Radically Embodied Authenticity with Mo & Ben

Welcome to our in-person, half-day workshop to help you connect to your authenticity and embody it more deeply in your day-to-day life.

What You’ll Learn

We are inauthentic because it feels safer in some way than to be fully authentic.

Healing requires exploring both sides of this dynamic. You’ll learn:

1. What inauthenticity actually is, how it manifests and why it matters
2. Compassionately explore your inauthenticity: Discovering and healing the parts of us that feel unsafe and cling to the (perceived) safety of inauthenticity
3. Discover your truth, realness and authenticity:  Learning how to be deeply honest about our authentic desires, perspectives and expressions and integrate them

Important note: This is a trauma-informed somatic workshop that focuses primarily on the sensations and feelings in the body, which is where we hold the traumas, tensions and fears that keep us trapped in inauthenticity.

We approach the body with care and compassion, not bursting through blocks or trying to ‘get rid’ of things, but bringing the safety and containment needed to help traumas and tensions to be felt and processed through safely.

Workshop Content

We will start by getting in touch with our bodies with yoga and resourcing practices, before exploring a range of embodied practices to connect to our inauthentic and authentic parts and closing out with a soft sound bath.

It will consist of a combination of individual work, pair work and group sharing across the following themes:

• Connecting to the body:
• Non-linear yoga Somatic resourcing practices
• Exploring authenticity:
• What is embodied authenticity? Exploring the felt sense of smallness/inauthenticity Exploring the felt sense of authenticity and realness
• Exploring desire:
• What is embodied desire? Exploring our repressed desires Exploring the shadow
• Healing sound:
• Nourishing sound bath

Why Embodied Authenticity Matters

Embodied authenticity is when how we feel on the inside matches how we behave and express on the outside.

When we are inauthentic, there is a gap between our true feelings, expressions and desires and how we actually present and are in the world.

Inauthenticity isn’t wrong or bad, it just feels awful. We feel stuck, lacking, trapped, disconnected, unable to realise our true potential or purpose in the world. And life feels like a struggle (in reality, we are struggling against ourselves).

When we meet and melt the traumas and tensions that are keeping us stuck, we feel more deeply connected to ourselves, others and the world. We are able to flow through our relationships, work and creative pursuits.

And life becomes much more joyful and free.

Embodied authenticity is when we are authentic ‘all the way through’. It’s not a mask or a veneer. It’s not a cognitive choice or a striving or straining. It’s just how we are, without effort or struggle.

It comes naturally when we gently and compassionately meet those parts of us that are afraid of being ourselves fully in the world, because our early life experiences taught us that it was unsafe or unwelcome.

These parts are held in the body: that freeze in the chest when we want to say ‘no’ but can’t; the sense of shut down when we people-please; the sense of being trapped we feel when we fake laugh at a party or because we feel awkward.

And so it is into the body we must go if we want to heal these parts, which is why the embodied, somatic element of this workshop is so critical.

It is challenging work, but the more directly we meet our unconscious fears and tensions, the more deeply we transform and feel at home in ourselves and the world.

Who Are We?

Monique Thissen Yoga teacher and trauma-informed holistic life coach www.soulpathcoaching.co.uk

“I have been learning somatic practices and healing modalities firstly to help heal myself, after having experienced bouts of depression for as long as I can remember. I have benefited tremendously from practices such as yoga, shamanic healing and embodiment and really I felt the need to share my knowledge on healing without medication or psychiatrists with others, by looking at the person rather than the diagnosis. I deeply feel that this is my life’s path, my calling so to speak. And I’m looking forward to sharing space with you.”

Ben Tannahill

Somatic therapist and spiritual coach

www.drunkenbuddha.net

“For me, life is a process of learning to become ourselves. Of integrating all the parts of us that we had to reject and deny to secure love and approval. On my own journey recovering from alcoholism I discovered the power of embodied approaches to healing—diving into the body to meet the frozen, lost children within. I help people to explore and feel the emotions, expressions and behaviours that they had to reject, melting the emotional and energetic blocks to being fully ourselves in the world.”

Testimonials

Ben

“I just wanted to thank you for an incredible workshop yesterday. I got so much out of your fresh, down-to-earth, accessible and beautifully human approach to talking about emotions and embodying them. I loved the interactive nature of it too, getting to try out the techniques first hand. I plan to do a daily practice to explore my own emotions & nervous system now. Thank you. So grateful. ”

—Gretel, Australia

“Ben is the most amazing, caring, and knowledgeable therapist - one of the very few professionals I've worked with who I feel really 'gets it'.  I feel completely safe in his sessions to experience, process, and express the deep dark stuff that most other people I've worked with couldn't handle. I can't recommend him highly enough.”

—Caroline, UK

Mo

Thank you both so much for organising this amazing retreat. I literally feel like a new person and I can’t stop smiling. You are both so knowledgeable, so creative and fun. This was a truly magical safe space to be yourself, no judgements, only positive support and encouragement from everyone. I cannot recommend your retreat highly enough to others.

—Ali, UK

I asked Mo to help me heal something that had been sitting with me for a long time. She helped me through the whole process. She not only provided the space for me to speak freely, but she was also the hand to hold while taking the step, the guidance to shift my perspective, the energy to make it happen and the shoulder to cry out of relief. What I love about this process is that it empowers you – you are the one creating the recipe for the remedy you need. Mo is there to help you walk that path and find it.

—Sarah,UK

For further information about this event please contact Mo on 

Mo.thissen@gmail.com 

07754163059

Price: £40 (£35 for early bird)