THIS IS MY BODY – Class starts Feb 9
Growing up in the church, especially for those of us who were raised as girls and women, involved a lot of disconnection from the body. The patriarchal modern christian church operates with a power structure where someone else knows more or knows better all the way up the line. Fathers, husbands, pastors, bishops and the big God man at the top are all positioned as more suitable to hold knowledge and make decisions about our bodies. This power distribution and its legacy is a big part of what is fueling political campaigns to reduce or eliminate access to abortion, restrict or eliminate access to gender affirming care and other egregious attacks on choice and personal sovereignty. Which, when we are seeing all this happen, overlaid against climate catastrophes and large scale global pandemics, can feel like… A LOT.
Maybe even, dare I say…TOO MUCH.
It makes sense to want to turn away, or take shelter in what feels controllable and within your scope. It can be a smart tactic to limit overwhelm by curating the information we are taking in so as to help keep us from entering in to shut down. Heck, there may even be some appeal of letting someone else tell us what we need; unfortunately, the loudest voices can often be those who are trying to push us towards overwhelm as a way to more fully exploit and disempower us.
So what are we to do in the face of it all?
Return to the breath. Return to the body.
Becoming acquainted with our bodies can be challenging, especially if we have lived decades in them without being in relationship with them. We have developed this course to offer folks who are wanting to learn to be in their bodies; to build relationships with desire and pleasure, in ways that we were not raised to feel were ours to have.
We are excited to invite you to our expanded next session of This is My Body: Resurrecting Self-Sovereignty, Embodiment & Pleasure starts February 2025!!
This series is open to those who have left the church, attend regularly, are deconstructing, or lead congregations. If you want to attend to the ways that church doctrine has harmed your relationship with your body and sexual expression, you are welcome.
This workshop series comes from a desire to share what we know about embodiment and pleasure while holding gentle space to allow our bodies to feel safe enough to shine a light on shame, say no and yes to participation without consequence, and begin to imagine what an experience of joyful, empowered sexuality could be; in the way that is just right for your body, sexuality, and current relationship to the divine.
We crafted this offering into what felt like a familiar framework; a liturgical structure that borrows from traditions that our bodies know and integrates somatics and embodiment tools, intersectional analysis, and our own theologies of pleasure.
Each session will involve a bit of lecture, chances to share, and embodied practices.
You get to choose your level of participation, which means you can show up with camera on or camera off. Share out loud, in the chat, via our anonymous texting app, or not at all. We won’t call on you or ask that folks disclose information that they are not comfortable or ready to share.
Session 1: Upon this Rock: Investigating the Foundations
We dive into how messaging and power structures of patriarchal church doctrine impact our sense of self, worth and agency in our bodies. We get big picture as to how these approaches have created intergenerational impacts and look at how they live in our bodies now.
Session 2: Exploring Aligned Sexual Values and Ethics
We look at the limited versions of healthy sexual relationships we may have been exposed to within church upbringing, closed cultural enclaves and/or purity culture. The expansive truths of human sexuality and desire are far beyond anything those worlds were ever willing to give us, join us to learn about the breadth of possibilities.
Session 3: Feeling Into Self-Sovereignty and Interconnectedness
We get expansive, stepping into practices to help us find ways to feel into relationships with our gender, bodies, pleasure and each other that are reflective of our own truths. Learning to be the best boss of your own self takes a lot of practice, we will offer tools and applications of somatic based approaches to develop your sense of personal agency & boundaries.
Session 4: Honoring Our Embodied Pleasure
This session gets into strategies for cultivating embodied pleasure and ways that we can support ourselves and each other in this. Whether your flavour is more about the sensory, sensual or sexual; pleasure is for every body and we are here to celebrate what that looks like for you.
Other Details:
Dates: Sundays; February 9th, 16th, 23rd & March 2nd
Time: 1:00 – 3:00 PST
Location: Zoom Room with Captions
Cost: Three payment tiers, each with a 5 month payment plan.
USD $250, $175, $125
If $125 with payment plan is outside of your ability and you would like to participate in the course, please be in touch with us by DM or email (jess@belovedcoaching.net or softtouchbodies@gmail.com).
Ready to sign up? https://www.belovedcoaching.net/this-is-my-body is where you will find the sign-up & payment details.
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