workshops - Bella Mahaya Carter

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Our bodies communicate, but often we don't listen to or understand what they are saying. In this workshop you will have the opportunity to listen to your body. It will speak to you through movement as well as words. Creative movement and writing are exquisite muses that work well together. Movement breaks habitual patterns and helps you discover untapped resources. It creates additional pathways in the brain, which lead to new and original ways of thinking. In this workshop you will shed inhibitions, move freely, and express whatever words, sounds and images arise. By combining creative movement with writing you will stretch your creativity, both physically and verbally. You will also have fun, explore, and stand in your stillness. The wisdom that arises may be startling, revealing, painful, funny, illuminating and healing. This is a rich and valuable way to expand awareness, and is a powerful, integrating creative process.

This workshop begins with a discussion about what it means to nourish one’s Self, and why that’s sometimes difficult to do. We cannot be of service to others if we’re not first taking care of ourselves. This is vitally important to women, who have traditionally been caretakers, and have in modern times become masterful multi-taskers. But what exactly is Self-Nurturing? What does it mean to care for one’s Self? In this workshop you will not only answer these (and other) questions, you will turn within, identify what makes you feel cared for, and create a Personalized Self-Nurturing Plan you can take with you into your busy life, which may then begin to feel more peaceful. This is a natural result of trusting your instincts, listening to your innate wisdom, and learning to give yourself what you need, when you need it.

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Creating Ideal Scenes, Affirmations, and Action Steps:
Blueprints for Making Your Dreams Come True

Research shows that we create our lives whether we are conscious of doing so or not. This workshop helps students identify what they’d like to create in their lives, encourages students to dream and imagine the very best for themselves. It also provides practical tools for stretching into those dreams using concrete action steps. An action step is a small, manageable step one takes toward the fulfillment of one’s heart-felt dreams. You will formulate a clear picture of where you are now in your life, and where you’d like to go. Ideal Scenes are like maps or blueprints, which consciously outline your journey. Get ready for an amazing trip!

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Try giving yourself—or a friend—this party/ritual. There is nothing like being surrounded by your community of women friends with the specific intention to celebrate your creativity!

Our gathering begins with the creation of a beautiful altar made with flowers, stones, and personal talismans. This process helps people get to know each other and also establishes a sacred space. You and your friends will discuss your creative lives—your visions, dreams and goals—and even your fears. After the alter is built, women make “creative offerings” by sharing songs, readings, artwork, photographs, dances, jokes—any creative expression they’d like to offer.

This experience is guaranteed to soothe, refresh, delight, and inspire—no matter where you are on your creative journey. It makes an unforgettable birthday celebration and is a gift you will cherish! Let Bella design the perfect birthday ritual and celebration for you or a dear friend! This is a wonderful way to celebrate a significant birthday or other milestone!

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Guided Meditations begin with deep relaxation. When the body relaxes, so does the mind, and once the body and mind are calm, we move beyond “reflexive thinking” into greater awareness. Answers to questions or problems may surface—oftentimes unbidden. Bella uses a variety of meditation techniques designed to help connect people to their innermost thoughts and desires. At the end of each exercise, you will write in your journal. Participants are then invited to share their observations. Sessions last between two and three hours, depending on the number of attendees in each session, and how many wish to share with the group. Bella creates a very safe space in which most—if not all—people choose to share. But whether or not to share, or what to share, is always up to you.

Sample topics:
Exploring Your Senses
Wisdom Guides
The Masks We Wear
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This workshop begins with the creation of life-sized body drawings, front and back, which students decorate with crayons, markers, pencils and images cut from magazines, creating a Personalized Body Map with unique signs and symbols. These signs and symbols may be obvious or obscure. Drawing skills are appreciated, but not necessary; what you’re after are clues and images—sparks you can fan into flames while you explore, through movement and writing, your maps. This process might reveal roadblocks or detours, but can just as easily—or additionally—point the way to buried treasure you might not have known was there!

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Want to tour a raw food kitchen? Would you like to learn how to make dehydrated foods such as pizza crusts, crackers, breads, and fruit leathers? Bella leads private and group raw food prep workshops that will teach you how to make wraps, smoothies, pastas made from zucchini and kelp noodles, raw gourmet pizzas, cakes, pies, ice cream and much more. She can also help you set up your own raw food kitchen.

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