The Clinical Dilemma:
As practitioners, we are trained to hold space, analyze, and help clients regulate their nervous systems. Yet, in a culture dominated by cognitive fatigue and performative "calm," where do therapists go to drop the professional mask? How do we build a clinical container strong enough to hold raw, unstructured client material; grief, collapse, and valid rage; without burning out or flinching? The Ancient Mother Spiral aims to become this container for our inner wells. To move from the "what if" of Carl Rogers ,closer to the "what is" of our Here and Now.
Full fee: £45 ( limited places to 10 people) On demand Training, Express your interest below
Express your interest for a group process : a CPD for Therapists upon Request to Run it .
Do you ever feel like your mind is spinning in a spiral of overthinking, constant demands, and the pressure to hold everything together ?
When we get caught up in a mental spin , we literally lose touch with the ground beneath our feet, and with our Hearts and authenticity, ultimately our soul-our inner spark gets buried under relentless demands. As a result we get caught up in client's mental spinning and we get stuck in looped stories...
The Invitation in a world that is shaped by relentless "doing" ;
holding space, analyzing, and intervening; where do we go to simply BE ?
You are invited to a group experience, that bridges the person-centered theory Carl Rogers flavor of an encounter group with the primordial wisdom of the Ancient Mother Spiral. An evolving body of work, that arose in the body of Maria, out of deep burn out, matrescence and neurodivergent unmasking.
This is a gentle 4 hour circuit-breaker for your Nervous System.
It is a slow, deeply safe space shaped to help you step off the threadmill of "doing" and drop down into what somatic and buddhist teachers call the Ground of Being- That quiet unshakeable sense of stability that exists inside you; even when the world gets too loud.
For this unique workshop, we will be using a physically laid-out Floor Map of the Spiral; an intricate, circular path which holds particular phases which map out our process of ouf Soul's Individuation mirrored on the very process of Creation and a Mother's Birthing Journey.
1.Awakening 2. Gestation.3.Descend 4.Surrender 5.Crowning 6 .(Re)Birth 7. Expansion and 8.Holy Union
To keep this space safe enough, to create an intimate, and uncrowded, places are strictly limited to 10 participants maximum.
Using and embodying the three necessary conditions; empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard as our essential soil, we will navigate a shared descent into the present moment.
Through silence, movement, emergent poetry & art , and tending to group movements ( or non movements) , we move past the masks to encounter our inner authenticity and flow state.
Think of this workshop as a collective womb where growth can occur based on spontaneity. So many of us practitioners are afraid to take risks in our therapy rooms. This aims to allow more inner trust in your embodied being, and with the hope you bring more of your in the therapy room as well.
The Rogers method provides the safety and the 'unconditional' atmosphere, while the Spiral guides our descent from our social masks into the silent center within us. Moving from the “what if” of Rogers to the “what is”. From the mind, and into the Heart.
Workshop Aims & Objectives
This workshop offers a live, felt experience of co-emergence; the deep therapeutic magic that happens when people are fully present together.
By bridging the warmth of humanistic psychology with the profound depth of Jungian archetypes, we will uncover how the unconscious reveals itself in the present moment. You will leave with a deepened capacity to truly 'be' with your clients in the chair, and a renewed, grounded sense of presence in your own life.
Learning Objectives- How we find our stillness Together:
Instead of trying to "fix" your thoughts or analyse your past, we will use the natural laws of the body to anchor ourselves.
We will explore :
-
in Part one of the Workshop I will offer a teaching on the Ancient Mother Spiral. I will explain what the Rites of passage are and how we recognise them in ourselves. We will use some pair work to bring some of this to life to begin with. After arriving at your own intention for the day, we will then engage in a more deeply experiential process, from an informed perspective of what the Spiral is and what it represents as a metaphorical landscape.
-
The Archetypal Scaffolding: Being Held by the Mother Spiral : To explore our inner worlds, we need a strong container; what i call a temenos, or a sacred, protective boundary. The Mother Spiral floor map provides this exact safety net. By physically walking this path, your mind gets a clear, predictable framework while your body anchors into the space. This allows you to safely dive into deep, unstructured processing without feeling lost. You take this 8-phase map home as a lifelong tool to recognize where you are whenever the world feels chaotic.
-
1. Awakening - hearing the call
-
2. Gestation (The initial spark and the quiet waiting)
-
3.Descend
-
4. Surrender (Going into the depths and letting go of control)
-
5. Crowning
-
6. (Re)Birth (The intense threshold and stepping into the new)
-
7. Expansion
-
8. Holy Union (Growing outward and coming into deep inner harmony)
-
Walking Your Map: An invitation to physically walk the floor map, winding your way from ancient, forested origins toward the sweet, grounded center. This gentle ritual helps you identify where you stand in your life right now: Are you navigating deep intuitive changes (Descend), the flow of emotions (Surrender), or the fiery threshold of rebirth (The Phoenix)?
-
the Honey Drop: Experience a somatic Tool to drop in deep presence and calibrate your Nervous System through short guided embodied meditation... Experience the physiological shift that occurs when the core conditions meet the deep ancient unconditional essence in us.
-
Reading Your Somatic Data "Somatic data" is the wisdom your body is constantly sending you. As you walk the map, you will practice the Gravity Drop shifting from the exhaustion of holding yourself up to trusting the physical support of the earth beneath your feet, inspired by Eco psychology principles, i will invite you to gently tune out the noise in your head and tune into the steady rhythm of your heart and breath- your ultimate internal anchor. the times are urgent so we must slow down ( Bayo Akomolafe) .
-
Comfortable, Shared Silence & Deep Connection: We will gather in a spacious, restful quiet to allow new insights to settle. We will explore gentle creative prompts and share poetry, guided by comforting, "honey-like" sweetness and safety (symbolized by the Bee at the heart of the map). This is a slow-paced rhythm that allows your frazzled nervous system to fully catch its breath.
-
The Spiral Return : Before we step back into our lives again, we will end with a closing ritual, to safely gather ourselves. You will leave feeling lighter grounded in your own body, and connected with a deep sense of internal "home", and with some relfections on how /where you could integrate some of your learning into your life.
Why this why now?
These ways of being are ancient , indigenous ways of knowing and apprenticing to life. Because we deserve REST and to be doing less... Because we have forgotten how to be in community
Lastly as legendary Marion Woodman says:
"Sorting the seeds is a daily process of ruthless honesty that allows us grain by grain to discover our Being. The Latin verb esse means “to be”; thus in discovering our Being we are discovering our essence. This is a monumental task when we have spent our lives Doing, especially when Doing has become an escape from Being because Being is experienced as nothingness.”
Leave with a renewed nervous system and a deeper map for holding space.
Practicalities
Venue: The Sand & Sound Centre, Digital House, 35 Ridling Lane, Hyde, Tameside, Greater Manchester SK14 1NP
On Demand Training- IF you want to partake in this process Fill in the form below and specify times or days that suit you
Full fee: £45 ( limited places to 10 people)
Refreshments/lunch: Abundant refreshments will be available throughout the day. Lunch is not included, you can bring your own or buy lunch in shops nearby.
CPD Certificates will be issued in electronic format.
our Floor map is shown below... Image mady by Kirsti Danielle Jones Phoenix Designs.
Mapping our Soul's Individuation based on the Birthing Process of Creation, itself.
The Map
.jpg)
Maria Kefalogianni
Psychotherapist, Mystical Guide, & Founder of Presence Centered Psychotherapy (PCP)
Maria Kefalogianni is a clinically skilled psychotherapist and the creator of The Ancient Mother Spiral©️, an alchemical framework designed to lead women and MOTHERS ( and everyone else) back to embodied wholeness.
With over 18 years of clinical practice, she has spent more than 15 years leading groups and training both therapists and supervisors, grounding her work in deep professional expertise. She trained in the Person Centred Approach and has been holding groups and training therapists and supervisors in a process oriented way for over 14 years.
As a "soul midwife," Maria supports women navigating profound identity shifts, maternal rage, and burnout. Her approach integrates ancient wisdom with clinical precision, a path forged through her own "Descent Journey" of motherhood. A dedicated advocate for the "Warrior Mama," she views the spiritual path not as a retreat, but as a necessary descent into one's deepest truth through matrescence.
Maria’s work is trauma-informed and soul-rooted, specializing in shifting the nervous system from survival to anchored presence. She utilizes functional somatic tools and the power of sacred imagination and metaphor to transform human suffering and find its inherent wisdom within.
Rooted in her Cretan ancestry, Maria believes our deepest wounds are portals to wisdom, embodying a presence-centered life through the radical surrender of both motherhood and salsa dancing.
