training
Exploring Dimensions of Spirituality on the Front Lines of Violence: A Workshop for Personal Exploration in Troubled Times
Date and time: Friday, September 26
Location: Canterbury Retreat House, 2401 Bennington Road, Charlottesville, VA
Cost: $95 (includes beverages, snacks, and lunch)
To register, click here.
In this workshop, we will explore how the experience of violence often opens up in ourselves and others a yearning for a more spiritual way of seeing the world and life. We will examine how and why this happens and how to harness it in ourselves and our clients in the process of forging greater peace. In the process, we will learn how to talk about religion and spirituality in a way that is respectful of differences in beliefs.
Violence and trauma are ubiquitous in our world today. Many people are seeking answers to pressing questions. How can we stop the cycle of violence? Why is there so much violence? How can we find peace? These are fundamentally spiritual questions, no matter what our religious, moral, or spiritual beliefs and values. The answers, if we find any, touch upon basic questions about why there is suffering and our faith in whether healing and change in ourselves, the people we work with and the world at large are possible. Indeed, an experience of violence towards ourselves or others can lead us to a crisis of meaning and faith.
Many of us work with client populations dealing with these challenges. Many of us have faced our own. Working with survivors of trauma can also deplete us or trigger our own crisis. While there is greater acceptance of the need to address the psychological and physical causes and effects of violence, as professionals, we tend to skirt the issue of meaning and spirituality in the interest of not imposing our own belief systems on others. Or we lack a constructive vocabulary to do so. This workshop helps us explore how we can address our own and each individual’s spirituality and experiences of violence and peace in respectful ways. It helps us explore the spiritual dimensions of violence and if and how real peace can be achieved.
The Art of Surviving is a collaborative project of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Action Alliance (VSDVAA) and the University of Virginia Women’s Center and is funded by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities (VFH) since 2006 as a way to explore the spiritual dimensions of violence revealed in the artwork and writings of survivors of sexual violence. We will use samples of this work as a way to launch into exploring the spiritual questions evoked by experiences of violence and how self-expression may or may not address them.
We will use and teach methods and theories from psychology and various experiential, action-oriented tools drawn from healing traditions worldwide. The goal will be for participants to emerge with the following:
• Personal renewal and a greater sense of hope about the future of the world.
• A deeper understanding of the intersection between physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of violence.
• Tools to support maintaining inner peace in the “war zone” of working with sexual and domestic violence.
• Tools and understandings about how to evoke spiritual issues and questions while respecting differences in value and faith systems.
• Information about The Art of Surviving project and how to use it in your professional setting to foster similar questions about “the art of surviving” and spiritual life.
To print out a Word flyer of this workshop, click here: Exploring the Spiritual Dimensions of Violence and Peace
To register, click here.