We’re sorry but this course has been cancelled due to low enrollments. We are sorry for any inconvenience.

This program is also offered online if you are not in the St Louis area. You can find out more here.

Showing up skillfully and healing in community

This community journey is for contemplative teachers including coaches, therapists, bodyworkers, yoga instructors, meditation teachers, and anyone teaching or living from a heart-centered place who wants to feel more confident showing up in a trauma-informed way and being a part of collective healing in community.

You do not need to be a teacher or helping professional to join us – if the topics below resonate for you, we’d love to see you!

How we’ll explore…

The components of the program are:

a two-hour community Gathering held by Kristy Arbon at Empowered Spaces with meditations, discussions, topic explorations, exercises and practices;

personal study of online articles, videos, Wisdom Questions and other material;

reflections and exploration of material via an online discussion board.

What we’ll explore…

The seven topics we’ll explore are:

Boundaries – how do we keep ourselves and each other safe within the community and where can we ground our awareness when we need to tend to our stress.

Strengths and Values – what motivates me to want to contribute to a trauma-informed society and what personal strengths can I leverage to make the journey more easeful?

Education – what do I know about trauma in my community and what insight can I gain about being more trauma-informed?

Interoception – getting in touch with my internal body experience so that I can keep myself company and show up more sustainably and compassionately for others.

Polyvagal Theory – understanding, validating and normalizing the stress response cycle in service of opening a shame-less dialogue about stress and trauma in our communities.

Intuition – tapping into my wellspring resource of body wisdom in service of transparent, trust-filled social exchanges.

Deep Listening and Compassionate Dialogue – exploring the power of emergent dialogue and being seen and heard as a remedy for attachment wounds, shame, and trauma responses.

Trauma-Informed

This training implements the trauma-informed approach outlined by the US National Center for Trauma-Informed Care in that it is designed with four guiding principles in mind. It aims to help us:

Realize the widespread impact of trauma;
Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in community members;
Understand potential roads for recovery;
Respond by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices; and
Seek to actively resist re-traumatization.

As such, realizing that feeling lost in the crowd can be triggering for those of us with trauma in our story, this program will be limited to 15 people so that everyone in the group has the opportunity to feel seen and heard. Our methodology for Gathering and holding space is designed to model how we might do that for ourselves and others within a trauma-informed  context.

Embodiment training

The program is designed to be a community exploration focussed on developing personal self-awareness and self-compassion in response to our own trauma and stress responses, so that we can show up more fully and informed for others experiencing stress and trauma responses. If you are looking for a program that focusses on identifying and tending to trauma in clients, patients and students practicing mindfulness, you might like to check out David Treleaven’s Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness training. David’s program will be a great complement to the HeartWorks program if you decide to take both.

Who you’ll work with…

Kristy Arbon will facilitate our explorations. Kristy teaches self-compassion – with an emphasis on trauma-sensitivity – online and in person; mentors individuals and professionals in their trauma-informed teaching and self-compassion practice; trains meditation teachers in trauma-informed skills; and writes articles to support the study and practice of kind trauma response, mindfulness and self-compassion. Coming from her own story of trauma, she is passionate about being a part of changing our culture toward being more kind, accepting and trauma-informed.

Kristy has created many online and in person training programs, and supports/is supported by a global community of self-compassion practitioners through her business, HeartWorks. The flagship program, Somatic Self-Compassion, is in its second year and has been offered eight times.

Kristy is a certified Mindful Self-Compassion teacher who has a Bachelor of Psychology, a post-graduate Bachelor of Social Work and a Certificate in Mindfulness and Psychotherapy. She has completed Internal Family Systems Level 1 training, Somatic Experiencing Level 1 (Beginning) training, Singing Over the Bones facilitator training and Sensory Modulation & Trauma Informed Care: An Introduction training. She is a member of the Dedicated Practitioner Program in David Treleaven’s Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness training.

Where we’ll meet…

We’ll meet at Empowered Spaces, 7602 Big Bend Blvd., Saint Louis, MO 63119 each week. You can also ask questions and contribute to the online discussion board in your own time so that you can connect with community members between Gatherings.

When we’ll meet…

Our 2-hour-long Gatherings will be held from 5-7pm Wednesday each week from April 8 – May 20, 2020.

Continuing Education

14 Continuing Education Credits will be offered for a fee of $40 for Psychologists, Psychoanalysts, Social Workers, Counselors/Marriage and Family Therapists, Creative Arts Therapists, Chemical Dependency Counselors, Educators and Nurses.

Questions?

Please don’t hesitate to email Kristy Arbon – kristy@heartworks.training – if you have any questions about the training. Contact Kelly Caul – kkcaul@yahoo.com – with any questions about our venue, Empowered Spaces.

Registration:

Earlybird rates (before February 12):
Benefactor rate: $325
Regular rate: $275
“I just need a little help” rate: $225

Late bird rates (after February 12):
Benefactor rate: $375
Regular rate: $325
“I just need a little help” rate: $275

Limited need-based scholarships offered through Empowered Spaces. Contact Kelly Caul at kkcaul@yahoo.com to apply.