Wheel of Consent®: embodied practice series ~ 6 weeks online

This offer includes 12 hours of live facilitated practice, with optional guided home practices and short content videos.

The Wheel of Consent® is a groundbreaking framework and awareness practice developed by Dr. Betty Martin. Since its inception, it has been brought into schools, universities, therapist programs, and organizations around the world, reshaping how practitioners are trained.

The practice is simple, subtle, and profound.
In this practice, we develop our capacity to tune into our bodies and our ability to skillfully and gracefully navigate interactions and dynamics in intimate and professional relationships.

This offers a deeply nuanced way to develop our skills through an embodied process that brings deeper integrity, care, responsibility, and empowerment into our interactions. Our practice focuses on the emergent and personal, while welcoming awareness of the systemic and global.
This practice applies to touch and non-touch and all levels of relationships.
In tending safety, we deepen our awareness of power dynamics, and social issues of equality and justice.

Our increased awareness enables more authentic relationships centered in safety, clarity, and ease.
Applied professionally, it makes us more effective practitioners, able to affect human change and healing with more sensitivity and care.
Applied personally, it allows us to access deeper and more meaningful connections.

Course details
Dates: July 14, 21, 28, Aug 4, 11, 18
Hours: Tuesdays 9-11 AM Pacific, 12-14 PM Eastern, 6-8 PM Central European
We'll take a brief break each session. You're welcome to move, shift, step away anytime you want during sessions.

The sessions focus on engaging in embodied practice to cultivate our capacity to:
~ notice and honour signals from our bodies, including our sense of safety, our wants, and our willingness,
~ trust ourselves and recognize what deepens our trust of others,
~ value ourselves and others,
~ communicate clearly.
Each practice is offered by describing the practice, demonstrating the practice, opportunity to experiment in the practice, and debrief. 
In practices, we will focus on self and other through individual and dyad practices in breakout rooms. This series does not focus on more complex group dynamics.

We share brief instructional videos, optional home practice, and resources before/between sessions.
The videos will be particularly useful if you have not already taken any Wheel of Consent® workshops.

Max 23 participants, Min 6*
* We will postpone, with full refunds, if we have not reached the minimum of 6 registered participants by July 10.

Sliding Scale Tickets (includes the 12 hours of facilitated practices, home practices, and content videos)
Ocean: $630 CAD + GST (have investments, can afford travel/vacations)
Lake: $435 CAD + GST (stable income, access to financial support)
Pond: $270 CAD + GST (can afford occasional treats) ** limited spots
Puddle: $150 CAD + GST (closer to living wage) ** limited spots
Payment plan: $50 + GST deposit

Who is this for?
We welcome seasoned practitioners and complete beginners. It's a practice, and we'll all be working against our personal learning edge.
~ you want to cultivate a deeper sense of safety, a more loving relationship to yourself and with others
~ you yearn for more authenticity, deeper connection, and ease 
~ you want support in slowing down and actually noticing and honouring your boundaries
~ you want to cultivate deeper sensitivity towards others struggling to ask for what they want and say no
~ you want to develop embodied consent skills and an in person Wheel of Consent® workshop is inaccessible to you
~ you've taken a (or many) Wheel of Consent® workshop(s) and you want to continue to integrate and deepen your skills

What participants say
"A big thank you. This stuff is simple, in a way, but revolutionizing. I share in another participant's reflection that they feel grief for not having known this sooner, and gratitude that I know it now." 
"I feel it impacting every relationship I have. I feel more thoughtful when I decide to offer something, and I feel more intentional about when I decide to receive something. My relationships feel richer already."
"The practice has been incredibly helpful for me. To feel into and know that I'm allowed and encouraged to have desires, wants, needs and limits is a life changing practice for me. I have been raised and socialized to believe deeply that my worth is tied up in and founded on what I can do for others. I have been called a martyr many times in my life and I was always proud of that title. I didn't realize what I was missing. I didn't know what I didn't know. I only knew that my relationships weren't at the depth that I was craving - I didn't have the connections that I was intuitively yearning for but unsure of how to get. I couldn't access my own authenticity, identity and queerness because I couldn't connect with myself and my true desires. This practice has increased my capacity to listen to and feel into and trust my own wants and needs, yes/no/maybe and on the flipside to trust that others are capable and responsible for communicating their desires and limits as well."
"I loved the structure and the "pace" of the course. It helped me to stay focused and calm enough to learn."
"Really feeling in my body the power of sensing is better than doing. I can't imagine overriding that with the ease I used to."
"I feel like I could take this course many more times and walk away with new insights each and every time."
"Thank you for providing this in such an clear, interactive, engaging and fun format. I wasn't sure how I would like the online format but it really works. I also appreciated the time between sessions to be able to try out some of these new skills in my real life. Also your presence as facilitators is incredible - calm, open, grounded and so full of knowledge. Thank you! You are such gifts! It was an absolute pleasure being in your course. I have learned so much and I am very grateful."
"This is such a powerful and important class--thank you for offering it."
"Realizing how many things I was doing unconsciously and that there are other options has been life changing!"

Training Guidelines
How we ask that you engage with each other:
1. Confidentiality — outside the practices and the group, share only your own experience and learnings. We ask that you attend the sessions from a quiet space and use headphones if anyone is in the same room as you. No recording or screenshots of each other.
2. All feelings are welcome and do not need to be justified or explained; honor the feelings that arise in others by allowing them to feel without fixing or advising.
3. Share with intention, using "I" statements. No cross talk. Bring awareness to power. Listen with attention.
4. Orient towards care. Use the names and pronouns people request, and honour the lived experience of those in the group. Bring curiosity and set aside assumptions about people's identities and experiences (e.g. gender, racialization, sexuality, etc.). 
5. Stay within the stated limits of each practice. All practices are non-sexual.

What we invite for your own experience:
1. Invite beginner’s mind — everything we offer is an experiment and an opportunity to notice yourself; take what works for you and leave the rest.
2. Do not do anything you do not want to do.
3. Choosing is more important than doing. Participation can look many ways and you choose how you want to participate — actively join an exercise, journal, take a break, and change your mind. 
4. Self-care and self-regulation — take care of your needs (for water, rest, movement, etc.)

Accessibility
໑ Closed captions are available during the sessions.
໑ The session will be delivered in English. We welcome clarifying questions, repetition, and interpretation to bridge language barriers.
໑ Practice instructions are described, demonstrated, and posted/written in the chat.
໑ You will have the options to participate with video, audio, and via the chat. 

Acknowledgments About Racialization, Neurodivergence, Disabilities
The course is open to anyone interested in developing embodied consent skills. Our intention is for this to be a safe enough space for learning for everyone attending. We recognize that this offering cannot meet everyone’s needs and we are committed to serving you as best as possible.
Please email Helena to if you have questions or accessibility needs, and they will do their best to accommodate them. 

Refund policy
If you are unable to attend, you may choose to have your payment refunded according to the following schedule:
More than 30 days before the event: full refund
15-30 days before the event: 50% refund, or, if you can fill your spot with someone else, a full refund
Less than 15 days before the event: No refunds, or unless you/we can fill your spot with someone else*
*In cases of illness or family emergency, we will endeavor to refund your full tuition less any unrecoverable costs, or transfer to a future offering.

About the facilitator
Helena De Felice (they/she) is a Certified Facilitator of the Wheel of Consent® and has been facilitating Wheel practices since 2016.
Helena is passionate about developing individual and collective awareness that deepens our capacity to facilitate healing. Her facilitation is deeply trauma-responsive and non-judgemental, informed by many years in the field of prevention and response to gender-based violence, senior leadership roles in sexual and reproductive rights, attending births, deaths, and leading queer-centric erotic healing events. They have offered Wheel of Consent® trainings to hundreds of participants, in a wide range of settings, and trains facilitators and practitioners in trauma-responsive facilitation skills.

Some identities and presentations where Helena holds unearned and earned rank in many settings: white, European, upper-middle working class upbringing, educated, mostly able-bodied, Swedish and English language fluency, travelled, regular access to their ancestral lands, married and straight-passing, and supported by loving partner, colleagues, family, friends, and community. With the following experiences Helena has navigated marginalization: femme, queer, trauma from many dimensions including CSA, SA, and coercive control, burnout, invisibly disabled, immigrant, neurodivergent, English as a second language, activist, self-employed.

Helena will be assisted by
Adam Nicholson
Adam Nicholson has worked for almost 10 years in the personal development, somatic healing, and consent education worlds. His work prioritizes agreements and practices that center consent, conflict awareness, repair, and justice. Adam currently lives in Knoxville, TN, USA.

FAQ
Does this count as a full Wheel of Consent® Workshop?
Yes. Helena is a Certified Facilitator of the Wheel of Consent®. With the combination of videos and practices, the core curriculum will be covered.

What if I miss a session?
This practice is relational meaning we can only engage in it with others. Your presence matters, which includes your capacity to be present.
We affirm and celebrate the choice to prioritize choosing over doing. We are never required to be available for others, and our absence has an impact. 
We understand that circumstances sometimes get in the way.
Each session is focused on practice. While the practices build on each other in terms of complexity, there are no hard rules.
Everything is an experiment and an opportunity for you to notice yourself, including if there is an impact from missing a session.

What if I need to arrive late/leave early?
This practice is relational meaning we can only engage in it with others. Your presence matters, which includes your capacity to be present.
We affirm and celebrate the choice to prioritize choosing over doing. We are never required to be available for others, and our absence has an impact.
We understand that circumstances sometimes get in the way.
Each session is focused on practice. While the practices build on each other in terms of complexity, there are no hard rules.
Everything is an experiment and an opportunity for you to notice yourself, including if there is an impact from arriving late/leaving early.

Can I attend with a partner or friend?
Absolutely. Sometimes it is supportive/helpful to attend with someone you know. If possible, attend with separate screens from separate spaces. This will support each of you to drop in to your own personal practice. Each attendee needs to register separately.