Befriending Sadness

Welcoming the Flow of Sadness Into Your Life

When your sadness is flowing and welcome in your life, then everything seems to go more easily. Having a healthy relationship with sadness means you recognize when it’s time to let things go, and you have practices to help you do so. Relaxing and taking care of yourself comes easily when you can access your sadness — and you’ll feel revitalized because of it.

About This Course

This course on how to deal with sadness is based on the The Language of Emotions by Karla McLaren and her applied work, Dynamic Emotional Integration^® (DEI).

What You’ll Learn:

In this course, facilitated by licensed Dynamic Emotional Integration^® Trainer and Consultant Anchen Texter, you’ll be inviting the flow of sadness to help release old ideas around what sadness is and isn’t. You’ll also be delving deeper into the gifts of sadness, the practices to help you stay present with your emotions, and the relationship between sadness and anger. While you might think that a course about sadness will be heavy and feel like molasses, there’s a little-known secret about sadness that will keep it flowing: sadness can clear the way for joy and happiness.

In this course, we will cover:

• The messages and gifts in sadness
• The 5 Empathic Mindfulness practices
• How to work with sadness to embrace change gracefully
• The relationship between sadness and anger
• How to work with the other emotions in the sadness family, such as grief, depression, and the suicidal urge
• The integral place of sadness in self-care
  

Course Details

Length: 4 weeks

Dates: Monday, November 27 to Friday, December 22, 2023

Price: $145

Learning and Interaction Structure: Reading curriculum, Forum discussions, live webinar trainings and discussions (one hour per week), audio files, and course PDFs.

Live Zoom Webinar Discussions: These weekly one-hour sessions will be held on the Zoom webinar program on Fridays at 10am Pacific Time. (These sessions will be recorded on our private server if you cannot attend).

Webinar Schedule: Fridays from 10am to 11am Pacific Time. Dates: December 1, 8, 15, and 22.

Time Commitment: You’ll read or watch the course curriculum and interact in the Forum on your own schedule (plan for a minimum of two to three hours per week), and you’ll meet with Anchen and your classmates for one hour in the Zoom each week.

This Course Is Suitable For: Everyone interested in learning emotional skills, grounding, empathic mindfulness practices, and focused self-care.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: In this course on sadness, what do you focus on, besides sadness?

A: This course is about exploring sadness for all of the gifts it has for us. The gifts of sadness are release, fluidity, and grounding, to name a few. What sadness really wants is to be listened to, and to flow through you. When I look at how people talk about sadness, I see a lot of misconceptions where people feel really stuck in sadness, as if it will never go away.

When you are able to listen to what you need to release, and what needs to be rejuvenated, then you are listening to your sadness.

Q: How long do students have access to the curriculum and Forum?

A: Students can access the course for 4 weeks after it ends, including the webinar recordings, and they receive a PDF of all course materials once the course is over.

Q: Do people have to know anything about emotions to take this course?

A: This course is designed for the absolute beginner. We start from the beginning, answering the questions: what are emotions, how do they work, and why should I listen to them?

This course is also for people who have already begun exploring their emotions, who may have read one of your books like The Language of Emotions or The Art of Empathy. People who want to understand their sadness at a deeper level, how to listen to their sadness, or how it interacts with other emotions.

Q: What kind of technology do you use for the webinar?

A: We use the Zoom webinar app, since most people are familiar with it. I’m happy to provide support to students who may not be familiar with it, and I always start the first webinar early to give new students a chance to log in and make sure everything is working correctly.

About the Instructor

Anchen Texter

Anchen Texter helps you understand and embody emotional and empathic skills so that you can work with your emotions in the moment and move through situations gracefully and in a way you can be proud of.

She is the creator of the Befriending courses here at Empathy Academy: Befriending Sadness, Befriending Anger, Befriending Shame, and Befriending Fear.