clarity in consent

About: This is a weekend retreat that explores desire, boundaries and pleasure through the body. Facilitated in collaboration with Daniel Little, somatic sex educator.

Dates & Times: Satuday, July 25th 10:00 – Sunday, July 26th 1:00pm.

Location: Held on Daniel’s land and barn studio in Charlotte, VT.

*Can stay on site camping on in the barn studio.

Contribution: Sliding scale, $125-275.

What to Bring: Yourself, a witness observer, a willingness to explore, comfortable clothing with layers, a journal and any drawing materials, camping gear if you’d like to spend the night.

ABOUT

Have you found yourself saying yes when you mean maybe, or going along with something you don’t want? Many of us can find it challenging to communicate clearly what we want and don’t want, for a myriad of conscious and unconscious reasons. Sometimes, when asking for what we want feels too risky, we hold back. We learn at a young age to self-manage without noticing, dampening our own aliveness and calibrating our self-expression to what we think other people want from us and what will secure our attachments. We lose contact with the clarity of yes, no, and maybe, and with our authenticity and true desires underneath.

This is a weekend of slow embodied practice to help us find the path back to our aliveness, and to nourish both authenticity and belonging, alongside other people seeking the same. We’ll use Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent as a guide to the dynamics of intimate exchange and relationality. What we call erotic energy is part of the journey: the aliveness in us, and the ways we let it move. Throughout the weekend we’ll practice asking for what we want, naming what we don’t, and meeting one another with utmost care. Choice and voice run through every practice.

The pace is inquisitive. We will slow down enough to notice and we will be witnessed in the noticing. Through these practices, we make the unconscious more conscious, enabling us to have more choice in our everyday lives. Our hope is that through this container, you’ll leave more attuned to your own desires and more able to name them. You’ll be clearer in your boundaries and know what it feels like to honor them. And you’ll have practiced the kinds of asking, offering, and witnessing that make intimate exchanges more deeply nourishing and pleasurable.

The retreat unfolds across meadow, woods, and stream, and inside a barn studio nestled in the rolling hills of rural Chittenden County, Vermont. It is held by Daniel Little, Somatic Sex Educator, and Julie MacAdam, Somatic Therapist and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.