Julia Barry

While Mindfulness offers essential skills for working with the body and emotions, often we still find ourselves emotionally overwhelmed in practice. In this workshop we will emphasize basic tools for self regulation based on the principles of Somatic Experiencing®:grounding, resourcing, titration, pendulation, orienting and tracking to explore mindful awareness on an interactive level.  These basic skills help to increase nervous system regulation and to develop a higher capacity for interoceptive awareness (the ability to track one’s own body sensations and emotions). We will also explore techniques for working with the body’s basic defensive strategies, fight, flight and freeze. Self practice and dyadic practice will be included. Somatic Experiencing ® is a gentle, naturalistic technique developed by Peter Levine, PHD which focuses on the ways that overwhelming, stressful or traumatic experiences get stored in our nervous systems and assists in cultivating resilience.

In this program we will explore Buddhist teachings on impermanence and not-self, as well as attachment theory, which addresses how our early childhood relationships inform our adult views and behaviors. The format will include meditation instruction, Buddhist and western teachings on attachment, and relational mindfulness practices.