The Embodiment Circle.
The Safety, Freedom & Joy of Being Your True Self.
A 12-week journey and celebration of your becoming. Rooted in safety, creativity, courage, and lived wisdom, and guided by a diverse circle of facilitators who share the practices that shaped their own becoming.
Cohort #5 of this live online program starts on January 22, 2026 - April 22, 2026.
Together, we remember who we are and support what wants to emerge next.
New This Year: In-Person Retreats
Opening Retreat: Listening to Your Becoming
Sunday, January 18, 2026 · 11:00am–5:00pm
Nusqool · Reaboro, Ontario
This first in-person Embodiment Circle retreat is an invitation to slow down and listen to the intelligence of your body during times of change and becoming. We have an incredible day with 3 facilitators offering different doorways into our bodies:
Somatic inquiry (LJ Bartle)
Neurogenic Tremoring (Thu)
Qi Gong Gardening: Methods for Self Cultivation (Jesse Gottlieb-Jacob)
We’ll practice noticing and being with different internal states in the process of becoming and learning how to respond to what the body is communicating rather than overriding it. The day is designed to support a deeper, more trusting relationship with your body as a guide in your becoming and creative life.
Held on the New Moon in Capricorn, this immersive day retreat includes a simple vegetarian lunch.
Closing Retreat: Celebrating Your Becoming
Saturday, April 18, 2026 11:00am-5:00pm
The Farm, Hillsdale, Ontario
This closing in-person retreat is a celebration of all that has unfolded from winter to spring, individually and collectively. It’s a time to mark your becoming through creativity, voice, and shared expression in time to plant seeds that will grow with the seasons.
Held in the springtime on Anahita’s farm, we’ll gather with creative facilitators: Anto Chan, Mirka Loiselle, and Chantal Glo to explore poetry, expressive arts, visual creation, singing, and dancing as pathways for integration and joy.
This retreat is less about reflection and more about expression, honoring what you’ve lived, learned, shed, and grown, and letting it be seen, heard, and celebrated in community, alongside the rhythms of spring and new life.
Held on the New Moon in Aries, this immerise day retreat includes a simple vegetarian lunch.
Living an authentic life yields significant benefits personally and professionally.
Here are a few reasons why:
Reduce Stress & Anxiety: Being true to yourself frees you from the pressure of trying to please others, helping you focus on what truly matters and navigate life with more ease and confidence.
Satisfaction & Fulfillment: Living authentically brings clarity and joy, enhancing happiness and inspiring others to do the same, creating a ripple effect of positivity.
Self-Awareness & Growth: Authenticity boosts self-awareness, helping you recognize your strengths and talents. This empowers you to grow and pursue opportunities aligned with your true self.
Self-Acceptance: Embracing your true self fosters self-acceptance and self-worth, allowing you to confidently pursue opportunities that align with who you are.
Belonging & Community: Being authentic attracts like-minded people, fostering a sense of belonging and acceptance, which is key to emotional well-being and happiness.
A 12-week heart-centered safe space where people come together to practice being fully themselves: safely, creatively, and in relationship.
This is not a program to fix you, teach you new skills or help you become more productive. It is a celebration, a homecoming, and a collective remembering of who we are and why we're here. Now in its 5th year, Embodiment Circle brings together a faculty of 18 incredibly special human beings: healers, entrepreneurs, teachers, artists, somatic practitioners, musicians, dancers, creatives each offering their unique lived experience, wisdom, and medicine in service of the whole.
🌙 The Seasonal Arc
Through five iterations, this online program has evolved into a deeply relational, trauma-informed container where participants are witnessed in their wholeness and supported to journey through the seasons. We'll circle up every Thursday from 7-9pm EST to explore three chapters:
Feeling Safe Enough: finding nervous system calm, safety and presence in the depths of Winter
Feeling our Hearts: cultivating compassion, deep listening and sensing through our oracular bodies, setting intentions during Imbolc and dancing with the laws of nature
Creating as our True Self: we'll be practicing courage, creativity, expression, shifting perspectives as we break ground and emerge in Spring
🔮 Every month we will have a collective reflection session dedicated to deepen our learnings and connections with each other.
⭐ New this year: In-person retreats!
We will begin and end this 12-week online gathering with two in-person retreats on two new moons that are included in your registration:
🛖 Sunday January 18, 2026, 11am-5pm at Nusqool, Kawartha Lakes
🌲 Saturday April 18, 2026, 11am-5pm at The Farm, Hillsdale
Total Cost: $1010 (including HST) or $88/month or scholarships available
What You’ll Learn
Self Leadership
As a structure for our weeks together, we borrow Richard Schwartz’s IFS definition of the true Self where he identifies qualities (Curiosity, Courage, Compassion, Clarity, Confidence, Calm, Creativity, Connection, Perspective, Playfulness, Patience, Passion, Presence) that we all have access to and when the conditions are right and we’re able to express one or more of these characteristics, we generally say, “that’s the real me”.
Each week you’ll learn from a different facilitator who will share practices that work for them to connect to their true self. You’ll get to learn experientially and reflect on what works for you to turn into everyday practices that will help you connect with more of your authentic self and find the courage to bring these parts of you into your own communities and world.
Nervous System Regulation
Sometimes it’s a hard transition to move from everyday “survival” life into a weekday evening course like this to be your authentic self. We’ve added nervous system education and an introduction to a practice called TRE (Tension Release Exercises) to the curriculum to help raise your self awareness and give you tools to befriend your nervous system so that these transitions every week will become a little smoother.
When you first show up more authentically in the right environment, your whole body can start to feel deeply uncomfortable and try fight, run away and shut down. Practicing nervous system regulation will help you be with the vulnerable feelings of being your true self.
Authentic Self Expression
Each week, you’ll have a chance to unleash your creativity and learn how to express your true self through guided practices of creative writing, gentle movement, reflection, and sharing their stories. You’ll meet an incredible group of faculty and community that also value authentic self expression and feel like you belong.
Mindfulness Practices
Explore grounding exercises that help you stay present and connected to your body, your mind, your heart, and your true self.
"I LOVED so many sessions. I am regulating my nervous system daily! I am allowing myself more space to be with myself rather than filling up my calendar "assisting" others which is a pattern I am so ready to let go of. I didn't realize how much time I needed to just be with myself. I am really understanding the importance of gentleness and compassion and moving my body."
- Embodiment Circle Participant
“The embodiment circle was a launch pad for me on my transformation journey. It prepared me for my new role and developing a deeper awareness of self. I still use so many of the practices that we learned from the different sessions and practitioners and I still have my intention from the first session right next to my desk.”
-Embodiment Circle Participant
Meet our Faculty
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Sophie Dow
Treaty 1-born Sophie Dow is a multidisciplinary creative, inspired by dance, music, film, collaboration and Michif/Assiniboine + French/Ukrainian roots. Sophie presently fulfills roles as a freelance dancer/choreographer/residency coordinator/musician/sound designer/bodyworker/ artistic associate of O.Dela Arts, The Chimera Project & V’ni Dansi/Louis Riel Métis Dancers, and a puddle jumping trickster.
PLAY
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Chenny Xia
Community care entrepreneur focused on equitable health. Design educator cause our world needs more empathy.
COURAGE
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Bela Shah
Somatic and mindful leadership coach helping people to overcome worry and fear and step into their best selves.
Bela empowers women entrepreneurs to break through inner barriers, build unshakeable confidence, and lead with their authentic power and wisdom. She is a professional ICF certified coach with 1000+ hours of combined training in mindfulness, somatic awareness, emotional intelligence, and mindful self-compassion.
You can connect with Bela on LinkedIn or Wisdom Leadership.
COMPASSION
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Clarence Kitt
I am a creative generalist and explorer. I am passionate about experimenting with different visual languages (such as fashion photography, lettering illustrations, cartography) to investigate and communicate complex and invisible things.
PERSPECTIVE
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Jasjit Kaur Sangha, PhD
Jasjit strives to cultivate belonging through mindfulness, deep self-knowing and building community. She has been practicing mindfulness for over two decades and strives to offer mindfulness experiences that are inclusive, accessible, and grounded in compassion. She has graduated from the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program (MMTCP), completed training to be a Search Inside Yourself (SIY) Teacher and has completed her PhD in Adult Education through the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is passionate about creating spaces for transformative adult learning and sharing the power of mindfulness.
PRESENCE
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Terrence Ho
Terrence is a strategist, community builder, and advocate whose personal experiences as a caregiver have shaped his passion for accessibility, inclusion, and mental health. Inspired by his late brother, who lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and his late mother, Terrence has over 30 years of caregiving experience. He is the Head of Global Sales Education & Operations at Braze Mobility, creator of the world's first blind spot sensors for wheelchairs, and co-author of Bold Spirit Caring for the Dying. Featured in outlets like the National Post and CBC’s Sickboy Podcast, Terrence continues championing meaningful change through empathy, advocacy, and action.
GRATITUDE
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Stephanie DeBou
Stephanie is a Yoga, Meditation and Breathwork teacher based in Hamilton Ontario. Her classes are thoughtfully curated with clear, concise and kind communication. Threads of energy medicine, traditional chinese medicine, and yoga philosophy are woven throughout,. Rooted in mindfulness and guided by Love, you can expect gentle guidance, compassionate inquiry, and lots of time dedicated to tune in, slow down, and dive deep into your embodied experience.
CALM
What you’ll get
12 live sesssions on Zoom and recordings of them to download and keep.
12+ practical tools you can try on and use in service of being your true self
A digital workbook with exercises relevant to each session and the course
A certificate of completion
Be part of the Nusqool community
Heart-Centered Instruction: Learn from experienced facilitators who understand the unique challenges when we walk our own path with heart. Our faculty is made of professional coaches, teachers, healers, writers, creatives and entrepreneurs who strive to live an authentic life.
Supportive Environment: Join a circle of peers where vulnerability is welcomed, and authenticity is celebrated.
Practical Tools: Gain actionable strategies that you can implement in your daily life to foster greater self-acceptance and connection.
Inspiring Community: Connect with others who share your journey, offering support, encouragement, and friendship.
Why choose to participate?
Does this sound like you?
✔ You want to be authentic and live with an open heart but find it vulnerable and tough to do it in your current environment and social circles
✔ You know that you are worthy and whole …yet still have a loud inner critic that constantly beats you up
✔ You feel like you have so much more to give but not living up to your potential
✔ You experience a lot of tension in your body. Your shoulders are raised right now
✔ It feels hard to maintain relationships and often find it hard to trust others
✔ You often feel stuck or overwhelmed and worry about the future
✔ You long for more moments of aliveness that you feel when you can play and express yourself (through write/draw/paint/sing/dance/more)
Participant from Cohort #2
“I'm surprised by the power of practicing - how energy can shift or clarity can be achieved through simple practices. A friendly inner space is what I need to navigate in the unknown. Walking with other interesting souls is another plus.”
Embodiment Circle Participant
"I learned that I'm a much more anxious person than I realized. I've always been told I'm calm and collected, but that is just my outward appearance - not how I process things internally. I loved the ability to try out various techniques from the facilitators."
Coralus Ventures Participant