"The body, no less than the soul, believes in story and will move in the direction of wellness if we choose the right stories."
As autumn nears, leaves begin to dry out, and the trees reabsorb the nutrients stored within them. Like the trees, we can make the most of this seasonal energy by turning within and nourishing the roots that help us weather change.
In a fast-paced world, slowing down and going inside isn't always easy. We created this 6-week online group to support that gentle inward turn.
Each meeting, we'll immerse in poetry, practice gentle meditations to reconnect body and mind, and explore writing prompts to help ground us in this time of inward renewal.
Each week also has a unique theme, so you'll get to experience multiple pathways to the quiet depths that dwell within you.
What You Can Expect
This course is experiential, blending reading, meditating, and creative expression as ways to step back from external demands and turn inward.
Nurturing your body-mind connection(s) in this multisensory way helps creativity and flow to emerge.
Each meeting will include:
- Opening Grounding Practice – A short settling-in to connect with the present moment
- Reading – A piece of poetry or snippet of literature to spark inspiration
- Somatic Contemplation – A gentle, guided body-mind meditation to deepen your connection with your inner world, drawing on NeuroAffective Touch
- Creative Writing Prompts and Guided Journeys – Thoughtfully crafted writing prompts - occasionally blended with guided visualization journeys - to stimulate your organic writing / visual expressions
- Optional Sharing – An opportunity to share your writing in this supportive space
- Closing Reflection – A closing to help you bring your insights and experiences back into your daily life
Overview
The approach of autumn invites us to refocus, moving from summer's outer flowering to the ripening of our inner world. We begin by orienting to what is calling for attention in the body, heart, and mind.
Our Week 1 reading and practice nurture the mindful wakefulness needed for this turn inwards. We bring gentle touch around our ears and eyes, offering support for these hard-working (and sometimes hypervigilant) organs, so that we can more easily drop into our inner world.
To find your way home, remember what you love. This week we invite positive memories forward through a reading and a writing journey that invoke the beauty of the world and our power to choose how to meet it.
Week 2 also offers a gentle seated rocking practice to support our Midline, the body's energetic core, which helps anchors our connection to what we deeply love and long for.
It is a law of nature that things change and even fall apart — and our heart is designed with an inherent power to heal. This week we tend to our capacity for relational repair.
Our Week 3 somatic practice explores the energetic connection between our heart, arms, and hands. Mindful awareness of the movements of reaching, grasping, and pulling in helps us locate the template for connection that has been here all along in our bodies.
Fall teaches us about harvesting and letting go. By taking in the good in our lives, we more easily separate the wheat from the chaff, uncoupling what serves from what we can safely release. From this place of fullness, release can come naturally.
Our Week 4 somatic practice brings our awareness and gentle touch to the belly, heart, and throat. In our writing/expression, we say "yes" to what nourishes us, and "no" to what we have been holding onto that we are ready to let go of.
Historically, harvests were often celebrated with awe, gratitude, even festivals. In Week 5, we celebrate the renewable resource of joy that comes from connecting to the abundance of the natural world around us.
This week, our somatic practice will again involve the eyes (and other senses) in appreciation of nature. Our writing/expression will invite us into a fresh relationship with the world around us, where lightness can permeate us and rekindle our imaginations.
In our final session, we reflect on our journey and "seal" what has felt sacred or life-affirming.
Using a Nurture Surround, we offer our bodies containment and space to help us integrate the last five weeks. Our final writing prompt will be woven with a guided visualization that invites our focus deeper inward, nourishing the quiet flow of our life force.
Course Details
DATES: We meet each Monday from Sept 8th to October 13th
TIME: 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM Central Time / 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM Pacific Time / 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM British Summer Time. Each meeting is 90 minutes long.
All materials as well as recordings of the meditations and writing journeys will be shared within 72 hours of the live meetings. This way if you need to miss a session, you can engage with the materials at your own pace.
COST: $330 (equivalent to $55 per meeting)
About Your Facilitators
Jennifer Campolo, MFA
A native of St. Louis, Jennifer lived on the East Coast for 5 years and on the West Coast for 12 before caravanning back to the heartland with her partner in 2022. For more than 2 decades she has been dedicated to psychological growth and spiritual exploration, to heal from early parental loss. She holds a BA in English from Yale and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Pacific University of Oregon, and is also training in NeuroAffective Touch, a paradigm-shifting somatic modality that uses touch to integrate body and mind and nurture post-trauma growth.
Jennifer has taught creative & expressive writing to young people and adults, and volunteered at Annie's Hope: The Center for Grieving Kids. She works as a writer/editor for clients in the fields of psychology, integrative health and spirituality. Her passion is facilitating groups and courses that nurture greater awareness, insight, and self-compassion.
Maria Hawn, MA, PLPC
Maria is a Nature and Somatic focused therapist in the St. Louis area specializing in NeuroAffective Touch. As a trained professional counselor, she combines NATouch, IFS, and Nature Reflective practices to connect people with the richness and dimensionality of being human on Earth.
Maria is passionate about cultivating space for you to connect with the wisdom within your own body, so that your unique creative energy is nourished and expressed. She lives, plays, and grows with her husband, their son Canyon (5) and daughter Zorah (2 1/2). She and her family enjoy gardening, hiking, biking, beekeeping, camping, painting, and Pokemon.