The Power of Connection: from anxiety to regulation through storytelling and somatic practice
A new, two-day workshop with Jon Cree and Madelanne Rust-D’Eye, plus Saturday evening storytelling with Rowan Salim
If you support other people through stress, anxiety or overwhelm – as a teacher, outdoor practitioner, coach, therapist or facilitator – this two-day course with Jon and Madelanne offers practical, embodied ways to find your way back to regulation and connection: through story, the body and the natural world.
“I can’t sing Jon’s praises enough – a highly skilled facilitator. I have returned energised and motivated to ‘do the work’.”
What we’ll explore
- How nature-based and body-informed somatic practices can support self-regulation and unwind anxiety
- How metaphor and storytelling can be vessels to contain and share life experience
- How relational attunement helps us re-focus attention and rediscover delight in the energy of life
- How experiencing the ‘Self’ in its interconnectedness with the natural world and with others inherently counteracts anxiety.
What to expect from this experiential workshop
What you’ll take away
- Regulate yourself first – practical ways to calm your own nervous system, and work with warmth and acceptance towards yourself, before trying to support anyone else’s
- Recognise, respond to and reframe dysregulation in others – spotting stress and overwhelm as they happen, and understanding the mind-body link well enough to see behaviour differently, not just react to it
- Use story and metaphor safely – a gentle way to help someone hold and make sense of a difficult experience, including painful memories
- Use nature and sensory practice to support connection – working with the multi-sensory world around you, and accompanying someone through a hard moment with genuine compassion, without needing to fix or control them.
Is this therapy training?
No. This is experiential CPD for practitioners. It will deepen your understanding of therapeutic ways of working – but it does not qualify participants as therapists or counsellors.
Next available dates
Dates: Saturday December 5th and Sunday December 6th 2026
Time: 9.00am to between 3.30pm – 4pm daily, arrive at 8.45am to start on time
Bonus storytelling session: 5pm – 8pm on Saturday December 5th. You are invited to stay to join us for a storytelling session with Rowan Salim (optional). See information below.
Location: Our woodland site, off Park Lane, near Laughton, East Sussex, BN8 6BP
Cost: £280
Who facilitates this two-day CPD workshop?
Jon Cree has almost forty years’ experience as an environmental and earth educator, and co-author of The Essential Guide to Forest School and Nature Pedagogy (Routledge). His passion is helping others ‘get in touch’ with the natural world through dynamic learning programmes and hand-on learning experiences. He has for many years worked in Forest School, particularly with learners who are often stressed by our education system, home circumstances or other situations that set them apart from ‘the mainstream’. And yet we all bring gifts to the communities we are part of. During the pandemic signs of stress, anxiety and even trauma have become more prevalent and Jon has been diving deeper in ‘somatics’ and body based approaches. He has been asked to run even more trainings on anxiety, stress and trauma, and how the more than human world and creative practises can support our nervous systems. This is based on the many years he has worked with young people, especially adolescents.
“The facilitator, Jon Cree, was the biggest strength, a mine of knowledge and wisdom. I appreciated the somatic elements, really useful.”2024 Attendee of Reframing how to work with Behaviour and Stress in the Outdoors
Madelanne Rust-D’Eye is a Canadian somatic educator and facilitator who lives among the volcanic hills, grassy meadows and rocky coastline of Midlothian, Scotland. Madelanne’s work meets at the intersection of social justice, somatics, and regenerative culture. She also has her own somatic therapy practise.
Originally trained as a trauma-informed somatic psychotherapist (MA Naropa University), for the past 10+ years, she has been growing the community and practice of Body-Informed Leadership to address the wounds of connection carried in the bodies of Western people and cultures.
She has created and led innumerable programs and trainings with youth and adults, each with their own unique flavour. Madelanne brings a gentle presence, deep curiosity, and a knack for enabling the inherent brilliance, diversity, and collective leadership of the groups she hosts.
Madelanne is a Master Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist (MSME/T), registered with the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA). See Madelanne’s free resources on her website here: bodyinformedleadership.org/free-resources.
“I am most grateful for my work with Madelanne and the profound impact she and her work had on me. She is truly a gift.”
Body-informed Leadership Program Participant
The Epic of Gilgamesh: a storytelling evening around the fire with Rowan Salim
Date: Saturday 5th December 2026
Time: 5pm – 8pm around the fire (outside)
Cost: Included with your course ticket but there is an optional donation in the hat (£5)
What to bring: Warm layers, a mug, blanket, food to share. We will break half way to share some food!
About Rowan
Rowan Salim is a play and learning facilitator, community gardener and storyteller based in South London.
Who it’s for: Open to Power of Connection participants who’d like to stay on [and to anyone else by invitation only].
The epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest known stories in the world, first written in cuneiform clay tablets more than 4000 years ago. It takes us on a journey of self-discovery and meaning making from Uruk in Mesopotamia, one of the world’s first cities, and into the wild, tracing all the way back to the story of the flood.
After the Power of Connection, we are welcoming participants to stay on if they wish to join a small group to listen to Rowan recount the Epic of Gilgamesh.
We’ll pause halfway to share food, so please bring something to put in the middle.
Starting in the ancient city of Ur in Mesopotamia and going on a journey to the cedar forests of Lebanon and beyond in search of the meaning of life. The story touches on timeless themes of friendship, courage, balance, love and rage.
The epic of Gilgamesh, written in cuneiform clay tablets over 4000 years ago, and likely told in oral tradition in myriad iterations over 1000s of years prior, includes the very first mention of the flood, which likely coincides with the melting of the ice caps which took place at the start of the Holocene 10,000 years ago. As we enter an age of climate change and rising sea levels again, what can this old story, that has survived the tales of time, tell us?