A Small Group Immersion to Foster your Somatic practice

 
 

As we learn how to feel, take responsibility for and take care of our emotions, we cultivate stability, choice, connection and compassion towards ourselves and others. How do we do this?

Through practice - both on our own and with others.

We build emotional regulation by a practice of co-regulating with other people, nature and resources ranging from our favourite song to beloved ancestors. As we do this, we make use of our brain’s neuroplasticity and full, resilient physiology to groove new, more supportive neural pathways, making lasting change both easier to create and more possible to sustain.

Personal Practice is a six month small group immersion (max 10 people) that combines collective and solo somatic practice, group sharing, practical teaching, hot seat coaching and optional 1-1 support to help you deepen your somatic skills and expand your capacity for both self and co-regulation.

Building embodied capacity to understand and move through our emotions takes time, practice and plenty of support.
But it is so worth it.

 
 

PROGRAM FORMAT

 

Biweekly Small Group Meetings

Tuesdays, 6 - 8pm EST starting May 17th until Oct 18th

Our standing small group meetings will include somatic group practice, personal sharing, practical psychoeducation and 1-1 hot seat coaching. Scheduled every other week, these meetings are best attended live, but will be made available as audio replays if you have to miss one.

Weekly Practice Sessions

Thursdays, 12 - 12:40pm EST starting May 19th until Oct 13th

A weekly 40 minute call dedicated to being together and practicing as a group. Though optional, these calls are here to help you stay accountable to yourself and build regularity of practice. Practices will be recorded and uploaded to the program library.

Audio Practice & Resource Library

Available to download for up to 6 months after the program ends.

A google drive filled with all the practices and resources we cover - whether during our two hour meetings or our weekly practice sessions. Many students download their favourite practices to return to again and again, as well as teaching portions to revisit later.

Six Optional 1-1 Somatic Coaching Sessions

Booked once a month, on weeks alternating from group meetings.

Additional one on one somatic coaching sessions to help support your nervous system healing and hold space for what’s coming up in your somatic practice or in group process. You can read about my approach to 1-1 support on my coaching page.

 
 

WHY PRACTICE?

Nothing changes until we change. And we change through practice.
One breath, one moment of attuned awareness, one choice at a time.

For most of us, emotional regulation is an underdeveloped skill that needs practice. Feeling our feelings requires nervous system capacity, which takes repetition and time to build from the inside out.

Consistent, relational and embodied attunement, the kind we needed as infants in order to develop emotional regulation in the first place, is what we still need as adults.

Personal Practice was created to offer this exactly.

 
 
 

“Personal Practice is a wholly unique and magical experience of gently pushing your capabilities while being accepted entirely as you are. This was one of the most beautiful, healing experiences in community that I have had and I am deeply grateful for it.”

 
 

PROGRAM SYLLABUS:

This program is primarily focused on practice and process, rather than content. However, each month will include some contextual psychoeducation for the purpose of supporting your deepening experience of embodiment.

Month 1: May

Theme: Co-creating Our Container
Practice: Pausing

month 2: June

Theme: Finding Ourselves, Finding Each Other
Practice: Centering

Month 3: July

Theme: How We Learn Safety
Practice: Attunement

 

Month 4: August

Theme: The Wisdom of Adaptation
Practice: Stabilization

Month 5: September

Theme: Being There for Ourselves & Each Other
Practice: Being With

Month 6: October

Theme: Designing the Model as We Fly
Practice: Living From Choice

 
 

“Personal Practice was an incredible experience that enabled me to find more comfort within myself.”

 
 

Through Personal Practice you will:

  • learn new somatic skills and strengthen existing ones

  • continue to build emotional and nervous system regulation

  • access a consistent, supported environment

  • embody and put into practice what you’re learning

  • foster greater embodied understanding of yourself

  • access a nurturing space to explore group work

  • practice being vulnerable at a pace that’s right for you

  • build your capacity to stay with your experience

Who Personal Practice is for:

  • you have an introductory understanding and beginner practice of somatics ex: orienting, containment, resourcing, titration, pendulation, the window of tolerance, the role of the nervous system etc.

    • this may be as a graduate of How To Feel (my introductory eight week course )

    • or as a 1-1 client of a practitioner who uses somatic experiencing, trauma resolution or another somatic modality

  • You want to deepen your self-awareness, improve your emotional and nervous system regulation, feel more connected, engage in group process, and create more structure to help you put your learning into practice.

  • You’re not in crisis, and have enough stability that you feel ready and willing to show up for a collective care process.

  • You consider yourself highly sensitive and/or are surrounded by sensitive folks, and want to support yourself and others better.

 
 

“Varvara adeptly holds a nurturing, safe container that allows for both deep vulnerability and expansive space. She guides us to deepen our understanding of ourselves at a pace that works for each of our individual bodies. If you’ve spent some time getting to know your body, and you can sense that you’re needing more support around your own practices - this group is for you.”

 
 

TUITION AND REGISTRATION

Personal Practice tuition is on sliding scale pricing which offers financial accessibility to those who need it and a chance for those with financial stability to share from it. A great big thanks to Alexis J. Cunningfolk for their writing on sliding scale pricing .

 

Supported Price
$200 USD X 6 months
or
with 1-1 support $350 USD X 6 months

The Supported Price is for you if you struggle to meet basic needs and paying for this program would be significant or stressful. BIPOC, queer & trans, working class, disabled, neurodivergent and immigrant folks to the front please.

Standard Price
$350 USD X 6 months
or
with 1-1 support $550 USD X 6 months

The Standard Price is the actual cost of the program. It’s for you if you have some financial stability and some expendable income. Paying for this class will likely mean prioritizing this above other non-essential spending choices.

Redistribution Price
$500 USD x 6 months
or
with 1-1 support $750 USD X 6 months

The Redistribution Price is an invitation for those with financial security to contribute to the tuition and lives of your peers with less financial privilege. White, cis, able-bodied, settler, university educated folks to the front please.

 

Application Form

To ensure a similar starting point and group cohesion, registration for Personal Practice is by application.
Please fill out the form below and I will be in touch within 3 business days.

Applications close Monday, May 9th at 5pm EST or when the program is full.

 

“Personal Practice is a container of inspiring folks willing and ready to dive deep into themselves, in relationship with and in support of each other. Varia is your intuitive and knowledgable guide, cultivating a safe, caring environment in which your are free to learn about, explore and express yourself.”

 
 

WHY LEARN WITH ME:

I’m a reluctant expert on embodying our feelings.

Having grown up in Moscow during the fall of the USSR, there wasn’t a lot of space for me to feel my feelings as a child. Developmental trauma and a highly sensitive temperament meant I learned to ignore, control and hide how I felt no matter the cost.

Then came a traumatic immigration, fundamentalist christianity, chronic depression and multiple painful attempts at coming out as gay to conservative family and friends. The cost of not feeling, not being in my body and being there for everyone other than myself became too much to bear.

Cue thousands of dollars and over a decade of therapy later, I learned how to discern what I was actually feeling, developed the skills and capacity to stay with myself and get through to the other side of any emotion. This new capacity set me free and awoke me to the beauty of life, the wisdom of my feelings, and the gift of being embodied.

My own liberation birthed an unrelenting devotion to healing, both for myself and others. As I healed, I trained in Gestalt psychotherapy, spiritual care, facilitation, and co-active coaching and launched Be With. I have supported hundreds of clients through 1-1 and group coaching, workshops, retreats, classes and more. I have a dozen years of personal growth, therapeutic work, somatics, anti-oppressive study, and ritual practice as my foundation. My approach is politicized, trauma informed and spiralic. As a teacher, I am sincere, playful, full of stories, and committed to making abstract concepts tangible, actionable and and something anyone can put into practice.

I am a devoted student of somatics, work closely with my own intuition, and am forever grateful to my most formative practitioners Katarina Maatta-Hebdon and Marika Heinrichs. My approach is also shaped by the work of adrienne maree brown, Lindsay Mack, Brené Brown, Rachael Maddox and Rob Bell. My deepest bow goes to each of them, as well as to the many mystical traditions that shape the lineage of teachers I belong to, including the teachings of the Buddha, Indigenous spirituality, many Christian mystics of past and present, and the deep and wide rivers of Pagan worship, ritual and magic.

 
 

This program was a container for sustained shared practice with a very supportive and doable pace, no information overwhelm and lots of experiencing. Varvara provided such a safe space for all of us to feel present and share vulnerably with the group.

 
 
 

2022 Program Dates & Times

 

Bi-Weekly Sessions:

May 17th: 6 -8pm EST

May 31st: 6 -8pm EST

June 14th: 6 -8pm EST

June 28th: 6 -8pm EST

July 12th: 6 -8pm EST

July 26th: 6 -8pm EST

Aug 9th: 6 -8pm EST

Aug 23rd: 6 -8pm EST

Sept 6th: 6 -8pm EST

Sept 20th: 6 -8pm EST

Oct 4th: 6 -8pm EST

Oct 18th: 6 -8pm EST

Weekly Practice Sessions (Optional):
May 19th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
May 26th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
June 2nd: 12 - 12:40pm EST
June 9th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
June 16th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
June 23rd: 12 - 12:40pm EST
June 30th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
July 7th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
July 14th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
July 21st: 12 - 12:40pm EST
July 28th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Aug 4th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Aug 11th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Aug 18th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Aug 25th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Sept 1st: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Sept 8th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Sept 15th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Sept 22nd: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Sept 29th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Oct 6th: 12 - 12:40pm EST
Oct 13th: 12 - 12:40pm EST

“Personal Practice is a wholly unique and magical experience of gently pushing your capabilities while being accepted entirely as you are. This beautiful container reflects Varvara’s genius knowing, intuition and experience, to bring together folks all committed to their personal work, to learn from each other as well. I am so much better for this experience. It models accepting the ongoing, non-closured process of healing in human existence, and enable you to put in the repetitions to build more of a solid practice when you don’t have access to the live container anymore (the recordings are great!). This was one of the most beautiful, healing experiences in community that I have had and I am deeply grateful for it. Thank you Varvara and my personal practice pals!”
“Just do it. Commit fully. You are investing time in yourself above all even if you feel like you don’t know what you are doing or expect. Like all new learning, it is how much of yourself you put in to the practice and being mindful of your takeaways each week. When you know you want to be involved in this work, this is the best time to broaden that discovery. You set your own intentions for yourself. Be tender with yourself while setting intentions. You are doing your best.”
“Personal Practice is a supportive and safe space to build the skills and capacity for being with the “what” rather than searching for the “why” or “how.” As someone whose pattern is to think their way through feelings and go straight to searching for solutions, searching for WHY I’m feeling this way, or WHY I’m spiralling, or HOW I can move through this and heal, this program was a really beautiful, non-heady way of building up my ability to be okay with not knowing the “why” or “how”, and getting more familiar and comfortable with the “what.””
“Working with Varvara has been a game changer for me and has helped me grow so much. It has allowed me to feel more resourced and grounded and also have a language to share my knowledge with my partner(s) and loved ones. Varvara’s approach is one I’ve been missing in many spaces (intersectional, inclusive, open minded, loving) and it makes me feel extremely happy and lucky for this opportunity. I’m definitely going to repeat with the new classes she offers!”