Oasis  Workshops

Ask About Oasis Workshop Series

Oasis Workshop Series

Calm and Clarity for Busy Women

Life today can be stressful and overscheduled. Sometimes it starts to feel as if there isn’t a moment of peace in our days.  Starting in the fall Leslie Ackles will be leading a series of three evening workshops to provide a place where women can experience that sense of calm in their hectic lives, and then, start to create that sense of peace, even if for a moment, in their daily lives.

Included in the series, outside of the workshops, is a 20-minute monthly phone “Oasis Interlude”. You phone in from wherever you are to experience a calming practice in a timeframe that works for you.  For your convenience, recordings of the Interludes will also be available.

Knowing how busy women are, these workshops will only be an hour and 15 minutes long.

Previous Series: Mondays, September 26^th, , October 24^th, November 28

Time: 7:15 – 8:30pm

Where: Trinitarian Congregational Church, 54 Walden Street, Concord, MA

Series Cost: $40 for the 3 session series ($25 for Tri Con parishioners)

To Register: Sign up on Contact Us page with notation "Oasis Workshop Series" or send a check to Tri Con Church marked "Oasis Workshop".

Questions: Please contact Leslie at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 978-371-1655.

Discover Balance and Meaning

Calm Your Spirit, Refresh Your Hope, Soothe Your Mind

Discover your own path to inner peace, balance and joy….

Objectives:

• Learn how to slow down, rest, clear away some of the clutter in our minds
• Explore ways to free yourself from the tyranny of our “to-do’s”
• Identify and connect to your core values and to your own inner wisdom
• Awaken to your true self, your passion and your purpose

Whether you are experiencing an empty nest, job loss, a pull to a new vocation or a jam-packed life that’s out of balance, join us to begin the process of slowing down and connecting to your core values in order to discover your true self, your own inner oasis.

We all have the essential tools inside of us to find peace, balance, and our passions. It is a matter of awakening to that knowledge, then listening and acting upon it. Learn how to slow your life down enough to help access this inner wisdom. Make the process of self-discovery much more enjoyable by surrounding yourself with a community of women to support you on this journey.

“Why would you wait and be late for your life?”
- Mary Chapin Carpenter

Empty Nesters: What’s Next?

Objectives:

• Determine your top values as parents of grown children
• Reignite old passions, discover new ones
• Examine blocks to taking action
• Leave with action steps towards realizing new creative outlets, a new career, new projects or a new mission.

Is your last child preparing to go off t0 school or a job? Are all of your children away at college? Are you looking around and realizing how raising your family was a central part of your life and wondering: Now what? Determining what is next for empty nesters can be a daunting undertaking.

These can be difficult times for parents in their marriages as well as in their careers. However, these times can also provide a unique opportunity to renew interests in areas that have long been dormant through the bustle of the childrearing years.

Work-Life Balance Introduction: Take Back Your Life

Objectives:

Take a deep breath. Slow down. Begin to look at your life; begin to take a look at your struggle to balance the competing demands on your time. What does it mean to be “in balance”? Is there such a place? If so, how do we get there? How do we start on the path towards a more mindful, centered existence?

Work/Life Balance Practice: Balancing on the Seesaw of Life and Work

Objectives:

• Identify areas where your life is out of balance
• Identify three top values that will help you with future decision-making
• Learn and practice several stress reduction tools
• Develop one action item to realize better balance

Balancing your life begins with figuring out how you spend your time. It’s about how you choose to live your life. Finding your balance is within your grasp. Finding balance is a matter of aligning your decisions with what you believe is really important. This workshop will assist you in future decision-making on how to spend your time and money. You will also learn and practice several stress reduction tools which you can put into practice immediately and leave with at least one action item to realize better balance in your life.

Work/Life Balance Special Events: Putting Balance Back in Your Holidays

Objectives:

• Give yourself the gift of calm over the holidays.
• Determine how you choose to spend your time over the holidays to ensure that you have time the parts that are most important to you.
• Learn techniques to relax during the holiday season.
• Leave with three action steps towards realizing a calmer more meaningful holiday season.

Are you overwhelmed by the holidays? Even if you love the celebrations and the festivities, you can feel hassled by the shopping, presents, cookies, wrapping, decorating, visitors, travel and parties. With the added stress you can lose touch with the joy of the holidays and with yourself. You can get things done and enjoy your cherished traditions when you maintain a balance of energy and calm.

Meditation and Breath Work

Objectives:

• Receive an introduction to meditation
• Leave with a sense of calm
• Understand the importance of breath in creating this sense of calm
• Learn a meditation that you can use after this session

Meditation is the art of focusing 100% of your attention in one area. There are many health benefits associated with meditation: increased concentration, decreased anxiety and feelings of contentment.

Although a great number of people try meditation at some point in their lives, a small percentage actually stick with it for the long-term. Learn simple ways to make the practice of meditation sustainable.

Mindfulness: Being Present For Your Life

Objectives:

• • Learn how to be present for every moment of our lives using mindfulness, meditation and yoga.
• • Cultivate awareness systematically through breath work.
• • Learn the benefits of single-tasking versus multi-tasking.
• • Practice paying attention fully to one thing a time.

We live in stressful, turbulent times at an accelerated pace where we are expected to multi-task in order to keep up.

Be fully present for the moment that is in front of us, not thinking about what we need to do next. I call it single-tasking. It is a way of relating directly to whatever is happening to you in your life at that moment.

This workshop is based on the teachings of Jon Kabat-Zinn. Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention: on purpose; in the present moment; and non-judgmentally.

TAKE A BREATH! : Stress Consequences and Management

Objectives:

• Understand the different consequences of short term and long term stress
• Understand the risks from long term stress
• Recognize the early warning signs of stress
• Learn a new technique for management of long term stress

What could be the short term benefits of stress? Small amounts and for short periods of time stress can mobilize us to action. Some stress can be healthy to keep us alert and occupied. In this workshop however, we will focus on the symptoms of stress that can indicate the need for an action that can decrease the stress response: An early warning system for our bodies and our lives. This workshop will explore the stress response and the physical consequences. We live in stressful turbulent times, living at an accelerated pace, with layoffs and troublesome economic news looming every day. How are we responding to this stress and what does this response do to our bodies? The latter half of the workshop will be spent exploring several new techniques for management of the stress response. One of these techniques will be the Herbert Benson, M.D. Relaxation Response.

Communicating Through Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Objectives:

• Develop appreciation for different personality types
• Apply newly developed insights about your preferred communication style and the communication styles of others
• Manage style differences more effectively

Achieve greater success in your personal and professional relationships by gaining insight into your communication style and the communication styles of others. We will use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a well respected and widely used assessment tool which provides the foundation for learning new strategies and techniques to improve interpersonal relations. It can also provide a common language and a common understanding, increasing communication and decreasing conflict.

Myers Briggs is used to provide insight into our own personalities that affect our behaviors in four areas. It is also used to help us became aware of differences in people. Once we understand these differences we are then able to see the value that these differences bring. The tool is:

1. Non-Judgmental – looks at strengths and natural differences
2. Solid Research Based – Myers and Briggs spent 20 years researching the instrument and since then an additional 20 – 30 years of research has been conducted at the Masters and PhD. Level
3. Sorting Rather Than Measuring

Mother-Daughter Communication:Through Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Objectives:

• Gain appreciation for the personality type and the preferred communication style for both mother and daughter
• Apply these insights to your relationship
• Experience less conflict
• Respect each other’s strengths and weaknesses

“ Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same,
and most mothers kiss and scold together.” - Pearl S. Buck

There is no right way to be a mother. The most important thing to remember is to ‘Be Yourself’. But who is that? The workshop will use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to gain perspective on your own style and the style (s) of your child or children. By first understanding your own style you can then move to understanding your communication and relationship with your own child, morefully

THE CORPORATE ATHLETE*: Managing energy, not time

With the demands of our lives having increased over the past few decades our ability to connect with friends and family in meaningful ways has become difficult. The same is true with our capacity to maintain a high contribution level at work.

This workshop will focus on developing and maintaining your energy in order to become more fully engaged at both work and home. Using the analogy of a high performing athlete we will explore the principals of high energy and the benefits that can yield. By participating in this workshop you will be able to:

1. Better understand the dynamics that occur when we are fully engaged
2. Describe the four sources of energy
3. Identify your purpose and key values
4. Increase your energy to enhance your enjoyment in both work and life

Based on the book: The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwart