soft gaze
RELATIONAL ECOSOMATIC GROUP THERAPY
please fill out the contact form below or email shallyn.wells@mindfulcenter.org to set up a free, 30-minute consultation to see if soft gaze is the right fit for you
CONSULTATION REQUEST FORM
Growing up, I spent a lot of time outside with my dad. My dad is a storyteller. My dad knows that attention is a wild thing. With him, a rock could be a dinosaur bone, a mossy tree hollow could be a home for fairies, a critter could be kin, and sour grass could be the perfect snack. He taught me that there were stories everywhere, stories like tendons and fascia tethering us to the world. He taught me that attention—when tended, but left untamed—becomes awe, becomes devotion, becomes love.
soft gaze is an invitation into that kind of wild, untamed, and unforced attention; it’s an invitation to allow our curiosity, wonder, and awe; it’s an invitation to allow our dissociation, grief, and shame, too; to let it all be here, to feel the the connective tissue between us and the world.
soft gaze is for folks who want to get curious about their relationship to their bodies, to other beings—human and beyond, and to place.
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Over the course of these 6 weeks by the shore:
We will practice treating our individual and collective attention as sacred and precious and offering that attention to our bodies, to each other, and to the beyond human beings around us.
We will practice relational reciprocity with our human and beyond human kin.
We will co-regulate with other nervous systems and ecosystems.
We will experientially and relationally learn about the intersections of ecology and somatic therapy.
We will move our bodies.
We will tell stories.
The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely. As I can too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you.
-Mary Oliver
FAQs
when and where will soft gaze meet?
Sundays 10AM-12PM, September 15th-October 20th at Sea View Park in Alameda, CA (Huichin, the unceded, ancestral land of the Ohlone peoples).
how many people will be in the group?
between 3 and 8 people.
if, by chance, fewer than 3 folks have confirmed attendance by September 6th, I will have to postpone or cancel the group. if you signed up and the group gets postponed or cancelled, I can put you on a list of folks that I’ll contact when/if the group is up and running (probably in the spring, due to weather).
how much does it cost?
the cost per person, per session is sliding scale $65-95, or $390-570 for all 6 weeks.
what is included in the cost?
6 weeks of relational ecosomatic group therapy, access to a tool library (with binoculars, macro-lenses, books, and art supplies), and a soft gaze reader/field notes journal.
how does payment work?
all payment is done by card through TherapyPortal.
preferred if financially possible for you: pay for all 6 weeks at sign-up ($390-570)
if that would be financially burdensome, you can do a deposit in the amount of 1-3 sessions at sign-up, and have the rest billed weekly.
am I expected to show up to every session?
soft gaze is a 6-week commitment.
because the group is intentionally small, it is ideal for relational consistency and continuity to show up each week; and you are responsible for the cost of each week whether or not you physically attend.
however, showing up can look many different ways.
if you are interested in soft gaze, but you know you cannot attend all 6 weeks or you’re worried about your capacity to show up for all 6 weeks (for example, due to chronic illness or pain) please reach out to me, and we can collaborate on options.
covid & accessibility
the group will meet outdoors, and masks will not be required. however, masks will be provided, and we—as a group—will co-create agreements around masking and proximity that are responsive to group needs and that foster a sense of mutual care and safety.
to access Sea View Park, there is a sloped sidewalk ramp to a paved path that runs between the grass and the water. there are also restrooms on site. unfortuntely, the restrooms are not all gender restrooms. the entrance to the restrooms is flat and paved.
who is this group for?
This group is for soft souls wanting to reclaim their attention and deepen their relationship to their bodies, their selves, and their human and beyond human kin. This group is for folks who want to really get in there and notice the sacred non-binary spaces of the everyday where the pavement bumps up against the dirt, where the wild bumps up against the tamed, where the native anise swallowtail butterflies live out their whole life cycle on the non-native fennel bush, where the grief and praise mingle.
what is eco-somatics?
eco-somatics merges deep ecology and somatics.
deep ecology is an understanding of the relationships between organisms and beings that refuses and resists capitalist and human-centric narratives. in deep ecology, there is no ecological hierarchy, humans are not superior to other beings, and other-than-human beings are not inanimate commodities for humans to use and exploit. deep ecology invites us to get to know our neighbors. it invites us to broaden the scope of who we consider to be neighbors, who we consider to be a “who.” deep ecology invites us to get humble, to get curious, to get quiet, to listen with our fingertips, to look with our ears, to smell with our eyes. deep ecology invites us to flee “the shipwreck of the singular,” to be “less [ourselves] than part of everything.”
somatics is about how we experience and relate to our bodies. somatics lets healing be a process not of transcending our bodies (and the thoughts emotions, and sensations they are home to), but of being with our thoughts, emotions, and sensations, experiencing them as inseparable from our aliveness. our breath, our aches, our hunger, our thirst, our anger, our joy, our numbness, our heartbeat, our voice, our tears are each precious tethers to this moment, to this world. somatics invites us out of the mind/body binary: we can think about our feelings and feel our thoughts.