This year, our Interconnected 2020 conference will be virtual. This means that the speakers you watch and the workshops you participate in will be done on a computer monitor or screen.
While this makes attending the conference more convenient, it may cause you to experience symptoms related to Zoom Fatigue—exhaustion that comes with focusing intently on a computer screen for too long.
Don’t worry…we’ve got a plan for that!
This entire conference was designed with you in mind, and that includes avoiding Zoom Fatigue. We’re going to keep you moving, engaged, and connected the entire time! Here’s how.
Keep Moving
Many of the presentations were designed to keep your body and mind flowing through rhythm and regulation. So we highly encourage you to participate as if you were right there standing in front of each live presenter. Stand up, sit down, and keep moving! This will allow you to stay engaged and invigorated throughout the conference.
Unplug
This is YOUR time. Therefore we advise you to unplug from outside distractions during conference hours. As we would in person, we are asking you to turn off/ silence your cell phone. The more you treat your environment as you would a conference hall, the more you will receive from this life-changing experience.
Get Grounded
Our Daily Healing Practices provide you with an opportunity to move, stretch, and connect deeper to yourself and those participating in the conference with you. We encourage you to attend each morning and evening to SHIFT your mind and body’s focus from the computer screen, inward.
Connect with Living Beings
If possible spend time with other living beings! A person, an animal, a tree––we need others to regulate. Co-regulation is a biological imperative and will absolutely combat Zoom fatigue! If you can, take moments for physical closeness with a friend, an animal companion, or in nature. A plant, a tree, your God…these connections matter so much.
Bonus Tip
Turn off your video or use your speaker view during the conference. Only “be seen” when you want to see your body. This can help you to shift your focus away from watching yourself, to healing yourself.
You can turn off “self view” – turn on your camera to ensure your lighting is good, and then hide “self-view”.
Together, we will transform the virtual experience into one of greater mindfulness, connectedness, and transcendence.
There is still time to register for Interconnected 2020! I hope you can join us!
The picture you see at the top of this blog is of my husband, Tim Jobe, Frieda on the left, Peanut on the right, and our child Cooper when he was about three years old. I was walking behind with another one of our horses, Zeus, and quickly snapped a photo of this moment in heaven on my phone.
This moment lives on because it lives within me – it is part of every interaction I have. I try to allow the connection felt deep in my cells, found in moments like these, to inform every decision we make in Natural Lifemanship…even the decision we made this year to go virtual with our conference.
If you want to know what to expect from the conference this year, I invite you to sense into this photo and embody this moment in time with me. With us.
Breathe it in.
Pause.
Notice.
Slow down.
Breathe.
In this moment, feel your connection to our little family. To your body. To your community. To the NL community.
Maybe explore these questions. . . What do you notice in your body? Where do you feel that in your body? What is the shape? Color? Texture? Sound? What do you taste? Smell? Hear? Feel? When you notice that, what do you notice next? And then next? And then next? Notice it all – around you and inside you.
Breathe it in, because this is a small taste of the connection we intend to create virtually through our conference this year. This photo represents the connection we carry for you and your clients, deep in our hearts, as we plan and prepare. I pray that as you sense into this moment with me, you become profoundly aware of how interconnected we really are.
Goodness, 2020 thus far has brought immediate, and disparate change across the world, across the country, and across our individual lives. The nature of the pandemic has left us bound to our homes, sequestered from our places of work, of study, of worship, of life, of healing, of community.
It is important that we acknowledge our physical separations AND fiercely endeavor upon a journey to recognize the boundless connections we maintain in our hearts without access to physical interaction.
2020 has taught us how interconnected we really are
Our virtual conference is a testament to that. From October 21st through the 25th, we will be streaming live daily healing practices, keynote presentations, workshops, performances and horse-human interactions. We are engaging in real time through a digital interface, grounding ourselves and connecting with each other through movement and rhythm.
We can and we will heal in community, because it is through relationships that we heal, grow, and transform! If you’ve been with us for long, this is not news, but it is during the hardest of times that we are challenged to hold fast to what we know to be true, and practice what we preach.
Interconnected 2020 is an opportunity to engage, learn from the industry’s most illustrious speakers and practitioners, and earn up to 75 hours of CEs available through NBCC and NAADAC. (We’re diligently working to also be able to offer CEs through NASW…stay tuned!) There are 75 workshops! SEVENTY FIVE!
By participating in the conference, you will have access to over 90 hours of rich material from a variety of experts in the field on topics such as energetic and nutritional healing, attachment styles, horse behavior, consent, playfulness, movement, and so much more!
Seriously y’all, check out the workshops, they are SO good! We have chosen each workshop with you, your clients, and your legacy in this world in the forefront of our minds.
“Natural Lifemanship Conference is a must attend conference! Not only will you come away with a ton of knowledge, you will leave with new friends, new connections and a joyous soul!”
– Rebecca J. Hubbard, Owner, Pecan Creek Ranch
A Truly Experiential Event
We are definitely going to miss being together in person this year. But now more than ever, it’s critical that we find ways to be interconnected even when we’re not physically together. With that in mind, we’ve woven experiential opportunities into each day of the conference.
Not only will the conference be live, it will also include horse-human interactions (including client sessions!) in nearly every session. We are filming these beforehand given that getting the internet out to our horses is often challenging. These videos will be watched and discussed during workshops – I’m so excited about this!
Our incredible lineup of speakers will guide you in real-time to practice embodying healing through rhythm, movement, and connection to yourself and others.
This will be an experience like no other! Truly!
Building Your Conference Agenda
We know that five whole days to attend a conference may not be feasible for all practitioners. We want to be accessible for our community. Therefore we have made the experience as customizable as possible by offering a myriad of workshops and healing practices throughout the day for you to choose from. There will typically be 3 workshops happening at a time!
Through our Community Pass, you’ll have live access to the keynote speakers, at 9:15-10:45 each day.
The All-Access Pass allows you to enjoy each live section offered throughout the day according to your time and interest. You will typically choose from three different workshops – choose what is best for you and your practice!
And the VIP Pass offers you live access to each section of the conference each day, and recordings of the entire conference until January 31st, 2021, so you can revisit or explore the conference courses.
With each pass, you’ll have the opportunity to participate and earn CE hours. There are 90 hours of enriching material for you to enjoy and learn from!
The conference will be a full brain and body experience – no doubt. I hope as you read this you were able to sense, feel, and think because that is what the conference will be all about. It will be special and I hope you can join us!
Lately, I have been pondering what I am calling the principle of development. Development of an embryo. Of an infant. Of a child. Of the brain. Of a relationship. And of the entire field of equine assisted interventions.
When the brain and body develop, there is a delicate balance between integration and differentiation. Integration is the ability for the whole to work together toward a common goal – with this comes ease, a flow, and a balance. However, integration can’t occur without differentiation. Different parts do different things – they specialize and get really good at what they do. This is necessary for our brain and our body – indeed even our cells have to differentiate in order to work together. This is important in any healthy relationship and an important part of secure attachment. AND this is important for our little field of equine assisted psychotherapy and learning. We too have to differentiate to integrate.
Differentiation can feel scary, painful, and competitive, but it is needed for the consumer and for the health of this field.
Over the last 10 years we have done our best to differentiate gracefully, but unfortunately no one gets to skip adolescence. ☺ Maturity requires that we know who we are and also how we fit into the greater community. To differentiate safely and responsibly we must always hold space for productive integration and collaboration. After all, differentiation without integration will also lead to cell and neuronal death, causes major issues in the brain and body, AND in this field.
At the 2019 NL Deep Dive Conference we are seeking to strike the balance between differentiation and integration as we collaborate with others in this field who are on the same journey. We may not be on the same path or agree on every point, but our destination is the same. While NL has always integrated many different treatment modalities (and will continue to do so at this conference), this time around we seek to intentionally integrate with other EAP/L modalities.
NL is a principle-based modality. NL is a process, a framework, and a set of beliefs – a primary goal is to dig into the beliefs driving practice, which means NL can be paired with any model that honors our core beliefs.There are so many modalities and organizations in this field that do, indeed, share core beliefs!
If you’re new to the field and have been wondering where to start, the 2019 NL Deep Dive Conference is a great place to learn from many of the pioneers in this field. If you’ve been with NL and want to broaden AND deepen your learning, this conference is for you!
Philip Tedeschi, with the University of Denver and The Institute for Human Animal Connection will offer a Keynote address. Philip has done so much to make the world a better place for people and animals and I could not be more thrilled to learn from him. Leif Hallberg, a renowned author and teacher in this field, will offer a keynote address and teach a workshop. We are in for such a treat! Sara Schlote with EQUUSOMA will be teaching a workshop and guiding a retreat. I even get to co-present with her – well, mostly just support Sarah and learn, learn, learn! Sara Sherman will guide a retreat in which NL is blended with the Equine Gestalt Coaching Method. This is going to be transformative, no doubt! Take a look at all the other presentations by those who are NL trainers, NL certified practitioners and equine professionals, and NL certification students! My only complaint is that I can’t attend every workshop!
I so look forward to powerful collaborations at this conference and in the future with many others! We’re better together!
The numbers for this conference are limited to ensure intimacy and allow for experiential workshops. If you want a free, SUPER COOL conference t-shirt sign up by the registration deadline before the shirts go to print. Registration closes when the conference is full or by September 15th. Sign up soon!
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