“We know how to be kind and compassionate to others when they’re feeling bad about themselves or are suffering in some way. We know what to say and do. We just have to remember to do it for ourselves.” (Kristen Neff)

So many of us live with chronic feelings of unworthiness, a sense that we are in some way flawed or inadequate. This ‘root’ sense of our inadequacy is at the heart of so many of the challenges we experience in life, both personal and interpersonal.

It can manifest particularly powerfully in our Inner Critic - that internal voice whose tone is so often harsh, blaming, shaming, attacking and/or punishing. It’s easy to see why our Inner Critic can readily undermine our well-being, our peace and our aliveness, and holds so many of us back from expressing our full potential.

Our journey together…

In this l

• understand why you have an Inner Critic and what role it is trying to play

• meet your Inner Critic in a safe and caring environment

• begin to transform critical narratives and harsh thoughts into something more compassionate and generative

• align with your innate wisdom, compassion and strength

• experience greater integration, worth, agency and peace

• grow in self-trust, self-confidence and self-love

  
  

  
  

This session is informed by psychology, particularly internal family systems thinking, and holistic science. We will also work with poetry, story, archetypes, myth and non-denominational spirituality. We will bring playfulness as well as reverence, and share stories from our own experience. Your personal reflections and experiences are welcomed and encouraged, although there will be no to pressure to share anything you do not wish to. I will also provide a curated selection of resources (articles, practices, podcasts, poems, talks, stories etc.) to support your on-going journey.

We will be journeying deeply together, and intend our sharing to be authentic, healing and transformational. To support this, and to ensure as rich and fulfilling experience as possible, group size will deliberately be kept intimate (no more than 8 people in a group).

Practical Details

Session time: 135 minutes with a 10 minute comfort break midway

Date: Monday 5th December 5:00pm-7:15pm (UK)

Pricing: £40 - £75
I’d like as many people as would like to, to be able to take this journey and know that some are struggling financially at this time. Please pay what you can afford within the above range. I trust people will be fair in this, honouring the time, dedication and love I am bringing to this experience.

I am committed to making my offerings accessible to all. Please contact me if you would like to join but are experiencing very severe financial hardship at this time.

Booking: To book your place, click here

Course Content

Week 1: The Power of Stories

“In the story of The Great Turning, what’s catching on is commitment to act for the sake of life on Earth as well as the vision, courage and solidarity to do so.” (Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone)

Exploring the power of stories in human culture and introducing three prevailing narratives of our time - Business As Usual, The Great Unravelling and The Great Turning. We will experience the transformative potential of choosing the story we want to inhabit.

We will also introduce The Spiral, the central model of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects. Using The Spiral we will begin to explore how many of the great challenges of our time are symptoms of our disconnection: from our selves, from one another and from the earth.

Week 2: Gratitude

“Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.” (Rumi)

We will experience how gratitude brings a sacred gift: reconnection. When we express our gratitude, we reconnect with ourselves, with one another, with the earth and with the sacredness of all Life.

Having and expressing gratitude for all that we have helps us face the grief we hold for all that is lost. From this place, we can choose not to close our hearts to pain, but to open them and see the world anew knowing there is some holding for us individually and collectively if we can lean into it.

We will explore how gratitude is a habit we can practice and strengthen to open our hearts. We will begin too to explore the inextricable relationship between grief and gratitude, seeing how opening to these two qualities, we begin to live more fully, with a greater sense of connection and purpose.

Weeks 3 & 4: Honouring Our Pain

“Unconscious energy is destiny. Conscious energy has a future and possibilities.” (Thomas Hübl)

Over these two weeks, we will create a safe and courageous space in which we can begin to gently explore some of the pain we carry: for our own suffering, for that of other species and ecosystems, for injustices in world and for the planet. We will also consider some of the ways unexpressed, untended pain and grief can show up in the world.

We will experience ‘the inherent healing of being heard’ and share powerful practices which help us move through and beyond our suffering to a place of compassion, resilience and resourcefulness.