The Art of Intimacy
Sacred Sexuality Video Series
Loving Communication
Better Relationships Through Emotional Healing
January 7th, 14th, 21st & 28th, 7-9 pm (four Thursday evenings)
$60/person, $100/couple
How many people do you have in your life that you can talk to– about anything– without scaring or pushing them away? How many relationships have you been in where you could be really honest– about everything– with your partner? For most of us, the answer in both cases is maybe one or two. Yet good relationships are much of what makes life worthwhile. True friendships, close relationships, and real community are all built on knowing yourself, sharing yourself, and really hearing other people. These are not skills we are born with; we have to learn them.
Join us for a communication and intimacy skills practice group, drawing from the work of Brad Blanton (Radical Honesty), Marshal Rosenberg (Non-violent Communication), Susan Campbell (Getting Real), Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks (Conscious Loving), John Bradshaw (Homecoming) and others. Each night we will focus on one aspect of healthy relationships and practice skills related to that topic. Topics include self-awareness (distinguishing between one’s thoughts and feelings), moving through fear, the power of vulnerability, and heart-centered sexuality. Participants will be encouraged to give examples from their own life and explore how these ideas and practices can improve their relationships.
Our deepest desire is to share our riches, and this desire is rooted in the dynamics of the cosmos. What began as an outward expansion of the universe in the fireball ripens into your desire to flood all things with goodness. Whenever you are filled with a desire to fling your gifts into the world, you have become this cosmic dynamic of celebration, feeling its urgency to pour forth just as the stars felt the same urgency to pour themselves out.
We all long for intimacy: to share ourselves without fear or shame. We long for practices and partners who can meet us in these deeply spiritual and sexual spaces. In this series we will explore how to weave these energies into our own bodies and to create sacred moments where sexuality and spirituality can be explored simultaneously.
Each evening we will watch an educational video on communication, energy awareness, and sexual practices that contribute to deeper physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy. We'll discuss the film and do simple yet powerful, clothes on, hands off exercises such as breathwork, eye gazing, movement, and sense attunement. The skills we will be learning apply to relationships of all sexual orientations.
January 6th, 13th, 20th & 27th, 7-9 pm (four Wednesday evenings)
Global Vision Healing Arts Center, Woodfin
$60/person.
We try to talk it over
But the words come out too rough
I know you were trying
To give me the best of your love
Compassionate Connection, also called Nonviolent Communication (NVC), is a powerful tool for creating healing and nourishing relationships in all areas of life, with our lovers, spouses, children, and co-workers (see examples here). This is an experiential course for individuals and couples who want to learn skills for transforming fighting, blaming, and judging into heartful connection that fosters intimacy and trust.
When was the last time that they heard you say
Mother or father I love you?
And when was the last time that they heard you say
Daughter or son I love you?
This ten-week class is based on the work of John Bradshaw and will be built around his video series "Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child." Bradshaw is a primary figure in the contemporary self-help movement, particularly in the fields of family systems, co-dependency, and addictions and recovery.
This course presents very specific information regarding childhood developmental needs, and how, if not met, your adult relationships are adversely affected. Examining your relationship history in light of your childhood experiences allows you to recognize the ways in which unhealed wounds may be affecting your current relationships.
Each evening will consist of a video followed by exercises and discussion that help you see how this material relates to your life. Together we will discover and practice new and more satisfying ways of relating.
Course Outline
Week One: The Problem of the Wounded Inner Child
How a dysfunctional family system creates a "wounded" inner child.
Week Two: Original Pain
The positive results of reconnecting with early emotional pain and the fear of abandonment.
Week Three: Reclaiming Your Infant Self
How unfulfilled infancy needs can affect adult life.
Week Four: Reclaiming Your Toddler Self
The ways in which toddler needs are often violated.
Week Five: Reclaiming Your Pre-School Self
How the sense of purpose developed at this stage may get misshapen by rigid family systems.
Week Six: Reclaiming Your School-Age Self
Moving toward competency, industry, and a conscious identity.
Week Seven: Championing- New Permissions
Ten ways to increase enjoyment of life and instructions on how to "give yourself a new childhood."
Week Eight: Championing- Protection and Practice
Supplying unmet childhood needs by choosing a new "family of choice" and finding a loving "higher power."
Week Nine: The Wonder Child
The emergence of the "wonder child," the authentic natural self who reclaims and champions the wounded inner child.
Week Ten: The Inner Child as Regeneration
Spiritual aspects of the "wonder child": life purpose, integration, and homecoming.
The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment is a secret which but few discover.