Workshops

Workshops allow for deeper dives into the ancient practices and philosophy of qigong and yoga. In the company of other curious souls, we journey on a shared enquiry to sense into the relevance of these practices to our daily lives. I typically include time for sharing as part of each workshop, giving participants an opportunity to be heard and to listen to and acknowledge others.

I offer workshops both in-person and online via Zoom. If you would like to be notified about upcoming workshops, please subscribe to my newsletter.

 

Upcoming workshops:

MIDWINTER SANCTUARY (online live gathering via zoom)

Cacao, sharing circle, and restorative yoga.

Amidst the busyness of life and holiday preparations, take pause and offer yourself a gift.

We will share cacao (*), then connect together in a sharing circle: sharing verbally what is arising within us and listening to the sharings of others. What might it feel like to express your present-moment experience knowing that you will not be interrupted, questioned, or offered advice? Come feel the freedom, space, and warmth around your heart that can arise from mindful communication. In the second half of the workshop, we will let our bodies naturally move towards relaxation through the practice of restorative yoga.

Allow the relaxation, warmth, and connection cultivated in the Midwinter Sanctuary to flow into your families this holiday season.

(*) While I am not able to prepare cacao for you at this online workshop, I will share with you my recipe for two restorative tonics (one with cacao and one cacao-free), which you can use to prepare your own tonic for the workshop. Alternately, you are welcome to bring a different beverage of your choice.

Date and time:

Sunday December 22nd, 2024 16:00-18:00 UTC

Investment and registration:

Register for the workshop by emailing . The workshop is offered in the spirit of dana (generosity, reciprocity). To receive the zoom link, I ask for a registration fee of 10 EUR/USD (1500 ISK). Then, I invite you to support me with an amount reflecting what you have received from practicing with me and your financial means. Suggested support amounts are 20-50 EUR/USD (3000-7500 ISK). To transfer the registration fee and offer dana, please visit my PayPal page (within Iceland, please contact me for bank transfer information instead). Thank you for your generosity.

 

Past workshops:

FLOWING WITH EASE THROUGH TRANSITIONS

September 2022 and 2023

Somatic movement, Qigong, and slow flow yoga.
Steadiness within the groundlessness of life.

For many, August and September are months of transitions. Summer – with its holidays and long days spent outside – gives way to a shift in focus towards work or school. Family members may leave home to pursue careers or studies in faraway places. How do we navigate this transitional time? Can we make room for all our emotions and flow gracefully around challenges? Where do we find support to steady and reorient ourselves towards center?

Daoist Flow looks to nature as our greatest teacher and offers that the experience of the outer and inner are inseparable. To find steadiness amidst groundlessness, we first connected with the Earth beneath our feet and the feeling of Earth’s gravitational pull on our bodies. From here, we enquired into the felt experience of our own inner center. Somatic movement, slow flow yoga, and Qigong were the tools for our shared enquiry. I created space for reflection and optional voicing of experience. Together, we invited the ancient teachings of yogis and Daoist sages to awaken the wisdom already present in our bodies as we seek to bring ease to life’s transitions.

 

MIDWINTER SANCTUARY

December 2022

Cacao, sharing circle, and restorative yoga.

Amidst the busyness of life and holiday preparations, we offered ourselves a moment of stillness. We allowed our bodies to naturally move towards relaxation through the practice of restorative yoga. With a calm, relaxed body and nervous system, we connected with each other in a sharing circle. Sharing cacao, then taking turns to share verbally and hold silent space for the sharing of others. We noticed what it felt like to share our present-moment experience knowing that we will not be interrupted, questioned, or offered advice. We felt the freedom, space, and warmth around our hearts that can arise from mindful communication and allowed the relaxation and warmth cultivated in this midwinter sanctuary to flow into our families and holidays. 

 

RESTORATIVE SAVASANA

November 2022

Rest is as essential to our health and wellbeing as the food we eat and the air we breathe. And just as the quality of food and air determines how much nourishment we can receive from them, so does the quality of rest define its replenishing nature. Restorative yoga – the use of props to support the body in stillness – allows us to experience the healing benefits of rest at a deep level. As our nervous system shifts into parasympathetic state, the body naturally moves towards a state of hormonal balance, healthy digestion and immune function, and many other positive physiological effects. We shift our experience towards a state of inner harmony in body, mind, heart, and spirit. This experiential workshop was fully dedicated to restorative rest through the exploration of savasana, a reclined resting pose. In the first half, I shared how and why to support the body with props in order to create the conditions for quality rest. I then guided a 20-minute experience of restorative savasana, allowing the participants to feel for themselves the nourishing nature of this practice.

I offered this workshop both in-person and online in the form of Facebook Live. The recording from the Facebook Live event is accessible here: Restorative Savasana Facebook Live.

 

TRANSFORMING SUMMER’S ENERGY INTO NOURISHMENT

June/July 2022

Summer is the time of maximum outwardly expression of yang energy. The scent of flowers fills the air. Having unfurled from tight buds during spring, bright green leaves cover the canopies of trees, maximizing the surface area available to harvest life-giving energy from the sun. Transformed into sugars, trees transport sun’s energy into their roots, to nourish the roots and to re-build energetic stores that will sustain the trees through the winter and fuel next spring’s growth.

Being part of nature, we too can come into harmonious relationship with the cycles of the seasons. Sensing the energies of the cycles from within our bodies, we too can transform the energy of summer into deep nourishment that will sustain us.

This workshop was a shared enquiry into nature’s energies and transformations through breath awareness, qigong, and restorative yoga. I created space for reflection and sharing of experience. I invited the participants to offer themselves this time for self-care: to relax and receive the warmth of summer, allowing it to nourish their deep energies.