3 Events + Trainings in September 2024
In person Breathwork & Movement + Online Transformative Mental Health
If you’ve ever wanted to try trauma-informed breathwork, now’s the time! This is my only in-person workshop in the USA in 2024. I’m so excited to be traveling next month to New York to meet with my colleagues at the Institute for the Development of Human Arts! Whenever I return to the states, I always love to drop in with community and facilitate a breathwork workshop. There’s nothing I love more than helping to shake up some energy and let things lose. Breathwork is the only practice I continue to teach and lead with clients and in groups because it works, it’s quick, it’s powerful, it’s dynamic and the main guide is you and your body’s wisdom.
I hope you’ll join me!
The body is the bedrock of our intuition, emotions, and life force. When we can step out of the mind and drop into the wisdom of the body, we can access the most powerful insights and clarity toward deeper healing. Embodied breathwork and movement makes it easier to access our innate wisdom, in a safe and supportive container while remaining in the driver’s seat of our own experience. It is a way to get back into deep relationship with yourself, your creativity, purpose, curiosity, joy, and aliveness.
This workshop bridges Holotropic Breathwork with somatic movement. First, we will use simple controlled breath patterns to engage an altered state of consciousness to access deeper layers of emotion. It’s a direct way to move stuck energy, receive guidance, heal personal and intergenerational trauma, and clear physical tension, all while gently supporting the nervous system. Then, using suggestions from Natural Movement and dance improvisation, we will let the body guide once more, asking with curiosity and trust: Which movements bring up which feelings? and Where is my body leading me? As breathwork clears the blocks, movement facilitates the integration.
Co-facilitated by my beautiful partner, David Bantje, who is a natural movement educator, parkour artist and dancer, helping people connect to their inner wisdom, to each other, and a sense of playfulness through somatic practice. He was trained as a MovNat facilitator in 2019, and teaches classes that incorporate injury prevention, mind-body connection, and functional movements in natural environments to facilitate more joy and presence.
SEPTEMBER 1st 6pm-8pm
@ freiland POTSDAM, GERMANY
SEPTEMBER 22nd 3pm-5pm
@ Roselyn Salt Cave - LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum
Enrollment for Fall 2024 cohort ends AUGUST 30th!
SELF-GUIDED TRAINING • CE CREDITS AVAILABLE • 22 HOURS OF CONTENT • 50 FACULTY • ACCESSIBLE PRICING • COMMUNITY LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES!
I teach following lessons:
Founding History of IDHA with Dr. Peter Stastny
Division in the Field (Of Psychiatry)
A Transformative View of Mental Health Experiences
Being With Experiences Labeled Psychosis
Mental Health and Chronic Illness
Integrating a Transformative Mental Health Lens: Putting it Into Practice
“IDHA's core curriculum is everything that I've been looking for in my training as a mental health care practitioner. So often, training lacks the voices of the people we work with. IDHA's core curriculum provides just that — from individual lived experiences to social movements. The content of this curriculum has re-rooted my perspective in our collective wisdom and interrelatedness.” - former participant
IDHA’s Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum draws upon knowledge and traditions across a range of disciplines, social movements, geographies, and perspectives to advance approaches to mental health care rooted in humanity, care, and support.
It centers the impact of structural oppression on our well-being, amplifies visionary voices of lived experience alongside research and professional perspectives, and introduces concrete tools, modalities, and language for addressing issues that so often end up medicalized. It is locally-grounded, trauma-informed, attuned to power dynamics, and celebrates diverse ways of thinking about mental health.
Over the course of eight modules, you will be introduced to a systemic, historical analysis of mental health, including how racism, ableism, and other forms of oppression intersect with mental health; diverse narratives of lived experience and the powerful impact of grassroots movements, past and present; a variety of community-based and peer-led practices that support healing; and a transformative mental health lens and how to apply it to your life and work.
“The content was thought provoking and really challenged many of the assumptions and practices of the mental health system I am a part of. I found myself thinking in broader terms and questioning many of the practices. There were also so many great examples of different types of ways to provide care that it has helped me to start thinking about ways I can effect change within the systems I work with, starting with my own methods of practice.” — former participant
This curriculum will expose you to perspectives and approaches that you will not find in any mainstream education setting, equip you with the skills and strategies to become a more justice-informed care provider, and help you better center the agency and self-determination of those you seek to support.
Who is it for?
The curriculum is designed as an introductory resource for those interested in exploring the challenges of our current mental health system, the history of how we got to where we are today, and gaining skills in how to transform care — but who are unsure where to begin. It is a one-of-a-kind learning and unlearning journey.