A Two-Day Online Workshop with Lissa Rankin, MD & Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv
PREPARING THE HEART TO LOVE AGAIN
An IFS-Informed Workshop About Healing The Broken Heart
So You Can Safely Risk Loving More Openly
Saturday, July 20 and Sunday, July 21, 2024 from 9:00am to 3:00pm PT
“The way forward is with a broken heart.” - Alice Walker
Heartbreak is one of the most painful kinds of traumas. When we risk letting our hearts open, we also risk getting our hearts broken. The vulnerability of the open heart, the tenderness of attachment and heart connection, makes us especially raw when someone else betrays our connection or abandons the connection or otherwise leaves the heart frayed.
- Do you feel so burned from one heartbreak after another that you’re on the verge of giving up altogether, but you don’t want to become that lonely old person who only loves animals?
- Do you have a pattern of attracting untrustworthy people who betray you and leave you devastated, yet you sincerely want to find a way to love someone more safely?
- Do you crave intimate connection with a loving partner, but you also fear it?
- Do you sense that your true growth path is the path of transformation through intimate relationship, but you just can’t find someone willing to go the distance with you?
- Do you feel like your dating options are limited to only two options- those who want to control you- or those who expect you to parent them- and you’d like to attract an equally mature adult relationship?
- Are you open to doing the work on yourself to prepare yourself to attract and be ready for someone more available for deep, soul-nourishing intimacy?
- Are you interested in how Internal Family Systems (IFS) could help you prepare your heart to love again- with less risk of more broken-heartedness?
If so, we invite you to a Zoom weekend retreat focused on creating a sanctuary inside your own heart, to help your heart prepare to love again.
This is not just about romantic relationships, although that’s a biggie. You might be wanting to prepare yourself to love a romantic partner, but you might also want to prepare your heart to love a parent who hurt you or a child you hurt or a best friend who can be your “person.”
It’s a workshop, especially for those who have had their hearts broken but want to get ready to try to either date again or rekindle love in a relationship that has stagnated or reconnect with family or friends that have been strained. You can join us if you’re single and wanting to optimize your mental health and receptivity to love before embarking upon a dating experiment. Or you can join us if you’re already dating but wanting to make sure you’re in the best possible heart-shape should one of those dates turn into the potential for a real, healing, tranformational intimate partnership. Or you can join us if you’re already partnered, but your heart had deadened to your partner because of rifts between you. Or you can join us if you’re just wanting a crash course in heart-care so you can prepare to love your family and friends better.
Trauma can cause us to either close our hearts to the potential for love or to keep our hearts far too open to those who are not equipped to keep our tender hearts safe. As long as we’re stuck in cycles of repetitive heartbreak or closed-hearted isolation, we loop through short-lived periods of ecstasy, followed by devastating betrayal, loss, dissociation, and disembodiment. Or we give up altogether and wind up resigned to loneliness. Only when we heal the broken heart can we prepare it to be both resilient and cautious, open and protected.
This is a workshop for the broken-hearted, not just those who are heartbroken from the loss, betrayal, breakup, or loss of a romantic relationship. You might be hurting from the broken-heartedness of the loss of community, the loss of a workplace connection, or the loss of connection with your family of origin. But this workshop is especially for anyone who has an unhealed, broken-hearted inner child because you didn’t get the love you needed as a little kiddo- and now you realize you keep playing out the patterns of trauma from your childhood through the people you try to love- yet you don’t know how to break the cycle.
Who is this workshop for?
If so, this live interactive workshop may be just what the doctor ordered to begin to create a sanctuary within to mend your broken heart.
Your Hosts
Dr. Lissa Rankin
*All sessions will be recorded with unlimited availability
The tragedy of relational trauma presents itself as a fragmenting of the wholeness of the soul. It unravels us more deeply than mere betrayal and cuts into us as a primal wound, one that leaves us feeling far less than the wholeness that is our natural state, our birthright. To dare to move beyond this kind of wound, to reach out to the wounded child in ourselves and to stretch a hand towards a trusted other, to say to the heartbroken inner child, “Come, sit, stay for a while, let us rest here together,” to trust enough to heal the broken heart and start to live,requires profound courage and knee-trembling risk.
The absence of trustworthy companionship, the feeling that one is existentially alone, the chronic unmet longing to be seen, heard, understood, validated, and most of all, loved and accepted for all of who we are, lies at the healing heart of all trauma. To offer up even a moment of unconditional positive regard to the inner child inside, to see and mirror back our hurt parts in their beautiful wholeness, to hold our own vulnerability safe, to remind ourselves that they are not and never have been broken, to show our respect for our own autonomy by allowing ourselves to have our sovereignty not only respected, but appreciated, to withhold judgment and offer up admiration for the ways we have managed to survive in a world that has not always been kind, to dare to love instead of transact, this is brave stuff. To refuse to sell ourselves out to someone else’s oh-so-conditional agenda while making it clear what’s okay and not okay in the field between two individuals, to learn also to do this for ourselves- this lies at the core of all healing.
But we cannot heal in isolation. Trauma that happens in relationship must be healed in relationship. The primary attachment relationship starts within our own hearts, where we celebrate a long-overdue reunion between the soul that cannot be broken and the broken-hearted little child who didn’t get loved enough. When those two reunite, when the bereft little child sees that we are here to rescue them, to hold the hurt inner child with the tenderest care, to be the parent to that little one who can finally redo what went wrong and make things right, harmony can be restored in the sanctuary of our own hearts.
Image Credit Monique Feil Photography
Then we have to risk trusting other trustworthy beings. To become a place of refuge for ourselves, to make ourselves vulnerable to another fellow journeyer, to allow ourselves to receive solace inside our own hearts and then to risk reaching out, to seek that same solace in the arms of another, to build a container of trust and safety, to allow all that enters that field to become available for transformation without requiring it to be so, to dare to open our hearts without collapsing our right to have wants, needs, fears, and boundaries that keep us separate but still in the field of love, this is the promise of healthy, bilateral relationships that help you live a life your body will love, one that opens the door to the intimacy we all crave without erecting walls or engaging in “power over” or “power under” dynamics that foreclose intimacy.
It is the paucity of intimacy, the starvation of real, nourishing connection, that makes trauma survivors so lonely. In the absence of the intimacy we crave, we settle for transacting, and sometimes we get the raw end of the transactional deal, if we’re the giving tree, doing most of the giving. Because transactional relationships will never fill the void we yearn to fill with real love and intimacy, this way of selling ourselves out makes us even more lonely.
We wall up to protect our broken hearts, but then we’re encouraged to open up, to be vulnerable, to spill our guts and bare our souls, to divulge our secrets, to unguard our hearts. Yet not all who wish us to be open wish us well, and without good boundaries all around, openness can be masochistic. We may splay ourselves open, but at what cost?
We wall up to protect our broken hearts, but then we’re encouraged to open up, to be vulnerable, to spill our guts and bare our souls, to divulge our secrets, to unguard our hearts. Yet not all who wish us to be open wish us well, and without good boundaries all around, openness can be masochistic. We may splay ourselves open, but at what cost?
Souls are more robust than hearts. They can’t be broken and are never damaged. But Stanford chaplain and physician Bruce Feldstein, MD warns that the soul can become sore when we experience too much heartbreak, especially spiritual heartbreak. This “soul soreness” needs the kind of medicine no drug can provide. Only safe, intimate relationships- with ourselves and our inner children, with other safe enough people, with nature and the Earth, and with whatever we might call “God"- can nurture and heal the broken heart at the core of soul soreness.
“Crawl inside this body, find me where I am
most ruined - love me there.” - Rune Lazuli
We Will Guide You Through
- A series of experiential exercises to help tend to the state of your heart and optimize it for daring to risk love again;
- Rituals to guide you into a portal of realistic possibility, in case you have hopeless parts that have simply given up daring to hope;
- Psycho-education about the predictable patterns we can learn to avoid by spotting them early;
- How to spot the green flags of healthy relationships, so you can avoid investing too much time in ones that are full of early red flags;
- The basics of the IFS model, so you can learn how to foster the heart-opening, gobsmackingly effective Self-to-wounded child reunion- as an ongoing practice you take home with you;
- IFS guided meditations to help you find the sanctuary within your own heart- one you can return to whenever you need refuge;
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Embodied writing practices to move the broken-hearted energy through your body, into your hand, and onto the written page, which will be the repository for your pain and also an alchemical transformation of heartbreak into beauty;
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Dancing to shake it all out and get your groove on!
Schedule
9:00 am - 3:00 pm PT | 11:00 am - 5:00 pm CT | 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm ET
Saturday, July 20th, 2024
Opening Circle
9:00 am - 10:30 am PT
In this opening circle, we begin with a community ritual, so please bring a small object for our opening ritual that represents preparing your heart to love again. After our ritual, we will explore a children’s story many of us grew up on- as an opening into a conversation about why so many of us get confused about what love and isn’t, what’s healthy and unhealthy- and why we can get so hurt, sometimes from such a young age. This will lead into a discussion of why some give too much in relationships- and others give too little, sometimes to the point of physical health and/or mental health issues. We’ll discuss placating, over-giving “fawning” behaviors and understand that they stem from a broken heart, which can be healed with Self-to-parts reunion in the sanctuary we will help you create within yourself.
Preparing The Heart With Internal Family Systems
10:45 am - 12:00 pm PT
Prepare for a dive into the sanctuary of your own heart, using a gentle version of the Internal Family Systems model. We will help you touch lightly into the pain at the root of the child who did not get their needs adequately met. With our wise, loving Self preparing the sanctuary for reunion, we can connect with and welcome the broken-hearted child that might cause us to choose relationships in adulthood that retrigger the wounds of the broken-hearted child. We will take that pain and get it out of our bodies and onto the written page, where it can be alchemized into beauty, healing, and medicinal art. Offering medicine to the wounded parts through the unconditional love of our own Self energy can be a balm for parts that may feel sad, lonely, rejected, and hopeless. The best antidote we have lives right inside. To prepare the heart to love someone else again, we have to start with loving even the most unlovable parts inside. IFS makes it easy to do this, and when we invest the energy in doing so, we prepare ourselves to be easier to love, warmer, less needy because we’re meeting some of our own needs inside, more available to both give and receive, and more attractive to those in our outer world.
Preparing To Better Protect The Strong But Fragile Heart
Lunch Break
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm PT
We’ll review some psycho-education about how to protect the fragility of the heart, so you don’t wind up letting old childhood traumas cause you to be reckless with your tender heart. We’ll review some of the basics of understanding narcissism and codependence from a trauma-informed, IFS lens, including what causes those painful dynamics, how to relate differently, and how to heal from past relationships that might have fallen into the narcissism/ codependence pairing. We’ll help you explore why you might have a backwards compass, one that thrusts you towards danger and pushes away safe people, setting you up to be retraumatized again and again. And we’ll help you get in touch with an inner guide, a healthy protector inside who’s got your back, so you can feel more confident preparing to love more openly, knowing you have wise protection anchored in, preparing to keep any vulnerable inner children safer, so you don’t splay those most vulnerable parts open for people who have not earned the right to that openness.
Sunday, July 21st, 2024
Doing The “YOU-Turn”
9:00 am - 10:30 am PT
Softening The Edges Of The Heart
10:45 am - 12:00 pm PT
When we’ve been hurt, we can understandably get prickly, closed-off, cynical, hopeless, or all of the above, and this can push people away before they even get to know us. We can also get desperate, clingy, frightened, and needy- and this can scare people off before they get a chance to bond. When we begin to tend to the sensitivities, needs, longings, and desires of our own hearts, we can soften these edges and make the heart more ripe for connection. We’ll share some neuroscience about why we harden up, and we’ll engage in some experiential exercises intended to help us soften our hearts- together, in community.
Lunch Break
Preparing Possibilities For Loving More Openly
1:00 pm - 3:00 pm PT
We’ll close out the workshop by visioning what you yearn for- allowing ourselves to be with the vulnerability of longing, desire, hopes, and dreams. We’ll engage in some juicy “as if” imagining- and explore what comes up when we dare to let ourselves feel into what we truly want- and maybe what we haven’t really had. If we can’t dream it, it’s hard to actualize what we truly want! We’ll use Intentional Creativity, music, writing, movement, and sharing to create the field of possibility, of hope, of realistic optimism, of visioning. But we’ll also focus on some practical tools that can help you do more than just vision, putting into practice trauma-informed ways of relating, including realistic expectations of yourself and others- that have the chance to protect your beautiful heart more as you prepare to love again.
TESTIMONIALS
Lissa, I really value your work. I've attended several of your workshops and appreciate your honesty and openness about who you are, as well as the insight you offer to relationships and and health. Adding your IFS perspective is also valuable to me as a IFS therapist.
I have loved this. I will go in quiet and stillness. Love to you all! Collaboration has indeed been lovely. My system is so glad to have been here and thankful to both the facilitators and all my fellow students for your leadership, vulnerability and sharing.
Lissa, IMHO, you are one of the clearest voices in our world who truly understands and therefore is able to clearly and directly articulate what trauma is. Your ability to describe its origins, how it presents and impacts people and therefore, societies, and how we can bring awareness and healing to.
You are masterfully subverting the dominant paradigm and I am confident you will succeed in overthrowing it!
Image Credit Monique Feil Photography
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When Others Don't Want You to Wake Up with Joan Borysenko
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Spiritual Bypassing & Transformation Through Intimacy with Robert Masters
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Expectation Hangovers-in Relationships with Christine Hassler
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Sacred Sexuality
with Rachel Carlton Abrams
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When Death Doesnt Part You
with Kristine Carlson
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Spiritual Surrender & Conscious Break Ups with Tosha
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The Soul's Prison or an Alchemical Crucible with Anne Davin
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PREPARING THE HEART TO LOVE AGAIN
Sanctuary For A Broken Heart
Enrollment in this workshop has ended.Please click below to view our current programs.
If the cost of this workshop presents a financial hardship, we hope you will contact us for a sliding scale option. Please write to support@lissarankin.com
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Dr. Lissa Rankin
Lissa Rankin, MD, is a mind-body medicine physician and author of 7 books, who researches radical remission, trauma-informed medicine, and spiritual healing. She teaches memoir writing for therapeutic purposes, in addition to being an educator of Internal Family Systems (IFS). Lissa is currently co-writing her eighth book, YOU-Turn, with her partner Jeffrey Rediger, MD, MDiv about the link between narcissistic abuse and medical illness, focusing on how healthy boundaries and Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy can help reverse diseases related to nervous system dysregulation caused by relational trauma.
Dr. Jeff Rediger
Jeffrey D. Rediger M.D., M.Div. is a distinguished academic physician with many years of experience in medicine, psychiatry, and spirituality. He serves as a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and is also the Medical Director of the McLean Southeast Adult Psychiatric Program and Community Affairs at McLean Hospital and the Chief of Behavioral Medicine at Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center. His work has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey, Anderson Cooper 360, and Dr. Oz shows, as well as on TEDx.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How do I contact customer service?
Please contact us by sending an email to support@lissarankin.com
What kind of technology will I need in order to participate?
All you’ll need is a computer or a smartphone and internet access in order to participate. All live calls will be on Zoom.
What if I can't attend a session when it takes place ?
All sessions are recorded so if you can't attend the live session you'll be able to soak up the juicy teachings, healing intentions, and spiritual energy of this course at any time it’s convenient for you.
