Origins of Embodiment
March 10, 2024
I'm happily introducing our dynamic Embodiment Training team: Sean Kearns is co-leading and Christina Smith is Senior Advisor. Our course is dedicated to increasing the depth, range and impact of your transformational work with people.
The Haven Style Embodiment Training has evolved from a long, rich history. Decades ago David Raithby and I co-created the original program, Body, Breath and Energy Training, in response to a request from Bennet Wong and Jock McKeen, Haven’s founders. David and I led this vibrant experiential training until Covid brought us to a halt.
The Haven Style Embodiment Training, though distinct from its predecessor, has evolved in response to the heartfelt requests of many Haven Assistants and Interns. Last summer, three dedicated people on Haven’s training path and I bumped into each other at the Gabe Shop on Gabriola, and their enthusiastic appeal reignited the call. With David's retirement and my uncertainty about creating a new program, the challenge lay in integrating the excellent contemporary developments in the field with the powerful process unique to Haven’s approach that has contributed to the transformation of thousands of people since Haven opened its doors 41 years ago.
And now, Haven Style Embodiment Training will begin April 26, dedicated in loving, grateful recognition of David Raithby, who passed away suddenly in November.
Why “Haven Style?”
I’ve noticed that in a world growing increasingly tumultuous, there is rising fear of intensity and passion. There appears to be less and less tolerance for our natural, authentically passionate life force to find safe, boundaried, conscious expression. Instead, attempts to suppress it often result in debilitating depressions or destructive outbursts, either inward toward self or outward toward others. Rather than developing the skill and the practice to contend with our naturally intense human emotions and energies, many lack the skill and the practice to contend with them without pharmaceuticals or unhealthy addictions.
The life force energy coursing through us is powerful beyond measure. The emotional and psychological restrictions that we hold from traumatic events throughout our life lie deeply rooted in our body, in our bones, contributing to distress and disembodiment.
The energy required to maintain suppression and repression of these restrictions consumes our life force and restricts access to the natural flow of our natural life force, our inner strength and our passion. Ben Wong defined passion as “the pressure of the soul to be expressed.”
Distress, disembodiment and fear of intensity are understandable when living with these conflicting forces within our body and psyche.
Embodiment, our emotions, our soul, our psyche are intricately interwoven. As we heal we become embodied; as we become embodied we heal. Authentic transformation must include the body.
Haven Style does not subscribe to the fear of intensity. Haven Style signifies immersion of the individual in an energetic field co-created within a responsive, responsible, caring, curious, communal circle. It honors the magnificent range of human experience, embracing the spectrum of intensity from ecstasy to pain.
Through facilitation of safe, conscious connection with, and expression of, our authentic life force while being held within a relational, responsive, interconnected, circle of informed, caring companions, a person strengthens their capacity to accept the full range of their authentic being and to navigate the natural intensity of living in our current reality. Being held through the process in this way is incomparable.
As practitioners, our responsibility is to develop sensitivity and breadth and depth of skills to guide individuals through their healing journey within the circle environment. Haven Style Embodiment approach encompasses body, breath, emotional, and psychological energy guidance tailored to each unique being.
Haven Style supports individuals to unburden their self from fear, embrace life’s intensity, and celebrate the journey to being fully alive.
The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.
- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
About The Training
This program is for helping professionals who are keen to:
Learn and experience body, breath and energy practices as a way to skillfully open into the depths of the body and psyche
Learn to sensitively facilitate a person to beneficially liberate deeply held restrictions by navigating the continuum from subtle, delicate nuances to passionate expression
Develop and use your own intuition, creativity and presence
Become aware of and utilize transformative moments as they emerge
The spirit of this time together is one of creative exploration through a variety of energetic and expressive approaches. Supervised practice, small and large group discussion, and personal work deepen the experience. Immediate feedback both as the “subject” and as the “practitioner” provide a rich and rare opportunity for learning.
Practitioners must tend to their own embodiment in order to responsibly guide another person. Join other professionals and students of these modalities in a rich and rare experiential learning environment in Haven-Style Embodiment Training, April 26 - May 1, 2024 at The Haven on Gabriola Island.