Cultivating Conscious Relationships
New Culture Intensive
Will be back in 2022. Dates TBD.
Earthaven Ecovillage
Near Asheville, NC
Join Sarah Taub and Harold Kornylak for a dynamic weekend of learning and growing in community, as we work to build fertile soil for healthy relating. Everyone is welcome, no previous experience necessary.
About the Class
Join us for a dynamic weekend of learning and growing in community! This experiential workshop, led by expert facilitator Sarah Taub and her team, will help you to develop skills and practices for cultivating healthy relationships, with a special emphasis on consent, courage, and compassion.
Knowing your truth, speaking your truth, setting and honoring boundaries, working skillfully with emotional triggers, holding compassionate space for others, developing curiosity about ourselves and others, letting go of attachment to being “right” – all of these contribute to loving and intimate relationship with self and others.
All relationship styles are welcome. We’ll engage body, mind, and emotions in our exploratory and experiential learning process.
Sessions
- Weaving our Web of Connection and Intimacy
- Compassionate Self-Inquiry: Key Skills for Love
- Consent Culture: Boundaries and Beyond
- Snuggle Party and Connection Games
- Designer Relationships
- Clearing the Channels: Courageous Clarity for Profound Connections
More detail on sessions is below.
Program
Friday
4:00pm Arrive. Set-up camp. Settle into the land.
6:00pm Dinner
7:30pm Weaving Our Web of Connection and Intimacy
Saturday
8:30-9:30 Breakfast
9:30-12:30 Compassionate Self-Inquiry: Key Skills for Love
12:30-2:00 Lunch
2:00-5:00 Consent Culture: Boundaries and Beyond
5:00-6:30 Break
6:30-7:30 Dinner
7:30-10:00 Evening: Snuggle Party and Connection Games
Sunday
8:30-9:30 Breakfast
9:30-12:30 Morning: Designer Relationships
12:30-2:00 Lunch
2:00-5:00 Clearing the Channels: Courageous Clarity for Profound Connections
5:00-5:30 Closing Circle
Sliding Scale Tuition
Because some people have more financial means than others, we have created a sliding scale fee system to accommodate a range of economic realities. The high-end of the scale reflects the value we believe the program holds, and the low-end offers a more accessible entry point.
By choosing a higher price point, you are helping make the program more accessible to others for whom the low-end may be cost-prohibitive. Please consider your needs and resources to determine what might be a stretch, but not a strain.
Cost
Full Weekend (Fri-Sun)
Tuition Sliding Scale: TBD
Partial Weekend (Fri-Sat)
Tuition Sliding Scale: TBD
Whats Included
Tuition includes instruction, food, 2 nights of camping and all materials. Private indoor lodging and transportation are available for an additional cost.
Scholarships
We offer partial scholarships (50% of the bottom of the sliding scale) to black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) with financial needs who otherwise would not be able to afford to attend. We understand that BIPOC experience more financial and institutional barriers to participation, and this is one way we are able to create more access. If you identify as BIPOC with financial needs and would like to receive a scholarship, please contact us.
Session Descriptions
Weaving Our Web of Connection and Intimacy
Who are you? Who am I? Who are we? In this high-energy, interactive workshop, we’ll find out more about the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of everyone present. We’ll explore curiosity and transparency as attitudes and practices that support healthy relationships, whether with lovers, friends, co-workers, or community members. We’ll have some short, fun exercises where people can develop the courage to share about themselves transparently and to ask questions based on curiosity. We’ll deepen into a space of compassionate connection as we begin to understand each other more deeply. We’ll also begin the exploration of consent skills, in that everyone is encouraged to check in with themselves and choose exactly how they participate.
Saturday:
Compassionate Self-Inquiry: Key Skills for Love
As we move through the world, we create stories that we hope will help us understand ourselves and the people around us. Sometimes these stories do help, and sometimes they get in the way – especially when we jump to conclusions and interpretations that go far beyond the information our senses are providing us. If others create a different interpretation from the same information, we can find ourselves in conflict with them without understanding why. Our stories can generate powerful emotions in us – fear, joy, anger, sadness – which may lead us to take actions that don’t serve us. How do we hold our emotions skillfully, even when they feel overwhelming? How can we recognize when we are creating a story, and become curious about what other stories might be just as true or even truer?
Clearing the Channels: Courageous Clarity for Profound Connections
Although we desire deep rich connections with our intimates, barriers arise even between the closest friends or lovers. After weeks, months or years, these little things take their toll, and your connection is less than it could be. A regular practice of checking in with the people you’re close to can save you so much heartache down the road. In this workshop we’ll practice easy, doable tools for sharing the things you haven’t been saying to your loved ones. You’ll be able to put them to use right away, and you’ll see how good it can feel to keep the channels clear.
Consent Culture: Boundaries and Beyond
How many of us say “yes” to things we don’t actually want out of guilt or a fear of losing connection? In many ways, “no” is the most daring and intimate response possible – if I can hear your “no”, I can trust your “yes.” In this dynamic workshop, we will:
Go over the conceptual foundations of creating a culture based on people following their inner truth rather than taking actions due to guilt or shame.
Address the “learning cycle” and how one creates new habits.
Experientially develop inner awareness of what one is feeling/sensing/reacting to others.
Practice making requests and offers, giving real responses, and working with the feelings that come up throughout.
If desired, give and receive consensual hugs, shoulder rubs, hair stroking, and similar types of touch.
Snuggle Party and Connection Games
We will open up a playground to explore consensual, platonic touch in community. Nurturing touch has been shown to release compounds (i.e. oxytocin) which help lower blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels, and contribute to feelings of connection and emotional well-being. No one is required to touch another person in this workshop; you’re welcome to talk, cuddle, read a book, or observe – observation is full participation.
Designer Relationships
Every relationship is unique. Through communication and honesty you and your loved ones can play however you want to on the spectrum of connection! Many of us have not been taught tools for navigating the landscape of discussing our needs and desires with the ones we love. How do you know what choices to make that give the best chance of having your relationships turn out well? We will explore the various configurations that relationships can take, and what the advantages and challenges of each are.
Logistics
Food
Delicious, omnivorous meals are prepared by talented culinary artists from the Earthaven community. Vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options available. Snacks and beverages (tea, coffee) are provided. Participants are invited to help with meal clean-up. Many hands make light work.
As much food as possible is sourced from Earthaven and its surrounding farms and gardens, with some ingredients sourced from local grocery stores. Our meals are created with seasonal, local, fresh, wildcrafted, humanely-raised, and organic ingredients.
***If you have dietary needs beyond the ones listed here, please be prepared to bring supplemental food to support your nourishment and well-being. Our kitchen simply cannot accommodate all diets.
Program Specific Info
Full Weekend: Six meals are included, Friday dinner through Sunday lunch.
Partial Weekend: Four meals are included, Friday dinner through Saturday dinner.
About the Facilitation Team
Cultivating Conscious Relationships Faculty Sarah a cultural activist whose passion is creating events where people transform. She teaches the skills of peaceful, sustainable community – self-awareness, honesty, clear boundaries – and facilitates group processes of many sorts, including consensus decision-making, business meetings and retreats, ZEGG Forum, and conflict resolution sessions.
Sarah Taub
Cultivating Conscious Relationships Faculty Harold Kornylak, D.O., practicing since 1983, specializes in Osteopathic manual medicine, Psychotherapy, Intimacy Enhancement, Tantra, and a wide variety of body-oriented psychotherapeutic approaches. His passion is continuing to refine his unique ability to help others to experience fulfillment and ecstatic states in their life and relationships.
Harold Kornylak
Registration
Registration for summer 2022 will open in early winter.