Embodied Awareness:
7-Day Somatic Meditation Retreat
A 7 Day Process of Divine Recognition and Embodiment
With Sasha Medvedovskaya & Kyle Brooks
Upcoming Retreat Dates:
November 22 - 30, 2024
March 7 - 15, 2025
Have you ever sensed there is more to who you are than just your thoughts, emotions, sensations and the day to day story or working, shopping and watching movies?
What if the key to true fulfilment lies not in improving, changing or escaping your human experience, but in fully embodying it?
The essence of the Tantric path is Embodied Awareness.
This retreat invites you into the experiential recognition and embodiment of your essential nature.
Within my body are all the sacred places of the world… I have not encountered another temple as blissful as my own body.
- Mahasiddha Saraha
Content
- Are you tired of restlessly scrolling through social media and other distractions?
- Have you ever felt that there’s something you’re missing out on in life? Like an elephant in the room that you can’t quite see, but you know is there?
- Do you ever feel burdened by the weight of life? numb, dry, bored or fed up with the humdrum?
- Or maybe you’ve been meditating for a while already, witnessing thoughts, becoming more dry, abstracted from your life. Does that feel like the perfect freedom and joy that you were promised?
Embodied Awareness touches the essence of the Tantric path—a journey into the heart of being where the body and awareness are revealed as two inseparable sides of the coin called life. This retreat invites you into the possibility of a life-changing recognition: the direct experience of your true self through contemplative inquiry, somatic meditation, and subtle body practices. Here, we move beyond intellectual/abstract understanding, “I am not this body or these thoughts”, to an embodied realization, where every cell in your body awakens to the truth of who you are.
This practice is not about transcending the human experience, but fully embracing it. Through cultivating intimate awareness of the body—both the physical and the subtle energy body—you learn to inhabit your form with greater sensitivity and presence. The more we open and sensitize the body, the more the "honey" of our inner recognition—the essence of our being—flows effortlessly through our actions, speech, and presence.
The teachings and practices of this retreat are rooted in the traditions of classical Shaivist and Buddhist tantra & Hatha Yoga (in the style of Hridaya Yoga)
In This Retreat
Contemplative Inquiry:
Deep, reflective questioning that leads you to explore the nature of your own awareness, dissolving false identities and beliefs that obscure your true self.
Somatic Meditation:
The recognition of awareness/consciousness as the most subtle dimension of the body. Opens to the intuitive sense of non-separation between your physical form and the innermost pulsation of aliveness called ‘I’.
Subtle Body Practices:
Techniques designed to awaken and develop sensitivity to the energy body, enhancing your ability to perceive and direct subtle energies within and around you. These practices cleanse the energy channels or ‘pathways of experience’, leading to deeper and more refined intimacy with life.
Conscious Movement Practices:
Consciousness is not limited to the conditioning of body and mind, through profound and innovative movement practices, we open to the full range of our latent potential of self expression.
Relational practices:
We will explore the recognition of non-dual awareness in pairs and while interacting with nature (outside in the forest!)
These practices are designed to bring you into a direct experience of embodied awareness, where you can feel the unity of your body and spirit in each moment.
The definition of samsara is a mind that parts company with the body. The definition of an awakened person is one for whom there is no separation of mind and body. To know the body is to know awareness. To know awareness in its pure state is to know the awakened state.
- Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Discover Yourself
Engaging in Embodied Awareness practices offers a path to deeper self awareness, acceptance, understanding and expression. As you cultivate this deep connection to your body and awareness, you’ll discover: A deeper, more intimate relationship with yourself: Understand and experience your true nature beyond the mind's chatter and emotional turbulence. Greater sense of intimacy with life: Practice an unconditional openness towards life that gradually breaks down the veil of separation. Enhanced sensitivity and intuition: Develop a heightened awareness of subtle energies within yourself and others, fostering more authentic and meaningful connections. Find meaning and significance: Allow the truth of who you are to shine through in every interaction, creating a life of integrity and harmony. Juiciness!: Feel more alive, more radiant and full, more confident, complete and at home in your own skin and enjoy the richness of this beautiful world. Resilience: Learn to hold your ground, transmute emotional energy and smile in the face of the stress, difficulty and drama that life throws your way. By grounding yourself in embodied awareness, you unlock a life of deeper fulfilment and spiritual realization, where every breath, every moment becomes an expression of your true self.
Schedule
07:30-09:00 Morning Practice
We will learn and develop a series of practices around the themes of:
Awareness Cultivation
Sensitizing the body
Energy body awareness
09:00-10:00 Breakfast
10:00-11:00 Morning Topic, Group Discussion
Exploring a range of themes related to the spiritual journey from the perspective of the great Non-dual Tantric traditions of India and Tibet
11:30-13:00 Embodiment Exercises
Solo and partner exercises that explore the themes of the retreat in non-rational ways.
We will explore expressing emotions and the elements through the body, interacting with nature, with each other from a depth of presence that for most people is almost completely unknown
13:00-16:00 Lunch
16:00-16:45 Topic
Exploring a range of themes related to the spiritual journey from the perspective of the great Non-dual Tantric traditions of India and Tibet
17:00-18:00 Practice
Continuing to build upon and develop the practices explored in the morning sessions
18:00-19:00 Dinner
19:00-20:00 Open Discussion and Evening Practice
Please Note: We require a minimum of 7 registrations in order to run a retreat. If this number is not reached 2 weeks before the start of the retreat, the retreat will be cancelled. In such cases full refunds will be offered for deposits and any further payments made.