Draft Registration Link:
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Draft Announcement
Grounded Together: Building Resilience, Connection, and Community
Join facilitator Rola Al-Ashkar for a five-week journey exploring how our life experiences shape the way we respond to stress, conflict, belonging, and relationships. Through storytelling, guided reflection, and gentle body-centered (somatic) practices, participants will develop tools for greater self-awareness, emotional resilience, and compassionate listening.
Whether you're seeking personal growth, healthier relationships, or a deeper sense of connection within our community, this series offers a welcoming and supportive space. No prior experience is necessary. Please register using the following link: [LINK].
Wednesdays: Sept. 16, 23, 30; Oct. 14 & 21 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Grounded Together: Building Resilience, Connection, and Community
Week 1: Creating the container - Sep 16
The first session focuses on establishing shared agreements for how we will engage together. We will discuss confidentiality, boundaries around sharing, listening practices, and the difference between speaking from personal experience versus debating or fixing (and expression vs rage). This session creates the foundation that allows difficult topics to be explored in a respectful and constructive way. I will introduce simple grounding practices that help people stay present while engaging with hard emotions.
Week 2: Weaving our stories- Sep 23
In this session participants begin sharing stories with one another in small groups. We will explore how early life experiences especially within families and communities, shape our nervous systems and influence how we respond to stress, authority, belonging, and conflict. Participants will practice listening to one another’s stories while also noticing what arises in their own bodies as they speak and listen. It’s an opportunity for people to be heard and hear others they might have disagreed with.
Week 3: Awareness and regulation - Sep 30
This session focuses on developing awareness of internal signals such as physical sensations, emotions, and impulses. I want to introduce shadow and shame and how shame shows up in such conversations. In addition, I will introduce gentle somatic practices to help folks recognize when they are becoming activated or overwhelmed and learn ways to support nervous system regulation. I think this is key before we delve into the relational stuff, giving people tools to self soothe, and self regulate rather than project.
Week 4: Patterns in community - Oct 14
Building on earlier sessions, we will explore how personal histories and nervous system patterns can shape how we experience relationships in communities and institutions. Congregants will reflect on themes such as trust, conflict avoidance, boundaries, and the possibility of relational repair. This is where things get real :) and possibly people might start to bring in their individual church trauma, but hopefully four weeks in, we have built rapport, trust, and enough safety to share kindly and respectfully.
Week 5: Moving forward - Oct 21
This is the integration session. People will reflect on insights from the series, what they have learned about themselves and their relationships, and then consider practices that can help support resilience, presence, and healthier community life moving forward. I could offer a group NLP session supporting integration and re-writing the narrative, we could also engage in a re-writing the narrative exercise and suggestions for how they might continue to integrate other own through art, journaling, other expressions…