BLISS Healing Arts is excited to be introducing self-care planning and mind-body skills groups, beginning in January 2011. Both offerings provide an excellent opportunity for you to work individually or alongside others while you focus on enhancing the well-being of your body, mind, and spirit.

Self-care is at the heart of a new paradigm of medicine and health care that seeks to individualize therapeutic approaches, treats an individual wholly (and not as a disease or set of symptoms), and creates a healing partnership based on collaboration rather than compliance. It involves such things as self-awareness, self-expression, relaxation, meditation, guided imagery, exercise, nutrition, and even prayer. Self-care planning first involves our identifying the ways in which you feel out of balance or neglectful of your well-being. Then, together we experiment with and select options for self care (e.g., more sleep, exercise, or the adoption of mind-body skills or practices) that resonate with your interests and needs. Finally, we create a self-care action plan where we determine implementation steps, create realistic timelines, and plan for potential barriers to success. Without a doubt, increasing the amount of time and energy you spend on intentional self care will improve the quality of your life and health.

An excellent forum within which to practice self-care, a mind-body skills group provides you with a meditative, safe place where mutual respect and confidentiality are honored among participants. The group’s facilitator strives to create an environment that calls forth each participant’s power to know and care for him/herself. Balancing both structure and flexibility, the groups are part educational, part experiential, part reflective. Topics covered include: guided imagery, soft-belly breathing and other relaxation techniques, journaling and drawing, and a variety of meditation experiences. Membership is constant and limited to 10 participants. Each group is generally two-hours in length and meets anywhere from six to ten weeks. And while some do better “going it alone” in their self-care pursuits, research is increasingly demonstrating that within the context of a supportive group, one’s own self-care can flourish and overall health and well-being can improve.

Convinced and can’t wait to sign up?  Need a little more information? Either way, please contact Carolyn at blisscenter@comcast.net or 508-481-2547 (blis). New groups are forming now; see blisshealingarts.com for the most recent schedule.