Why Join In? We are coming together as human beings of light with expansive hearts and the intention to work together to explore our co-creative process. The learning goal was to initiate greater flow, personally, professionally, individually, and collectively; examining how we responded to life's challenges and opportunities.

What's the Connection with Trauma? I have just finished teaching a year-long course titled Compassionate Response via telephone and internet for a pilot group of healers, bodyworkers, artists, and therapists. Among other applications, we will use Compassionate Response with trauma. I am excited at the possibility of partnering with John and some of my colleagues to share Compassionate Response with you, and explore whether and how it might be of use in your work with trauma.

What will we do for two and a half hours? We will open with a brief, formal welcoming ceremony, setting our intentions for our work together.

I will orient you to the four steps below, the guideposts or structure of the Compassionate Response practice:

1 - I give myself permission to feel compassion/be compassionate.

2 - I notice my distance from the suffering.

3 - I notice what draws my attention.

4 - I notice what is happening in my heart as energy.

Next, we will break into a brief partner exercise working with the first step. Your partner might have been an old acquaintance from the Online Events UK community, or someone you've just met during this seminar.

You and your partner will be put in a private online room, able to see one another's faces and hear one another's voices; the larger group are not able to see or hear you. After, you will rejoin the larger group for discussion about the first step. Then we will brake out again with new partners for the second step, and so on, through all four steps.

After the fourth partner exercise, we will take some time in the large group or smaller breakout groups to reflect together on what we are observing and learning.

We might also build into the process of exploring the four steps in succession and alternating awareness among the steps, or that might be for another time.

We will close with a brief, formal ceremony of thanks and acknowledgement.

Workshop Facilitator: About Amy Skezas

About Amy Skezas

I am interested in the creative process, and especially how we can respond creatively to life's challenges and opportunities. I've found that when I move my awareness more deeply into my heart energy center and follow four steps that I call Compassionate Response, this movement opens possibilities for more creativity and better outcomes in situations.

I use Compassionate Response for myself and in working with clients, and I have taught Compassionate Response to practitioners from various disciplines (bodyworkers, therapists, healers, etc.) via the telephone and the internet. We've all noticed that Compassionate Response is helpful with issues around trauma.

In this interactive session, I will teach you the four steps. There will be time for your feedback and questions as we explore together.

I live on a small permaculture farm in California with miniature sheep and goats, livestock guardian dogs, bees, chickens, trees, shrubs, grasses, and wildlife. I enjoy relating to beings as part of a system of consciousness in Nature, the master teacher of the creative process. I've been married for 14 years to my partner, best friend, and fellow neophyte farmer. The biggest joy of our marriage is the co-creative process.

My areas of professional focus have included creative writing; spiritual direction; faith community organizing; and seminar and product development through my company, RoseLight, where since 1990 I've taught about self-awareness, meditation, and subtle energy work. I am a graduate of all the CSTD Supervision in the Helping Professions training courses, including the Training the Trainers course, and a member of the CSTD Postgraduate Institute for Supervision. My formal education includes a B.A. cum laude in international relations from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.