About The Training

The Art of Somatic Healing

Spend the weekend in our sunlit retreat center nestled on the river in the North Cascade mountains learning the latest research alongside ancient wisdom.

In our 3 days together you will complete Head & Heart’s trauma informed somatic training which focuses on research and experiential practice to foster your own, and/or your client's, inner compassion and confidence.

‘Soma’ is a Greek word for ‘the living body known from within’. Unfortunately society has lost connection and trust from what our body’s sophisticated communication strategies. Somatic healing is an experiential approach towards mindbody integration — or wholeness. Together we will build a deep reverence for this body you call home.

Pain such as grief, anxiety, stress, trauma, depression — aren’t just stories in the mind, they are imprints the body carries. Head & Heart integrates Polyvagal Theory, Attachment Theory, Ecology, and Somatic Awareness to teach the language of the body. Head & Heart’s integrative approach offers a compass towards safety, authenticity, and resilience.

You’ll learn to guide yourself and/or clients:

✔ From overthinking to embodiment
✔ From rigidity to balance
✔ From criticism to compassion

The Art of Somatic Healing covers 3 pathways to health:

The Heart Brain | The Inner Prism | The Ancient Brain

The Heart Brain

The head and heart are in constant communication through the sophisticated Vagus nerve, an information superhighway running throughout your body. Self-compassion is a word used frequently, yet to fully embrace ourselves with love we must awaken the neuropathways of the heart. There is ever-increasing research revealing the evolutionary reliance on our heart for wisdom and intuition. You can learn tangible, evidence based tools to awaken the heart which can promote nervous system regulation skills, expansion of a window of tolerance, and a hope for acceptance and flexibility. These are major components that contribute to health and well-being.

The workshop will include interactive lecture alongside guided Somatic Journeys into the heart. You will gain tools to unravel and release blockages physically, psychologically, and emotionally. Receive tools to re-build the sacred connection with your heart that you can weave into your relationships, work, and personal practice.

Learn the language of the heart.

The Inner Prism

Deeply influenced by her training in EMDR, Earth Based Spirituality, Yoga, Contemporary Psychology, Mindfulness training, and Crystal Singing Bowls, Ellen Slater has created an approach that leans on the body as the guide. In addition to her academic training, Ellen has dedicated herself to personal healing including immersive experiences in indigenous countries, multiple shamanic experiences including in Utah and New Mexico, and studying with a Guru and Sound Healing Center in Indonesia. All of this has lead to a key component to the Head & Heart approach, a unique, one of a kind framework called “The Inner Prism”. This approach recognizes the multi-dimensional nature of all living creatures and recognizes our responses to the world are sophisticated adaptations.

These adaptations or ways we show up in the world are aspects of our unique inner prism. Like a prism, these “inner aspects” are influenced by our own temperament alongside our environment. Some aspects are highly driven and other aspects are soft and tender, some aspects are sad and jealous while others are joyful and confident. The aspects are dynamic and can blend with one another, some represent particular ages and others are just a felt sense in the body. Relating to your inner world as a prism offers a new paradigm of self-love.

Ellens’ Inner Prism approach combines intellectual understanding with direct experience and offers an evidence based path to integrating and balancing your inner world, healing any painful adaptations that no longer serve you, and finding wholeness. You will gain deep skills in how to listen to your body and get to know your own or client’s inner aspects, creating a healthy and loving relationship with your inner world, thus influencing how you reflect and create the world around you.

Learn a new way to listen.

The Ancient Brain

“The land knows you, even when you are lost.” - Robin Wall Kimmerer 

Return to your deepest and most intimate relationship, your connection with earth. Ellen uses the term Ancient Brain to refer to the deep knowing that we all have within us that we are interdependent and connected to our ecosystem. The Head & Heart treatment model offers healing of the deep, centuries old rupture from earth. Our nervous system was designed in reciprocal relationship with earth — awaken this ancient knowing as an antidote to our fast paced modern world. Discover your own relationship with the Ancient Brain, and learn tools to teach others. Co-regulation is one of the most important aspects of healing, it is the process wherein another nervous system provides support when you are overwhelmed, modeling calm behavior, and creating a safe and responsive environment. Earth is one of our greatest co-regulator and is available anytime.

The Ancient Brain is an enormously under-utilized resource in the field of psychology. Research repeatedly shows spending time in nature improves our mental and physical health. What if we took this beyond spending time and into a deeper, kinship relationship with our environment. Re-learn how to communicate with the trees and be nourished by the plants. Join us for an immersive exploration, through experiential guided practices, of how our bodies' connection with the outside world can aid in the reduction of stress and the increase in safety and ease. Learn how to bring the “Ancient Brain” into your clinical practice or home life. Come with curiosity. Leave with a feeling of gratitude.

You are breathing with the trees.