Authentic Connection
An Integrative and Somatic Nervous System Immersion utilizing the Safe & Sound Protocol
“If you want to improve the world, start by making people feel safer.”
-Stephen Porges
‘Authentic Connection’ is a 12 Week, Virtual, Small Group, Integrative and Somatic Nervous System Immersion utilizing the Safe & Sound Protocol.
The title for this 12 week experience was inspired by this video (4 minutes 18 seconds) with Dr. Gabor Maté.
The Safe & Sound Protocol is a powerful listening therapy designed to support more coherence in the nervous system, so you can better connect with yourself, others and the world around you.
The Safe & Sound Protocol (SSP) was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges and is based on his research of the vagus nerve and his groundbreaking perspective on Polyvagal Theory.
Fall 2024
Cohort Schedules
Wednesday Evenings
Week 1: September 25 | *6pm - 9pm*
Week 2: October 2 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 3: October 9 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 4: October 16 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 5: October 23 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 6: October 30 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 7: November 6 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 8: November 13 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 9: November 20 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 10: December 4 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 11: December 11 | 6pm - 8pm
Week 12: December 18 | *6pm - 9pm*
All times are Eastern Standard Time
Registration Closed
0/4 Spaces Remaining
Thursday Mornings
Week 1: September 26 | *9am - 12pm*
Week 2: October 3 | 10am - 12pm
Week 3: October 10 | 10am - 12pm
Week 4: October 17 | 10am - 12pm
Week 5: October 24 | 10am - 12pm
Week 6: October 31 | 10am - 12pm
Week 7: November 7 | 10am - 12pm
Week 8: November 14 | 10am - 12pm
Week 9: November 21 | 10am - 12pm
Week 10: December 5 | 10am - 12pm
Week 11: December 12 | 10am - 12pm
Week 12: December 19 | *9am - 12pm*
All times are Eastern Standard Time
Registration Closed
0/4 Spaces Remaining
The Authentic C0nnection SSP Virtual Small Group might be supportive if you…
… don’t have a sense of your personal rhythms and cycles
… struggle to get going or feel motivated
… are exhausted, overwhelmed or burnt out
… are feeling disconnected, shut down or numb
… find it hard to communicate, be seen or be heard
… tend to put the needs of others ahead of your own
… want to expand your somatic literacy
… want to learn from and be seen by others
… have been to therapy, know your story, but still find yourself STUCK
… experience auditory sensitivities or auditory overwhelm (ex: misophonia)
… experience anxiety, depression or other traumatic/chronic stress symptoms
… have difficulties regulating your physiological and emotional state
… have dysautonomia, POTS, long-covid, chronic illness, chronic pain or chronic fatigue
… struggle with chronic digestive issues or inflammatory dis-ease
… struggle to relax or slow down
Some common themes explored during our time together:
nurturing competence and confidence in your innate wisdom
building a relationship to slowing down
building a secure attachment with self
menstrual cycle tracking alongside nervous system states
over-functioning and under-nourished
inhabiting ease and suffering better
coming to our senses!
befriending your nervous system (learning and exploring tools, language and understanding of your nervous systems and all its states)
defrosting from freeze and nurturing healthy aggression
limits and boundaries
voicing and expression
de-pathologizing and de-stigmatizing survival/management strategies
During this small group experience you will:
listen to the entirety of the 5 hour Safe & Sound Protocol Core playlist
learn about your nervous system states and physiology
learn and practice somatic resourcing skills and tools
learn how to support yourself in different states
learn how to listen to and translate the signals from your body
become more fluent in the language of your body
receive support without deep diving into your trauma history
practice connection with self while in relation to others
explore your embodied yes’s and no’s and relationship to the ‘here & now’
explore your adaptive patterning and stored survival stress
build more capacity for connection to self and others
cultivate more access to authentic expression and embodied boundaries
tend to your resilience and develop more flexibility in your nervous system
have dedicated weekly time and space to nourish yourself in the ways you need
What will we do together?
As part of a 3 (at minimum) to 4 (at maximum) person cohort, you will meet via Zoom for Twelve 2 Hour weekly sessions (Weeks 1 and 12 will be 3 hours).
Utilizing the SSP ‘Core’ playlist, nervous system education and real time somatic support and explorations, you will have the weekly opportunity to engage your own nervous system and somatic experience.
The SSP group offers more opportunities for co-regulation, learning from others and the power of healing in community. You will be witnessed, supported and gently challenged as we learn and grow together.
Although everyone will be listening individually and on their own journey, there is dedicated time to share and connect about emergent experiences, as well as integration time built in each week.
You will be provided a 60 page manual/workbook/journal to accompany and enhance the experience.
Week One: Opening our virtual circle: meet and greet, go over materials | Preparing for the SSP: nervous system 101, matrix of support activity, mapping your nervous system activity (3 hours)
Weeks Two - Eleven: Listen to 30 minutes of the SSP Core Playlist in ~10 minute increments, each followed by emergent group processing, somatic explorations and interventions, support, education and integration (2 hours each week = 20 hours)
Week Twelve: Closing our virtual circle, Share, Reflect and Integrate (3 hours)
Total: 26 hours
After you complete your SSP Application we will schedule a 30 minute complimentary individual meet and greet with me via Zoom. During this time we will go over a bit of your history, desired goals and outcomes for your time in this experience, take time to ask and answer any questions and make sure this group and modality feel like a good fit. (30 minutes)
Frequently Asked Questions:
-
We will make our way through the 5 hour SSP Core playlist in a slow and supported way.
As you listen to the music of the SSP, highlighted frequencies send cues of safety to retune your nervous system, which can help you feel more settled, engaged and balanced.
Your nervous system will communicate during the listening sessions, and may show up through sensations, images, emotions, memories, gestures and/or behaviors.
We will take frequent breaks to tend to what emerges in your system. I will provide support via co-regulation, education, exploratory cues, and corrective/reparative experiences.
While it may be challenging at times, this therapy is not meant to be hard.
This modality spotlights your somatic experience, and the story your nervous system wants and needs to tell.
-
I don’t know! But, I would love to chat with you over zoom to answer your questions, have a chance to connect and help support you having a felt sense of whether this modality is a good fit at this time in your life.
It’s my goal to support your agency, not convince you into something that may not be beneficial at this time.
Reach out if you’d like to connect, or, fill out an application to get started.
-
-
Feeling nervous or unsure is completely understandable!
Turning towards our bodies can bring up many feelings we’re not used to, or perhaps, too used to.
Part of somatic healing can be gaining more embodied clarity regarding our yes’s and our no’s.
Consultations are a great way to explore those feelings and decide if this is an appropriate therapy for you at this time in your life.
Reach out if you’d like to connect, or, fill out an application to get started.
-
Yes, of course. Life happens and perfect attendance is not expected.
If you know you have to miss either Week One or Week Twelve, it’s best that you wait for another cohort that aligns with your schedule.
If a week needs to be missed, it is preferred that it be somewhere within weeks Two-Eleven (our listening sessions).
Recordings of our time together will not happen or be available, however, you and I can create a “make-up” plan for listening if one should be missed.
-
Sliding Scale*
Rate 1 - $780 ($30/hr)
Rate 2 - $935 ($36/hr)
Rate 3 - $1,120 ($43/hr)
Rate 4 - $1,300 ($50/hr)
50% non-refundable down payment required to hold spot and begin
Fee free payment plans available
*More information and guidance regarding sliding scale can be found on the rates page
-
While I wish I could guarantee certain outcomes, that’s just not possible!
Everyone who participates in the SSP is joining with different life experiences, and therefore, different nervous systems.
What I can say is that the overwhelming majority of folks who have gone through the SSP with me have deepened their relationship to themselves in one way or another, and that has allowed for a myriad of relational and physiological changes.
The SSP is designed to support you in building greater flexibility in response to stressors and have greater capacity and ease to move into a more regulated space.
There's so many different positive outcomes that can occur when doing the SSP, however, each participants experience is unique!!
-
Over-the-ear Headphones (non-noise canceling)
Laptop with reliable internet access
Zoom account
Smartphone
Possibly an adapter for your headphone jack Examples here and here
Unyte-ILS App on Smartphone:
You might also like to have some supportive tools with you while you listen. I’ll share potential tools in your welcome materials.
-
The SSP group offers more opportunities for co-regulation, learning from others and the power of healing and tending in community. You will be witnessed, supported and gently challenged as we learn and grow together.
Traversing the somatic terrain can be uncharted territory for many! As a participant of a small group (3-4 people), you’ll have the chance to learn from others, which can help you notice things about yourself that you may not have if engaging in a solo SSP experience.
Though everyone will be listening individually and on their own journey, there is dedicated time to share and connect about emergent experiences, as well as integration time built in each week.
Having both similar and different experiences within a group can be a reparative experience in and of itself.
Sharing this virtual SSP space with others provides each participant a somatic playground to practice and deepen Authentic Connection with self and others.
There is also a financial component to consider. The SSP Group is a more economical choice than individual sessions with the SSP.
-
Dr. Stephen Porges has described the SSP as a “potent” intervention. Many people experience stronger emotions for a short time as their defense mechanisms lower and evolve.
There are some indications that the Safe & Sound Protocol is not an appropriate intervention if the following is occurring at the time of administering SSP:
• Living in a home or work situation that is not currently safe, or isn’t ‘safe enough’
• Current life upheaval, illness, surgeries without additional support
• Trauma that has never been addressed in any type of therapy; no support in place for processing trauma
• Ongoing/current substance abuse
• Current self-harm
If one or more of these are true for you, the SSP, whether individually or in a group, isn’t a great fit at this time.
-
One way trauma can be described is: “Too much, too fast, too soon, OR, not enough for too long.”
The antidote is what we might refer to ‘Goldilocks Therapy’: just enough, at the right pace, in the right time.
Learning to honor the pace of your body, your nervous system - it takes time. The pace of the body is nearly always slower than the pace of the mind!
Which is why we do this work together BBQ style: low and slow - so that your body is able to learn (and unlearn) at a sustainable and integrative rate.
This experience is not meant to replicate another “quick hit”, instant gratification, or a promise of being “fixed”, or finding “the answer.”
In a time of “go, go, go,” stolen focus, disconnection and intensity, we need spaces we can settle into, decompress, expand in, and learn to slow down enough to hear ourselves.
This is why ‘Authentic Connection’ has been structured to take place over three months, 2 hours each week.
-
This is a valid reservation! I understand that many folks work online, and/or already spend many hours per week in front of a computer. It makes sense to wonder if a virtual offering feels like a good fit.
During the listening portions of our time together each week, I encourage everyone to go off camera and explore their environment.
This might be laying in bed, or looking out the window, or going outside, or making faces in the mirror, or on the floor engaging in some movement or lying still covered in blankets, or at a table exploring different art mediums, or anything else you/we can think of that might support your listening experience that doesn’t involve being onscreen.
During our check-ins, I encourage participants to honor their bodies needs. This might be going off camera when you need to and only sharing your voice. This might be taking your eyes off screen and resting. It might be experimenting with pulling your attention inward and noticing how other participants shares are landing in your system.
There’s many ways for us to explore how to ‘authentically connect’ AND ‘authentically disconnect.’
Your task during this experience is to listen to and tend to the needs of your body, not to take care of anyone else.
-
Probably not. But, I don’t think you’re broken.
I can bet, however, that your nervous system is working really really hard, and maybe has been for a long time… for some, maybe even always.
This time isn’t set up to “fix” anyone. This time together is set up so that you can deepen your relationship with yourself, learn to work a little less hard, learn to slow down enough to hear yourself and your bodies wisdom, and learn how to suffer better (yes that’s possible).
This time together, utilizing the SSP, is about nurturing your resilience and your capacity, tending to yourself in new and nuanced ways that (hopefully) feels like attuned self care.
-
Yes, indeed.
One of my favorite questions! And perhaps best discussed together so we can really explore the nuance of this one.
Reach out if you’d like to connect and discuss during a complimentary 30 minute consultation over zoom.
