Healing in the Round
a small group model of healing that centers holistic, intimate, educational care.
Healing in the Round is part personal work, with me as your herbalist and guide, and part class as you learn how to read the more subtle signs of your body’s health (i.e. tongue, pulse, facial diagnosis) and how to listen deeply to what your body is communicating. You are not alone in how you experience illness, and wellness is not the absence of suffering but the presence of health. You’ll receive the personal care ideas, custom formulas, and deep attention that private sessions bring, but do so in a safe, supportive small group where insight into other’s experience informs your own. Witness is a deep teacher. This is not an offering meant to create more crutches, here you will be challenged to transform your wounds into gifts.
To fully heal, you must consider the narratives that you are continuing to create and bring awareness to whether such stories are instrumental to your struggles, to your illness or are they serving as opportunities to achieve wellness and reinforced healing. -Jeffrey yuen
Transforming in community is a powerful way to change the entire course of your path, should you decide to do so. When we see our weaknesses as our medicine we can create lasting transformation and change. Change is perhaps the only constant in the world, just as circulation is the key to all life. I draw from my deep study of the moving body as a dance artist, physiology and disease as a western herbalist, and a practitioner of Taoism and qigong. I welcome you to walk with me here.
~ Spring cohort is Full ~
"healing in community is so much more powerful than I expected. we each have our own story, struggles, specifics, and depth of humaness, yet the elements overlap so profoundly." -Sarah
how it works
Groups will be offered in seasonal cycles and include 6 virtual sessions, spaced every other week, leaving time for herbal protocols and life changes to take root. This structure allows me to easily track your path over time, offering support as symptoms shift. Each session will include deep personal attention to two of the four participants, including face/tongue/symptom assessment and in depth herbal treatment plans. When not engaged in this direct interaction, participants will offer witness and work with prompts that help reflect the knowledge back onto their own experience. This is where listening to another’s experience informs your own and leads to a deeper understanding of your constitution and trajectory of dis-ease.
Each cycle includes:
6 live workshops, on Zoom
3 individual sessions per person, within the workshops
real time sharing and feedback
weekly prompts and exercises specific to our content
relevant articles and resources shared throughout the cycle
what you’ll learn
The foundation of the educational content, and portal to care, is based on the three centers - or treasures - of the body according to Daoist medicine. Instead of organizing around ailments (i.e. cancer, COPD, hashimotos, etc.), we turn towards the three physical centers of health to identify how our patterns likely stem from an imbalance between our centers.
This view of the body celebrates the idea that we are reflections of the landscapes we live in, using ecological health to understand our individual ailments. For example, a swamp is a watery, saturated place, where much life abounds. It is also a place that can easily begin to fester with too much stagnation, leading to inflammation and microbial overload. Deeper in the layers of soil, heat can become trapped, and turn the delicate ecosystem into an underground, unchecked fire, inflaming the roots. Stagnation in the body looks much the same as it does on land. Understanding this not only connects us to our own autonomous health, but to the wider story being lived on Earth by all. This view requires deep looking and listening to the landscape, which in itself is healing.
We typically work through the three burners from the ground-up, as a starting point for understanding the weaknesses in our constitutions and finding similarities with each other. Of course, the body cannot ever be understood as parts of a whole, and we will inevitably discuss all the energetic centers in each group as they arise.
roots
The lower burner is referred to as the ‘essence’, or sea of creative chi. This area includes our generative/reproductive organs, our lower bowels, and our kidney center that informs our endocrine, immune, and fluid systems. Imbalance may show up in the menstrual cycle/generative organs, abnormal growth in/around the lower burner, autoimmune dysfunction, or lack of a clear life path/direction. Stress deeply impacts this burner in particular due to its hormone regulation, as well as unchecked fear.
guts
The middle burner, referred to as the center of vitality and chi, is the fulcrum of metabolization. To be able to metabolize well - anything from tacos to conversations to relationships - we need a strong center, able to warm and circulate effectively. Imbalances may show up as gut issues (ulcers, SIBO/IBS, chronic constipation, etc.), but also emotionally as hyper-vigilance, worry, rage, and/or low self-esteem and self-worth. There are more neurons going from the gut to the brain than the other way around!
heart
The upper burner encompasses the heart, the mind, and the spirit. Issues arising in circulation, sleep, the lungs and/or heart, lymph flow, and excessive grief, depression, or overwhelm are all about upper burner imbalances.
Healing does not happen outside of community - it is part of the landscape.
cost
sliding scale: supportive: $425 / sustainable: $350 / scholarship: $250
Tiered payment options are offered for your own self assessment. If you live with privilege (due to race, age, location, or wealth), by paying on the highest tier you are supporting equity in embodiment and radical self-care practices. The tiers are priced well below the cost of working together privately to support a wider range of economic realities. If you are unable to afford one of the options on this scale, please reach out for alternative ways to reciprocate and to receive scholarship. If you live with financial abundance or historical wealth, consider donating towards another’s care.
*Herbal formulas are priced separately, and offered to you at cost. Tinctures - $10 oz., Teas - $5 oz., Salves - $10 oz.
dates & registration
~ spring 2024 ~
six Fridays, 1-3pm Eastern
Mar 29, Apr 5, 19, May 3, 17, 24
~ fall 2024 TBA ~
IMPORTANT: attendance at all 6 sessions is necessary. By registering you are committing to both yourself and the other members, please do so with mindful intention.
Please also complete a full intake form (current clients too, if you have not done so in the past year.)
“Together we can more readily see reflections of our own experiences in the plants and in nature; we are not alone.” -Rose, apprentice
what participants are saying:
~"I feel like I am learning about the deeper shape of health and imbalances, while also getting direct support for my particular needs." ~Sarah
~"I feel the power of the witness...it's lonely being on the inside of my symptoms. thinking of someone I know when the pain is acute is so supportive, it reminds me that healing can't happen alone." -anonymous
~“[Healing in the Round] is a beautiful approach to healing. it touches on the fact that being witnessed in your process is a necessary component to healing, I do believe. Frieda holds a very warm space that really makes you feel like allll of you is welcome.” -Sami
~“[Frieda’s] holding was so thoughtful and skillful. every session I felt amazed by your facilitation, guidance, questions, herbal knowledge and intuitive support. You are awesome!” -anonymous
~"HitR is altogether a subtle, nuanced, and radical approach to healing, where we find ourselves inside our own bodies, stories, healing journeys, ecosystems. Together we can more readily see reflections of our own experiences in the plants and in nature; we are not alone." - Rose
~“I felt really safe and supported.” -Sarah
~"Frieda is an amazing teacher and healer, who shares a reverence for and deep knowledge of the plant world, and works with her clients with respect, humility and a sense of humor. " - Tina
~“[Healing in the Round] is a really unique offering! Somewhere between a healing circle and an ongoing conversation with a trusted care provider.” -Leah
~"Frieda is a highly skilled practitioner who weaves in multiple disciplines for a truly holistic view of health." - Cheryl
~"this has been a new ledge to see myself from, through others' stories." -Kate
expectations during participation
All participants will engage with full confidentiality and respect for each other, signing agreements that protect our privacy and invite our highest selves to each session. While we will be going through this together, we will also maintain healthful boundaries around privacy by using a free email platform, respecting consent, and filtering questions through me. It’s unlikely you will live in the same town or even state as others in your group, making room for more autonomy and vulnerability. You will be expected to attend all group sessions, even those where you aren’t the direct focus. Having a witness, and bearing witness, are some of the most powerful tools for healing that we humans have.
If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out.
“When we change the ‘I’ for the ‘We,’ even Illness becomes Wellness.” - Malcolm X