with Amalia & Kenneth
8-week series
26 October - 14 December
Mondays
6:00pm - 7:30pm CT
It is no secret that we are living through fraught times. Now more than ever it is important to learn to connect from a place of our shared humanity. This course teaches how to manage difficult conversations and communication breakdowns.
Amalia and Kenneth will teach you what is going on behind the scenes in your mind and body when you communicate. Their hope is that everyone will carry these teachings into the world and engage in conversation across differences, even when it’s difficult. Techniques will include meditation, body-based movement practices for releasing trauma, experiential learning, and large and small group discussions to practice engaging in new ways of communicating.
All participants can expect to leave this course with a clearer sense of self and a greater sense of purpose. We will examine how our past experience affects our present communication style, and how to become more aware of feelings, emotions, and needs in order to communicate effectively. Emerging from the course, you can expect to communicate from a more grounded place of grace, love, and reconciliation.
Benefits of the course:
*Learn to better regulate your own emotions so that you can go into difficult conversations feeling strong and ready.
*Learn how to recognize the signs from your body when you have become emotionally triggered by something that’s been said to you.
*Feel better prepared to manage these emotional responses, making it possible to remain calm even when conversations become tense.
*Demonstrate an increased ability to identify your feelings, the need behind your feelings, and how to make powerful requests based on your needs.
*Walk away with a greater knowledge of meditation and somatic practices specifically designed to regulate the nervous system and help you to feel safer in your body.
*Learn more about attachment patterns and how they affect our subconscious and conscious habits. We will learn to better identify our individual positive and negative core beliefs and learn techniques to manage emotional responses when trauma wounds are triggered.
*Learn to recognize the signs when you are having a conversation with a person who has become triggered and angry, and tips on how to deescalate the situation (providing the person has not become violent, verbally or otherwise).
*Recognize the power in storytelling and culture in reframing our stories from a place of strength, purpose, and passion.
Amalia Sirica is a clinical social worker and a writer. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology from Duke University, and her Masters in Social Work from New York University. Amalia’s mission is to help people heal through community and connection. She believes that there is no such thing as a “broken” person. Furthermore, we cannot have a conversation about mental health without discussing the violent and oppressive systems that many of us contend with every day. She believes deeply in equity for all, and that all are worthy of love, acceptance, and respect.
Kenneth Strickland is currently pursuing a MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a focus on Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Therapy from Naropa University. He works hard to create safe containers that allow clients to find their inner safe space. In this inner space, Kenneth has witnessed clients thrive and learn to communicate –regardless of their ethnicity, social-economic statuses, races, gender, and ability.
