October 11, 2021 through July 10, 2022
Weekly material including exercises, & homework on Mighty Networks Platform
Eighteen 90-minute group calls
All humans welcome
Sliding scale pricing based on US Dollars
Option 1 :: $177/month for nine months for those who can pay extra to allow me to offer lower rates
Option 2 :: $141/month for nine months recommended price
Option 3 :: $99/month for nine months for those needing partial funding (limited space available at this option)
Option 4 :: $73/month for nine months for those in need of extra crisis funding (limited space available at this option)
**If none of these pricing options are feasible for your family’s financial situation and you are deeply called to this work, please contact me directly (gwynn at gwynnraimondi dot com) to see if there are other partial scholarship or payment plan options available
Note: By registering for this program you agree to the Office Policy and Client Service Agreement terms and conditions.
Registration now closed. To learn about future offerings, subscribe to my newsletter here.
Unprocessed trauma lives in all of us. Be it from the traumatic events of our own lived experience or that of our ancestors or the traumatic impact of living in our oppressive culture.
Trauma impacts us emotionally, psychologically, and physically. It alters our DNA. It affects the ways we are able to interact in the world.
Some of the signs that we have trauma living in our bodies:
- Unexplained or “illogical” fear
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Hyper-vigilance (also related to fear and anxiety)
- Extreme irritability
- Emotional dysregulation (mood swings; cannot soothe self easily; once activated into anger or sadness or fear cannot easily come out of it)
- Disassociated from the body (cannot feel your body or sense your physical boundaries; bumping into walls or furniture, not knowing where bruises or cuts/scrapes have come from)
- Disassociated from the present (stuck in past and or future thinking)
- Inability to concentrate and stay focused on one thing for an extended period of time
- Self-isolation (withdrawing from or not connecting to others)
- Feelings of shame and self-blame and claiming responsibility for things that are out of your control
Additionally the following physical health issues are also associated with trauma:
- autoimmune disorders
- gastrointestinal disorders
- reproductive system disorders
- fatigue
- thyroid and or adrenal dysfunction/endocrine system disorders
- insomnia and/or nightmares and/or night terrors
- racing heart beat and shortness of breath (panic and anxiety attacks)
- muscle tension
- sexual dysfunction
- migraines
Our bodies and minds are interconnected. When we experience a traumatic event not only are our minds and brains impacted, our bodies, and all the systems within our body, are too. Studies have shown how trauma lives within our bodies, in not only our DNA but also in our muscular and cellular memory. Other studies have shown that in order to truly process trauma, we need to utilize both talk therapy and somatic therapies – in other words, we need to connect with another person and with our own body to truly process the trauma that lives within us.
Trauma impacts relationships
Our relationships and our ability to relate with others, ourselves, and our world, are impacted by the trauma that lives within us. This includes (but isn’t limited to) childhood trauma, relational trauma, inter-generational trauma, ancestral trauma, and collective relational trauma. The world we live in is changing rapidly, however in order for there to be lasting change, for us to grow a new society and way of being, we each need to learn how to tolerate uncomfortable feelings – emotions and their physiological sensations – that arise during difficult conversations. We need to learn how to set boundaries for ourselves and how to respect boundaries of others. We need to learn how to self-regulate and co-regulate.
We need to learn the difference between an old trauma being activated and when we are actually in physical danger in the present moment. We need to learn how to expand our “windows of tolerance” so that we can thoughtfully respond to challenging situations instead of automatically reacting to activating stimuli.
This all asks us to be in our bodies. To actually feel the emotions and their physiological sensations. To be present. To listen without agenda and to speak our truth without blame. To intimately connect – to our bodies, our minds, to others, to our world.
We need to learn how to actually relate with each other in ways that do not perpetuate abuse and trauma and that are not complicit with the harmful patterns and cycles that were passed down to us and are still encouraged by the dominant culture.
Processing Trauma in Community
One of the impacts of trauma is self-isolation. Those who live with trauma tend to withdraw from friends, family, and our greater community. We may be able to be out in the world, however, we do not allow ourselves to connect and or be present with our environment, including the people in it.
Being in community in and of itself helps us to break the patterns and cycles of trauma as well as creates space for us to begin to process it. Community can look like one other person or ten other people. Community can consist of family, friends, mental health and medical professionals, spiritual mentors, and even strangers-who-become-friends. Our own communities today are no longer defined by physical location as they had been in years past. This creates more opportunities for us to connect with others on similar journeys in this work of processing trauma.
During our time together we will explore our how our personal traumatic experiences impact the ways we relate with others and our Self, examine how the dominant culture exacerbates our trauma and actually traumatizes us by filling our minds and bodies with fear, and how current events impact us and activate our trauma responses. We will also learn simple, practical ways to regulate our nervous systems and gentle ways to come back into our bodies, connect to our boundaries, and find our own ways to center and ground.
We heal trauma in relationship, by relating with others. However the trauma that lives within us can and often does have devastating impacts on our relationships and the ways we relate with others – from our most intimate partnerships and friendships, to our relationships with our children and parents, to our relationships with others who differ from us in some way. With this in mind, we need to remember that as a part of our personal trauma processing journey we need to learn how to regulate our nervous systems, how to connect to our physiological boundaries and reclaim our bodies as our own, find our own ways to center and ground, and acknowledge, embrace, and grow our internal and external resources. This work allows us to be more intentional, mindful, and compassionate in our own lives and in the world, to focus our rage and pain in appropriate and helpful ways, instead of damaging and harmful (to ourselves & our relationships), and move from isolation to connection and intimacy as a way of being within ourselves and in the world.
Why this offering
Because I believe in the importance of providing these basic body and mind regulation tools to as many people as possilbe, in 2017 I developed this online group utilizing the Trauma Informed Embodiment (TIE)™ modality I created and use with individual clients. This group program has been specialized over the years and this year I have given a major “update”. It has changed from a six month group to nine months, in part because of the additional material I am providing and in part because I am including multiple breaks during course to help give space for integration of the material.
I created this group originally because I understand doing this work in a group setting allows those who are unable to afford my individual sessions to still have access to this work while also having the added benefit of getting the opportunity to meet with others across the globe who are on similar paths to processing their own trauma.
What is the TIE™ approach?
Because I believe deeply in the importance and power of coming home into our bodies, I developed the TIE™ approach, drawing from the work of Babette Rothschild, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Judith Herman, Pat Ogden, Peter Levine, Ron Kurtz and others. This approach is a body-centered mindfulness (somatic) approach, which gently brings us back from a more dissociative state into our bodies, reconnecting with them, learning to hear and listen to them, while also shifting and processing the trauma that lives within us.
Because I believe in education and expanding the ways we work with others, this is an opportunity for other professionals who work with those affected by trauma to learn more about my approach and to begin to apply the information and tools in their own work and practice
In order for us to create a world where we are able to be respectful of others, their humanity, and their autonomy we need to be able to remain calm in challenging situations, to speak our truth without malice, to have compassion for ourselves and others who have had similar experiences and come together in true community, we need to have practical tools to calm our systems and the true understanding that we are not alone.
Our Process
Each week you will gain access to material on our Mighty Networks platform. This material will include essays/articles, embodiment exerices, and stream of conscious writing prompts for you to explore. We will also have bi-weekly 90-minute group calls on Zoom which will be recorded for those who are unable to attend live. Calls will be on Sundays, beginning at 11:30am Pacific (US West Coast) Time.
As with any and all self-development and trauma-processing work, you will get out of this program what you put into it. In other words: to receive the full benefit of this offering, I invite and encourage participants to set aside dedicated time each week for the exercises and homework as well as participate in most, ideally all, of the group calls.
I strongly encourage people who register for this online program to also be working with their own individual therapist. This is not a therapy or a processing group/program. This program is meant as psycho-educational and to provide practical tools to enhance your individual work with a therapist. If you are interested in working with me individually or would like a referral, please connect with me through the form on this page.
This program is open to all humans. Because of this, very specific guidelines will be upheld in the way we will interact with each other in our group setting in order to help create a sense of safeness in our group.
These guidelines are:
- We do not give advice. I have written and spoken a lot of about the downfall of unsolicited advice. In our circle we will refrain from offering unsolicited advice. Instead we will offer listening, hearing, empathy, and support.
- We do not compare life experiences. Each of us are impacted by trauma in our own personal and unique ways. Each of us live with the pain and other effects of our trauma experiences. Comparing trauma histories, saying one person has a “worse” history or another “doesn’t have it as bad” is not helpful for our processing, and in fact only creates further isolation. (Note, it is acknowledged that all of us have different intersections that impact our lives and our experiences. These will be addressed in group)
- Confidentiality. What is shared within our group, both online and on our calls, is not to be shared or discussed outside the group in any way that would identify individuals.
During our first weeks together we will discuss these guidelines in further detail.
The Curriculum
The basic outline of our nine months together is below:
- Module 0 :: Gathering
- Module 1 :: Defining Trauma
- Module 2 :: Nervous System & Self/Co-Regulation
- Module 3 :: Resourcing
- Module 4 :: Grounding & Re-Orienting
- Module 5 :: Attachment, Human Needs, & Oppression
- Module 6 :: Body Reclamation & Boundaries
- Module 7 :: Integration & Wrap Up
Approximately every six to eight weeks we will take a two week break for integration of the material we have already covered. Exact dates of the breaks will be shared during the first week of our time together.
About Gwynn
I am a former licensed marriage and family therapist now working as a Trauma Support Practitioner. The focus of my work and practice is trauma (specifically complex (developmental, attachment, & relational), inter-generational, and collective relational traumas), grief, embodiment and their intersections and how these all impact our ways of relating with ourselves, with others, and with our world. I deeply believe in the power of community. Because of this, some of my work is offered in group format.
I believe in tearing down the status quo and dismantling our oppressive culture and that this is both an internal and external process.
My training in family systems during graduate school and in universal systems (micro and macro) in undergraduate school (Bachelor of Science in Physics; Masters of Arts in Clinical Psychology), instilled deep within me the understanding of how, while we are all unique individuals, we are also part of, contributors to, and victims of our current oppressive and patriarchal culture.
What this means, is in my work I help shed light on the interconnections and intersections of our own lived experience, how the experiences of our ancestors have been passed down to us, and how the culture we live in impacts who and how we are in the world.
To learn more about me and my work, you can go here.
Have questions?
I’d love to have a 30-minute chat with you to explore if this program is right for you right now (no sales, I promise! Only answering questions. If this program isn’t right for you right now, I’m happy to offer other resources and referrals). To set up a consultation meeting you can click here.
If you’d like to view the essay and video series I created that explores the topics we will explore in this program, click on the links below:
The Physiological Impacts of Trauma
The Psychological & Emotional Impacts
You are also welcome to connect with me in the free Facebook group I offer right over here.
Interested in working with me individually instead? You can learn more and request a get to know each other meeting here.