For many, the holidays stir up much more than celebration. They can reopen old wounds, activate family roles we thought we’d outgrown, bring up big waves of grief for family members we’ve lost or the childhoods we wished we had, or bring up specific painful memories woven into the time of year itself.

Since our brains track the difficult events that happened in our past and connect them with particular times of the year and particular gatherings of people, we are often living two lives during the holidays: trying to live and survive our past life, while simultaneously trying to live and be present in our current life.

For all of these reasons, our unconscious contracts are often incredibly activated during the holidays, particularly the ones that underpin our Broken Fields. These internalized roles and beliefs bind us to how others have seen us, or how we once had to be in order to survive. Our Broken Fields are made of the haunting imprint of someone else’s negative image of us, which has been internalized so deeply within us that we live in constant reaction to it. Broken Fields cause us to get trapped in double binds—unable to rest without guilt, or to show up with joy without fear of judgment.

What human brains need more than anything else during difficult experiences is resonance. And we change difficult experiences into the possibility of something better when we release the contracts that put us in our double binds.

This workshop offers an experience of the release of unconscious contracts, resonance, connection, and accompaniment throughout the full duration of the holiday season. Starting in mid-November and ending in late January, we will be there with one another as we feel into the negative views created by our Broken Fields and work on releasing the contracts underpinning them. We’ll learn how to recognize and release internalized unconscious contracts, interrupt “dead end” family patterns, and stay rooted in self-connection even when surrounded by old triggers.

Being enrolled in a class that carries us through the holiday season means that we will all have a counter weight of accompaniment and shared understanding of how difficult this time of year can be, and we can, together, experience both gallows humor and moments of joyful self-understanding. We will accompany one another in ways that help us feel less alone, less confused, and more empowered to make conscious choices.

As the Earth turns and the light begins to return (or, in the Southern Hemisphere, reaches its peak), we can begin to shed inherited burdens and open to the possibility of renewal. When we are able to soften what’s been held in our nervous systems for too long, we can make room for presence, joy, and the unexpected delight of new choices.

This course is for anyone who dreads the holidays more than they enjoy them and who longs for something different. It’s for people grieving, people caregiving, people estranged, people showing up anyway, and people trying to find their own center inside the swirl. Together, we’ll create space for humor, compassion, spiritual reflection, and meaningful change.

Let this be the year you move through the season with more support, more truth, and more of your full self intact.

Week 1: Broken Fields: Self Image and Family Gatherings
Week 2: Transforming Self-Sabotage in the Holidays
Week 3: Mom and Her Home: Contracts About Existing
Week 4: Dad and Gifts: Contracts About Contributing
Week 5: Siblings: Contracts About Competition
Week 6: Families: Recovering from the Holidays
Week 7: You and the New Year: Contracts About Participation
Week 8: Questions and Integration

Anyone from total beginners to experienced resonance practitioners are welcome. This course is for anyone interested in seeing how to minimize the influence of broken fields during daily life and in dyadic session work, to practice and receive support as supportive practitioners to have solid ground when trauma arises for those you are holding space for.

This course also supports space holders and people who are interested in therapeutic and emotional session-work, including resonance partners, empathy buddies, therapists and social workers.

Assistant support is available during classes. There are three ways this happens:

• In groups of three with one assistant and two participants, so that participants can practice the breakout exercises with support.
• In small groups, with 1 assistant and 3+ participants, with work with one participant occurring by lottery, and the remaining participants observing.
• Depending on assistant availability, the third option is 1-1 support to receive resonant processes like time travel and unconscious contracts for material that comes up during class.