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Workshops, Groups, Retreats

Caroline offers classes, workshops and retreats in person and virtual. Group sessions incorporate creative movement, expressive arts, improvisation, somatic awareness practices, meditation and Systemic Constellations.

Participating in a group is recommended for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the wisdom of the body, engage in a growth process, and reconnect to a natural state of creativity and grace.

 

To attend a group no previous experience is necessary.

Group offerings include themes below. Please contact Caroline for detailed information and dates.

depression therapy

Eco-somatics and Expressive Arts in Nature

Caroline’s work in nature gives participants the opportunity to take time away from their usual environment and move and explore their bodies in dialogue with the outer landscape. Attending a group in nature can help participants to 

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  • Shift consciousness

  • Open new levels of awareness 

  • Expand perception of all senses 

  • Understand the body as a process that is part of nature 

  • Heal personal and collective wounds

  • Experience embodied belonging

  • Improve stewardship with ourselves and the planet

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The Hawaiian Islands, some of the most beautiful places in the world, provide a powerful container for explorations in nature, as participants explore the link between their bodies and the Earth.

Body Part Mythologies

Using the Life/Art process developed at the Tamalpa Institute in California, participants engage in a creative dialogue with their personal stories focusing on the somatic experience and expression of the body. Each session provides the opportunity to explore a different body part through movement, drawing, and creative writing. Some of the associated themes and metaphors include: 

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Head: Masking and Unmasking 

Spine: Posture in Life 

Shoulders: Burdens we Carry

Pelvis: Creation and Sexuality

Legs and Feet: Balance, Off/Balance, Grounding

 

The series culminates in the creation of a self portrait, forming the basis for a final ritual that symbolizes the vision of self in daily life.

Somatic Meditation and Breathwork

Movement starts with breath. Breath is movement. Our breathing reflects every emotional or physical effort and every disturbance. Connecting to the breath as often as possible is an essential way to return to the body and self, to relieve anxiety and offer nourishment.

 

Caroline’s meditation classes are based on Embodied Mindfulness, developed by Jamie McHugh. Embodied Mindfulness is a contemporary somatic approach to traditional contemplative sitting practices focusing on breath, alignment, and stillness.

Art Therapy

Dream Bodies

Exploring dreams gives us the opportunity to learn more about our inner worlds and access images and symbols usually not accessible in our waking life.

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Since ancient times and throughout many cultures dreams and their meaning have been seen as existential messages. Dream Bodies explores dream work using the tools of movement-based expressive arts therapy, somatic therapy, and Jungian-inspired approaches for further inquiry.

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The intention of “Dream Bodies” is to “befriend” a dream, which means getting to know the dream like one would get to know a person. Letting dreams take people into deep inquiries, as well as restore and activate real life dreams is a goal of this approach.

"Caroline Kleindienst 's workshop in nature  was a combination of sharing personal stories, sensing nature with our bodies and drawing what we felt. It was a wonderful afternoon - touching stones, smelling trees and listening to the wind. At one point I remember hugging a huge boulder that had been warmed up by the sun. I imagined that it felt like laying on an elephant's back.

Caroline managed to create a feeling of sisterhood and everyone shared both tears and laughter and there was such a wonderful warm atmosphere.  She gave us wonderful exercises throughout the day. The last thing we did was to find a special place in the forest and experience it with our bodies. At first I was a little afraid... Afraid that I might get dirty, that there were spiders, etc. But as I climbed further in and lay down in between trunks, I relaxed more and more and finally almost melted down into the tree. I closed my eyes, put up my legs into the tree and kind of dozed off and had a vision. A vision of me giving birth. I didn't have any children at the time, but I had a very wonderful feeling of how supporting it would be to give birth in that tree. And the grief and sorrow was, if just for one moment, exchanged with love and hope for the future. I am now the proud mother of my son Abel and the birth was a wonderful experience- even though  it didn't take place in a tree... Maybe next time!"

~Evalou Hauge, Designer, Kopenhagen, Denmark

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