The part can never be well unless the whole is well.
This will be an intimately-sized group.
Only 12 12 spots left. Registration deadline:
Wondering how to nurture a sharp and healthy brain? Looking for relief from chronic pain and fatigue? Curious about practices that alleviate anxiety, overwhelm, or disconnection from Self and Soul?
Join us for The Vital Self, a transformative day-long retreat that invites us to thrive in a deeply embodied way. Experience an integrative exploration of brain health, somatic movement, and soulful self-discovery.
Through the expert guidance of Dr. Linda Andersen (Brain Vitality), Alana Burton (Somatic Reawakenings), and Michelle Copithorne & Sandra McDonald (Still Lake Listening), you’ll receive tools and practices for tending the Thinking Self, the Body Self, and the Soul Self — Your Vital Self.
Throughout the day, you will:
- Enhance Cognitive Vitality – Explore the evidence-based science behind brain health in simple terms (What is happening in my brain as I age and how can I keep it healthy?), and discover strategies to maintain and enhance cognitive function. You’ll walk away with actionable insights in sustaining the pillars of brain health that support delaying dementia.
- Revitalize Through Movement – Experience the profound benefits of somatic movement, a practice that fosters deep connection between brain and body. Somatic Movement is a neuromuscular re-education practice. Through slow mindful movements, it helps uncover and release habitual tension patterns that contribute to pain and dysfunction. By actively engaging the brain in movement, your natural coordination, balance, and strength are restored. These movements are designed to be accessible to all, fostering a renewed sense of ease and freedom in the body. (Please be prepared to do this gentle practice on the floor while laying on your back, front, or sides.)
- Affirm Vitalitas (your Life Force) – Cultivate a deeper understanding of your True Self, your essence. As we reflect on the day through soulful discussion (with no obligation to speak if that feels uncomfortable for you), you will encounter spacious and safely-facilitated group conversation. You will be companioned as you explore your experience of what it is to be a Vital Human; a Human Becoming.
Your Vital Self is waiting.
When: Saturday, May 3, 2024, 9:30 am – 4:00 pm
Where: Snowbirds Lodge, 19 Balsam Avenue, Bragg Creek, Alberta
Who is this for:
- Those looking to optimize their brain health and cognitive well-being.
- Anyone seeking relief from chronic physical or spiritual pain.
- All wishing to bolster strength and resilience of brain, body, and soul.
Cost: $250.00 per person – this includes 3 sessions, lunch, tea/coffee, light refreshments through the day, parking, and use of all somatic movement supplies for retreat day.
Your guides for the day...
Explore Your Brain
She brings her 30 years of experience in neuroscience and her love for teaching to help people understand their brain better. Her goal is to make brain health practical, relatable, and easy to integrate into your daily life. You can engage her teaching through one-on-one or group sessions where you will cover crucial topics like dementia prevention, the ideal types of nutrition and exercise for optimum brain health, and practical tools to help you protect your brain as you age.
Tend Your Body
Alana’s journey is a testament to the body’s resilience and capacity for transformation. Born with spina bifida and spondylolisthesis, she began experiencing back and sciatic pain at 12, leading to spinal fusion surgery at 16.
Despite the procedure—and compounded by other life experiences such as accidents and repetitive movements—chronic pain persisted, manifesting as headaches, neck, shoulder, back, hip, and sciatic discomfort. Unbeknownst to her, her brain had developed compensatory movement patterns to adapt to both structural changes and habitual movement, inadvertently reinforcing tension and dysfunction.
Alana’s turning point came when she discovered yoga therapy, which initiated profound relief and restored mobility. This experience sparked a passion for understanding movement and healing, ultimately leading her to Clinical Somatic Education—the missing link in deep, lasting recovery. Now, Alana is dedicated to helping others unravel habitual tension patterns and rediscover ease in their bodies through one-on-one and group care. Find out more about her here: Somatic Reawakenings.
Nurture Your Soul
Michelle is a spiritual director and co-founder of Still Lake Listening. She is a partner, momma, cook, consultant, and confidante. She holds space with the dying and has experienced a messy, entangled journey with core shame, betrayal, and crisis of identity. She is a Queer Contemplative who has slogged through her own versions of complex trauma, family system dysfunction, loss of loved ones (miscarriages and parents), loss of home and career, divorce, and physical suffering (chronic disease). She has come out the other side with some scars, an intact sense of humour and mischief (although her partner still rolls her eyes at some of her jokes), and hopefully a smidgen (the beginnings?) of wisdom.
Lean Into Hope
Sandra is a spiritual director and co-founder of Still Lake Listening and she is Michelle’s partner! She’s an empathetic listener. Trauma, spiritual abuse, core shame, and relationship story are some of the growth areas you may want unpack with her. She experiences life as a Human Becoming. This means she’s left some things behind: extreme-conservative Christianity and the harsh parts of organized religion, a 30-year marriage, financial security, servitude and subjugation, being straight, and a dissociation from the essence of who she is. She is curious about engaging a patient, soulful, silly Wonder to the sloooow untangling of entrenched or crippling beliefs and stuck thinking.
Together, Michelle and Sandra create and hold compassionate and safe listening space through the practice of spiritual direction at Still Lake Listening. For them, “spiritual” is about the deepest, truest You – the You that is just, merciful, compassionate, wise, and fully good. Through one-on-one, two-on-one or group sessions, they listen with you as you discern the sounds of the Genuine from all of the other sounds streaming through your own life.
The path we'll meander...
9:30 am – Arrival, welcome, and introductions.
10:00 am – Brain health session with Linda. She will expertly guide you through:
- What happens to your brain as you get older – and why it’s so important to take control now!
- The 9 steps to maximize your brain health.
- Which foods to eat for maximum benefit and why they support brain function.
- Finally, she’ll give you a powerful memory tool that you can use every day to help you remember those foods so you’ll always be sure to include them in your grocery cart!
11:30 am – Lunch and time to refresh and connect. You’ll have space and time to experience the beautiful forest surroundings of Bragg Creek, the interconnection of conversation, or time to simply be silent and to be with your own wild and wondering self.
12:30 pm – Somatic movement session with Alana. You are welcome to bring your own yoga mat and yoga block if you have them. Mats and blankets will be provided for those who do not own them already. What is somatic movement? Clinical Somatic Education (CSE), or Somatic Movement learning, is a neuromuscular re-education practice. Its aim is to address unconscious tension patterns in the body through slow, mindful movements. You will engage the conscious part of your brain to connect with and release the unconscious tension and bracing that can create musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction. The outcome of this practice is fostering strength, coordination, and balance.
2:00 pm – Break and breathe. Time to have a little wander, grab a tea, or simply ponder what the day has revealed so far.
2:30 pm – Nurturing the Soul with Michelle & Sandra. Now that you have informed your bright mind and tended your one soft body, we shift to nurturing your spiritual self. Within a circle of established trust (we might be surprised by how connected we’ve become through the day!), this will be an invitation to explore the interconnectedness of the Thinking Self (the brain), the Body Self (our Soma), and the Soul (our True Self), with hopes of emerging as our Vital Self. We are spiritual beings having a human, embodied experience. We will explore what the day has been like for each of us, and wonder together what we can unburden, or lay down, as a result of the day. We will wonder together about how we embody hope in our Vital Self.
