Many practitioners get to a point where they know they can take their clients to a deeper level of healing but aren’t sure what the missing tools are.
The Vitalist School leads coaches, practitioners, healers, and counselors through deep, full-bodied transformative healing so that you can support your clients to do the same.
What to Expect
The Vitalist School is specifically designed to take you through a deep and transformative journey over the course of 9 months. We ask that students read all the assigned reading thoroughly before the program starts so the time spent on the weekends can be given toward the transformative work of embodying the material within their heart and body.
All the required reading is deep and profound, yet this program is built around embodying new ways of being in the world, not simply just collecting more head knowledge. Most of us have plenty of knowledge, but it’s the embodiment of that knowledge that creates real transformation in our lives.
It is our experience that those who fully commit and show up for themselves, their work, and the community are deeply transformed over the 9 months. Participants wanting to share this work in the world are well equipped to safely guide others back to their authentic selves.
Curriculum
The Vitalist School is a beautiful, life-changing…and also an intense 9-month program.
This is why we start the entire program focused on assisting you in finding safety within yourself. In order to safely unpack the trauma and conditioning lodged within you, it requires the ability to access your personal anchors of safety. These trauma-informed practices assure that your journey back to yourself is as safe as possible.
You will learn how to find your own inner resources of safety and connection. You will also learn how to guide others in specific energy exercises and meditations aimed at creating a foundation of safety to drop into the deeper self and deeper transformation.
Self-Observation
The first step toward transformation is taking a step back to observe your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.
You may notice that many of your responses in the present moment are actually reactions from your past. When you create awareness around the habitual ways in which you think, feel, and act in your everyday life, you can start to bring these unconscious behaviors into your conscious awareness.
You might catch yourself:
➔ reacting instead of responding
➔ defending instead of listening
➔ shutting down instead of being present
In these moments, the simple act of watching and observing allows you to name the patterns, beliefs, and responses that run your everyday life. As you cultivate the courage to tell the truth, awareness invites you to take an honest look at what is and isn’t working in your current life.
The first few months of the school are dedicated to the practice of “practitioner heal thyself.”
This dedication to your own internal growth is foundational to your ability to assist others on their journey.
Students will learn:
-Active meditations that include breathing practices, somatic practices, and bioenergetics to master the skill of connecting with core, ground, inner wisdom and the blueprint of the soul.
-How to create pathways to safety and belonging within yourself and the clients you serve.
-The art of self-observation and somatic tracking.
-The art of non-directive question asking.
- To develop the attunement, intuition, and assessment tools needed to observe how trauma and restriction are held in the physical body.
-The skills to lead others deeper into their unconscious beliefs that create suffering and limit their capacity to live freely.
-Modalities that work between the head, heart, mind, and body in assisting clients to release outdated beliefs and held emotions.
Working With The 5 Personality Patterns
Maps allow us to see where we have come from, where we are, and where we might want to move next. The main map utilized in the Vitalist School is the 5 Personalities Patterns map (Reichian character structures).
The 5 Personality Patterns map is the lens through which you can master not only self-observation, but also complex tracking of the clients you support. This system of observation is a potent way to understand the unresolved developmental tasks that have affected your life and the subsequent holding patterns that became locked in your physical body.
Much of how you respond today (especially when you are scared or upset) is based upon methods perfected in childhood. These default settings were wired into your body as a child and became safety strategies you reflexively engaged whenever you didn't feel safe.
Some of these strategies include:
➔ leaving your body
➔ trying to get others to fix problems for you
➔ hunkering down
➔ becoming aggressive
➔ trying to perform perfectly
All of these are habitual attempts to get your needs met or help you feel safe. As a child, you had little agency or authority over your own life, so these patterns became a means to help you survive what felt painful or scary.
As an adult, however, you continue to operate from these childhood patterns of survival. While “in pattern,” you are not able to deeply connect to your authentic self or to others. Being in pattern drastically affects your ability to stay in the present moment and respond to the here and now.
Through mastering the personality patterns you will have a potent and simple tool to “unstick” yourself and to guide your clients skillfully back to their authentic selves.
You will learn:
-To identify your own patterns while developing an embodied understanding of how to compassionately work with your clients' resistance and strengths through the lens of the 5 Personality Patterns.
-How to identify when you or those around you are “going into pattern.”
-How to navigate out of an overwhelmed and suffering state back to your Vital State.
-How to communicate and work skillfully with each pattern in sessions.
-The best ways to assist clients in understanding their patterns and the pathways back to their essential nature.
- Bioenergetic and somatic practices to release the body armoring for each type.
Somatic Practices
The second half of the Vitalist School is even more experiential and involves a deep-dive into the body. Somatic practices are ways to learn from the body as opposed to learning through the mind.
Through the Polyvagal Theory and observing the “felt sense,” you will learn how trauma shows up in your body and in session with your clients. It is crucial to co-create safety with clients, so you will learn essential exercises to better support clients as difficult experiences are felt and brought up in session.
Through questions and prompts, you will learn how to safely allow your clients to
➔ Engage
➔ Explore
➔ Release
➔ Integrate
the traumas and beliefs that have kept them locked in the past. You will also learn how to identify when additional support on a case is required.
Most of this stage will be focused on combining the modalities of somatic tracking, inner child work, and the use of touch and breath to assist clients in unpacking the boxes of trauma, held beliefs, and stuck emotions.
There will be plenty of time given to practice and feedback in order to truly embody the art of gracefully working alongside a client.
You will receive:
-Practice sessions with feedback from your Vitalist School partners as well as the Vitalist teachers.
-Simple and safe therapeutic touch skills as a way of supporting your clients’ inner work
-Teachings and practice on the use of conscious breathing as a tool to ground, clear and activate what is arising in a session.
-Continued practice in attunement and the development of your intuition.
Required Reading
Because of the depth of material in this course, it is crucial to forming a foundation of understanding through the required texts. A successful embodiment of the material begins with your ability to prioritize your time outside of class reading and studying the information.
You can start with the required reading list as soon as you decide to take the program! These books are incredibly rich and dense, and it wouldn't hurt to read them multiple times.
As class time is prioritized around experiencing concepts presented in these readings, it is critical you have a solid understanding prior to coming to class. Please start with the required reading in this order:
The 5 Personality Patterns: Your Guide to Understanding Yourself and Others and Developing Emotional Maturity
By Steven Kessler
The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation
By Deb Dana
Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy: Awareness, Breath, Resonance, Movement and Touch in Practice
By Susan McConnell
Practice Sessions
We will pair each participant with a practice partner. Between each class, we ask that you meet once in person or online to connect, share, and practice the relevant skills we are learning.
You will switch practice partners at least once over the 9 months.
Personal Practices
After each weekend together, we will provide you with at-home practices to assist you in embodying the material. These range from journaling prompts, to meditations, or breath and movement-based practices.
Some months we will ask more and some months less. Generally, there is around a 20-30 minute commitment each day.
1:1 Sessions
We find that those who engage in regular sessions before, during, and after the program tend to get more out of it. All Vitalist School participants will receive three one-on-one sessions with one of the team assistants to use during the course of the program. For those of you who signed up for the professional track, you will also receive two additional one-on-one sessions with Leah. We will provide information for scheduling as we get closer to the beginning of the program.
Professional Track (Optional)
For those of you who are aiming to integrate this work beyond your personal growth and into your professional practice, our Professional Track is a great option.
Vitalist School weekends are so immersive and potent, it can be difficult to personally experience the transformative work while wrapping your mind around how to share this work with your clients.
The Professional Track provides additional training, mentorship, and coaching outside of the intensive weekends to support you in bringing this work forward into the world.
We will focus on 3 key areas:
How you are integrating the Vitalists Methodology into your existing offerings
Taking steps in setting up or evolving your practice
Stepping more fully into the role of the practitioner
Includes : 3 group trainings via zoom + 2 individual mentorship sessions
Take the First Step! Your Future Self Will Thank You!
From Ryan…
“[The Vitalist School] is a commitment and accountability to show up for me, so that I can show up for others.”
-Ryan Deluca
From Heidi…
“The Vitalist community is a with ward journey with loving individuals I am connected to, who also desire to live and be more of who they were intended to be-the innate goodness of their creation and soul.”
-Heidi Camp
From Mariela…
“One of the many many gifts is the community that feels like family! I'm so grateful for us!
From the very first weekend, I was truly blown away by the program. Every month since, I'm more and more amazed by the positive changes in my life, my family, and my career. Vitalist School gave me back my health, my aliveness, my joy! It’s a gift to myself in the world.”
-Rev. Mariela Perez-Simons