Cultivating Emotional Awareness and Balance

Our emotions are  essential to our survival. Like  breathing, we do not choose to feel our emotions, we automatically emote in response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We can learn to bring conscious awareness to our emotions, and importantly we can train our mind to respond in helpful constructive ways to difficult emotions. Even our pleasant emotions can be enhanced by conscious awareness. We can savor the good and feel appreciation, rather than grasp for joy. In developing emotional awareness, we hold the full range of our human experience with compassion and curiosity.   

Throughout this experiential workshop we will be offering the foundational science and practice of emotional awareness. Together we will weave interactive experiences of contemplative art that encourages an embodied emotional awareness and heart opening. 

We will draw from the evidence-based Cultivating Emotional Balance training, which integrates the wisdom traditions of modern psychology, emotion research, and ancient contemplative practices as a path for transformation. 

Each session will balance learning, being, and connecting. 

• Learning will include teachings on the scientific and contemplative foundations of emotional awareness.
• We practice Being with guided meditations and reflective practices to develop mindful awareness and compassion for our challenging mental and emotional patterns and habits while connecting to true inner sources of joy and appreciation. 
• Connective practices include discussion and small group work to investigate the roots of our emotions through mapping of our emotional episodes.

As we map our emotions, we uncover the stories that underlie our triggers, perceptions, and responses. These stories are often humblingly familiar. In their sharing we feel the inter-connection of emotions, and forge new narratives to make meaning with our emotional lives.

Join us for this weekend of transformative exploration and practice.