Somatic Shadow & Circle Work  ·  Facilitator Immersion

Some parts of us were exiled to survive.
Learn to guide their homecoming

Some parts of us were
exiled to survive.
Learn to guide their
homecoming

A seven-day professional immersion in trauma-informed somatic shadow facilitation, group dynamics, and Heart iQ circle work, for therapists, coaches, leaders and facilitators. You receive the work in your own body, then descend into the practice of holding it for others.

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New Eden, the Netherlands  ·  September 5 – 12, 2027
What is Somatic Shadow & Circle Work? · 4 min

"I was confronted with difficult truths and shadow aspects of myself, yet in the safety of the field, I was able to face them, move through them, and step into liberation."

Anselm Achberger

"In this masterfully held space, I confronted and embraced parts of myself I had long rejected, receiving imprints of compassion that redefined how I want to live. Witnessing others in their liberation became my own."

Karmen Kovic

"I've been a therapist for 30 years and if others like me want to shed the therapist paradigm and move into real heart centered, transformative work, THIS IS THE PLACE TO BE!"

Joyce Lynn Therapist

0Hours Held in Circle
0Practitioners Certified
0Countries Reached
0Days of Immersion
Sound Familiar?

You can work with what your clients bring to the light.
You were never trained to work with what lives in the shadow.

Since we were young, we received messages that to be loved and accepted we must act and behave in a certain way. The parts that did not fit were repressed, and what we repress does not disappear. It resides in the shadow, unconscious, running the show from beneath the surface.

Because the shadow is unconscious, your clients cannot simply tell you about it. It shows up sideways: in the pattern that survives every insight, the shame that cannot be talked away, the body that keeps bracing long after the story has been understood. Meeting it takes a body-oriented, trauma-aware approach, and most of us were never trained in that.

The pattern survives every insight, because the part that drives it was never invited into the room

Shame cannot be talked away. It integrates only when it is held, felt and seen by a loving presence

The body keeps bracing long after the story is understood, and talking does not reach the bound energy it holds

Big emotion rises and without nervous-system skill your instinct is to settle it rather than let it complete

You can attune to one person, and the collective charge of a group still escapes you

A sharing circle at the Somatic Shadow and Circle Work training

"Shame is integrated when held, felt and seen by a loving presence."

A core principle of this training

The shadow is where our hidden, exiled, rejected and orphaned parts live. Shadow work reveals them and safely re-integrates them into conscious awareness. When we feel safe enough to turn toward our shadows, long-held trauma and the emotional, somatic and psychological bound energy stored in the body can finally release.

The group field is not a backdrop for this work.
It is the medicine that makes it possible.

This immersion trains you to facilitate that process, somatically, safely, and in circle.

What we repress does not disappear.
It runs a life from beneath the surface.

Most of us were trained to work with what a client already knows about themselves.

And the material that shapes their life most strongly is precisely what they cannot see.

Maybe you notice

Clients who understand their pattern completely, and repeat it anyway.

Sessions that stay articulate and never drop beneath the neck.

Shame in the room that no reframe has ever touched.

A pull toward somatic and group work, with no real training in either.

Charged moments you closed too early, unsure how to hold them.

Your own exiled parts stirring while you hold everyone else's.

You do not lack training. You do not lack compassion. You do not lack the trust of the people in front of you.

No one ever trained you to work with the parts a person cannot see.

So when the exiled material stirs, the shame, the rage that was never allowed, the grief with no words,
you guide it back to the story.
You keep it cognitive.
You reframe it.
Or you refer it out.

And the shadow stays exactly where it was, named and still running the show.

A small circle in conversation at the Somatic Shadow and Circle Work training
Christian Pankhurst teaching at the Somatic Shadow and Circle Work training
There Is Another Way

What if you could guide the descent, and the safe return?

Somatic Shadow & Circle Work integrates the body, nervous system, trauma, mind and soul. It explores the exiled parts of self and helps people safely feel the suppressed emotions and sensations around the core beliefs holding them back. This immersion trains you to facilitate it: sensation-based somatic coaching, trauma-aware containers, and the Heart iQ circle technology that lets a group become the loving presence in which shame finally integrates. You learn it in your own body first, then learn to hold it for others.

Apply Now What's Inside
A facilitator training, and a personal transformation.

Inside the Week

This is a working laboratory. You learn somatic shadow facilitation by experiencing it in the circle and watching it facilitated up close. You leave with a felt grasp of the work, not just the concepts.

Your Own Work

The Descent

Receiving the work in your own body

Roughly half the week is your own deep work. You meet each process as a participant first, inside the circle, so you feel the practices in your own body and receive the imprint before you study how the work is held.

The Professional Training

The Practices

Learning to guide it for others

Then the work turns professional: the processes you have just lived are broken down, demonstrated live with the dynamics emerging in the room, and studied up close. Somatic coaching, nervous-system regulation, trauma-aware containers, and circle work as a technology for collective transformation.

Group practice at the Somatic Shadow and Circle Work training Paired somatic work at the training The circle holding one of its own
The Work

The Practices You Will Learn to Facilitate

Three areas of facilitation sit at the centre of this immersion. Each is broken down in a working laboratory, using the live dynamics emerging in the room, and you feel its depth move through the group, with time to study it closely and ask your questions. Some in the group may be invited to lead a hot seat and take a process deeper.*

Somatic Shadow Facilitation

Somatic Shadow Facilitation

The body leads the way down

Trauma is stored in the body, so true and lasting transformation cannot happen until we feel and meet our sensations, emotions, neurobiology and physiology. You learn a sensation-based approach that moves people from story into embodied, present-moment relating and self-inquiry.

Body-based coaching that reaches what talking cannot.

  • ✓Somatic coaching: from story to sensation
  • ✓Powerful shadow practices adaptable to individuals and groups
  • ✓Accessing different ranges of the shadow within a group
  • ✓Somatic movement practices that free bound energy
Circle Work and Group Dynamics

Circle Work & Group Dynamics

The group as the medicine

Shame integrates when it is held, felt and seen by a loving presence. The group field is a powerful catalyst for collective transformation, and a loving tribe that re-imprints our intrinsic need for belonging. You learn the Heart iQ circle technology: letting the field's wisdom steer the course rather than the facilitator's agenda.

Learn to read the field and let the circle become the teacher.

  • ✓Holding circle work from opening to close
  • ✓Attuning to subtle cues in the group field
  • ✓Working with collective charge and group dynamics
  • ✓Re-imprinting belonging through tribal holding
Nervous System and Safety

Nervous System & Safety

The container that makes depth possible

Depth without safety is just re-traumatisation. You learn to create embodied somatic safety for one person and a whole room: regulation practices, titration, and the trauma-informed container skills that let intense material complete instead of overwhelming.

Safety is the most important aspect of facilitation. It is a skill, and it can be trained.

  • ✓Creating embodied somatic safety
  • ✓Self and co-regulation practices
  • ✓Trauma awareness woven through every process
  • ✓Titrating intensity so depth stays safe

* Hot seats are not guaranteed or offered to everyone. These seven days are where you receive the full transmission and an in-person study of this practice, not where every person works each process in depth and receives detailed feedback.

For that, there is an optional twelve-week online practicum, where you practise the processes in small groups with feedback. The practicum is also the step required to earn your Somatic Shadow & Circle Work badge, on the path to becoming a certified Heart iQ facilitator. You can read how it fits below.

The Foundation

Core Principles of This Training

Everything you learn in these seven days grows out of four principles. Do you resonate?

Trauma-Informed & Body-Oriented

Trauma is stored in the body, so we take a sensation-based, nervous-system and trauma-informed approach. True and long-lasting transformation cannot happen until we feel and meet our body, sensations, emotions, neurobiology and physiology as part of any therapeutic work.

Circle Work & Group Dynamics

Shame is integrated when held, felt and seen by a loving presence. The group field acts as a powerful catalyst for collective transformation and as a loving tribe that re-imprints our intrinsic need for community, belonging and love.

Personal Transformation

A true leader leads from experience. This is not only a professional training but, most importantly, a personal transformation process. To work with other people's shadows, we must be willing to connect, feel and be with the hidden and denied aspects of ourselves as well.

Working with Open Systems

Though the content of shadow work is vulnerable and tender, this work is an intrinsically joyful process, not something to push through with force. Shadow work is an act of no longer self-abandoning, and that is, in its essence, a touching and connected journey.

"You are me, cleverly camouflaged as you…
We are each other's medicine"

Christian Pankhurst, Founder of Heart iQ

A Day in the Training Week

The Rhythm of the Immersion

The days follow a titrated arc. They open into depth and then settle into integration, rather than escalating without rest.

Morning

Circles & Regulation

Small sharing circles and embodied regulation practice, the kernel every deeper process is built on.

Midday

The Large Field

The whole group together. Transmission, and the shadow processes shown live in real time.

Afternoon

Practice & Demonstration

Theory balanced with hands-on practice, with invited hot seats to take a process deeper.

Evening

Integration & Rest

Space to let the day land. The arc settles in the evenings rather than driving deeper into the night.

Roughly half of the immersion is professional training and half is your own deep work. You receive each process as live transmission and study, and the deeper practice comes in the practicum.

You cannot guide a descent you have never made yourself.

Is This You?

Who This Is For

Somatic Shadow & Circle Work is a professional immersion held by application, so the room stays right for this depth of work. It is not for everyone, and it is not meant to be.

This is for you if

  • You are a therapist, coach, leader, or facilitator who wants to bring trauma-informed somatic shadow work into your practice
  • You feel the call to hold circle work and group dynamics, not only one-to-one sessions
  • You are ready to meet your own hidden and denied parts, not only collect techniques
  • You want a body-oriented practice that reaches what talking cannot
  • You can be present, residential, for the full seven days in September 2027

This may not be the right fit if

  • You are curious about shadow work for yourself first. Come to the standalone Shadow Work Retreat instead
  • You are looking for a quick certificate to add to a website
  • You want the practice without being in your own process
  • You are in acute crisis and need personal therapy rather than a professional training right now
Apply Now

Watch a lecture on the shadow & the facilitator training

Click play to go deeper into what this training is

Your Guides

Meet Christian

The circle itself becomes the teacher.

I'm Christian Pankhurst, founder of Heart iQ, and I will be leading this immersion.

My work sits in emergent group dynamics: the art of attuning to the subtle cues within a field and deciphering what a group is asking for, so that the circle itself can assume the role of the teacher. The approach is potent and intuitive, letting the field's wisdom steer the course rather than the facilitator's predetermined agenda.

Since I began facilitating groups in 2002, I have spent more than 50,000 hours teaching in circle at my deep dive retreats, and trained and certified over 400 practitioners, facilitators and coaches from more than 50 countries.

In 2015 we established New Eden, our own retreat centre in the Netherlands countryside, where this immersion is held. It is my spiritual haven and the place where I do my most profound work.

This is where I share that understanding with you. I look forward to meeting you in the work.

Christian Pankhurst
Maanee Chrystal

Meet Maanee

Deep feeling and sensing, woven into a practice.

Maanee Chrystal is a Somatic Psychotherapist, Dance Therapist, and Somatic Integrative Educator. With her innate capacity for deep feeling and sensing, she weaves together shadow work, somatics, trauma resolution, nervous system health, dance therapy, non-duality, eco-somatics, embodied leadership, sensuality and the erotic.

As founder of The Somatic Institute for Women, Maanee has created a sanctuary for women reclaiming their power and embodiment. Her year-long somatics teacher trainings have educated nearly 300 students, and her school holds over 50,000 students worldwide. She has worked as a somatic psychotherapist in private practice for more than a decade, alongside leading immersive shadow work trainings.

Together, Christian and Maanee co-created this training, uniting the Heart iQ circle technology with deep somatic and depth-psychology practice.

"Christian Pankhurst knows how to articulate these messages as well as, if not better than I can. He is a profound source of wisdom and depth."

Neale Donald Walsch

New York Times Best-Selling Author of Conversations with God

Never Held Alone

A Trauma-Informed Container

This retreat is held by expert trainers along with a team of trauma-informed assistants, creating personal and group somatic safety throughout the program.

The program balances theory with practical, hands-on experience to build your skill and confidence, and it builds a supportive community around you: relationships and mentors that continue long after the seven days end.

Be Inspired

What Others Have Experienced

Real people who came to this work and were changed by it. Some now hold it for others.

Respected by Peers

What Leaders in the Field Say

Facilitators and educators who train others in trauma-informed, somatic group work, on Christian and the Heart iQ method.

"Christian is part of a very small group at the very top of the profession. I would place him in the top one percent of practitioners in trauma-informed group facilitation, and I am not aware of anyone else who combines his level of scale, structure, and impact."

Catherine Hale

Founder, Culture of Care Certified Trauma-Informed Training

"Many facilitators rely on personal charisma and intuition. Christian has gone significantly further, turning what is often viewed as intuitive into a repeatable method that others can learn and apply."

John Thompson

Co-Founder, Transformational Connection · Master NARM Facilitator, trained 1,500+ facilitators across 25 countries

"When I launched the Field Facilitator Training, I knew I wanted Christian as one of our lead faculty. His sessions were consistently among the most highly rated and impactful parts of the course, and many participants described his workshops as life-changing."

Rachel Rickards

Founder, The Field Facilitator Training · Co-Founder, Embodied Intimacy

"Much of what I teach today emerged from what I learned from Christian's work. His ability to read a room and guide large groups through profound emotional processes, with safety and clarity, is truly exceptional. He is one of the few facilitators I trust unequivocally."

Suzanne Beukema

Feminine Leadership Mentor · Founder, Unshakable Feminine Leadership

"HeartIQ is both an art and a science, delivered with a level of precision and attunement that is rare in our profession. By developing it, Christian has set new standards for what is possible in group healing."

Dr. Andrea Paige, ND

Founder, The Institute for Aliveness · Creator of the first accredited Master's in Applied Epigenetics

"I first met Christian in 2003 through Neale Donald Walsch's Leadership Education Program, where I was lead faculty. Even then he showed a rare combination of intellectual mastery and intuitive emotional attunement, and Neale personally invited him to help lead the training."

Rachael Jayne Groover

Founder, The Awakened School · Creator of The Art of Feminine Presence®

The Bigger Picture

Part of the Heart iQ Academy

These seven days are complete in themselves. They are also one specialisation within the Heart iQ Academy, a school for somatic-relational facilitators, alongside Healing in Tribe and Relationship Mastery. If you feel called to go further, here is how it fits.

01

The Immersion

These seven days, in September 2027. The live training, the transmission, and your own deep work. Complete and valuable on its own.

02

The Practicum

An optional twelve weeks of supervised online practice afterward, where you are seen facilitating the work in small groups and refine your facilitation with feedback.

03

Your Badge

Complete both the immersion and the practicum and you earn your Somatic Shadow & Circle Work badge, the formal recognition of this specialisation.

04

Certification

Each Academy specialisation carries its own badge. Collect them, in any order, and you become a certified Heart iQ facilitator. Somatic Shadow & Circle Work is one of them.

Certification is always opt-in. You can come for the immersion alone and take everything it gives you. The path is here for those who want it.

Immersion + Practicum

What You'll Walk Away Able to Do

By the time you complete the full Somatic Shadow & Circle Work path, the immersion and the practicum together, you will know the fundamentals of:

And you leave changed by the depth of your own work, because you cannot guide a descent you have never made yourself.

The Setting

Seven Days at New Eden

The full immersion is held at New Eden in the Netherlands.

New Eden, a private retreat centre in the Frisian countryside

September 5 – 12, 2027 · Europe

New Eden, the Netherlands

The September edition is fully residential at New Eden, a unique retreat centre surrounded by 50 acres of calm and quiet land, 90 minutes from Amsterdam, created specifically for immersive group work. You stay on the land for the whole week, from the opening on Sunday evening to the close the following Sunday.

For seven nights, this is home. The environment exists in service of the work.

Dates & Pricing

Your Place in the Room

Somatic Shadow & Circle Work is held by application, so the room stays right for this depth of work. Apply, and once your place is confirmed you will receive everything you need to prepare.

September · Europe

New Eden, the Netherlands

DatesSeptember 5 – 12, 2027 · 7 nights
LocationNew Eden, the Netherlands
FormatResidential, intimate group

Shared Room

€2,995

€2,500€2,995

Early bird until 11 July 2027
Save €495

Meals and taxes included

Private Room

€3,395

€2,900€3,395

Early bird until 11 July 2027
Save €495

Meals and taxes included

Apply for September
Seven days of training with the team
Seven nights, fully residential at New Eden
Every meal, prepared on site
A trauma-informed, titrated container
Live demonstration and study of the practice
An application-held, committed room

The early bird price runs until 11 July 2027, two weeks after the June Shadow Work Retreat. From 12 July the week is €2,995 in a shared room and €3,395 in a private room. A 20% deposit secures your seat: €500 on the early-bird shared room. The remaining balance is due 30 days before we begin.

The optional online practicum to complete your Somatic Shadow & Circle Work badge can be added after you attend.

The Shadow Work Retreat circle
New to This Work?

Start with the Shadow Work Retreat

The Shadow Work Retreat is the three-day live event where people come to meet this work. You sit in it as a full participant: doing the practices, feeling the field, and receiving the imprint of the processes in your own body.

It is a separate event with its own booking, and it is not part of the immersion ticket. The 2027 edition runs from 24 to 27 June at New Eden. If you have not experienced Heart iQ's shadow work live before, it is the natural place to meet it first.

Explore the Shadow Work Retreat
Questions

FAQs

Everything you need to know about the 2027 immersions.

Where does this take place?›

It is fully residential at New Eden, a private retreat centre on 50 acres in the north of the Netherlands, 90 minutes from Amsterdam.

Do I need to be a trained facilitator?›

No particular certification is required. This is a facilitator training for therapists, coaches, leaders and committed practitioners who want to work deeper than talk. You need to feel the call and be willing to do your own deep work as well as learn to facilitate. Roughly half the immersion is professional training and half is your own transformation.

What is included in the price?›

The full seven-day training with the team, every meal, and taxes. Accommodation at New Eden is included. Until 11 July 2027 the early bird price is €2,500 in a shared room and €2,900 in a private room. From 12 July it is €2,995 shared and €3,395 private.A shared room is €2,995 and a private room is €3,395.

What are the dates?›

It runs from Sunday 5 September to Sunday 12 September 2027, at New Eden in the Netherlands. It opens on the Sunday evening, is seven nights and fully residential, and closes in the early afternoon of the following Sunday.

Do I need to attend the Shadow Work Retreat first?›

No. The immersion is a seven-day training in its own right, and the Shadow Work Retreat is a separate event with its own booking. If you have not experienced Heart iQ's shadow work live before, the three-day retreat in June is a good way to meet it first.

How do I secure my place?›

The immersion is held by application. Apply through the booking page for your edition, and once your place is confirmed a 20% deposit secures your seat. The remaining balance is due 30 days before we begin.

Is this trauma therapy? Is it safe?›

No, this is a professional facilitator training in which you also do your own deep work. It is trauma-informed by design: held by expert trainers with a team of trauma-informed assistants, with regulation, titration and somatic safety built into every day. It is not a substitute for personal therapy. If you are in acute crisis right now, this is not the right time, and we will gladly point you toward more suitable support.

I just want shadow work for myself. Should I come?›

Come to the Shadow Work Retreat instead: a 3-day live event on sliding-scale contribution pricing, with no application needed. In 2027 it runs from 24 to 27 June at New Eden, and in 2028 in both the Netherlands and Colorado. If it lights something up in you, the full immersion will be here.

What does a day look like?›

Mornings open with small sharing circles and regulation practice. Midday is the large group field: transmission and live demonstration. Afternoons balance theory with hands-on practice, including invited hot seats. Evenings are for integration and rest. The arc is titrated, opening into depth and then settling, rather than escalating into the night.

What about the badge, the practicum, and certification?›

The seven days are complete in themselves. If you want to go further, you can add an optional twelve-week online practicum afterward, where you are seen facilitating with feedback. Completing both the immersion and the practicum earns your Somatic Shadow & Circle Work badge, one of the Academy's specialisations. Collect the specialisation badges, in any order, and you become a certified Heart iQ facilitator.

How do I get there?›

Once your place is confirmed we send full travel directions for your edition, including the nearest airports and stations and the best way to reach New Eden in the Frisian countryside.

What is your cancellation policy?›

The immersion runs for seven days, so it falls under our cancellation terms for events of seven days or longer. A 20% deposit secures your place, and the balance is due 30 days before we begin. The deposit commits you to the full fee. If you need to cancel, write to connect@heartiq.org, and your refund depends on timing: more than 90 days before the start, a full refund less a 10% administrative fee; between 90 and 60 days, 50% of what you have paid; within 60 days of the start, the fee is non-refundable, though at our discretion we may offer a transferable credit valid for twelve months. The full terms are on our terms and conditions page.

Still wondering something? Tap the gold chat icon in the bottom-right corner and we'll get back to you.

The Final Invitation

This is a professional training, and it asks something of you: seven days in a small and committed room, learning to hold the work that reaches what talking never could.

If you have sat with someone whose understanding was complete and whose pattern still ran, if you have felt the pull toward the body and the group and had no training in either, you already know what this immersion is for.

You do not need to arrive certain. You need to be willing to step into the room and meet your own shadow, and to learn to guide others by being guided yourself.

The September circle is forming now, and the room is kept small on purpose. If something in you has already said yes, this is your invitation to follow it.

We look forward to meeting you in the work.

Apply Now
Christian Pankhurst and Maanee Chrystal, guides of the Somatic Shadow and Circle Work training
The land at New Eden, home of the June immersion