The Art of Being Human

A pod is a small learning group of approximately three students supported by one Teaching Assistant (TA). Your pod becomes an important part of your experience throughout the training, offering a consistent and supportive environment for learning, practicing, witnessing, and being witnessed.

The pods are chosen anew for each seminar. We use a simple and meaningful process called “The Beads,” which Clara learned from Myrna Martin.

Each participant chooses a bead from a bag, and the beads are grouped to form the pods for that seminar. This means your pod changes from seminar to seminar, giving you the opportunity to learn, practice, and be in relationship with different members of the training community.

There can be something surprisingly valuable about not always knowing who you will be partnered with. For some, this may gently bring awareness to old patterns around belonging, attachment, uncertainty, or whether there is room for us in relationship. We are interested in creating just enough challenge to invite growth, without creating so much stress that the nervous system becomes overwhelmed.

Within your pod, students take turns working with the material. One person has an opportunity to explore their experience while the others practice witnessing and holding a supportive, regulated space.

These roles rotate so that each student has the opportunity to experience being the person working with their material, as well as being a witness and learning how to hold space for another person.

This process allows students to learn not only through thinking and talking about the work, but through their own nervous systems and relationships with one another.

In this work, “material” refers to patterns, sensations, emotions, impulses, relational responses, and implicit experiences that may live beneath conscious awareness.

Our earliest experiences, including experiences around conception, pregnancy, birth, and early relationship, can shape the developing nervous system and influence how we experience safety, connection, separation, belonging, and relationship later in life.

The intention of the training is not to search for or manufacture memories. Rather, through creating the conditions for safety, awareness, and healthy relationship, students have opportunities to become aware of patterns that may already be present within their nervous systems and to explore them in a supported way.

Item descriptionA central principle of the training is that healing becomes possible when the conditions for safety and healthy relationship are present.

Students learn and practice principles of relational safety, secure attachment, co-regulation, presence, and healthy relationship. Within this learning container, we begin to notice how our nervous systems respond in relationship and how early patterns may continue to influence our lives.

The work is experiential because we are not simply learning these principles intellectually. We are practicing them with one another.

Both are essential.

We provide a strong foundation of cognitive material and theoretical understanding, while also recognizing that some aspects of human development cannot be fully understood through intellectual learning alone.

The experiential work gives students an opportunity to explore what they are learning in their own bodies, nervous systems, and relationships. The two forms of learning continually inform one another.

This is actually a beautiful example of how the work can begin before you ever enter a pod.

A concern about whether there is room for you can sometimes be connected to very early experiences of belonging, welcome, or uncertainty about whether there is space for you within the larger field.

In pre and perinatal work, we are interested in exploring these kinds of implicit patterns with curiosity rather than assuming a particular story or cause. The question itself can become an opportunity to notice what happens in your nervous system when you imagine taking your place, being welcomed, or wondering whether there is room for you.

Yes. We believe it important for prospective students to have an opportunity to experience this kind of experiential learning before committing to the full training.

We plan to offer upcoming Womb Surrounds and other pre and perinatal learning opportunities where you can begin to become familiar with the work, experience the importance of taking turns, and get a sense of what it means to participate in this kind of learning container.

We especially encourage prospective students to attend a Womb Surround.

Check out our events page here or email Clara to schedule an appointment.

Yes. Continuing education credit will be available for eligible mental health professionals.

More information about CE approval, eligible professions, and the number of credits available will be provided as those details are finalized.