Friday, April 10. 7-9 pm.
With Sheila Foster, M.A.
$15 General Public, $10 Caritas Members.
We have all suffered many ambiguous losses since childhood. An ambiguous loss is often an invisible loss because it is not recognized or acknowledged as a significant loss by others, or even ourselves, in the same way that a death is: with community recognition, ceremony, condolences, and a sense of finality and closure. Ambiguous losses create ongoing stress and trauma. They can be devastating, paralyzing, and frightening because we tend to suffer them in isolation without any sense of closure. Life goes on around us, but it may not go on for us. We can get stuck in hope and despair. If we can name these losses, honor them as ‘real’ and learn how to come into healthy relationship with them even when there are no answers, we can live a healthy, even happy life. We are given the spiritual help to come into new relationship with our ambiguous losses when we give them a place in our hearts and lives. This evening will include discussion and simple systemic constellation process.
- Is there someone in your life who is physically present, but not emotionally or psychologically present? Does it seem that they are there, but not there?
- Have you somehow lost, and are you missing and grieving a beloved child, family member, or friend who has physically disappeared from your life, for reasons known or unknown, and yet you still feel that their psychological/soul presence remains with you – that they are not there, yet intensely there?
- Have you immigrated to this country leaving family and friends behind, not knowing when or if you will see those beloveds or your homeland again?
- Have you somehow lost your capacity to live fully, work, and enjoy life due to physical or mental health issues, aging, accident, or trauma?
- Are you feeling the losses associated with aging?
- Do you feel like you have loss some life-giving part of yourself?
Sheila Foster, M.A. Sheila Foster has an M.A. in counseling psychology, 40 years of study in a mix of Jungian and transpersonal psychology, the Sacred Feminine, the structure of consciousness and initiatory experience, shamanism, energetic healing, and systemic constellation work. She has always been very drawn to the Mystery, having had spiritual experiences beginning at two. She has followed the trail of the mystical/contemplative path of direct experience and non-dual teachings with a variety of honored teachers in different traditions. In 1983, after a volcanic Kundalini awakening, she was guided to found the Temenos Center in Maryland, which became the container for healing work, workshops, trainings and a women’s mystery school, the Temple of the Sacred Feminine, which she continues to steward and offer Sacred Feminine Initiation to women. She is also a practitioner and teacher of the ancient spiritual practice of Samyama, a yogic path of transmission, awakening, and healing. Sheila lives and works in Boulder. For more information email her at [email protected] or visit www.templeofthesacredfeminine.com or www.themysticalunionofloveandheartbreak.blogspot.com.