The Art of
Aging & Ailing Awake 

Living More Fully in Bodies That Change

A 10-week, 20-hour personal development program that honestly explores living in bodies that age, experience illness, and change.

You’ll learn to meet it all with compassion, honor loss, and find meaning, joy, and possibility in whatever body and life you have now and in the future.

Scroll down for dates, starting mid-October, both in-person and online!

What if living more fully and joyfully doesn’t require our bodies to be a certain way?

The “Why” of The Art of Aging & Ailing Awake

Bodies change-along with our abilities, roles, relationships, limitations, and capacities.

The natural aging process, chronic health conditions, and unexpected events alter how we move through the world and understand ourselves and what is possible. These changes bring real loss- and invite us into a deeper relationship with ourselves, others, and what brings pleasure and matters most. 

This compassionate and reflective program is about living meaningfully in bodies and lives that may not look or feel as they once did. It offers a place to recognize and dignify what is different without allowing it to define us. 

You do not have to feel grateful for all that has happened, call illness a gift, or pretend that loss or life is easy.

You are invited to bring the truth of your experience AND to get curious about what is possible and worth being present to.

This course is for you

if you are…

  • living with health conditions or pain

  • experiencing shifts in ability, fatigue, or capacity

  • grieving a former or future version of your body or life

  • long for a new vision of life in a body that wants things slower and sweeter

  • navigating a new phase of aging or health shifts

  • seeking deeper joy and meaning as you let go of the past

  • craving connection with others who understand

  • suspect there is wisdom your body has to share with you

You may identify with aging, illness, both, or neither. No diagnosis, experience, or stage of life is required. Our bodies are not problems to be resolved or resigned to-they are teachers, companions, and sacred ground for living, loving, and becoming ourselves more fully.

What this course is (and isn’t)

What this course is:

  • honest, hopeful, and down-to-earth 

  • both practical and reflective

  • inclusive of many lived experiences

  • a blend of teaching, discussion, practices, and sharing

  • rooted in neuroscience, psychology, and spirituality

What this course isn’t:

  • a place to bypass grief or hard truths

  • medical treatment, therapy, or medical education 

  • about curing, fixing, or getting back to normal 

  • forced positivity, minimizing pain, seeing everything as a gift

  • a place of venting and negativity

We Explore…

  • Relating skillfully to bodies that change, tire, hurt, and behave unpredictably

  • What we can do when it seems we can no longer do anything

  • Making room for grief without letting it define us

  • Re-imagining our lives and discovering new possibilities and perspectives 

  • Habits of mind, body, belief, and emotion

  • Practices that boost immunity, regulate nervous systems, and dignify our spirits

  • Roles, goals, plans, identities, and self-concepts

In this course, we develop your ability to…

  • Recognize and work with unhelpful thought patterns

  • Stay present with grief, overwhelm, and uncertainty 

  • Distinguish acceptance from resignation 

  • Sort out what to influence and what to accept

  • Clarify your values, needs, and sources of meaning and purpose

  • Gently work with physical and emotional discomfort and pain

  • De-armor trauma stored in your body

  • Ask for, receive, and offer support

  • Offer yourself curiosity and compassion 

  • Savor beauty, connection, simple pleasures, and find joy

Our bodies are not problems to be solved or resigned to -they are teachers, companions, and sacred ground for living, loving and becoming more of who we can be.

What program participants have said…

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You’ll Get…

  • (10) live weekly 2-hour group sessions. In-person course is offered in (2) modules of 5 sessions that can be taken together for $300, or separately for $170). The online course is only offered in the full 10-week format. 

  • Small Group Peer Connection 

  • Weekly handouts with frameworks, key take-aways, journal or reflection prompts, and practices

  • Option for supportive 1:1 coaching or bodywork at a 10% discount

Ready to Sign Up? Register Here!

Two Class Formats

In-Person

(Divided into two sections by 5-week modules. Can attend 1, or both.)

  • Time: Wednesdays • 3:30-5:30 pm

  • Location: The Charbonneau District, Wilsonville, Oregon

  • Dates: Section 1 (5 weeks) 10/14, 10/21, 10/28, 11/4, 11/11 Section 2 (5 weeks) 11/18, 12/2, 12/9, 12/16, 12/30

  • Cost: $170 for each 5-week module | $300 for the full 10 weeks 

Online: Full 10-week series

Live and recorded

  • Time: Wednesdays • 10am-noon, Pacific 1pm-3pm Eastern

  • Dates: 10/21, 10/28, 11/4, 11/11, 11/18, 11/25, 12/2, 12/9, 12/16, 12/30

  • Cost: $300

Meet Your Facilitator

Dana Brenner

Somatic practitioner, coach, meditation teacher, group facilitator, and former therapist; Dana brings compassion, depth, and significant skills to this work. She has decades of lived experience navigating chronic and rare illnesses, has her official AARP card, and is on her own journey of aging and adapting to an ever-changing body. 

Ready to sign up?