plethora of Teaching, Learning, and Remembering opportunities that support individuals, and groups to explore, express, experience, and embody the truth of Who They Are, and Return to Wholeness. The pedagogy of all my offerings is founded in a Whole-Person-Philosophy that supports the integration of the Personal (physical, mental-emotional, psychological), Relational (social), and Transpersonal (spiritual) experiences of Inhabiting an Emotionally Mature Adult Human Knowing. My knowing is rooted in the Spiritual Philosophy of my land, the indigenous knowing of my Matrilineal ancestors (of Kerala) and also, the various trainings, certifications and learnings that I have moved through over the last two decades.

About the workshop:
Do you ever wonder what to do next after you have worked with your clients to explore triggers and uncover subconscious beliefs? Join Dr. Wendy Harris to learn behavior-based skills to pair with CI and share with your clients. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) includes skills in mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation. Originally created to support clients with treatment resistant depression and chronic suicidality, DBT picks up where CBT leaves off and focuses equally on accepting what is while making changes to make “life worth living.”
Learning Objectives:
– Learn the fundamentals of DBT
– Explore how DBT compliments CI
– Learn skills to use to enhance self-care.
– Learn accessible skills that can be shared with clients
– Explore how DBT skills support healing from trauma.

About Wendy:

Dr. Wendy Harris has a doctorate in clinical psychology and spent two years training in DBT for her post-doc. She teaches courses in DBT to graduate students training to be therapists at Antioch University where she is a Core Faculty member and Director of the Addiction and Recovery Specialization. She is a Founding CI Facilitator and International Trainer for Beyond Addiction: The Yogic Path to Recovery.

About the workshop:
This is a compassionate art movement workshop, based on the CI principle of “befriend your ego” from Gabor’s teachings. It is experiential; throughout the workshop the participants will be using different ways of expressing and connecting with different aspects of their egos. We will bring awareness to the the internal dialogues and impulses to help them to be compassionate towards themselves, and to move away from making themselves wrong. They will create masks and use drumming music to dance as a community creating a safe space for their egos & compassionate authentic selves to be expressed. This workshop is focusing on integration that takes us into the movement towards our essence. Playfulness will be at the heart of the workshop, employing movement, the senses, and creativity. Throughout the workshop we will be using the three levels of wisdom by connecting the heart, the intuition and the mind. The final mask-dance will reveal the contribution of each person, and the power of the group experience, validating the multidisciplinary and multicultural community of CI in a celebration of diversity and co-created compassion. This space in between the ego and the essence has been so liberating for both of us that has been the inspiration for this workshop.

Learning Objectives:
The workshop will be working on the development of these four stepping stones:
– Bring the client into the bodily experience of the present moment. Ask them what they are feeling right now.
– Bring the client’s awareness to understanding their behavior as a coping mechanism. Help them to be compassionate towards themselves, and to move away from making themselves wrong.
– Give the client space to experience and identify the feeling that is present.
– See the client for their possibility.
– Bring awareness of her gut feelings
– Affirm what they have already achieved or demonstrated.

About Jinny:

JINNY JACINTO has worked as a performing artist around the world for the past 30 years, much of this with Cirque du Soleil. Her multi-dimensional teaching incorporates
her explorations of gymnastics, Feldenkreiis, Pilates, yoga, meditation, and Compassionate Inquiry. She focuses on the human body as a whole, including: – all aspects of its unity with the brain; specific body parts where awareness in incomplete.

About Espe:

Espe has been working in customers relations for over 30 years. She is a compassionate and passionate person with an incredible curiosity for the human experience at any stage of their journey, inspired by a lady with dementia she became a creative therapist in the search of finding a new way to communicate with her. Espe found her love for the creative process by playing with paint when she moved to England in 2007. She has done visual exhibitions and creative workshops for the most vulnerable in the community. In her latest years she has been working as an integrative counsellor at St Elisabeth Hospice in the UK, where she integrates her creative and CI Skills to work with terminal patients and their families. In the last years she trained as a CI Practitioner. She has been recently appointed as CI Mentor for the Spanish Program.