One of the highlights of our recent trip to Northern Ireland : facilitating @the_goat_house_retreat inaugural residential test Reflect & Renew Retreat 🌄

Pictures say it all. Fantastic venue! Owners & hosts Lorna & Heather are just gorgeous & the collection of women who gathered were the bright joyous souls.

If they'll have me - I'll be back. The land of Mourne is perfect for #embodiededucation & #embodimentspirituality plus, nature based spirituality is a seamless fit for the area with it's celtic & shamanic origins.

Thank you for offering me the opportunity @mourne_yoga 🙏 @tellyhevbrown 🙏

And thank you @lightfoot_bangor for food 👌​

Teachers, are you looking ahead to the next academic year and thinking about how to develop your practice by making your classroom more trauma-informed, supportive of neurodivergence and the nervous system friendly? 

Read this blog for book and resource suggestions.As the summer break approaches and educators prepare for their well-earned rest, often a space for consideration and planning opens up.  We have a window of time in which we ask ourselves, as reflective practitioners, what worked well during the past year? What didn’t? What gaps in understanding need to be bridged?  How can I best meet my own needs, alongside the needs of the students, in my classroom?

At Neurodiverse Connection we are in entering the final stages of preparation and readiness for the launch our Neurodivergent Friendly Wellbeing Approach in the Autumn, which is based on an experience to share model, to provide practical skills to parents and professionals for supporting their own and young people’s wellbeing. 

In this training we centre nervous system, embodiment, regulation and neurodivergent perspectives. 

Do these topics pique your interest?  Are you curious to learn more about these topics yourself?  If so, we are offering you a curated list of recommended reads to help you gain new insights, deepen your knowledge and enhance wellbeing in your classroom and school – in advance of the new school year.

So, let’s explore three thought-provoking books by neurodivergent authors:

“Safeguarding Autistic Girls: Strategies for Professionals” by Carly Jones,  MBE, a respected and highly regarded autistic advocate and author, focuses on the specific needs and challenges faced by autistic girls.  This book offers practical guidance on recognising and addressing the unique vulnerabilities autistic girls may encounter. With a focus on safeguarding, educators can gain valuable insights into creating a safe and supportive environment that meets the needs of autistic girls, promoting their well-being and educational success.

“Untypical:  Learning to Live with Autism" by Pete Wharmby, in which the writer, shares his personal experiences as an autistic individual, offering unique insights into his personal and professional experience. This book provides an honest and compelling account of the challenges and strengths of autism, allowing teachers to gain a deeper understanding of both neurodivergence and neurodiversity and how to support autistic students in the classroom. Wharmby's perspective can help educators foster a more inclusive and accommodating environment, especially as he is an ex-teacher himself.

“Learning from autistic teachers: how to be a neurodiversity-inclusive school” edited by Dr Rebecca Wood. A collection of engaging and insightful chapters from autistic teachers and school professionals. It clearly outlines suggestions for support that have benefitted those writing the chapters, as well as considering implications for inclusion within the classroom.

And a couple of additional resources from non-neurodivergent authors:

“Nurturing resilience: helping clients move forward from early developmental trauma” by Kathy Kain and Stephen Terrell. A fantastic and accessible introduction to the nervous system. This book provides a great introduction to understanding regulation, connection, safety, attachment, and trauma and provides valuable insights into trauma-informed practices that can be applied within the classroom. Teachers will gain a deeper understanding of how trauma affects individuals and discover practical strategies to foster a safe and supportive learning environment.
​
Irene Lyon’s website has lots of free online resources, practical suggestions, vlogs and articles.  Although not neurodivergent, Irene Lyon is a somatic practitioner and nervous system expert who specialises in helping individuals heal trauma, regulate their nervous systems, develop capacity and regulation, alongside cultivating well-being. Her work integrates various modalities and approaches, including somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory, and neuroplasticity.

By exploring these resources, teachers can expand their knowledge and gain perspectives from the lived personal and professional experience of the authors, practitioners, and specialists.  This will enable educators to develop a deeper understanding of autism, neurodiversity, and specific considerations when working with autistic individuals, contributing to more inclusive and wellbeing focused classrooms.


This is a repost of a blog originally posted here: https://ndconnection.co.uk/blog/recommended-summer-reading-for-teachers?rq=aldred

Original post date 18th July 2024. 

Mentorship with Goddess: Growing Sacred Womanhood by Kay Louise Aldred 

Mentorship with Goddess: Growing Sacred Womanhood online evergreen 'Experience to Facilitate' course based on the workbook.

A Sacred Woman knows that she is the embodiment of the Sacred Feminine. She remembers that Goddess already exists within her: Goddess is her DNA. Indeed, a Sacred Woman reclaims herself as Goddess – a unique strand, frequency and incarnation of her – essential for the completion and wholeness of the spectrum of the collective Feminine.

Our bodies are the gateway to recalling this truth. Mentorship with Goddess is an embodied education and evolution, which combines metacognition, intuition, and instinct. It is principally about discovering, accepting, and loving yourself, and simultaneously protecting and vulnerably showing up as your whole Self in the world.

Mentorship with Goddess is a rite of passage and holistic wellbeing curriculum of feminine wisdom for women of all ages. It is especially suitable for times of bodily transition - adolescence to adulthood 13-28 years and perimenopause 37-55 years.

Having your own copy of the workbook is mandatory and essential before you begin.

Course Includes:

10 videos & 9 audios
Which outline and discuss the content of each module, offer facilitation suggestions, and demonstrate activities and exercises from the book.


4 Bonus Videos
The Diamond Centre: Your Body as Goddess - 90-minute Live Video Recording with Kay Louise Aldred

Speak as Wise Woman Goddess - 90-minute Live Video Recording with Kay Louise Aldred

Reign as Queen Goddess - 90-minute Live Video Recording with Kay Louise Aldred

Initiation and Dedication Ceremony

$299 for the Year Long Programme 
The Course is built on the Wheel of the Year - You can jump in at any time.  

Today. Breaking bread together. Nature based honouring, spontaneous ritual and ceremony, heart-led sharing of thoughts, feelings, creations & generosity of spirit. Witnessing & listening.

Natural parts of today's gathering.

Common humanity - a state in which I feel safe, joyful & hopeful.

No labels, no performance, no dogma, doctrine, no dressing up, no expectations, no money exchange, nothing sold or bought, no transaction, no hired venue.

Just common humanity & a gathering at home.

This is #wisdomablaze & for it I am grateful.

For me this is our innate #spirituality - being #human

Time for now for a summer break. I'm taking my own advice - to pause, to ripen and mature - before harvesting and gathering in begins.​

Hi all,

I'm writing before I sign off for my yearly month's break from the newsletter and as much as I can, social media.  I'll be back in August, after the new moon and Lammas festival. 

This has become a regular and much-anticipated pause for me - where I consciously take a break, to ripen and mature what has grown, and to connect, before the work of harvest and gathering-in starts.

I hope you can also create time to switch off, to receive and be too.

The July newsletter updates from what has been a busy June, plus there are some summer journalling prompts and links to freebie replays of some of the events/talks I mention - so for them, if you are interested in the topics click on the links.

I hope you enjoy it.

Best wishes, Kay x

 

Summer Journalling Prompts:

• What are we retrieving?
• What are we trying to restore?
• What is the recovery process?

And some of my answers ...

Retrieve
It's not a disembodied & dissociated soul retrieval we're seeking ~ it's 'body' & nervous system regulation retrieval we really want & need.

It's humane humanitarian humanity retrieval we seek - which is our collective soul.

Restore
We've lost our mammalian, animal, embodiment & therefore collective humane, humanitarian soul due to living in mind dominant, individualistic, dissociated systems & structures.

Restore BODY FIRST, nature-based, community-focused, interdependent, cyclical ways of living, structures, systems & institutions.

Restore we & us ...

Recover
I'm in RECOVERY

I'm GETTING BACK & REGAINING my wholeness through regaining my humane, humanitarian, HUMANITY.

And to do this I'm in RECOVERY from all the 'addictions' & bypasses I'd adopted to stop feeling the sensations, emotions & feelings which accompany being an interdependent human.

And this includes RECOVERY from hyper-individualism, productivity, consumerism, workaholism, and mind dominance ...

and the group think of ... social media, celebrity, academia, mainstream western (colonial) therapy, pop psychology, religion & the capitalist new age spiritual & wellness industries.

I'm in RECOVERY to GET BACK & REGAIN my animal body - its feelings, emotions & sensations - its vulnerability & depth but most crucially COMPASSION, INTERCONNECTEDNESS & INTER-BEING for & with the earth & every living being on it.

And that RECOVERY requires undoing & sacrifice, accountability & responsibility.
 

​If you haven't already - check out the work of Helen, Autistic Realms and Ryan, Stimpunks.  Honoured that they are both weaving Embodied Education into their writing and ideas:

1.  Neuroqueering Learning Spaces
https://stimpunks.org/2024/03/23/neuroqueering-learning-spaces-an-exploration/

"Once again, I have started the beginning of this project in the middle of everything else!

We dived in deep and realised our project had been underway for many years, but neither of us had the vocabulary of ‘neuroqueer’ and ‘neuroqueering’ (Nick Walker, 2021) to describe our thoughts and help us understand our journey.

Now we have that vocabulary; it has opened up another world within a world. It enables us to connect and learn from others who are also interested in the neurodiversity paradigm and postnormal possibilities. It is carving out a pathway for us to expand our community networks and help facilitate a shift in the way education is currently structured.

It is helping us move towards what Kay and Dan Aldred (2023) describe as an Embodied Education, which could be seen to be the golden thread that runs through Neuroqueer Learning Spaces.

Embodied education is a concept we will return to and weave through our work alongside other emergent ideas about being a ‘space holder’ to allow the freedom of creative learning to take place.

Aldred (2023) wrote, ‘There is no learning without the body.’ We will collaborate with different communities to discover what an embodied, neuroqueer education and learning space may mean for those facilitating education and how it could support young people."

2. The Double Empathy Problem is Deep 
https://medium.com/@helenrealms/the-double-empathy-problem-is-deep-2364b3412c39

"The DEEP (DOUBLE EMPATHY EXTREME PROBLEM) arises from feelings of disconnect; not only from cultural, sexual, political, religious, neurodivergent, or any other cross-section of differences but also through embodiment, or lack thereof. The double empathy gap is non-linear; it is deep, multidimensional, rhizomatic, and holographic (Mirra, 2023). DEEP could be a huge contributing factor that leads to burnout and ill health. The DEEP gap can break people at their core, leaving them fragmented, disconnected, disoriented and disembodied, feeling like they’re in a void space.

Bodyminds is a term used to challenge the idea the body and mind are experienced separately (Descartes).

There is a gap between those who are intune with their own #bodyminds and the bodyminds of those they are with and people who are dis-embodied, (regardless of any intersectionality and other empathy gap that may be present). As Walker (2021) says;

“Mind is inextricably entwined with brain, and brain with body; thus, mind is inextricably entwined with body in a single complex system and in a continuous dance of mutual shaping.We’re not minds riding around in vehicles of flesh and bone; we’re bodyminds, bodies that think and perceive. Experience, awareness, sense of self, psychological development, and capacities for feeling, knowing, cognition, connection, and action are all entwined with — and shape, and are shaped by — habits of bodily usage, including habits of movement, posture, breath, contact, consumption, tension and relaxation, gaze, gesture, and expression.”

I am learning to be more embodied through somatic practice and connecting with other people exploring these ideas across various communities. The work of Kay & Dan Aldred (2023) about Embodied Education demonstrates how embodiment is essential for individuals to thrive, we need somatic practice embedded into the ways our education and healthcare systems operate and evolve, we need people to be deeply intune with others, embodied, so they can transform and work more meaningfully."

 

June 28th to July 1st at Alison Palmer's FREE online summit - REPLAYS available.  An amazing lineup of speakers with a wide range of specialisms!  Click here

Magnificent Menopause: Reclaim and Celebrate the Power of Menopause and Post-Menopause

I spoke on:

Radically Rethinking, Embodying and Meeting our Spiritual Needs throughout our Menopause Journey

I was asked to speak at this conference because of my ongoing menopausal journey and my belief that we can radically rethink menopause and reframe it as a passage rich with gifts, that can meet our spiritual needs

I'll share with you:

how your body is a deeply intelligent and rich source of information 

... and how menopause can ignite our 'sacred rage' (as it did for me) 

... and more about neurodivergent & neurodiversity

plus, the published @girlgodbooks workbooks & online resources I've created to support you with the journey.  Click here.
 ​

Other news ...

Neurodiverse Connection

First month of work as Development Lead at NdC has flown by & I've loved every minute of it! So great to be part of a team #strongertogether

Therapy and Social Change Mind the Vote Summit

Sunday, 30th June, ahead of the UK #generalelection as Development Lead at Neurodiverse Connection (NdC), I was part of the Therapy and Social Change Mind the Vote Summit Lived Experience Panel.

We spoke on how we have/or haven't participated in therapy, whether therapy supports social change, and the way we understand how politics influence this experience.

I was delighted to be joined by Cassie & Charli @charliclement_
Associates at NdC

A fantastic event.

Check it out
https://therapyandsocialchange.net/
Click here

Neurodivergent Wellbeing Approach

I completed the month's work recording an intro video to the Neurodivergent Wellbeing Approach training for YouTube.

The next round of training starts in Sept.

Option 1 :
Starting Tuesday 10th September 2024
4 x Half Day Sessions (9.30am-1pm)

Option 2:
Starting Tuesday 1st October 2024
8 x 1.5 hr Evening Sessions (6-7.30pm)

To book
https://ndconnection.co.uk/ndwatraining
Click here
​

Embodied Education is a vision for an educational paradigm based on wellbeing, co-regulation and creativity, which advocates for body-first, relational and embodiment approaches in organisations and communities.

The aim of this book is to support a shift in culture, towards an embodied, holistic model of teaching and learning , by raising awareness, sparking curiosity and suggesting alternatives and solutions.

Embodied Education champions the creation of organisations and spaces which are trauma-informed and neurodivergent, sensory and nervous system friendly - spaces which celebrate and encourage individuality, divergence and innovation, alongside exploration, discovery and imagination.

This is a way of teaching and learning in which intuition, in addition to metacognition and critical thinking, are all go-to points of reference and gut instinct, the knowing located within the body, is honoured.

Who is this manual for?
This manual is for:
· Anyone who holds space, one-on-one or in a group setting.
· Anywhere space holding, facilitation, education or learning takes place.
· Anywhere information is exchanged.

This includes (but isn't limited to) the following venues and arenas: schools, universities, youth work, teaching, home-schooling, unschooling, health and social care services, wellness, women's circles, men's groups, self-development, night classes, befriending services, charities, social justice, parenting, holistic health and therapeutic settings, religion and spiritual spaces.

The information and approaches in this book can be used by an individual, a group or a whole organisation.

"This is the most inspiring and exciting book I have ever read on education and facilitation.
The Aldreds are proposing a much needed revolution in education; one that is body first, relational and heart-led. Their focus on embodiment, wellbeing, co-regulation and creativity is exactly what is needed for our complex world today.

The synergy of neurotypical and neurodivergent perspectives provides a radical pedagogy and facilitation approach suitable for all kinds of learners.

Everyone will benefit from their embodied approach, especially the invaluable information on trauma, stress and regulating the nervous system.

The extensive expertise and experience of Kay and Dan, as educators, shines through, as does their passion, wisdom and massive spirit of service.

This is a groundbreaking book, with a powerful vision and curriculum, in direct contrast to the outdated and energy draining curriculum most school children have to endure on a daily basis. I will personally send a copy to the UK Secretary of State for Education to influence education policy in my own country.

I urge every teacher, parent and facilitator to read this book to enable the much needed change, both within and outside the formal education system.

It will also inspire those who are home schooling and facilitating within a wide range of contexts. This is the book I have been waiting for to refresh and further inform my own teaching and coaching. I first completed my teacher training in 1980 and I have read and experimented extensively within education and pedagogy ever since.

I place this book on a par with the best educational books ever written. Especially ones that challenge the status quo and offer a radical, workable, wise and significant alternative. An extraordinary contribution to the world of learning."
​-Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, Former secondary school teacher, college lecturer and college Principal. Previous CEO of the Centre of Excellence in Leadership. Author and tutor of Goddess Luminary Leadership Wheel, and Presence Activism (to be published in 2024).

"This courageous book is a primer for these times. I want every educator, and every student, to have access to these resources. Having just created MA and PhD curricula, I have taken the concepts of somatic, embodied education expressed in this book to heart.
This book is a fundamental orientation towards any pedagogy or wisdom transmission. This is a time when we need mentors to be strong, real and present and to win the respect of their students who crave guidance and who cannot be deceived. We need the real thing, and this book has it."
-Stephanie Mines, PhD, Author of The Secret of Resilience. Developer of Regenerative Health for A Climate Changing World, Fellow of the Planetary Health Lab of the University of Edinburgh

"Kay's work on understanding regulation has been hugely influential in my work, and I'm excited to see Kay and Dan translate this learning for education settings.
Embodied Education provides an accessible overview to important theory, and practical exercises to support this learning to be applied.
Understanding the nervous system and supporting regulation is the 'missing piece' for many neurodivergent people, whose dysregulation is misunderstood and met with behavioural interventions.
I'm delighted to be able to recommend this book to educators, as it provides insight and alternative approaches that will support connection, safety, and improved outcomes that can be transformative for both practitioners and the young people they support."
-Jill Corbyn, Founder and Director of Neurodiverse Connection and the lead author on the co-produced 'It's Not Rocket Science' report into inpatient sensory environments and LGA paper 'Supporting autistic flourishing at home and beyond: considering and meeting the sensory needs of autistic people in housing'.

"Reading from the lens of peace and conflict resolution, Embodied Education is such a deep and considered manual that would be invaluable for trainers working in either post conflict communities, or with refugee communities who have experienced the unimaginable. By placing the body and trauma informed methodologies at the heart of the learning practice - this manual offers many keys to unlock learning for people who are keen to rebuild and learn but need safe space and an embodied practice to do so. The artwork is incredible too!"
-Dr Sarah Alldred, PhD in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution (2003),. Currently the Head of International Partnership, The Co-operative College, Manchester.