Workshops and Classes for Spiritual Seekers and Teachers
Below you'll find descriptions of several different presentations that can be customized for a variety of different formats, from a 30-minute lecture to a full-day or weekend workshop.
The presentations listed here will be of particular interest to those on a spiritual path -- as students or teachers -- who are exploring out-of-body journeying, after-death communication, mystical rituals & practices, evolving theologies and a metaphysical understanding of loss and bereavement.
For a list of workshops and classes specifically designed for clinicians and end-of-life professionals, please click HERE.
Making Peace with End-of-Life
As elders, we are constantly bombarded with advertising messages and social cues that prompt us to be active, look younger, and stay healthy and vibrant. What cultural messaging neglects to tell us is how to navigate the journey through end-of-life.
In this unique workshop you will learn how to create a more positive relationship with death and grief as you face the loss of loved ones and the reality of your own eventual death. In an interactive, experiential group setting, wewill explore these topics and more:
. Death and grief practices from a variety of cultural and religious perspectives
. How death is addressed in our modern medical system
. What is hospice, and how does it differ from palliative care?
. Family dynamics in end-of-life and bereavement
. Creative rituals and ceremonies for death, dying and grieving
The Evolution of Forgiveness
We know we're supposed to forgive, but have we ever been given any actual techniques for doing so? Most people believe that forgiveness means condoning or accepting transgressions that have been committed against us by others. But when viewed through a metaphysical lens, one realizes that there are no "others" in the universe.
This workshop explores the energies of judgment, fear, projection and attachment that cause us to experience spiritual pain. Using guided visualization, interactive exercises, storytelling and ritual, we'll work to "un-judge" ourselves and others. By releasing blame and re-framing fear-based beliefs, a new form of forgiveness can emerge in which there are no victims and no perpetrators... only souls journeying together on a path to wisdom and awareness. Click HERE for more info.
Near Death Experience: Now That we Know, What Should we Do?
We've heard the stories and we've read the research. We know consciousness continues after the body dies, and we, as a culture, have been intellectually and spiritually elevated by learning about these life-altering experiences. So what's next? How do we teach and support conscious dying and a metaphysical understanding of birth, death and beyond?
Since the 1970s we have collected an enormous body of evidence that validates NDEs, deathbed visions and after-death communication. But for experienced spiritual seekers, that's old news, and it's time for a new generation of teachings to take us to the next step.
Grief as Mystical Journey: Sacred Practices for Turning Loss into Light
The Grief as a Mystical Journey® workshop provides a rare learning environment that offers unique healing tools not found in traditional counseling or support group settings.
Our educational and therapeutic processes help participants move toward internal transformation rather than focusing on external events, via guided meditations, art & music therapy, family dynamic mapping, interactive group work and sacred ceremony. By giving form to the formless via these processes, we cconvert unseen healing energies into practical tools, and transmute trauma and grief into new forms of love, acceptance and spiritual awareness. For more information, visit www.SpiritualityandGrief.com
The Metaphysics of Mourning
It's difficult to imagine mourning a severe loss as anything but a terrible experience. But if we consider the possibility that tragedy and upheaval offer us an invitation awakening, vast new horizons of spiritual growth are opened up to us.
Grief cuts to the core of everything that defines us, and exposes places in our relationships, belief systems, family structures and social values that have been crying out for illumination and healing. Grief shakes us loose from our spiritual lethargy and creates an opening in us that is highly receptive to growth if we recognize the tools and choose to do the work. If we nurture that opening, if we honor it and work with it, stretching and strengthening it a little bit each day, we can discover previously unimagined worlds of wisdom, and choose enlightenment over annihilation.
Bereavement and Bad Theology: A Toxic Cocktail
Q: How can God let this terrible thing happen?
A: It depends what you think God IS
In many religious traditions, God is believed to be responsive to the needs of believers, and in difficult times, believers turn to their religious beliefs for comfort, security and guidance. When God is viewed as a protective parental figure that can shield us from harm if we are pious or devoted enough, what happens to faith -- and healing -- when God fails to provide that protection? How do we help our clients cope with the cognitive dissonance they experience when their religious beliefs – whether inherited or chosen – do not match up with their lived experience?
This presentation examines the ways in which religious beliefs can be more harmful than helpful for traumatized or bereaved individuals, and explores therapeutic tools and healing practices for assisting someone in spiritual crisis.
