This interactive workshop invites participants to experience and explore Focusing – a bottom-up (somatic) process that supports and helps to shift the psychological and emotional landscape related to climate change and the broader polycrises. Focusing is one of the original modern somatic-oriented therapies and its wisdom and approach are embedded in many popular healing modalities. Through guided exercises and breakout sessions, attendees will experience how Focusing connects us to our inner knowing in a way that helps us find the clarity and heart to engage with the world in whatever way we can best be of service. Focusing is a powerful tool for peer-to-peer listening, whether in therapy, Climate Cafés, or group settings.
Meet Your Hosts
Jenn Wesanko is a leader in communications and psychology working at the forefront of the climate and broader environmental crisis. She is a certified Focusing Trainer offering personal and group training, Focusing-Oriented therapist, and Somatic Experiencing practitioner. Informed by decades of climate and social change work, somatics, and scholarship in psychology and communication, Jenn holds multiple roles as a communications expert, psychotherapist, group facilitator, organizational advisor, and educator. Jenn’s understanding of climate change, biodiversity loss, and a changing social landscape includes advising federal cabinet ministers on policy, and communications, collaborating with Indigenous leaders and communities in support of Nationhood and land protection, and, more recently, facilitating community healing circles following catastrophic wildfires. Jenn also facilitates group workshops and trainings with organizations working on climate and nature-related issues. Her clients include the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Indigenous Leadership Initiative, and the Smart Prosperity Institute, among many others. She is co-founder of a land based initiative, Ocean Ambassador’s Canada that connects young people with the ocean. Committed to helping others see themselves in the world more clearly, Jenn aims to help people find and revive practices that bring us into connection so we can engage in the world with clarity and heart.
Annette Dubreuil is an Embodied Creativity Facilitator, Coach and Focusing Teacher at PUPA. She teaches individuals and groups, including future Focusing Teachers through her two-year program as a Certifying Coordinator with The International Focusing Institute. Annette trains her students and clients to strengthen their access to their intuition—especially the intuitive knowing that whispers to us in our bodies—before the sensations become emotions, images, concepts, words; in short creativity. Annette uses different tools to access this inner knowing, most notably Focusing. Through Focusing, we can also access our inner resources, to gain the confidence and courage to act on our new ideas. Her clients include academic research projects environmental not-for-profit organizations. Annette developed the PUPA process, a crossing of Gendlin’s Focusing and MIT’s Theory U to help support her students and clients as they undertake transformative change. Annette is especially passionate about working with people who want to transform themselves to change the world—to make it more sustainable and equitable. She has a special interest in climate change, and hosts Climate Circles that enable climate action. Annette has an undergraduate degree in environmental science from the University of Waterloo and a MBA in sustainability from the Schulich School of Business. Her previous work was dedicated to sustainability and climate change research, most recently as communications director at Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission. She enjoys gardening, rock climbing, cycling, and cooking.
Resources
https://pupa.ca/courses/p/holding-space-climate-crisis-other-existential-emotions-focusing
jennwesanko.com
pupa.ca