2024 Workshop Sessions

Second Monday Practical Wellness Sessions

One doesn’t have to look far to find tips and techniques for personal growth and wellbeing. What is often lacking, however, is dedicated time and space to experiment with them and discern how they might be effectively applied to your life. That is exactly what the 2024 second Monday Practical Wellness Sessions are intended to do.  Topics for each month’s session will be listed in the monthly Practical Wellness Newsletter and on this website. 

 PLEASE NOTE:  THE OCTOBER 14 SECOND MONDAY SESSION IS POSTPONED TO NOVEMBER 11

October 14, 2024: Being with Loss, Part II

November 11, 2024 - rescheduled date

Now that we have acknowledged and accepted loss as a normal and natural part of the human experience (in last month’s session), how do we move with it? How do we dance mindfully with change?  

Join us to explore physical, mental, symbolic and holistic approaches to embracing change; mindfully moving from acknowledgement and acceptance of the losses that accompany change to consciously choosing how we “make peace with change.” 

Times: 6:30 – 8:00 PM
Dates: Listed Above
Location:  St. Charles Lodge, Level C, 600 Farrell Drive, Ft. Wright, KY 41011
Fee:  $20 recommended contribution
Register:  nbloemer@fuse.net or 859-750-6710

If you prefer to lie down for meditation type practices, bring a yoga mat, beach towel and/or a blanket. 

Give yourself the time and space to relax and enjoy!

Previous Sessions

January 8, 2024: The Garden Meditation Technique

In Hawaiian culture it is believed that every aspect of our outer experience has its counterpart in thought, and that each of these can influence the other. “The garden tiki is a way of organizing your thoughts into a specific pattern that gives you new insights about your present experience and serves as a tool for change and growth.” Quote from Serge Kahili King

This simple, practical, and valuable tool can be a helpful addition to the list of ways you nourish yourself in the New Year. 

February 12, 2024: Dynamind Technique

You may have heard of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or “tapping” as some call it.  In this session, we’ll explore a version of “tapping” developed and taught by Serge Kahili King. Dynamind is a simple and effective tool for self-care and personal growth. It involves words, breathing, and tapping certain areas of the body.  It can be done quickly, easily, and even discretely to transform physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually.  Join us to explore the basics of the technique, practice how it’s done and discuss potential uses for it in your everyday life.

March 11, 2024: Techniques for Self Esteem

“It is one thing to understand low self-esteem and why you might have it, and quite another to do something about it. Here are some ways and means that work.” This quote is taken directly from a wonderful book titled Healing Relationships penned by Serge Kahili King, my mentor. The seven techniques he goes on to outline are easily applied and highly effective. In this session, we’ll cover the seven techniques and offer a daily seven minute meditation practice that you can try on your own!

Practicing Presence

Being in the present moment is a skill that few of us take the time to develop. Often, our energies and attention are tossed in the past or future, not that those are bad places to be! But just like riding a bike or playing an instrument, the skill of intentional presence is best cultivated with practice. Join us to explore a few specific approaches for developing the skill of intentional presence. Put aside time to rehearse relishing in and savoring the NOW.

April 8, 2024: Mindfulness

Mindfulness is defined (by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the person credited with developing Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in the 1970’s) as “Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” No small task! Join us for a mindfulness meditation, along with discussions and ideas for pragmatic applications of mindfulness.

May 13, 2024: Nalu 

The Hawaiian practice of nalu can be described as the art of “being at peace with.” In Pukui and Elbert’s Hawaiian Dictionary, one meaning of nalu is “to ponder, meditate, reflect, mull over, speculate.” However you define it and practice it, nalu is an intentional presence skill well worth developing!

June 10, 2024: Body Listening

This relaxing meditation invites a slow progressive awareness of your body, taking the time to rest deeply and listen to the wisdom it may have to share with you. In addition to opening deeper communication with your physical form, the practice of Body Listening provides a way to develop the skill of intentional presence through listening more deeply to the people, places, and things that make up your world.

July 8, 2024: Meditations for Harmony

Some of life’s most challenging opportunities for growth come to us through relationships. Whether the relationships are within us or with us and the people, places and things that surround us, discord sometimes arises. In this session, we will explore two meditation techniques intended to help move toward harmony in relationships. Both techniques are founded in the Hawaiian conflict resolution ritual called ho’oponopono. Join us for a relaxing session designed to help heal and harmonize the relationships in your life. 

August 12, 2024: More Meditations for Harmony

In the last session, we explored meditation approaches based in the Hawaiian culture for harmonizing our inner world. In this session, we’ll use gentle breathing and meditation techniques as ways to extend peace and loving kindness out into the world. 

September 9, 2024: Being with Loss, Part I

Transitions often involve loss of some kind. Even the changing of the seasons from summer to fall involves the loss of t-shirts and flip-flops; the loss of long days; the loss of sweltering heat. We tend to think of loss in terms of the “big” losses in life, death for example. But what about all the losses along the way in the journey of life? I wonder if ignored or unrecognized losses compound over time.

Many cultures have ceremonies and rituals that honor the passage of time, consciously acknowledging the losses of one season (of the year and of life) and opening up mindfully and gratefully to what the next phase might bring. What if we stopped to embrace change (and the losses that come with them) mindfully? How might that transform our experience of life’s transitions? I wonder. I just wonder.

Join us in a discussion of loss and an exploration into mindfulness approaches to being present in the midst of change.