Grief & the Nervous System

Deeply experiential 6 week course. Keep the practices, toolkit and recordings for a year.

Understand and befriend your nervous system as a pathway to greater ease, and self-compassion. Grow your sense of calm and resilience in your body and mind. Learn to self-soothe in simple healthy ways any time, any place.

Starting 3rd June 2024

by donation from £150

Dates

Monday 3rd June 2024 –

Monday 8th July 2024

Times

Mondays | 7-9pm BST

Programme

6x Online Circles

Join our deeply experiential programme to help you soothe and restore

Understanding our nervous system and the science of human safety (polyvagal theory) is vitally important for everyone, especially so when we have the stress, tension and trauma related to grief. It can help us grow our self-understanding and self-compassion, and support our nervous system to move through the grieving process more gracefully and return back to rest/digest and restore.

This six week programme will be led by Deborah Maddison, Breathwork and TRE® (Tension & Trauma Release Exercises) facilitator and Nici Harrison, founder of The Grief Space.

What can you expect?

  • To experience deeply restorative nervous system practices and offer yourself a balm for body and mind

  • To learn an understanding of grief through the lens of the nervous system

  • To empower you will tools to be able to bring your body into more balance, ease and rest

  • To be able to identify the different nervous system states you are in, and know ‘what to do when’

  • To understand the ‘voice’ of our nervous system, to listen to the words and stories and know how to respond

  • To receive practical tools to take home with you to support your nervous system

Week 1, Understanding

Understanding the basics of the Nervous System and the impact of any trauma including grief

Week 2, Awareness

Awareness of Polyvagal Theory and how it can support us to create safety and calm.

Week 3, Listening

Listening to the voices, signs and sensations in which the Nervous System is communicating our state.

Week 4, Storytelling

Understanding how our Nervous System state is creating the stories we tell ourselves and how to start changing the stories using this bottom-up approach.

Week 5, Regulating

What is regulating, how to do it (a menu of approaches for every nervous system state) and how to talk to our Nervous System

Week 6, Anchoring

Incorporating all the learnings into daily life, a recap of the vital aspects of this course, and inspiration to keep up practices

Practices to support your nervous system

Every week you will experience a 45-60 minute practice as part of the session. Each week’s practice builds on the previous week to learn and embody neural exercises to calm and regulate the nervous system.

These are very relaxing for most people and begin the process of embedding new ways of being into your neurology, with encouragement to keep practicing.

You will need to create a cosy space, with blankets and some quiet time to either lie down or sit and immerse in these deeply soothing sessions.

You will receive the recordings of these videos to return to again and again, available for one year.

Your facilitators

Nici and Deborah have worked together across different retreats and programmes. Together, they are passionate about combining their offerings to honour the interwoven nature of grief and the nervous system and empower everyone who comes to their workshop to understand their own bodies and healing journey.

  • Nici is a grief tending facilitator, writer and speaker. She is founder of The Grief Space offering circles, retreats and workshops reimagining and remembering the lost art of grief tending. Her work honours grief as a gateway to feeling more love, intimacy and aliveness. Her work has been featured in The Telegraph and Psychologies magazine and various podcasts and festivals.

  • Deborah found TRE® (Tension & Trauma Release Exercises) and Breathwork following a long recovery journey after medical retirement from the Navy in her late 20s. Anxiety, depression, complex PTSD had swamped her, but through TRE and Breathwork she steadily found herself becoming more grounded, more safely embodied, and more alive. In addition to client work, Deborah is a Trainer with the AIR School of Breathwork, supporting the Breathwork Practitioners of the future to become not only skilled professionals, but to dive profoundly into their own healing journey. Deborah loves to share TRE and Breathwork with others and hold safe space for clients to reconnect to themselves; she offers this work with love, kindness, and compassion to all those who are drawn.

  • The six week course: Grief and the nervous system was for me a wonderful journey on how to get to know my body better and finding my way back to my body and myself. I did not know anything about how grief affects the nervous system and vice versa. I feel it has been the missing link to finding back to myself again from experiencing a great loss. Nici and Deborah guides through the course with such gentleness, wisdom and respect that has made me feel welcomed just as I am and for that I am forever grateful that I joined this course.

    – Kristina

  • “It was an absolute honour and privilege to be held in such a safe, sacred and beautiful container through Nici and Deborah’s Grief x Nervous System course. It was the perfect blend of experiential learning, theory and community. If you are in need of a hand to hold through the journey of grief (or indeed life!) this is an incredible place to start and these are the teachers to show you the way. My journey into self inquiry and my awareness of my internal environment and how i interact with my external environment has been hugely impacted by my learning. Using the knowledge and tools I learned through the course it has given me a solid foundation of support to build a home within myself, on which I can rely and come back to time and time again. I’ve recommended it to everyone I know!”

    – Kim

  • “This course was highly informative, experiential and practical. Deborah and Nici hold such safe, loving, calm and regulated space that it can't help but rub off on participants. It felt like coming home. I walked away with my nervous system feeling more supported, and I have the resources and tools to continue befriending my nervous system. I'm catching myself when I'm in a dysregulated state which is huge, while also using the tools I learned to compassionately come back to regulation. Thank you!”

    — Karen

  • “I came to this course after experiencing the death of my mother and wanting to learn more about how I was processing grief in my system. Nici and Deborah created a safe, supportive and nurturing space to teach me the foundations of my nervous system and how I can best navigate it. This has given me the most invaluable insight into myself, not just in the face of grief and trauma, but in all aspects of my being. I have been gifted with knowledge, a practical menu of ideas to resource myself going forwards and a beautiful community to support and inspire me along the way. Everyone should have access to this important and vital work. Life changing stuff.”

    — Ann-Marie

  • “The insight into the ways that both grief, illness, and modern life cause wear and tear on the nervous system was so helpful, rather than thinking there was something wrong with me for feeling anxious or stressed. I loved the format of the sessions with time for sharing and connection with others, the option to stay quiet and absorb, incredible learning sessions and a generous time allotted for breathwork and nervous system exercises. The experiential learning has been wonderful and meant that I've absorbed the wisdom of the sessions both at a body level and an intellectual level. It left me feeling more regulated and less likely to flip into 'stressed' throughout the week. I found myself taking deep breaths in traffic jams, or just having a rest between work. Nici and Deborah hold the space so beautifully and thoughtfully, it feels like a very bespoke container for such important work. I looked forward to it every week!”

    — Isabel

Booking

We have opened this up to sliding scale by donation

from £150.00
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We seek to make these spaces as accessible as possible. If you are struggling financially or experiencing any other barriers to receiving support, please do reach out and we can try to make something work – nici@thegriefspace.com

Dates for your diary

Monday 3rd June 2024 ~19.00 - 21.00 BST

Monday 10th June 2024 ~19.00 - 21.00 BST

Monday 17th June 2024 ~19.00 - 21.00 BST

Monday 24th June 2024 ~19.00 - 21.00 BST

Monday 1st July 2024 ~19.00 - 21.00 BST

Monday 8th July 2024 ~19.00 - 21.00 BST