Shifting Survival Stuck Spots

Explore how default survival responses generate a limiting narrative of who we are rooted in fear. Experience how authentic connection with Nature and the Divine can heal our hearts and anchor us in love. Practice embodied tools for repair that can free our meeting communities from common Quaker Stuck Spots. The fascinating field of interpersonal…

Workshop Description

Explore how default survival responses generate a limiting narrative of who we are rooted in fear. Experience how authentic connection with Nature and the Divine can heal our hearts and anchor us in love. Practice embodied tools for repair that can free our meeting communities from common Quaker Stuck Spots.

The fascinating field of interpersonal neurobiology sheds light on how humans are literally hard wired for connection. Toxic stress and trauma (often intergenerational) creates default survival patterns that can keep us stuck in threat responses; this perpetuates a limiting narrative of who we are when mired in fear. Families and groups of any kind, including Quaker meetings, can get stuck in dysfunctional patterns that block our ability to be full present with each other. Awareness of our survival stuck spots can positively impact our physical and mental health and the quality of our relationships. Quaker social worker Heather Sowers shares insights gained from 30 years of therapeutic work with families and groups:

• Learn about the Window of Presence and how our neurobiology impacts how we function in the world. Discover how the Inter-Compass is a spiritually centered tool that incorporates our Quaker testimonies into a useful framework that helps us create and maintain emotional regulation and balance in our daily lives. The Inter-Compass tool maintains and expands our Window of Presence.

• Explore how our early attachment experiences impact our Window of Presence. Learn what Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are and how trauma impacts our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. The ACEs framework provides our meeting communities with a way to talk about trauma and toxic stress without re-traumatizing ourselves or others.

• Using the “Just Get Thru” framework, learn how our systems can get stuck in survival patterns to toxic stress and fear.

• Explore common Quaker Stuck Spots. Using role plays and other interactive formats, learn how to use the practical “4RP” tool (Regulate, Relate, Recognize, Request, Pray) to repair harm in our relationships.

• Our final day together leaves spacious time for worship, integration, play and Spirt led ritual as well as Meeting for Healing.

This workshop is designed for those in helping and services roles – professionally and/or in their meeting community. It’s aimed at therapists, health care workers, clergy and teachers as well as meeting clerks and those who serve on Ministry & Counsel or Pastoral Care committees. We will explore how trauma impacts the ways we interact with each other, but this is not a therapeutic setting to process personal traumas or disclose trauma narratives. This workshop is not appropriate for anyone who often becomes emotionally overactivated or disconnected during personal interactions as a result of sad losses, big changes and/or scary things that have happened in their lives. While many folks suffer from complex trauma and are searching for relief from symptoms and an embodied approach to healing, that is not the purpose or focus of this workshop.

This workshop is grounded in the belief that Nature is a primary source of spiritual nurture, which is why it will take place outside. We will meet comfortably outdoors under a canopy where participants will have room to move as they are led and to be connected to the natural world in a way that is accessible to people of any activity level.

Participants should bring a journal or notebook as well as anything they need to be comfortable outdoors including a folding camp chair if possible and a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen and a water bottle.

Recommended reading for this workshop is:
The Co-Regulation Revolution: Tap the Power of Embodied Connection for Trauma Healing & Anti-Oppression Work by Beth Dennison

Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma
by Elizabeth A. Stanley PhD

Leader Experience

As a social worker and experiential educator, I have facilitated hundreds of group personal growth experiences throughout my 30-year social services career as well as in other spiritual/secular settings. I have been a clinical therapist for the last 11 years. • In August 2023, I offered a 2-hour version of this workshop at Baltimore Yearly Meetings Annual Sessions. In February 2023, I co-facilitated a 6 hour version of this workshop for BYM’s Ministry and Pastoral Care Committee. In October 2022 I offered a 90 minute “snapshots of this workshop for Gunpowder Friends Meeting.