Tending the Bones ClassTending the Bones is offered annually as both an in-person training and online class.
Tending the Bones includes:
-Monthly online ritual and support -Monthly content delivered to your inbox -At-home assignments Cost: $150 monthly for 13 months Yearly training starts March, 2025 Tending the Bones: The Book released in January, 2025!
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Your expression of your sexuality and your erotic self are blocked by something you can feel, but cannot see.
Trauma is held in the tissues of your body.
It may or may not be yours.
It prevents you from accessing the fullness of your sexuality, the depth of your capacity for closeness and intimacy, even as you value those things deeply.
Perhaps it feels that you are holding old pain and blocks around sex and intimacy that come from your mother, your father, your grandparents, or even from older ancestors whose names you do not know.
It's possible you can be physically close with a partner, but your heart remains unavailable.
Or when your heart is connected to another, physical intimacy becomes a challenge.
You may or may not have experienced the pain of sexual trauma during your life, but it may feel as if you have.
There is impact from the sexuality of your ancestors.
These impacts can be positive or negative, or sometimes both.
To begin to unwind transgenerational sexual trauma, you must first have the framework that it exists.
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Do you carry transgenerational sexual trauma?
Ask yourself these assessment questions:
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If you nodded yes to many of these, or feel a sense of connection to these experiences as you read them, then you do carry transgenerational trauma.
With that, you also have the possibility of experiencing goodness in your sexuality that hails from your people.
Often, when there is wounding around sexuality, there is also a deep well of healing.
To work through your transgenerational sexual trauma and also allow yourself to feel all of the sexual goodness possible, you must deepen your relationship with both your sexuality, and your people.
Ancestral blessings around sexuality ARE abundant.
Perhaps you experience your ancestors as a source of support for sexual wellness, sexual freedom and sexual self-esteem.
Or have ancestral erotic role models, who had given you an example of sexuality across the lifespan, that validate the current sexual self, and that provide examples for the capacity for committed relationships.
Perhaps you had or have a relative who nurtured their developing sexuality, by giving you permission to be who you are.
Maybe your ancestors were good at pleasure, and you’ve inherited that skill
It’s possible that you experience the power of your queer and gender non-conforming ancestors as a source of strength.
Perhaps you experience your ancestors as a source of support for sexual wellness, sexual freedom and sexual self-esteem.
Or have ancestral erotic role models, who had given you an example of sexuality across the lifespan, that validate the current sexual self, and that provide examples for the capacity for committed relationships.
Perhaps you had or have a relative who nurtured their developing sexuality, by giving you permission to be who you are.
Maybe your ancestors were good at pleasure, and you’ve inherited that skill
It’s possible that you experience the power of your queer and gender non-conforming ancestors as a source of strength.
RESULTS from Tending the Bones
The results it is possible to experience from healing sexuality with ancestors are unmistakable. In my doctoral research, participants describe experiences of survival, release, resilience, forgiveness, embodiment, belonging, connection with the land, pleasure and sexual wellness, permission, and great sex.
You've tried other things to find a sexuality that fits who you are. Therapy, bodywork, and all of it has helped, has been a piece of your healing, but none of that has completely addressed the blocks you feel in your body and in your relationships.
Especially around sexuality.
You are starting to think that erotic freedom might just be for other people, not for you.
And worse, you may feel a loyalty to that pain.
How would the justice your ancestors call for happen if you no longer felt their pain?
Ancestral sexual burdens you may be carrying, these are things like shame, repression, sexual violence (perpetrator or victim) or residual sexual trauma that has been passed down to you.
If you personally have sexual trauma these can become entangled, so that it’s difficult to know what is yours, and what was handed to you.
Transgenerational sexual messaging happened to us all in our families.
In some cases, it was a complete lack of information or silence around sexuality education. In others, sex was explicitly deemed negative.
For example, if you had a repressive religious upbringing, chances are that your sexual self-exploration has been impacted, without you ever having a chance to first figure out what your body does.
You were not given the freedom to find what feels right to you personally.
Sexual blessings you may be heir to include lustiness, sexual freedom, strong libido, and erotic attunement.
They may be things like feeling great about sex or your body.
Can you think right now of one positive message you received from your family about sexuality?
How has that informed your sexuality?
Tending the Bones is a 13-month-long exquisite container, carefully structured for you to do your deepest work around sexuality, intimacy, trauma, and healing. Research indicates that sexual healing is most effective with a small, supportive community. This small-group container holds deep allyship and witness, through a lens of shared experience and understanding.
You've tried other things to find a sexuality that fits who you are. Therapy, bodywork, and all of it has helped, has been a piece of your healing, but none of that has completely addressed the blocks you feel in your body and in your relationships.
Especially around sexuality.
You are starting to think that erotic freedom might just be for other people, not for you.
And worse, you may feel a loyalty to that pain.
How would the justice your ancestors call for happen if you no longer felt their pain?
Ancestral sexual burdens you may be carrying, these are things like shame, repression, sexual violence (perpetrator or victim) or residual sexual trauma that has been passed down to you.
If you personally have sexual trauma these can become entangled, so that it’s difficult to know what is yours, and what was handed to you.
Transgenerational sexual messaging happened to us all in our families.
In some cases, it was a complete lack of information or silence around sexuality education. In others, sex was explicitly deemed negative.
For example, if you had a repressive religious upbringing, chances are that your sexual self-exploration has been impacted, without you ever having a chance to first figure out what your body does.
You were not given the freedom to find what feels right to you personally.
Sexual blessings you may be heir to include lustiness, sexual freedom, strong libido, and erotic attunement.
They may be things like feeling great about sex or your body.
Can you think right now of one positive message you received from your family about sexuality?
How has that informed your sexuality?
Tending the Bones is a 13-month-long exquisite container, carefully structured for you to do your deepest work around sexuality, intimacy, trauma, and healing. Research indicates that sexual healing is most effective with a small, supportive community. This small-group container holds deep allyship and witness, through a lens of shared experience and understanding.
Tending the Bones curriculum consists of three modules.
Module 1
In Module 1 of Tending the Bones, we root first in positive resource. You develop embodiment skills, practice physical, verbal and energetic boundaries. Together, we learn how to truly belong in multi-generational community that celebrates eldership, when trauma is present. You learn and practice the skill of discernment. You learn to connect with your well and bright ancestral guides. And we create somatic and prayerful community ritual to anchor in goodness. We deepen into community intimacy and connection, for the sake of holding each other well on this journey. These foundational practices build the skills, resources and connections necessary to move into Module Two.
Module 2
In Module 2 of Tending the Bones, , you are supported in loosening the grip of trauma in your body. There is a healing place in all our hearts. Through clearly assessing the current state of things, as they exist in your body, you begin to come to terms with what is. You will understand the ancestral burdens and blessings you embody. There will be acknowledgment of what has happened, to you, to your community, and to your people, living and dead. Acknowledgment sows the seeds of justice.
Collectively we create corrective medicine experiences using sacred movement, voice, and ritual. Together we hold the container of what has happened. While this might sound overwhelming, we have built a communal foundation of capacity that is solid enough to do this level of healing, both personal and collective. With the help of your well and bright ancestors, any heavy or unwell energies attached to your bloodlines will be transformed. This is the healing of transgenerational trauma.
Collectively we create corrective medicine experiences using sacred movement, voice, and ritual. Together we hold the container of what has happened. While this might sound overwhelming, we have built a communal foundation of capacity that is solid enough to do this level of healing, both personal and collective. With the help of your well and bright ancestors, any heavy or unwell energies attached to your bloodlines will be transformed. This is the healing of transgenerational trauma.
Module 3
In Module 3 of Tending the Bones, we langour in the garden, and are nourished by the fountain of honey. We embody slowness and sensuality. We practice exquisite consent and boundaries. We find our way to feeling desire deeply, and learning to speak of these things shamelessly. Your capacity for presence increases. You find your way into the delight of the body, the elegance of your pleasure. Through communal erotic practice within an intimate and safe container that we have built for a year, bodies can relax and allow full erotic expression.
During Module 3, you consciously develop and practice erotic wellness, on your own terms. You are also updating your intimacy beliefs and skillset, for the sake of being able to stay connected with yourself while in deep closeness with others.
During Module 3, you consciously develop and practice erotic wellness, on your own terms. You are also updating your intimacy beliefs and skillset, for the sake of being able to stay connected with yourself while in deep closeness with others.
So what does this mean for you? It means that I have the skills, experience and protocols to help you heal, and support you as you clear any residual trauma hanging out in your body that isn’t actually yours.
Tending the Bones will change how you experience your sexuality forever.
Tending the Bones will change how you experience your sexuality forever.
Why am I your guide?
I understand your situation, and I am an expert at helping you transition from the problem to the solution
As a child and teen, and later as an adult, I experienced sexual abuse and violation. It was many years before I was ready to even look at the impact I held in my body, let alone start on a path of healing. I was lucky; after working with several talk therapists who were helpful in some ways but not in others, I found a somatics practitioner who works with sexual trauma. As we slowly worked through the layers, I found that not only was I dealing with impact from my own experiences, but also from the sexual violations members of my family had experienced.
As I started to guide clients in healing sex, I found a similar pattern; not all, but many of the clients who were healing from sexual abuse and violence had ancestors who had also experienced these. Clients would say things like, “I was raped, my mom was raped, my grandma too… I think there is a connection.”
But what was that connection? And how to address it so it could heal?
Those are the questions that led me down the path of a doctoral program, writing a dissertation, and finally receiving my PhD in Somatic Psychology. How can relationship with ancestors support the healing of sexual trauma in the living? This was my research question.
The results I found were quite astonishing. First, that for people who have any type of connection with their ancestors, this was an important part of their healing. Second, that transgenerational sexual trauma exists, and it can be treated as an individual does their own healing.
As a child and teen, and later as an adult, I experienced sexual abuse and violation. It was many years before I was ready to even look at the impact I held in my body, let alone start on a path of healing. I was lucky; after working with several talk therapists who were helpful in some ways but not in others, I found a somatics practitioner who works with sexual trauma. As we slowly worked through the layers, I found that not only was I dealing with impact from my own experiences, but also from the sexual violations members of my family had experienced.
As I started to guide clients in healing sex, I found a similar pattern; not all, but many of the clients who were healing from sexual abuse and violence had ancestors who had also experienced these. Clients would say things like, “I was raped, my mom was raped, my grandma too… I think there is a connection.”
But what was that connection? And how to address it so it could heal?
Those are the questions that led me down the path of a doctoral program, writing a dissertation, and finally receiving my PhD in Somatic Psychology. How can relationship with ancestors support the healing of sexual trauma in the living? This was my research question.
The results I found were quite astonishing. First, that for people who have any type of connection with their ancestors, this was an important part of their healing. Second, that transgenerational sexual trauma exists, and it can be treated as an individual does their own healing.
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Tending the Bones began in November, 2018 and is offered annually.
Tending the Bones includes:
Cost: $150 monthly for 13 months Yearly training starts again in March, 2025 |