Workshops

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Part 2 of Healthy Human Life Series

EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING: A Daylong Workshop (lunch included)

I:  The Feeling Body and Self-Compassion

II.  Releasing & Clearing Emotion

Sunday, November 18, 2018    9 am-4 pm

Just in time for the Thanksgiving trip to see the family!  One of the most neglected areas in our culture is learning how to be present in the Feeling Body and work skillfully with our emotions.  The morning session will establish our ability to experience the Felt-Sense of the body, and integrate the experience of being Basically Good.  We will briefly cover how and why we have come to our view of self, family and the world, and our ability to be present for our emotions.  From there, we practice deepening our self-love, self-esteem, and self-compassion.

In the afternoon, we will delve into  safe and helpful Emotional Expression.  Often, we are too passive (repress and avoid), or too expressive (criticize, blame, explode) with our feelings.  When emotions are not expressed in healthy ways, they become “trapped” in the physical and energy body.  Trapped negative emotions are the root cause of, or a significant contributing factor in many things that go wrong in the physical body.  They also contribute to addiction, compulsive behaviors, and dysfunction in your relationships, career, etc.  Learn safe, effective ways to move, express and clear your emotional Body!

The practices will teach us to:

  • connect with the Feeling Body
  • establish a sense of ease and safety
  • access our Emotional Intelligence
  • ground ourselves in Basic Human Goodness and Dignity
  • release trapped negative emotions
  • uncover one’s own Essence Love

COST FOR ALL DAY WORKSHOP (INCLUDES LUNCH):

$175 —  Venmo, Zelle, cash or check; or with 3% service charge added, PayPal (“send to a friend”) and Square

REGISTRATION:

Email Kat to let her know of your interest, and  your payment preference.

LOCATION: Four Aims Counseling & Mind-Body Therapy

Past Workshops:

Meditation for the 21st Century Brain
Sunday, October 21, 2018
1-5:30 pm

Meditation for the 21st Century Brain is your breakthrough into a real meditation practice!

Do you find it difficult to meditate?  Is your mind so distracted or your energy so ramped up you can barely sit still?  Welcome to the club!  As a culture, it is getting harder and harder to focus for even a few minutes.  There is so much happening in the world, especially in the unseen world of frequencies and vibration, that it is a wonder anyone can settle down and re–establish a sense of spaciousness in their lives.

This workshop focuses on HOW we can approach meditation in a way that really helps us with that process. Rather than judging ourselves for our physical, mental or emotional agitation, why not learn new approaches to access meditative awareness?

Work with the Energy Body!
Gain more stability and greater Mental-Emotional health!

According to Eastern yogic traditions, mental and emotional well-being are a direct outcome of having open, unblocked and properly flowing channels within the energy body.  This workshop offers simple and practical exercises that positively shift the flow of energy, thereby affecting the mind, and opening the door to Calm Abiding, or shamatha practice.

Using basic mindfulness as a starting point, we will explore:

  • Simple movement as meditation
  • Breath awareness as meditation
  • Energy exercises as meditation
  • Visualization techniques as meditation
  • Sensing the Feeling Body as meditation
  • Calm Abiding as meditation

Progressing systematically through each meditation session, you will be amazed at how much easier it is to “settle down” in body and mind.  These practices are a chance to do “experiments’ on ourselves: to register how we are feeling, and the quality of our attention, before and after each session.  By the end of the workshop you will be established in sukha, or easeful presence.  Drinking in such positive shifts in the energy body, you will get “hooked” on meditation!

There is no pre-requisite for this workshop; it is open to all backgrounds, ages, and abilities.  More practiced meditations will find fresh approaches, while beginners will feel seen and supported.  Space is limited so that everyone can receive individual attention.

Kat’s Teaching Bio: Yoga and Meditation

Kat-rajakapotasana

Kat began teaching yoga in 1987 and helped shape the evolution of Seattle yoga over the past three decades through her presence at the Center for Yoga, Community Yoga Circle, and her own studios, Kaya Yoga in Columbia City (now Lotus Yoga), and the Four Aims Center.  In terms of training, Kat has three certifications in yoga: Iyengar, Sivananda and Viniyoga, and has studied for decades in expemplary lineages.  One comes from 9th century southern India–the yoga of T. Krishnamacharya–and focuses on the individual application of all the tools of yoga,  the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, and proper instruction in the intonation of Vedic mantra and invocation.

Buddhist Studies:

Kat presently studies Vajrayana Buddhism under the direct guidance of her teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche, an incarnate lama in the Tibetan Kagyu and Ngingma traditions.  She often includes some Buddhist teaching and psychology into her classes and trainings.  She has also interwoven  bhajans–beautiful devotional songs from India–and chanting into her teaching.  (Back in the 90’s, Kat was known as Seattle’s singing yoga teacher!)

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