Welcome to Durham’s Authentic Relating Community!
Want *satisfying* connection? Try Our Weekly Authentic Relating Practice!
Registration Now Open (Drop-In, 10-Pass, or HeartFire Membership). Join below and RSVP on our Meetup Events Hub!
See our other tabs for Intimacy Coaching & Authentic Relating for organizations.
About T-Group & Our Authentic Relating Practices
Now available! See our detailed requirements here. We’re in our first cohort–feedback on the requirements is welcome. Summary:
250-Hour EQ/RQ™ Relational Leadership Certification
- 150 hours as a participant in at least 50 in-house Relational Flow or T-Group sessions.
- 40 hours as a participant at a minimum of 3 in-house retreats.
- Full participation in 3 book study modules, including one module on Integral Relationship Theory. 80% attendance required for each module.
- 10 hours of one-on-one psychotherapy or relationship coaching during the certification period. You may choose any coach or therapist.
- Note: We plan to add a requirement for our monthly Relational Mastermind Group – details coming in 2025.
- You must maintain HeartFire Membership during the time you are accumulating certification hours. (Note: This is extremely important, both to motivate you to complete your hours, and to keep the community on stable financial footing.)
- Minimum time to certification of 18 months to give time to understand the practices more deeply.
500-Hour Certification in Relationship Facilitation
We plan to begin offering this training in 2025, once a sufficient number of people have completed the 250-hour training.
This advanced program is available to individuals who have completed our Level I: 250-hour certification. It consists of 250 additional hours of Relational Leadership practice and facilitation training. This tier is designed for those that want to become certified in facilitating Relational Leadership. This program equips participants to become professional facilitators who help execute ongoing trainings, consulting engagements, retreats, and special events. You will complete the following, as preliminary steps to demonstrating professional mastery:
- 40+ hours at 3 in-house retreats, including co-facilitation of 1 retreat
- 30+ hours participation in our monthly Relational Mastermind Group
- 60 hours as a participant in in-house Relational Flow groups and T-Groups
- 150 hours of experiential co-facilitation training (supervised facilitation, peer reviewed facilitation), spread over a minimum period of 2 years, including participation in a Facilitation Mastermind study group with other participants.
- 20 hours of mentoring and practicing delivering feedback to Tier One participants
- 2 years of monthly one-on-one coaching with an approved coach, including post-graduation career planning and development
- Demonstration of expertise in 7 content areas related to facilitation
- Demonstration of skills in 2 Certification Circles for each practice (T-Group, Relational Flow)
These professional certifications are an important part of a resume if you are interested in facilitating groups professionally! We are setting up a certification structure that gives you a high return on your investment while also helping you develop the ability to hold transformational space for others.
One-on-one mentoring is also available for anyone wanting to speed up the process of Level 2 Certification prior to the start of the course.
For those currently on 10-passes, please document your hours and switch to a monthly membership by June, 2023 to have your hours (past 6 months) continue to count toward this 200-hour certification. This is intended as a requirement for you to be a full member during the certification process of approximately 18 months. If you need to pay your monthly membership in cash or by check, we can arrange this. Full membership is very important because it will help you feel more connected to the practice, and it signals that you are fully in. Membership also helps the community prosper, providing more opportunities to plug into the organization long-term! It also saves you a lot of money on retreats & study groups!
We will help track attendance using your RSVP on Meetup or via our website where you plug your membership code in to register each week. But please keep your own records as well.
Some of the happiest moments of my life are in T-Groups. On the surface, T-Group is very simple… you sit in a small circle, and share spontaneously and freely:
Emotions & feelings
Desires
Sensations
Reactions
Feedback
However, something huge that often ties us up in knots is left out–our thoughts & opinions! This is what makes it both a great beginning to the week, and an interpersonal meditation practice. T-group is an easygoing, deep, and transformational practice, and one of my favorite authentic relating practices.
I’m grateful to NTL Laboratories and the Boulder T-Group community for developing this practice, as we bring it to Durham!
Authentic Relating is the practice of utilizing relationships as a lens for self-discovery, and vulnerability as a tool for mind-blowing, heart-opening connection.
Authentic relating is a contemplative practice: we meditate on the experience of being together—on the sense of connection, on what arises in relationship with each other. We take it slow, moment by moment. We let go of stories and preconceptions. And we share what it’s like to be with each other. There is fun available, but also a depth of practice for those who want more.
Over time through this practice, we develop the ability to uphold five principles:
Honor Self
Honor Other
Hide Nothing
Everything is OK
Own Your Experience
We will explore these principles in study groups, trainings. We also invite you to experience them directly in our practice sessions!
Part of these relational meditations is tracking your own well-being (Honor Self) in connection with another person (Honor Other), while simultaneously expressing yourself honestly, openly, and clearly. And receiving the same openness & honesty from others. These are wonderful relational practices, and can have a huge influence on your ability to have successful relationships–both at home and in the workplace!
We invite you to join our community and to experience not just the depth possible in an evening of authentic relating, but the sense of soul-enlivening community available for all who play, relate with us over the long term.
This is a practice community focused on relational meditation techniques.
You can expect our group to include the polarized viewpoints seen in the society around us, and for there to be a mixture of skill levels in communicating around topics of diversity, equity, inclusion and what constitutes progress. Please expect the possibility of intense emotions related to this polarization in our groups, and for facilitators to invite you to stay within the practice guidelines when this arises.
Relational meditations involve directly and honestly sharing the emotions and sensations we experience being together. What do we notice being with each other?
We invite all people with all backgrounds and views to join us, but to practice our techniques with precision. We invite polarity into the room—all political orientations, all genders, those with and without military experience, all ethnicities, all colors, shapes, and sizes, all levels of experience. We are human, and we invite all our so-called imperfections and the beautiful tapestry this weaves into a relational meditation practice space together.
We invite each participant to remain within the practice instead of slipping into debate or judgment when differences or polarity is present. This is a meditation practice group with an intent to foster spiritual opening experiences in connection with others. We find that remaining in the practice of sharing our emotions, sensations, and noticings with each other creates uncharted paths through differences and conflict.
That is our stated intent around diversity, equity and inclusion—to create a community that remains in a mode of interpersonal sharing in response to differences. The people different from us – those we find difficult – become our teachers, and we learn to experience the world through the eyes of others.
One question that is often asked is how the community plans to approach microaggressions and systemic -isms such as racism, sexism, etc.
T-Group is a path of staying present and mindful by playing within polarity. The initial invitation for the community when awareness of painful situations arises is to try something different—what happens if we meditate inside these experiences, sharing what we are feeling or noticing, while cutting out our thoughts and opinions for a few minutes? Microaggressions and systemic oppression are always present in every group interaction in present-day culture. I would like to invite the group to ask a different question when these issues surface into your awareness—how can we honor the truth of our experience while remaining in connection with each other?
We will additionally create forums and trainings outside our usual practice sessions to build greater skill around communication, diversity, equity and inclusion and to work through any strong disagreements that are arising in the group. See our Conflict Resolution tab or our events calendar for more ideas on this.
We would also like to acknowledge that the group is mostly organized by one person, with all the limitations that brings. You are invited to balance this out by developing your skills and collaborating with us!
We believe conflict is a natural part of all communities, and have established the following guidelines and values for working through conflict. We plan to amplify this page into a series of community resources over the coming months—please send us any links you would like us to consider including that are consistent with the following values:
Values We Aspire To Uphold During Conflict:
Hold relational meditation practice time sacred.
Connection across polarity.
Inclusion (avoid excommunication).
Make inarguable statements (avoid projection).
Nip it in the bud.
Basic Goodness in all things.
Our Definition of Conflict Resolution:
T-Group is a practice of meditating on and sharing what arises being with each other. Because of this, T-Group leadership generally holds no intention to help you process conflicts through to resolution, as sitting in conflict is part of the practice. We do hold the intention to bring conflicts, differences, and polarity into awareness—but not necessarily to judge or change what is arising. From this perspective, we define conflict resolution as all parties to a disagreement successfully holding all sides of a conflict in awareness at the same time while remaining in connection with each other.
See below for the legal aspect of Conflict Resolution in our community, in the Disclosure & Waiver Statement section.
We would suggest for now, in the case of conflicts within our community that need resolution, we consider the following steps:
a) Meet for coffee with the person you are in conflict with. If you still feel conflict:
b) Bring 2-3 community members in for a special T-Group session with you and the person you feel conflict with.
c) Hire a Marriage & Family Counselor for one or more psychotherapy sessions together with the person with whom you feel conflict (at your own expense–please do your own shadow work, if the conflict escalates to this level! Seeing our own part in co-creating conflict is a powerful tool in conflict resolution.)
d) If the conflict involves the group itself or its leadership, T-Group leadership may help arrange a community listening session or other similar community process outside our usual sessions. In some cases, it may be helpful to arrange an external facilitator for this.
e) In the case of major community conflict, the next step might be to create a group workshop or retreat with an external facilitator–this can work better than entering mediation, as the focus is on everyone learning from the situation versus focusing on fixing stuck problems.
f) If something major is happening in the community and resolution has proven difficult, it may make sense to split the community or to hire in the leader of a similar authentic relating community or a Community Conflict Resolution specialist, such as: https://www.crc-mediation.org/mediation/, to help the group release tensions or arrive at the best solutions possible.
Overall, though, may we learn to Honor Self & Honor Other deeply, so that we may avoid drama and experience the transformative potential of Conflict and Differences!
Over time, we hope to build the community to host multiple events per week with a diverse facilitation team. We are currently in our initial phase with just one facilitator and several people training in facilitation. Stick around with us, and let’s build something beautiful!
Durham T-Group is currently facilitated by Benjamin Whitehurst, M.A. of Navigate Change, LLC. Benjamin has been practicing relational meditation practices for over 12 years, including T-Group, Circling, Authentic Relating Games, Tantra, and Alchemical Dreamwork. He has a master’s of Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University, training in authentic relating practices and trauma work, and is currently enrolled in NCSU’s Jenkins MBA Program.
Benjamin has facilitated hundreds of group events over the past decade. In his facilitation, you will find signs and symptoms of his personality type (Myers-Briggs INTJ, Enneagram Type 1), and a group systems orientation with a focus on precision and effective personal transformation. His native territory is the mind and subtle dream realms, and he is learning to come all the way into his body and emotions! In terms of background, Benjamin grew up in rural Virginia and brings perspectives from having lived outside the US for 5 years, mostly in Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Chile. He also loves gardening, movement meditations, singing, reading integral theory, cute animals, and anything that breaks his mind and heart open further.
Please be gentle with yourselves at our workshops and events. The invitation is: Stretch, Don’t Tear.
We expect all attendees to be responsible for their own self-care and aftercare, but what might this mean?
As a few practical suggestions:
1) Our work involves education and interpersonal meditations. Sometimes big things surface for us, or someone triggers us, and our container is not necessarily designed to help you process it. We highly encourage all attendees to do work with other professionals such as psychotherapists, to help you integrate what comes up for you at our events.
2) Be gentle with yourself at our events. If you find yourself saying “Maybe” to something in your head, we would invite you to adjust what we are doing so that it serves you with a solid “YES!” You might need to be creative here, but your well-being matters more than following what ever instructions we are offering. This is core to our community agreement around “Honor Self.”
3) As a couple examples: We have seen people take naps at our events for self-care. Other people modify the instructions in the spirit of the exercise – engaging more quietly, for example, if someone has a headache. Other people decide to stick with difficult exercises to challenge themselves, and then will make a point of lots of self-care afterwards. Be creative here!
4) After a workshop, we encourage you to do grounding or relaxation exercises, if this is helpful for you. These are easy to find online, or you can request a therapist to help you find the ones that will work best for you. Journaling also makes a huge difference, as reported by many past participants.
5) A common side effect of *any* relational work is feeling “triggered.” Underlying this is that you are in the state of your nervous system related to fight, flight or freeze. You’re angry, or blaming, or shut down, or exhausted, or thoughts are rushing through your mind. This is what it is like to feel triggered. This part of the nervous system is like a light switch – you are either triggered (fight, flight or freeze) or you are socially engaged (in an open, curious, social state). We encourage you not to take what other people say personally. And most importantly, we expect you to learn for yourself how to engage this switch in your nervous system on your own after our events. If you don’t have this training, see the internet (“Polyvagal resources” is a good search term), or find a therapist to work with you. There is no reason to walk around feeling triggered after our events – there are powerful tools that are easy to learn to quickly settle your mind and nervous system.
6) Stay connected. Self-isolating is one of the worst things to do when something big comes up for you. In relational work, staying in the game is one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself. We totally understand that there are unhealthy situations you need to get out of – that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about ghosting the moment we feel uncomfortable or triggered. Or we feel embarrassed at something we said or did, and simply leave instead of feeling our shame. Or, something we don’t want to look at comes up, and we feel vulnerable and shut down. Or we are angry at the facilitator and want to burn things down. These are the times to stay, to request support, and to use these situations to grow. Leaving community in these moments is self-sabotage and will cause these fears, emotions, and missing skillsets to sabotage you everywhere you go – because in relationships, wherever you are, you are there (with all your hangups).
7) If you’ve had an unwanted experience, our agreement as a community is on the above tab. Let’s process these experiences as a community instead of allowing them to linger. We encourage you to speak up about what you are going through, while also being willing to look closely at how your own limitations, perspectives, and hang-ups contributed 50% of the situation – it takes two people to have relationship problems. This is part of being in a Brave Space like our authentic relating community – each of us agrees to be responsible for our own situations: Honor Self, Honor Other.
8) Integration: Encouraging you to plan to attend follow-up events after retreats. We have weekly events so you have a place to land and experience connection after our events. We are one of the few training schools that does not simply dump you back into everyday reality… we have weekly groups to support you and help you integrate.
Disclosures & Waiver for our Authentic Relating Events
Welcome to T-Group!
All meditation practices come with both limitations and benefits, and we try to balance the two. Part of our responsibility to you is to provide you with information on what the practices entail and what we expect of you while participating, so you can decide whether our practices are a good fit for you. We believe this is an important part of establishing Consent within our community. See our disclosure & waiver statements in the next tab. We will ask you to confirm you have read this statement when you register for our events.
Welcome to Navigate Change, LLC!
We would like to offer you some clarity about what our events entail, and what we expect of you in plain language. You will find the legal language you are agreeing to in the final section. May these agreements be in service of the well-being of our community.
1. Disclosure Statement.
What to Expect:
Our interpersonal meditation, authentic relating, dreamwork, and personal development workshops often include:
Intense emotions
Self-expression
Breathwork
Physical activity
Touch (Such as hugs, handshakes, and other forms of conventional public touch)
Interpersonal meditation practices
Polarity and conflict
Seeing or hearing things you find taboo, offensive, or unpleasant
Coaching
Meditation training
You can find detailed descriptions of what to expect in any particular workshop online on our Meetups or Navigate Change LLC owned websites. We expect you to read these event descriptions prior to attending, so you understand and make informed decisions about what you are agreeing to participate in.
Your Responsibility:
As a participant in our events and other services, we expect you to be fully responsible for your own physical, emotional and psychological well-being, assuming all risk for your participation. While we have group norms designed to encourage positive outcomes, it is ultimately up to you to avoid circumstances that might lead to harm. As a partial list, we expect you to:
A. Immediately avoid and report to the facilitator any conditions that might be physically harmful, such as trip hazards.
B. Set personal boundaries as needed, including the option to stop participating or leave the workshop, to prevent emotional distress or psychological harm. For example, refusing a hug you don’t want, or stepping out of the room if something is becoming too intense for your liking.
C. Be fully responsible for the personal data you give out. We cannot be responsible for how others treat personal information you have given out, or for your interactions with participants in-between sessions.
D. Seek psychotherapy, healing services, or legal advice elsewhere, as needed. Complementary modalities such as these can greatly enhance your experience of our practices.
Not Psychotherapy, Legal Advice, or Medical Treatment:
The workshops we offer involve coaching, communication training, experiential psychoeducation and inter- and intrapersonal meditation practices in service of personal and group transformation.
While some people may describe these types of workshops as a form of “spiritual healing”, the workshops we offer never involve any form of physical or psychological healing intent, and do not constitute psychotherapy, legal advice, financial advice, or medical treatment. We expect you to seek out licensed professionals for these purposes. Please be advised certain practices offered in our workshops may intensify emotions or carry a risk of surfacing intense memories. We expect you to seek proper medical or psychotherapeutic advice from licensed practitioners prior to attending if you have any concerns about whether our practices are healthy for you.
Conflict Resolution:
Conflict is a daily part of human experience, and we expect it to arise often during our workshops. Please see an updated version of our conflict resolution policy and process here: https://navigatechange.org/tgroup
By participating in this workshop, you agree to experience conflict and related emotions with other participants, and understand that this experience of conflict may last beyond the end of our scheduled sessions for long periods of time.
By participating in this workshop, you also agree to stay within the practice guidelines established by workshop facilitators, even when experiencing conflict. For example, if you experience conflict while practicing T-Group, you will continue to speak within the format of T-Group.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion:
Our workshops involve diverse participants who hold diverse perspectives, and we highly value this diversity and the discomfort it often brings as we learn how to authentically spend time with each other. We encourage our participants and leaders to develop skillfulness in engaging each other around differences, and to set good boundaries while finding a way to remain in connection with one another when differences are present.
However, please assume that all attendees at our workshops lack training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. In the context of our workshops, be aware it is common for people to directly state what they experience being with each other—including what might be considered microaggressions, non-progressive thought, or statements from ignorance. In other words, our attendees are representative of the state of our society at large (including how difficult interactions with those who may be different than us can be)!
Please see the most recent version of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement here: https://navigatechange.org/tgroup
Removal from Workshop:
Navigate Change, LLC and its agents retain the right to immediately and permanently remove any participant who is threatening to harm themselves or others from any event, from our online social media accounts, or from all future events.
Harming others includes but is not limited to: arriving at a workshop in an inebriated state (alcohol, marijuana or other drugs), arriving with symptoms of a contagious respiratory condition such as a cold or flu, or engaging in behavior that prevents the group from engaging in the practices listed on the event description.
No participants shall be admitted to workshops 15 minutes after the listed start time, unless otherwise announced (for example, if a traffic accident is causing major delays for most attendees or if the facilitator is delayed).
Liability and Hold Harmless Agreement:
This waiver is for all interactions with Navigate Change, LLC, including events hosted through our subsidiaries, partner organizations and Meetups including but not limited to: AuthenticNC, Alchemical Dreamers’ Guild, Triangle Gay Men’s Tantra. Our current mailing address is: PO Box 21371, Durham NC 27703, and our phone number is: (303) 847-5263.
2. Waiver of Liability and Hold Harmless Agreement:
A. In consideration for receiving permission to participate in events hosted through Navigate Change LLC or its agents, I (hereinafter referred to as “Participant”) hereby release, waive, discharge and covenant not to sue Benjamin Whitehurst, Navigate Change, LLC, its officers, servants, agents, volunteers, employees, practitioners, service providers, or event venues (hereinafter referred to as “Releasees”) from any and all liability, claims, demands, actions and causes of action whatsoever arising out of or relating to any loss, damage or injury, including death, that may be sustained by me, or to any property belonging to me, whether caused by the negligence of the Releasees, or otherwise, while participating in the Event, or while in, on or upon the premises where the Event is being conducted, while in transit to or from the premises, or in any place or places connected with the Event.
B. I am fully aware of risks and hazards connected with being on the premises and participating in the Event, and I am fully aware that there may be risks and hazards unknown to me connected with being on the premises and participating in the Event, and I hereby elect to voluntarily participate in the Event, to enter upon the above named premises and engage in activities knowing that conditions may be hazardous, or may become hazardous or dangerous to me and my property. I voluntarily assume full responsibility for any risks of loss, property damage or personal injury, including death, that may be sustained by me, or any loss or damage to property owned by me, as a result of my being a participant in the Event, whether caused by the negligence of Releasees, weather, nature, acts of God or otherwise.
C. I further hereby agree to indemnify and save and hold harmless the Releasees and each of them, from any loss, liability, damage or costs they may incur due to my participation in the Event, whether caused by the negligence of any or all of the Releasees, or otherwise.
D. It is my express intent that this Release shall bind the members of my family and spouse, if I am alive, and my heirs, assigns and personal representative, if I am deceased, and shall be deemed as a Release, Waiver, Discharge and Covenant Not to Sue the above named Releasees.
F. Except as expressly provided in this Waiver of Liability and Hold Harmless Agreement section, Releasees make no guarantees or warranties, express or implied. In no event will Releasees be liable to the Participant for consequential or special damages. Notwithstanding any damages that the Participant may incur, the Releasees entire liability under this agreement, and the Participant’s exclusive remedy, will be limited to the amount paid by the Participant to the Releasees under this Agreement for all services rendered up until the termination date.
This is the entire agreement of the parties, and reflects a complete understanding of the parties with respect to the subject matter. This agreement supersedes all prior written and oral representations.
If a dispute arises out of this agreement that cannot be resolved by mutual consent, it is agreed between the Participant, his or her assigns, family and estate and the Releasees that any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this agreement, or the breach of this agreement, shall be settled by arbitration or community mediation by an accredited individual or organization with an arbitrator or community mediator whom we mutually agree upon.
G. If any provisions of this agreement are held to be invalid or unenforceable, all other provisions shall continue in full force and effect.
In signing the release agreement page, I acknowledge and represent that:
A. I have read the foregoing release and guidelines/covenants, understand it, and sign it voluntarily as my own free act and deed;
B. No oral representation, statements or inducements, apart from the foregoing written agreement, have been made;
C. I am at least eighteen (18) years of age and fully competent; and
D. I execute this Release/Agreement for full, adequate and complete consideration fully intending to be bound by same.