Dates: 
    For U.S.: Fridays, October 7, 14, 21, and 28, 2022
    For Asia: Saturdays, October 8, 15, 22, and 29, 2022

Time: 3:00 - 5:00PM PDT - Click here for your time zone

Cost:  $125.
Includes all 4 sessions. Individual sessions not available for purchase.

Registration Deadline: October 3rd, 2022

Prerequisite:

This course is open to those who have completed at least one of the following:

  • 1 FOAT® workshop or training
  • Level 1 Focusing training
  • Permission of FOAT Institute Director

CE Information: CE hours are only eligible for those that attend all 4 Live Zoom Meetings.
This series is approved for 8 Continuing Education (CE) hours through R. Cassidy Seminars!  Click here for CE information and purchasing.

About the series 

FOAT® Tools II builds on the resilience-enhancing FOAT exercises taught in our foundational courses and teaches new FOAT exercises that help to befriend the more challenging or stressful felt senses that are part of our everyday lives.

During this series, we will introduce you to the following exercises: FOAT® Check-in and What it Needs, Inner Advisor, and Self-Care. Together we will co-create a supportive community to learn and practice these tools for deepening into our authenticity, presence, and creative wisdom – and identify steps toward growth, healing, and change. There will be opportunities to support our connection and deepen our skills of compassionate presence and listening through small and large group sharing.

Note: FOAT® Check-in and What it Needs will be offered 2 times in this series because when it is used as a repeated practice it:

  • Deepens the ability to ground ourselves
  • Brings a compassionate presence to whatever felt sense is there
  • Enhances our authenticity
  • Strengthens our inner knowing for how to care for ourselves and challenging felt senses

Certificates of Completion (not CE approved) are available upon request at the conclusion of the course!

The 2022 schedule will be as follows (Click on each session for details!)

  • October 7th: FOAT® Check-in and What it Needs

    The “FOAT® Check-in” teaches us to bring a curious and “friendly” attitude toward our inner experience – whatever is there in the present moment – whether stressful, uncomfortable, blank, or peaceful. We then “keep it company” inwardly and see if there’s a symbol – an image, word, phrase, gesture, or sound that matches the inner felt sense. The symbol may then be expressed through art, movement, gesture, sound, or writing. After, an additional step is added: Asking the felt sense and/or arts expression if it needs anything. This step helps to access our inner wisdom. Focusers discover how amazing it is that the body knows what it needs.

  • October 14th: Inner Advisor

    This exercise integrates guided imagery with FOAT® to find an inner advisor – a part of ourselves that embodies our innate wisdom. During this exercise, we will also listen for a question that is wanting to be asked – inviting a spaciousness for the inner advisor to offer a felt sense response. After, the arts and/or writing are used to express what is most meaningful. This exercise teaches us how this inner wisdom lives within and can be called on to offer guidance for a variety of life’s issues, questions, or challenges.

  • October 21st: FOAT® Check-in and What it Needs

    ** Same as October 7th exercise description ** The “FOAT® Check-in” teaches us to bring a curious and “friendly” attitude toward our inner experience – whatever is there in the present moment – whether stressful, uncomfortable, blank, or peaceful. We then “keep it company” inwardly and see if there’s a symbol – an image, word, phrase, gesture, or sound that matches the inner felt sense. The symbol may then be expressed through art, movement, gesture, sound, or writing. After, an additional step is added: Asking the felt sense and/or arts expression if it needs anything. This step helps to access our inner wisdom. Focusers discover how amazing it is that the body knows what it needs.

  • October 28th: Self-Care

    This FOAT® exercise invites us to find what we are needing for self-care. Through an inner FOAT® process, we will also explore if there is anything in the way of caring for ourselves, what’s needed, and then finding a small step to carry us in the right direction. After, the guided FOAT® process may be expressed through any of the arts or writing. This exercise is useful as a daily practice – as well as carrying forward after this series.

All presentations will be recorded and available for viewing in the course page for 2 months – so if you cannot attend the Live Teleconference session, you can still access the material!


About the FOAT Faculty

Doreen Meister, MA, LMFT, is a Certified Focusing Trainer: Specialization in FOAT® (TIFI), Certified Focusing-Oriented Expressive Arts (FOAT®) Practitioner, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist - specializing in creative arts expression, existential contemplative psychotherapy, mindfulness, and developmental trauma. For over 15 years, she has been helping adults connect with their natural, authentic resources to develop resilience, regulation, self-compassion and authenticity. Located in Oakland, California, her areas of training include: FOAT®, guided imagery, somatic touch for resilience and regulation, self-inquiry, and existential humanistic contemplative psychotherapy. Doreen has over 20 years mediation experience in non-dual traditions and expresses her creativity through jewelry design.

Lic. Evelyn Ammon is a Certified Focusing Trainer: Specialization in FOAT® (TIFI), Certified Focusing-Oriented Therapist (TIFI), a Certified Focusing Practitioner (FOAT Institute), and has trained in Children’s Focusing (TIFI). Evelyn is on the faculty for the Focusing and Expressive Arts course at The Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). She graduated from Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala with a BA degree in Clinical Psychology. Evelyn worked for 18 years as a volunteer psychologist in a home for at-risk girls using art therapy techniques with Person-Centered Expressive Arts. She works in private practice and is a facilitator of workshops teaching the Open Studio Process.

Lic. Frances Ingouville is a Certified Focusing Trainer: Specialization in FOAT® – granted by The International Focusing Institute (TIFI). She is also a Certified FOAT Facilitator (FOAT Institute) and graduated from the Person-Centered Expressive Therapy Institute (PCETI) in Argentina. She received her degree in Psychology from The Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (UVG). Frances is on the faculty for the Focusing and Expressive Arts course at UVG, and assists/teaches other courses in the Post-Graduate Expressive Arts program. She has taken on leadership roles to bring the expressive arts to Guatemala through the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA).