Events & Workshops

(See calendar for specific details on dates, times, and locations)

Photos © Teresa Wagner, 2006.  All rights reserved.  Used with permission and gratitude. 

Grief Support Skills

Facilitator:  Teresa Wagner, www.AnimalsinOurHearts.com

Location:  Nationally Available Teleclass -

            conference call phone number and password provided to registered students

Next Class Dates:

• Part 1 on Monday, May 7, 2007, 8:00 -9:45pm CDT
• Part 2 on Monday, May 14, 2007, 8:00 - 9:45pm CDT
• Part 3 on Monday, May 21, 2007, 8:00 - 9:45pm CDT
• Part 4 on Monday, June 4, 2007. 8:00 - 9:45pm CDT 

7.0 hours; $172

The physical death of a deeply beloved animal is one of the most poignant, sacred and often emotionally devastating life passages animal lovers ever experience.  I believe that our grief at these times deserves to be honored with acknowledgment of the legitimacy of our loss, and to be supported with great love, tenderness and effective support skills.

When another being truly cares, understands, and acknowledges the depth of our loss, our path is lighter.  When the truth of a tender and difficult loss is acknowledged, we know we are not alone.

When we are understood, healing feels much more possible. All of us on earth are here together to help one another.  Almost anyone seeing another in emotional pain wants to help.  Yet, seeing or hearing someone in great anguish can also be overwhelming and intimidating.   We may feel awkward or unsure about what to say or do.  Sometimes in attempts to help, friends, family and even professional counselors, healers, or authors impose their beliefs, thinking that their own paradigms ofanimal death and grief will be relevant and helpful to all others.  For grievers, this intentional or unconscious imposing gets in the way of them discovering for themselves what they believe or need, and what will work for them.  It also often adds anger and frustration to an already stressful time o grief.

The most empowering things we can do to help grievers is to learn to be truly present with their suffering: to listen, not advise; to judiciously and gently suggest possibilities, not impose our beliefs as fact; to be with them as they find their own way, not judge, push or prod them in the way we think they should grow.  To be truly present with someone's pain without feeling a need to fix it, reconcile it, or recoil from it is one of the most powerful gifts we can give another.  It requires patience, discernment of what to say when, skills of empathic expression, and great respect for the wisdom of the other's soul.  These delicate and subtle grief support skills can be learned and integrated into our practices as animal communicators and healers.

This brief, four session teleclass offers an introduction to these skills and ideas as well as an overview of the grief recovery process.

SESSION 1:

•What ARE energetic boundaries and energetic protection
• Why are they important when working with people and animals in pain?
• A chakra perspective of these issues

• Levels of Compassionate Respose to Other's Pain
• The Whale's Lesson on Death
• Specific techniques and strategies to practice energetic protection

 

SESSION 2:

• The Two Golden Rules of Grief Support
• Why Animal Loss is Different
• Personal Understanding of Grief:

Intimate Self Awareness of our Motivation to Help and our Orientation as Helpers/Healers

• Intellectual Understanding of Grief:

The fallacy of stages of grief

Understanding the tasks of healing grief and choices involved
Complicated Grief
The Humpback Bridge

SESSION 3:

• The Skills of Empathy: The Core of Grief Support
• Using specific language to communicate compassion and support grievers
• Empathy vs. Projection
• Empathy vs. Enmeshment
• Empathy before Strategy—Always!
• Permission to offer resources or ideas vs. imposing them

SESSION 4:

• The Role of Spiritual Beliefs and Paradigms –the clients and the healers'—
                in the Grief Support Process: Helpful or Hindrance?
• Specific Do's and Don'ts Known to Help Grievers
• Resources on grief support for additional learning and referral

 

Please note:  Outside consultations or mentoring by the facilitator are not included in the course tuition. Your understanding is appreciated.

Requirements:

• Purchase Legacies of Love audio book by Teresa Wagner in advance and review.
  

Teresa's audio book is immediately available from Carol Schultz by adding to your shopping cart ($22.50 plus tax) 

Click HERE to purchase Teresa's audio book Legacies of Love

Or purchase on line through Amazon.com.

This workshop is for informational purposes only and is in no way meant to cure or diagnose anything. It is not a substitute for professional medical or veterinary care.

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This course is facilitated by
Teresa Wagner.....

Teresa has loved and lived with animals all of her life. It is being with them that brings her to the core of her soul while here on earth.  Animals and animal issues provide the meaning, guidance, joy, and purpose in her life.

She has had a private animal communication and flower essence practice since 1991, and is author of the audio book Legacies of Love, A Gentle Guide to Healing from the loss of Your Animal Loved One.

Her entry into the fields of grief recovery and traumatic stress began when she lost her first cat in 1985. Unable to easily come to terms with her grief, she sought therapy and began a rigorous reviewof the grief literature and grief workshops.  Over time, these sources helped her heal and understand the grief recovery process.  This motivated her to design and offer grief workshops to help others through this disenfranchised loss.  Since then, Teresa has worked with thousands of grieving humans, individually, in workshops, and in bereavement support groups.  In a year long consulting project with a hospice, she conducted research to identify the competencies needed for effective griefsupport, resulting in the Grief Support Competencies Profile.

Teresa is passionately concerned about the pet overpopulation epidemic and the trauma this creates for both the animals and animal welfare employees as well.  In conjunction with FES (Flower Essence Society) Teresa developed a flower essence formula to address the issues unique to the post traumatic stress of shelter and rescue animals.  She also designs and conducts compassion fatigue workshops for animal shelter workers throughout the U.S.  Teresa also developed a section on her web site as a place of solace and compassion fatigue education for animal care workers.

Her traditional education includes a master's degree in counseling from Villanova University, studies at the Grief Recovery Institute in Los Angeles, and post graduate work in counseling and organizational development at Columbia University, Wharton, and with Carl Rogers at the University of Nottingham, England. She has also completed the Clinical Training Program in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the National Center for PTSD, Dept. of Veterans Affairs.  Her healingarts education includes animal communication with Jeri Ryan, flower essence training at FES, Perelandra, and Desert Alchemy, energy healing training in Reiki, Tellington-Touch and TherapeuticTouch, and psychic studies with Evelyn Isadore.

In the 1980's, Teresa held a series of management positions with RCA, heading training and organization development departments in New York City and New Jersey.  In the late 1970's she wasa counselor and trainer for the National Training Institute of the Juvenile Justice Center in Philadelphia.

She has been named to Who's Who of American Women, Outstanding Young Women of America, is the recipient of the RCA President's Award, and an American Society of Training and Development Award for Outstanding Contribution.  She has also received the Gwendolyn May Award for Humanitarian Work Extending Beyond Monterey County by the SPCA of Monterey County, CA.  Sheis a regularly invited speaker to national conferences for organizations such as The Humane Society of the United States, and is on the faculty for The American Humane Association.  She has served on the boards of Horse Power International, The Assisi International Animal Institute, and is Past President of the Wildlife Auxiliary of The SPCA of Monterey County in California.

Born near Philadelphia, Teresa has lived on the central coast of California since 1989.  She considers herself very blessed to live with her beloved cats KK and Olivia. They live in a log cabin in a Big Sur redwood forest, amongst banana slugs, foxes, raccoons, birds, chipmunks, the flowers in the garden, and the whales and otters across the road in the Pacific Ocean.

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Please review the appropriate Enrollment Policy, as well as the Student Waiver, prior to registering.

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Please see the calendar for contact information to register for workshops on specific dates. General questions regarding the workshops can also be made to Carol directly at:

E-mail: carol@carolschultz.com
Phone: (815) 254-8325
Carol Lynn Anderson Schultz
P.O. Box 509
Plainfield, IL 60544

*Disclaimer:
Animal Communication is not an alternative or substitute for good veterinary care, proper nutrition, training, or exercise.

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