Creating Space for Community
Creating Space for Community is a bi-monthly gathering to explore concepts around inner/outer community building, belonging and thriving.
These webinars are FREE to attend. During our time together, we will create a safe, playful environment to explore how we show up for the communities outside of us. These webinars emphasize Gendlin's action step; how is it we bring Focusing concepts into our daily living.
We are hosted by Focusing Initiatives International (FII). We are donating our time for FII. We encourage you to consider giving them a donation, if that feels right and ripe timing, when you attend our webinars.
Focusing Initiatives International's Mission
Focusing Initiatives International promotes social change by supporting people and communities to develop wellness, inner healing, and creative solutions to local problems.
We base our work on a deep vision of how human beings thrive when they are physically and emotionally safe, and free to secure their needs and shape their communities in ways that hold meaning and significance for them. It is grounded in the philosophy and experience of Focusing.
FII's Work
Focusing Initiatives International provides consultation, collaborative program development, and support for community efforts to apply the methods and wisdom of Focusing practices to the specific needs of their local situation. Beneficiaries of our programs include marginalized populations and / or people who have few resources to cover the costs of services that would make a vital difference in their lives.
Creating Space for Community Dates
March 23, 2023 7:30pm - 9pm EDT
Our March theme is procrastination. We all procrastinate about something and often as a reaction to 'this' in our environment. Inge Terrill, a Trainer-in-Training with TIFI and a member of the Learning Community for Mastery in Guiding Change ,will co-facilitate this webinar.
Register online HERE
May 18, 2023 7:30pm - 9pm EDT
Our May theme is Belonging. We will explore how much easier it is to find a sense of Belonging within a community or situation when we include the awareness of our right hemisphere or body view.
Rebecca Aydelette, a member of the Learning Community for Mastery in Guiding Change, will co-facilitate this webinar. We are excited that Rebecca will be completing her journey as a Certified Focusing Professional in April. To learn more about Rebecca, visit her website HERE.
Register online HERE
July 20, 2023 7:30pm - 9pm EDT
Our July theme is Loneliness.
Carrie Moy, a member of the Learning Community for Mastery in Guiding Change, will co-facilitate this webinar. Carrie lives in Baltimore, Maryland and has special interests in Dreams and Focusing and healing trauma.
September 28, 2023 7:30pm - 9pm EDT
Our September theme will be announced.
Elisha Reygle, a member of the Learning Community for Mastery in Guiding Change, will co-facilitate this webinar. Elisha lives in Floyd, Virginia and completed her journey as a Certified Focusing Professional in October, 2022. To learn more about her, visit her website HERE.
November 12, 2023 11am - 12:30pm EST
Our November theme will be announced.
Niko Toroshelidze, a Trainer-in-Training from the Republic of Georgia and a member of the Learning Community for Mastery in Guiding Change ,will co-facilitate this webinar.
Event Details:
Each of us lives in community. Our family is our first one. In Focusing, we learn to create a space of radical acceptance for our inner community. During our time together, we will create a safe, playful environment to explore how we show up for the communities outside of us.
Our time together will be heavily experiential. We’ll utilize universal themes and prompts from adventures in Smartview Stories. Smartview Stories is a series of family books that explore living a Focusing way of life in community. The stories illustrate both what is going on outside of us as well as inside of us via three Inner Companions based on neuroscience concepts. We’ll become familiar here with how these Inner Companions function within our own lives.
There will be whole group invitations and discussions. Sometimes we’ll invite writing, art and movement. We’ll have pair and small group breakout spaces. You may be invited into role-play scenarios and groups can volunteer to share their skit. Expect to laugh here, humor seems to be an essential quality of being when we invite our fears around holding our own sense of self in the world.
An aspect we practice in this community is both presuming welcome (I belong) and extending welcome (you belong). From here, a We Space between naturally forms. I encourage self-empowerment and enjoy working alongside members of the Learning Community. This is a community for advanced Focusers and certification trainees that I facilitate. I have invited them to join in co-teaching these webinars. Together, we create a magical carpet ride we extend toward you.
We welcome any threads you’d like to add during your time with us here!
Skills you can grow during our time together:
* a greater understanding of Gendlin's Three Types of Theories, the correlating neuroscience and how this can help you in being with yourself and the world around you in any moment. This awareness alone is HUGE in understanding how to make the best use of our brain/body.
* our left hemisphere is 'sticky', it likes to hold on to patterns it knows from the past. We will become more efficient at recognizing when this is holding us back by studying left-right hemispherical views that are outlined in Iain McGilchrist's research.
* the ability to pause and move into your body, into the present moment, or over to your right hemisphere to access a bigger picture and potentially do something new here. Each time we do this rewires our brain to for a sense of working together around future similar situations.
* via role play in class, improve your ability to interact with others with kindness and clarity that everyone and everything is safe and with a sense of we're in this together.
* develop more ways to support yourself and those around you in processing challenging interactions.
* become aware of embodiment techniques that you can incorporate into your daily life to encourage holding on to new patterns that are emerging for you.
* receive neuroscience related handouts to support you in practicing these concepts in your daily life.
Co-Facilitators from Learning Community for Mastery in Guiding Change
Inge Terrill, March 2023
Rebecca Aydelette, May 2023
Carrie Moy, July 2023
Testimonials
Coming once we get going!