Tenderness Days
Our retreats are days or evenings of tenderness.
They provide opportunities to take a breath and ease into care and attention that is gentle and restorative.
Wonder, Wisdom, Friendship and Legacy
Tenderness Days
Our Tenderness days have been developed to create a space for you to negotiate a confident transition into a new chapter of your life. Change can be challenging; it often brings a variety of feelings.
Excitement, joy, discomfort, anticipation, fear, loss, many of them overwhelming.
Our Tenderness Days provide a breathing space to process these feelings and make sense of them as you reorientate and find your feet in a new chapter of life.
They are designed to provide comfort and relief. We use creative arts, imagination, laughter, time in nature, eating together and movement to create an environment that is conducive to self-reflection, finding resolution and sharing stories.
This time will help you to
Connect with your sense of self & autonomy
Lean into, and safely feel, your feelings
Reflect on the truth of what they might mean for you
Anchor yourself in places where you feel safe, healthy and loved
Regulate and ground your physiology
Decide next steps, find direction, ask for help and access support
Find companionship and friendship so that you know that you are not alone
Discover and re-discover your strengths and gifts
Orientate to health in all areas of your life
Learn something new
Engage in a creative activity and grow in the confidence to express yourself
On each day we will:
- We all share and eat a meal together
- We will do an activity that works with each; body, heart and mind
- We orientate to health
- Where at all possible we do not use or refer to labels
Introducing Series One: Welcome
This series has been designed to encourage and celebrate the innate ability of babies to communicate. We will create an environment which is tender enough to provide the opportunity to connect emotionally with your baby in a deep and fulfilling way.
The pattern of the day will be for us to gather together as a whole group before dividing into smaller groups for specialized workshops. We will set a table and eat together at lunch time before dividing again and swapping workshops. We will use supporting adults to help include the babies as much as
possible also encouraging a relaxed and non-judgemental atmosphere.
The changing needs and feelings of the babies and parents can be folded in and adapted to as part of the overall experience.
We will meet every 3 weeks on a Saturday and each baby will choose a main and supporting adult. There will be other adults available to assist with anyone who needs extra space or care. There will be 12 babies in the group, 2 of which will be sponsored by Anam Alba.
Series structure
Day 1:
Born connected
Whole group
I am born connected and the I am centre of the universe.
Workshops
Expand on the amazing abilities
that babies have and explore
those interactions with your baby,
Place your baby at the centre of
their own story of conception,pregnancy and birth and learn to
tell the story of their arrival in the
context of your relationship.
Day 2: Our hearts connect us
Whole Group
The heart is the first organ to form. It gifts us with sensitive, intuitive and loving connection.
Workshops
Breathe with your baby, learn how to use the HeartMath technique and practice with the biofeedback technology
Laughter and memories,
remember and create moments of connection and joy that can be
used with the heart focused
breathing.
Day 3: Music & voice as communication.
Whole Group
Your voice is music for your child and music is your voice.
Workshops
Write your own lullaby for your
baby.
Use your voice, face, hands and
body to communicate even when
you don’t have words.
Day 4: Making friends and playing
Whole group
Today is a chance to check in, catch up and play. Are your grown ups beginning to make friends? Are they relaxing? Are you enjoying all the shared conversations?
Workshops
An informal chance to catch up on anything we have done but maybe not finished; stories, songs.
An opportunity to have either a
consultation with a member of the team or a deeper conversation about something that interests you and your grownups.
Day 5: Touch, tuning into your baby’s rhythm.
Whole Group
All communication and emotion are held as patterns in the body.
Workshops
Attachment – Biology
Learn how to tune into your baby’s body using gentle touch.
Day 6: Connection through movement
Whole group
Yoga for Mums and babies
Workshops
Yoga for Mums, confidence and
repair after childbrith
Movement with music and dance
Day 7: Storytelling
Whole group
All you need is your voice and your face and imagination.
Workshops
Practice telling a story, in the
moment with nothing but your
imagination and your baby as the
best main character ever.
Create a precious box for your
baby with memories from this time together.
Day 8: Celebration
Whole group
Gather to celebrate and share the songs, stories and experiences from this time together.
Share and enjoy a meal ….plus cake.
Finish with a Wee Step Ceilidh for mums, babies and toddlers, other
siblings and other family members are welcome.
Our offering of Tenderness Days
Welcome
Is this a time where something new is entering your life. Is there a change coming or already happening for you just now. Where you need to adjust, adapt or learn something new? Maybe you need to let go of something old in order to embrace the change.
Friendship
Relationships; the depth and significance of friendship is often underrated. Friends enrich our lives, they challenge, they support, they often accept pretty much unconditionally, they age, they laugh and cry with us. Do you have a friend that you wish to treat, or celebrate, or encourage?
Wonder
These days are designed to recapture or celebrate the best in ourselves and each other. Aimed particularly at children but applies to any age. We are all extraordinary and have the capacity to be brilliantly brave and loving often against the odds. Take time to deepen connections, build confidence, encourage belief and inspire a sense of worth in the wonder of who we are.
Wisdom
We have more of this than we know. There are times in life when connecting to our intuition and grounding an embodied, confident sense of self matters. How do we own our place in the world and make peace with the winding stories of our own lives? Ease and fulfilment lie in the wisdom and experience that we have individually and collectively.
Legacy
Chapters of life that require reflection. Are you searching to frame or reframe meaning or purpose? Do you wish to resolve, release or understand aspects of your life better? Do you need to pause to find peace and contentment? What do we pass down though the generations? What stories, ideas, traditions are there that have brought us Joy and should be passed on? Can we capture good memories and learn from each other?
What a Tenderness Day looks like
Bespoke Tenderness Days
Anam Alba can design a tenderness day to fit your need. Whatever your group or your theme we will present ways to bring you together in a specially designed space, using creative activities and the comforts of warmth, food and friendship to help you explore and tell your stories.