HEAL 2021 Retreat – Presenter and Session Detail

Whole Group with Jessica Mark, Owner, Happy Body and Ortho-Bionomy® Advanced Practitioner and Instructor – Expanding our Ease: Arriving and Noticing, Exploring with Curiosity, and Integrating with Awareness

By noticing our state or tone of being, we bring awareness to our physiology. By allowing our physiology to self-recognize, we support an environment for choice and change. As we practice ways to shift our physiological state in the moment, our capacity for ease increases. As we weave this work throughout the retreat we will notice, explore, and integrate various tones of our bodies, and how it can affect our ability to engage and meet the world and ourselves with sustainability, vitality, and effortlessness.

Jessica has been involved in the movement, fitness, and wellness field for over 25 years. She is an Ortho-Bionomy® Advanced Instructor and Practitioner and certified Pilates instructor. She currently owns and operates two locations of Happy Body, a fitness and wellness studio in Asheville, NC. Jessica complements her practice of Ortho-Bionomy with studies in Polarity Therapy, Trauma Therapy, and Body-Mind Centering®. Her primary focus with clients and students is to support the  integration of our physiology and how we sense our system to widen our capacity for ease and resilience. Her experience as a professional dancer has strengthened the connection of touch and movement to create an accessible and embodied style of teaching. www.ashevillehappybody.com | www.orthobionomy.net

Small Group Breakouts (attendees will choose one of the three sessions listed below for each of the breakout sessions)

Becca Clegg, LPC, CEDS-S – Resourcing the Provider (limited to 50 attendees per breakout) 

Being a care provider is difficult under normal circumstances. If you add to that a global pandemic, societal upheaval, and myriad personal and professional challenges we face as a result – many of us are feeling compassion fatigue, burn out, and overwhelm. We have experienced vicarious trauma in our work and in relationship with others, and collective trauma in our world.  It is important to acknowledge that we need care, too!

You can not pour from an empty cup – we all need to be resourced! Many of us have been so busy supporting others that we haven’t taken the time to focus on our deeper needs that extend beyond survival. This interactive workshop is designed to take you from the role of provider into the role of receiver – allowing you to step out of the caregiver identity and truly yield into what you need at this moment. Utilizing a combination of polyvagal-informed somatic work and depth psychology exploration, we will learn and experience simple, do-able exercises to help resource your body, mind and soul.  While there will of-course be takeaways for supporting others, this workshop is for you!

Becca Clegg, LPC, CEDS-S is an author, speaker, psychotherapist . Becca combines principles of behavioral science, trauma physiology, embodiment, and depth psychology in her work as a psychotherapist and teacher. Her private therapy practice, Authentic Living, is located in Atlanta, GA where she and her associate therapists treat women’s issues in person and on-line. In addition, Becca leads online programs, workshops and trainings, helping people learn how to move from reactivity to creativity, and become leaders in their own lives. Becca speaks internationally on topics including the treatment of trauma, Mind + Body  Healing, and eating disorders.  She is a certified eating disorder specialist and supervisor as well as a certified clinical hypnotherapist. She is the author of Ending the Diet Mindset: Reclaim a Healthy and Balanced Relationship with Food and Body Image, and avid blogger committed to promoting mental, emotional and physical health of all people. Most recently in 2021, Becca is the host and creator of the Inner Alchemy Podcast. www.rebeccaclegg.com

Lisa Varno, MMEd. and Certified Integrative Health Coach & MBSR Instructor – Mindfulness as a Self-Healing Tool (limited to 25 attendees per breakout)

During this session we will explore Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) research as well as research-based mindfulness meditation practices. Through a blend of presentation and practice, we will experience how MBSR provides participants the opportunity to develop the capacity to cultivate a different relationship to psychological and physical illness.  Lisa will offer the group information and implementation guidance to support their own self-healing and the healing of those they care for.

Based on 40 years of medical research, and taught in hundreds of settings worldwide, MBSR is an empirically-supported psycho-educational intervention created by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

Lisa holds a Master of Music Education degree from the University of Hartford and was a public school music teacher for ten years.  After receiving training from Duke Integrative Medicine, Brown University, and UMASS Medical School, she transitioned to a focus on mindfulness meditation, yoga, and integrative health coaching; including creating and facilitating a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) curriculum at Confluence Behavioral Health, a wilderness therapy retreat center in Thetford, VT.  She currently serves as an Integrative Health Coach and MBSR Instructor at Lantern Health, a direct primary care practice in downtown Asheville, and she is continually inspired by her clients’ capacity for self-healing.

Ann-Marie Kilpatrick, LCMHCS, ATCS, CZT – Intro to Zentangle Method for Burnout (limited to 25 attendees per breakout)

This session will allow for building foundational knowledge of the Zentangle Method and its 8 steps of intentionality and appreciation as a daily embodiment practice.  We will discuss the mindfulness of this expressive arts practice as it applies to burnout resilience while working in community to create art into the session.
The hands-on practice of Zentangle is an opportunity to create beautiful images while enjoying increased focus, creativity, self-confidence, and a positive sense of well-being. It allows for focus inward, has a positive influence on problem solving, and can be beneficial when practicing for mental and physical health.
Ann-Marie Kilpatrick, LCMHCS, ATCS is a Certified Zentangle Teacher and art therapist/ counselor in Asheville, NC. In her studio instruction, Ann-Marie teaches the Zentangle Method to assist all who attempt learning it, an opportunity to create beautiful images, while also likely enjoying increased focus, creativity, self-confidence and positive sense of well-being. Zentangle art is non-representational and unplanned so you can focus on each stroke and not worry about the result.