The Living Ubuntu Winter Body Group will focus on our emotional and defensive responses to global issues.  Have you ever heard of a troubling situation in the world, wished you could respond with compassion, but were held back by feeling too overwhelmed to get involved?  Or jumped into action too quickly because sitting with the feelings was just too much?

Hearing of social justice and humanitarian suffering, can be really upsetting for many of us. If we don't know how to take good care of ourselves, we are left vulnerable to distress that persists as depression, anxiety, replaying of unwanted images, or nightmares.

Compassion is part of our healthiest, natural human state, and our capacity for compassionate responses can be an area of ongoing growth and expansion. Yet, when dealing with situations that are very emotionally charged, knowing how to stay within our own limits and process the feelings that come up must come first.

Working with our bodies is often one of the most effective ways to deal with challenging emotional issues.  Therefore this group will be highly experiential, combining educational material with body methods (e.g. grounding exercises). The ultimate goal is to increase self-awareness and healthy responses to global issues.

What will we cover?

Some of the topics will include:

• Body awareness and self-expression
• Healthy boundaries
• Alternating rhythms: expansion and healthy withdrawal
• Grounding
• Emotional contagion
• Vicarious trauma
• Staying in one's own experience while feeling empathy or compassion for others
• Motives for being involved in social justice & global issues:  Are you acting out of shame, guilt or to avoid feelings?  Or from genuine compassion?

Most of Barbara English's professional experience has been in the field of psychotherapy.  Her training has emphasized a focus on Early Development, the effects of abuse or trauma, and the use of somatic methods to promote healing.

Barbara's growing discontent with the limits of private practice, combined with increased awareness of mass trauma as a global epidemic, motivated her to start Living Ubuntu. With an approach that seeks to unite trauma recovery and human rights issues, part of her work includes leading Orange County for Darfur.  She is a 2009 Carl Wilkens Fellow with Genocide Intervention Network.

Life's greatest challenge requires increasing our capacity for staying grounded, open, breathing, and feeling in the face of life's deepest pain and horror. This in turn will increase our capacity for experiencing and allowing love, joy, and pleasure.

If we focus only on the good feelings, it will be too tempting to resist the pain by inadvertently shutting down and eventually losing access to the wonder of life itself.

Dates and location

We will meet for a total of six sessions.  All sessions are on every other Sunday afternoon.  Below are the dates.

Note: For maximum benefit and group cohesion, we strongly encourage attending all sessions. 

Here are the registration guidelines.

1. While this group will help participants learn to stay within their own limits, it will nevertheless deal with intense emotional issues.  We would like to have a conversation with you before you register in order to make sure this group is a good match for you. 
2. To create a safe, secure space, we can accomodate no more than 10 participants.

If you'd like to attend, please get in touch with us.  Simply call us at (949) 891-2005, or send us a message.  Thank you :)

Contact

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.  Or call us at (949) 891-2005.