25th February – 3rd March 15

The Sacred Work of Restoring the Self: 

Using the life force of empathy and love to heal the wounds from the past and change your brain to serve you in present and future relationships.

• Do you know that human brains are hardwired for empathy?

• Do you know that a child’s brain can be physically damaged by emotional neglect, abuse, shaming as well as from physical abuse and violation?

• Do you know that you can build new nervous tissue in you brain, now and at any age?

• Do you know that the life restoring energy of love and compassion actually heal our brains by creating new neural pathways?

Holding each other’s brains with empathy changes our lives

Deeply rooted in the science of Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB), NVC-trainer Sarah Peyton offers six days of healing and transformational work. The workshop is fully interactive and will consist of practically applicable theory, demonstrations and practice.

Both Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and recent findings in the field og neuroscience will be included to support the participants in experiencing the why and the how empathy works.

Why mix NVC with neuroscience?

Some of you reading these words might already have a love and understanding of Nonviolent Communication and the path it offers to human connection and reconciliation.

I’m also guessing that most of you have experienced the difficulty of holding the consciousness and awareness of NVC when you are under fire – in situations of stress, upset, conflict.  And that this very often occurs in relationships that are of the greatest value and importance for you.

Through life-long experiences, our brain has developed to protect us from danger. Quite often, the built-in reactions are just not helpful any longer as they were created at times where we had less resources and experience than today.

To maintain the presence and authentic heart connection that we long for is hardly possible until we have taken on the sacred task of restoring our brains to wholeness. Rather than suppressing or bypassing our pain, we  instead bring the living flow of compassion and tenderness into ourselves – so that our own brain and nervous system can experience and integrate the power of love and caring. Only then do we truly have the foundation of a ‘self’ that flows with spirit. Thus traumatic fear and anxiety give way to presence, emotional stability and the innate, compassionate beingness.

Why reactivity happens:

When we loose it, or find ourselves unwilling or unable to offer empathy, when we are filled with anxiety of expressing out loud in in a group, when we overeat or drink, and in many other ‘reactive’ situations, most often we are in the grip of poorly understood brain responses to prior traumatic experience. In other words, reactions of anger, withdrawal, confusion or freezing result from unhealed inner traumatic memory,

Having not received the care and emotional reassurance that all of us need early in life in order to grow a healthy sense of self, we develop patterns based on old memory of isolation, excruciating pain and the patterns through which we survived.

What works?

This six day training is designed to introduce the how to of restoring full emotional balance that can hugely shift our ability to stay in a connected place when under stress. You will experience how to support others in restoring and rebuilding their brains for self-connection and empathy. In addition, we will begin to understand our patterns of attachment (or lack of attachment) in significant relationships, and to learn how to create the kinds of relationships we long for and allow us to sustain them.

Sarah has synthesized two powerful streams of knowledge: Nonviolent Communication (empathy, compassion, and connected dialogue) with the amazing breakthroughs in neurobiology of the recent past (the ability to change our brains and build new neural memory). A key component is learning to run the life energy of caring, kindness, mattering and compassion through your own nervous system!

And from the new understandings in brain research we now have a map for healing, repairing and integrating the parts of the brain that are required for emotional stability under stress and successful interrelationship.

So what you can expect to be presented to:

• Knowledge and information of how our brains work)

• Process work that releases emotional pain and resolves trauma

• The living energy of love and compassion experienced in your own nervous system
• Reflections on how to use this knowledge and skills after the workshop

–       all held with a clear intention to thrive.

Is this for you?

If you are tired of repetitious old patterns, if you are frustrated with addictive behaviors, if you would like to shed old patterns of nervousness, anxiety over speaking in groups or leading them, if you are tired of emotional reactions that you are not able to control that are damaging to you and your relationships – in short, if you would love to move into the flow of your own unique authenticity. Or if you are longing to take your empathic capacity to a new level in service of your clients, students or children and possess the courage to look deeply into yourself; then we would invite you to join us for these six days with Sarah and during our time together introduce you to the basic concepts and the core process work of rebuilding your brain as well as the brains of others for empathy.