We each have a few stories that help us rationalize, tolerate, and manage our emotions.

But what if our go-to stories, our general strategies and usual explanations for strong feeling states that sometimes overtake us  is wrong, or perhaps just incomplete?

What if there isn’t one narrative explanation to point to that explains why we feel the way we do in any given moment, but a convergence of many different needs and responses to a wide spectrum of stimuli?

What happens when a strong emotion preoccupies our thoughts, sits as though stuck in our bodies, and our favorite schemas and stories no longer help it move through?

These are the kinds of questions we will examine and contemplate together, and explore various spiritual and psychological strategies to hold and release and re-frame strong affect.

“In addition to learning of different ways to understand emotions, I found it really healing to talk with others about our experiences of being made to suspect and disconnect from our feelings and how we might try another more self-accepting way “

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“Martha offers a little toolbox: ways to notice messages from our emotions that we’ve been habitually overlooking, and strategies for how to listen to those messages when we’re constrained by the demands of daily life, or scared of what those emotions might reveal to us or ask of us.”

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For more testimonials, click here:

Each session is a facilitated discussion focused around a theme and a series of discussion prompts: evocative excerpts from relevant works of religious and psychological theory and spiritual texts: We will touch on ideas from writers and practitioners such as Arnold Mindell, Katherine Peil-Kauffman, Thomas Merton, Tricia Hersey, and Lama Tsultrim Allione, as well as texts exploring spiritual practices - sources including Quaker practice, Jungian alchemy, Tibetean Buddhism, Taoism, Catholic mysticism and more

Discussion is followed by a period of guided contemplation and brief silence, offering an opportunity to integrate content. Before closing the session, time will be reserved to share any after-thoughts that may have emerged during reflection.

Some subjects covered in this workshop:

• Fatigue as teacher

• Emotion and inflation

• Oscillation as a model of emotional health

• Fixation, blocks and possession

• Common explanatory narratives

• Negotiating bliss and other “holy emotions”

• Emotions as unconscious compensation

• Self-regulatory information

• Heeding our bodies and limitations

• Beyond mindfulness - detachment as a starting point

• Alternative strategies for receiving and engaging with emotional data

The goal of this workshop is to help people examine their current explanatory frames for their emotional response, and to offer additional and supplemental tools for tending to our emotional lives drawn from various contemplative and psycho-spiritual perspectives

• This is not a psychotherapy group and this group and does not take the place of proper psychotherapeutic, medical or psychiatric care. Nothing discussed in this group should be considered clinical guidance.

• Those struggling with active or passive suicidal thoughts or gestures, or severely disruptive traumatic symptoms should not enroll in this workshop without active support from treatment providers.

• If you struggle with a mood disorder, I’d encourage you to talk to your psychotherapist first, and discuss these ideas and practices in your psychotherapy.

• You are welcome & encouraged to share some of the articles or the video content listed under “more information” with your providers as part of your discernment about enrolling in this workshop.

Also: this workshop does explore various spiritual, religious perspectives from an agnostic and respectful perspective– including various Buddhist, Catholic and shamanic viewpoints. If discussions of religiosity or spirituality are offensive or annoying to you, this workshop will not be a good fit.

This group actively welcomes members of different professions, races/ethnicities, gender identities and socioeconomic realities, spiritual/religious beliefs and practices.  The expectation is that we come together to try to hold each other’s diverse experiences with mutual respect.

I facilitate my workshops according to a modified model of community group processing derived from Quaker practice that emphasizes the freedom of each participant to regulate their own participation according to their needs.

I do not require cameras on at all times and I try not to pressure quieter members to share although it is certainly nice to see faces and hear from everyone, and I will occasionally check in on people who are more reserved to see if they have anything they want to share.

The model of processing here less focused on cross talk between members, and more focused on parallel subjective sharing - holding up all of our divergent responses and experiences alongside each others so that we may get a glimpse of a larger whole.

We do not gather to persuade, correct or change other’s points of view, but to listen and understand how differing perspectives may exist together.

Participants are welcome to take breaks as they need, no one is pressured to participate in the contemplative exercises that are offered, and may choose to sit in silence or use that time for personal reflection if they so chose.

I can, when people have scheduling conflicts or emergencies or illness record sessions upon request. Recordings are double password protected, and shared only with workshop members - and deleted after two weeks.

I expect workshop members to be able to rely on their personal and professional supports to process feelings and ideas that emerge after or in between sessions - although we will touch base at the beginning of each group about anything that emerged for anyone in the “in between” that they choose to share.

• $490 is the suggested but flexible donation for 6 sessions/ 9hours of programing (or approx $54 an hour) for those who are financially comfortable

• If you are experiencing financial hardship you are welcome to attend for half ($205) or a quarter ($103) of the suggested donation or whatever is affordable based on your financial circumstances

• I expect to offer up to four free/pro bono seats in my workshops depending on group size/enrollment

• If you are in a position to do so, please consider making a donation to provide scholarship funds to community members who have interest but do not have resources.For example: a $100 donation subsidizes one full scholarship seat in the group, and $25 covers a quarter of the cost of a full scholarship

• These are not clinical services, and insurance will not reimburse for any part of this content

Some of the themes that have emerged in these essays will be explored further:

Doing their Job

To the Bottom and Through

This recording of a recent Community Discussion offers a preview of the content we will explore more deeply and offer more space in this workshop:

You may use this discount code to access it for free:

Roller Coaster Preview - code PFWAJE5

Discernment and Emotional Function