Somatic Consent and Intimate Relating

We are all looking for greater connection and intimacy. But how do we get it? Where do we start? How much is our personal responsibility and how much of the responsibility belongs to our partner?

We will be looking at all of these questions and you will come away with a greater connection to yourself and tools to practice increasing your sensitivity and relationship to pleasure – with or without a partner.

It all starts with feeling safe. When you are safe, you can make choices; when you can make choices, you are empowered.

This workshop is an invitation for singles and for couples.

You will be guided in learning to touch and connect – first and foremost with yourself – in a conscious and empowered way. From here, you will learn to create agreements with yourself and with others, to access deeper levels of connection.

The foundational teachings of this workshop will be based on Somatic Consent where the main focus will be to activate your hands, improve the quality of your touch, explore consensual touch, and learn how to separate doing from giving and discover deeper layers of receiving.

“In recent years, a wave of studies has documented some incredible emotional and physical health benefits that come from touch. This research is suggesting that touch is truly fundamental to human communication, bonding, and health.”
~ Greater Good Science Center at Berkeley

Deep spiritual qualities of surrender, integrity, gratitude and generosity will unfold as you learn new dynamics related to giving and receiving. Building on this, there will be an emphasis on communication and consent, and exploring receiving pleasure through the action of taking as a foundation of love and service.

We all want to feel safe and trust, to be soft, open and vulnerable, and to let go of defences and resistance. With a lover, we want to enter into a deep space of surrender.

To bring integrity to relating, it requires clear agreements, which create trust, safety and surrender, while maintaining sovereignty. We make commitments to ourselves, first and foremost, from a place of self-love and respect.

In this journey, you will learn to:

• Understand the functionality of the nervous system and how to create safety for yourself
• Activate the somatic nervous system and our default connection to pleasure through touch
• Use your own hands (and entire body) as an unlimited source of pleasure and connection to self and other
• Feel the difference between giving and receiving and discover who it is for when we engage
• Apply Somatic Consent as a foundation for relating
• Communicate boundaries, needs and desires clearly and directly
• Practice making choices and identify, value and ask for what you want
• Redefine what is meant by “relationship”
• Create relationship agreements that are based on sovereignty, integrity, respect, choice, trust and goodwill
• Take the goal out of sexual encounters and follow the pleasure
• Stop being ‘nice’ and move beyond pleasing
• Identify and move beyond survival strategies and shadow behaviours
• Apply this in your daily life with a partner, colleagues, friends and family

There will be many interactive games and exercises offered to help you learn in an easy, playful and conscious way. These exercises can be used in your personal or professional life. Come with a partner or on your own.

No prior experience is necessary for this workshop. If you are a beginner or a professional you can start where you are and find new levels of awareness.

Consent and Safety
Everything will happen in a safe container and you will always have the choice whether you want to touch or be touched. In fact, you don’t have to touch anyone at any point in the workshop and you will still learn and enjoy the full experience. You will have many opportunities to identify your desires and limits and practice communicating them. This event will be fully clothed.