Katarina Thorsen

“Journal Journeying: Setting up for Success”
“Going Deep: Creative Exploration”
“Drawn Together” art and play collaboration

My mission is to awaken creative expression through local and global art initiatives.

 
 
 
 
Katarina (Kat) Thorsen is an artist, a creative engagement and therapeutic art facilitator and a craftivist passionate in her belief that art can heal and build connections.  Kat specializes in arts-based programming for all ages, in particularly engaging at-risk populations.  The heart of her work is visual storytelling and facilitation.  Her interactive art events and street art encourages participants to become part of the creative process.  Kat’s own artwork can be found in private collections in North America and Europe.  She published her first book, Drawn Together- Maintaining Connections and Navigating Life’s Challenges with Art, in 2013.  Her next book is a true crime analysis in the form of a graphic novel. Kat has won the Woman of Worth Award in 2014, the Humanitarian of the Year City of North Vancouver 2010 Civic Youth Award, and has been honoured as an Outstanding Supporter of Youth.

Kat will bring her therapeutic and creative engagement skills to bear through her work with participants in Courageous Transitions, providing cathartic exploration and empowering awareness through simple art that anyone can engage with and access easily.

 Brenda Barton

Rituals for Release
Forgiveness for Moving Forward

 
 
Brenda Barton was educated at the University of Victoria and the University of Western Ontario with a focus on psychology and has a Mental Health Worker diploma.
Brenda has worked and been certified in Reality Therapy, Pranic Healing, Hypnotherapy, and PSYCH-K . She has also studied and worked in Thought Field Therapy and Rational Emotive Therapy. Brenda is a member of the William Glasser Institute for Choice Theory and Reality Therapy. She was the former Board President of The Canadian Pranic Healer’s Association and was the former President of the Vancouver Pranic Healing Association.
Brenda will lead us through exercises and visualizations designed to release or remove people or situations from our life, mind and thoughts when we need to let go (or that need to let go of us). This will help us with our energy, and with stabilization of our thoughts and beliefs so that we can have better discernment and wisdom on what the best choices are for us. She will also lead a segment on forgiveness – ensuring we are at our lightest and most central-focused as we prepare to move forward into an abundant future.

Sue Biely

“Joyful Connection” Playshop Experience
“Drawn Together” art and play collaboration

Sue ignites adult professionals to strengthen their team dynamics, collaboration skills and breakthrough thinking.
Her education includes a Post Graduate Fellowship and an MA in Organizational Leadership grounded in organization development, change management and adult learning. The three pillar theories of her studies were Design Thinking, Systems Thinking and Adaptive Leadership. Her course work led to a specialization in supporting the conditions and capacities for groups to become innovative.  Sue’s love for creative groups started in theatre school where she spent two years co-creating for performance and studying creative techniques to support well-being of individuals, groups and communities.
What if by deliberately turning how we “be” and how we “do” inside-out for a few hours, we could access brilliancy that would spill over into how we work and connect with those around us? What if how we do things best is exactly what might be preventing us from achieving new levels of collaboration, insight, and innovation? What if the solution were found in something as simple as the time we used to spend in creative play as a child?
Sue pulls people out of their traps and habits, promotes relationship building via the practice of multiple forms of expression, and results in increased capacity for complex work and innovation as a true team (not just individuals working alongside each other on the same challenge.) Through insightfully constructed activities, Sue engages participants by enabling them to access thought processes and intuition that have been dormant for years – and to go places they’ve never gone before.
Participants adventure together in risk-taking and innovative challenge solving, practicing the experience of insight while feeling safe and relaxed. They tap into delight, become refreshed through the use of unexercised parts of their brain, andend up surprising themselves and each other with their discoveries and creations. In Sue’s playshop, you can’t get it wrong.

Rebecca Mears

Remember Who You Are, and What Will Always Be
What do you Really Want?
Where does Your Inspiration Await?
Intuition Tune-Up

 
Rebecca is an experienced professional coach, a certified counsellor, Red Cross Trainer and pioneer in non-profit project development in Sri Lanka. She has refined skills for uncovering the deep values that represent what is inspiring for participants in order to achieve transformative learning. Rebecca’s years of work in education and counselling provide her with tremendous experience in conflict resolution, management, curriculum development, cross-cultural communication, teaching modalities and assessing adult and youth learning preferences and communication styles.
Her greatest talents include creating safe spaces for individuals to explore their inner workings and try on new thoughts and ways of interacting with self and others. Her deepest passion is creating environments in which new tribe members connect to each other – where synergy is activated, new supports are developed, and where everyone leaves feeling stronger than when they first arrived.
Rebecca will lead participants through several sessions focused on specific topics with a goal towards accessing new thoughts, possibilities, and sourcing new avenues of inspiration and support. Her goal is for participants to tap into more power, courage, and hope than they had been feeling before!
 

Jain Wells

Gong Sound Healing

 
Jain Wells, PhD is a transpersonal psychologist – which blends Western psychology with the wisdom of the world’s esoteric traditions. Jain has a particular interest in transformational practices that help individuals develop at the psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual levels — aspects of the Whole Self. If there are any issues or set-backs that you are experiencing in your life, there are ways to shift them and consciously move forward to higher ground.
As a therapist and a musician, sound healing has been a keen interest of Jain’s for many years. The ancient Gong, which originated in China in the Bronze Age, is said to be the oldest instrument. Its complex range of vibrations and rhythms create a profound soundscape that has a deeply healing and re-balancing effect on the body’s energy field. It creates tones that physically affect every cell in the body and literally re-order the molecules to promote healing. It stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system associated with slowing the heart rate, and regulating organ and gland functioning. It also increases vital life force energy, improves circulation and has a deeply calming effect on the mind and body.

“I have always been intrigued with how music and sound affect one’s mood and state of mind,” Jain says. “Nothing has affected me as deeply as the Gong in terms of its ability to cleanse and shift energy so rapidly. The gong healing experiences I have had personally, in addition to observing the same with others, became my initiation into working with its mysterious power.”

Jain incorporates gong sound healing into her live meditation groups and completed her training at The Integral Yoga Institute in New York under grand gong master and sound healer Don Conreaux. Jain will use a variety of gongs in her session (and crystal bowls) to assist participants in achieving deep states of awareness and for healing.