Relating Arts Retreat

Focus of this week will be a real deep dive into your self-leadership and deep embodiment through circling, surrendered leadership and embodiment practices.

We practice connecting deeply to your vision for your life and what you most care about - not through vision boards or mind maps but through presence, movement and embodied expression in relation to others. We will be with what we most want for ourselves and how that shows up in our moment to moment experience. What is it like when we lead ourselves more towards what we really want and also sense the ways in which we might shy away from it or hold back.

Every day we will move between time spent in nature, in movement, in self-connection and contact with others to explore landing deeper in our embodied experience.

What is it like being part of this world rather than looking at this world?

Practicing being in- and relating from our present moment experience shows us powerful new ways of being together, it invites us to sense and notice what is really going on, in ourselves and between us, moment to moment, and makes it possible to leave our habitual ways of acting. Bringing awareness to whatever emotions, sensations or thoughts arise may not be comfortable all the time. However, it is often both enlightening and healing, because it lets us move from autopilot to being awake to the uniqueness of each moment.

By sharing our experience as it arises, we drop into presence and connect deeper and more vulnerably. You never quite know what will come up and we surrender together to what arises. What always seems to show up are experiences of connection, vulnerability, depth, personal insights and new ways of being. Usually there will also be some chaos and challenges that ask us to move towards our next growth edge. This is also an exploration of freedom and self-responsibility. You do not have to sit still. You do not have to talk. You do not have to listen. You are invited to follow whatever feels right for you in the moment, and then experience how that affects those around you.

The group field offers us very clear and direct feedback about how we impact others. We invite you to practice freedom of expression that stays connected to receiving how others are impacted by us. The resonance and feedback we receive from others in every moment tends to guide us towards our most truthful expression of aliveness. Through these practices, we develop our sensitivity and empathy, build capacity to be with more of life, we become better at understanding our impulses and intuitions and we learn to communicate and act on our boundaries and longings more clearly. Experiences of synchronicity, collective wisdom or unusual, deeply insightful states tend to show up after a while.

The Program

Since the practices we are using for this retreat are emergent in nature, meaning that they do not produce a particular result but all about allowing experience to show itself, for form to unfold, the program will also be of this nature. We have some guidelines below so that you can still get a sense of our starting point, and then we will listen to what wants to emerge when we are all together.

We plan to offer

• Ecstatic dance to drop into your body’s intuition

• Nature Connecting sessions in the forest surrounding the house

• Embodiment sessions with movement and touch

• Discover deeper attunement to others and ourselves

• Practicing the different circling forms, partner exercises, focus circling and surrendered leadership circles

• Explore self-leadership, through desires, agency and will

• Explore collective wisdom

• Meditation sessions

• Expressing through sound and sound baths

There will be workshop blocks every day before lunch and in the afternoon, with scheduled activities and optional practices in the mornings and evenings also. There will also be time for you to be in your own flow.

The retreat program starts on the evening of Saturday 25th April and we wrap up on the morning of Saturday May 2nd at Casa Tilo outside of Barcelona. Your ticket includes 7 nights accommodation, from Saturday to Friday. If you will enjoy some more co-living time, you are welcome to arrive as early as April 23rd and stay up to May 9th (at an additional cost).

What is Circling & Surrendered Leadership?

Both those terms want to be lived and experienced by you, rather than understood through a description. Just the same way that it is hard to describe to someone what a hug feels like, relational presence practices are also experiential and felt. Circling shows us the path towards more presence and awareness and then relating to others from there. We will do pair explorations and practices in groups of different sizes.

Both circling and surrendered leadership invite us to become present with our experience just the way it is, without an objective or goal to change it or guide it to any particular outcome. This tends to allow more of our experience to emerge and people are usually struck by how much more they connect to the depth of their experience, as well as how much happens when you don’t try to fix anything.

Surrendered leadership means that we practice surrendering to what is already happening and emerging and trusting in the intelligence of Reality. We do not actually know best what wants to happen, but can bring our leadership into alignment with the present moment. You are invited to both lead yourself and surrender to the present moment with us.

You are not required to understand this practice or know more about it beforehand in order to participate, and there is more information about it available online if you really would like to explore it more.

Is This For You?

You are welcome both as a beginner and advanced practitioner.

The Team

Navi Säregård - weird, and also incredibly experienced, skillful & fun explorer of life, usually found dancing or moving and deeply attuning to people, they are a cheeky monkey disguised as a body therapist, and they will guide us into other realms in our experience of our body with their music. They have been leading circling since the early circling days in the States.

Marei Christensen - a grounded, deep & psychoactive presence with extraordinary capacity and spaciousness, that beautifully and softly slides into the most extreme spaces and brings everyone along with her. Could make reality into a smoothie through her heartfelt nuancing. She has been working with clients as a coach and psychotherapist for four years and has been leading circling even longer.

Markus Schnizer - a very sensitive, sensible and receptive magician when it comes to body work, has the capacity to surf on perspectives as if he was just in a playground. Markus works as a body therapist and leads events on trauma and embodiment.

Richard D. Bartlett - an incredible host & musician that turns people into a more radiant & alive version of themselves

Michael Tong - deep effortless open presence

Alice - brings her enthusiasm and love for this practice and honesty to the team

And others - Let us know if you are an experienced leader and want to join us for the team. Different leaders are supported and encouraged to step into their leadership edge during this retreat. This means that you get to experience a lot of different flavours of leadership during this retreat.

Prices

The price for this retreat is split into two parts: Casa Tilo accommodation and food for 7 nights and then the retreat facilitation by Navi & Marei & the team.

If you are based in Europe and not VAT registered, 24% sales tax will be added on top of the price.

Casa Tilo - accomodation for 7 nights plus food & snacks

385€ Dorm room (up to 5 people)

525€ Shared room (2-3 people)

665€ Private room

Workshop facilitation

500€ Workshop ticket low income or certified circling leader

700€ Workshop ticket

900€ Workshop ticket high income

We want people to be able to participate. If your financial situation is challenged, you can reach out and ask for a discount and suggest a price.

The term “Circling®️” is a registered trademark.

Mareike is certified to lead the European Circling Approach, and is licensed by the International Circling Federation to use the term, in accordance with their guidelines. Read more on internationalcirclingfederation.org