Anyone with chronic illness. Caregivers for people with chronic illness. Professionals in healing modalities that are supporting people with chronic illness.
Empowering Yourself
Discover ways to take back some of the power that illness has taken from you. Learn to map the complex world of illness and mine its treasures.
Get StartedLiving with chronic illness is a hero's journey
Learn to map this complex world and mine its treasures so that you can navigate from a place of empowerment and wisdom rather than fear or resentment. This course teaches and uses the Integral philosophy of author Ken Wilber to provide a powerful map to orient us into the territory of illness.
Actionable Information
6 modules packed with helpful ideas, questions, and practices.
Meaningful Interaction
6 live Zoom calls which feature both teaching and discussion, recorded and archived on the site. Be a part of a supportive group of participants to share with and learn from.
Useful Resources
Multiple materials including PDF downloads, links to helpful resources and in depth videos.
Living with illness often feels disempowering. Your body isn’t functioning at 100%. You’re navigating a healthcare system that is complex and confusing — at best. No one really knows how to help you. You can feel alone and as if the world outside is rushing along at 1,000 miles an hour, leaving you behind. Â
Caring for a loved one who is ill can create the very same experience — and present the same opportunities.Â
No matter whether you’re ill or caring for someone who is, navigating illness is an experience that few of us are prepared to face alone. Join us to learn more about managing illness i the company of others who are doing the same.Â
Empowering Yourself, our 6-week live virtual course, will take you from confusion to clarity and introduce you to a supportive group of friends, many of whom have been grappling with these issues for decades and a have a lot to share.
It will provide a map to guide you through the journey of chronic illness, tending to all the layers of your experience that need attention, from the practical to the spiritual. You will walk away with the power and tools to navigate chronic illness so that it can be more than something you endure and suffer through and instead become a path to waking up and to growing up.
Register Now!We tend to think of tragedy and loss as experiences that close us off from spirit, or we believe that chronic illness is an impediment to our spiritual development. The truth is, illness can be a direct route to spiritual growth.
Some people are thrust into spiritual awakening by their illness, experiencing sudden states of expansion through the intensity of their physical experience or their grief. Others come to rely on a spiritual practice to help open them to a broader understanding and context for their illness experience. Others see the dilemmas of illness as koans which can help them awaken.
This Course Will Help You:
This Course Is For:
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Or, if you need a discount, contact me at [email protected]. No one will be turned away for financial reasons.
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Course Overview
Overview. Course Information. Introductions. What Is a Koan?
Week 1: Chronic Illness Basics and the Integral Map
Week 2: The Disempowerment of Illness. Heroes in Disguise
Week 3: Taking Back Your Power: Mapping the Territory
Week 4: Taking Back Your Power: Working with the Trauma
Week 5: Taking Back Your Power: Managing the Project
Week 6: Communication and Integration
Your Instructor
Dr. Lynn Royster Fuentes
Lynn is a college instructor, educational course designer, and a mediator with a BA, MA, JD, and PhD. An experienced classroom and online instructor, she has designed and taught courses in transpersonal psychology, writing, planning, chronic illness, and conflict management at DePaul University, where she also founded and directed the Chronic Illness Initiative, a program to help students with chronic illness obtain a degree.
A devoted student of Ken Wilber and integral philosophy, she has published integrally oriented essays and articles on conflict resolution and illness management and weaves integral ideas into her course design and teaching. She follows an integral life practice of physical, psychological, meditative, and cognitive development.
Lynn has volunteered in many capacities – with battered women, people in the recovery community, and people with chronic illness – and served on the board of the Solve ME/CFS Association of America for many years. Despite her study of many disciplines, Lynn regards her greatest learning as long-term caregiver for severely ill family members.
FAQs
Do I have to do all of the courses? Or, do them in order?
What if I can’t attend the live calls?
Who are these courses for?
Testimonials
Wendy
And Lynn – simply wow! Thanks for being such a pioneer and putting such an educational and heart-full class together for our benefit. I will read and re-read your handouts as I continue to live with this chronic illness. Your work is a blessing and a deep comfort to me. It is good to be understood and to have partners on this journey. So thank you for showing up on my computer – I will never forget you!
Liz Taylor
As a person struggling with a chronic condition, I find the world isn’t often interested in hearing about my challenges when they come back again and again. But being able to hear from, respond to and talk live with others who share that experience gave me a sense of being seen and heard in such a healing way. Never have I felt so connected to so many new friends in such a deep and meaningful way.
Heather
Lynn has created a way of seeing our experience of illness that empowers and enlivens. Being part of her course let’s me know I’m part of a greater whole where my challenges are shared. I can feel connected, seen and heard. Even the difficult stuff is allowed.
Brent
I can’t count the blessings and benefits these courses have been for me. When I was first looking for a sponsor in AA, it was suggested that I look for a man “that had something I wanted”. Don’t worry, I have a sponsor – but that’s the feel I get from you.
You have a wonderful presence – kind, wise and humble. I’m not the best book learner/reader – I’m more experiential. This has been a great experience in learning Integral theory and practice.
Thank you! Deep bow of gratitude.
Susan Schuurmans
The course has prodded me out of my comfort zones, humbled me when I see the challenges others face, invited me into a valuable self-assessing of myself, and challenged me to engage once again with the Integral model, this time grittily working on my understanding of myself and where I can grow into further ways to work with great consciousness with this dis-ease. Lynn teaches from a place of being a person still learning after all these years in the territory of illness and caretaking and shares as a companion on this challenging journey how she finds the perspective of Integral is useful when living with illness.
Laria
This course is wonderfully thought provoking and has so many valuable tools I hope to keep revisiting it again and again to further contemplate all that you have given us.
Empowering Yourself is part 1 of our 6-part Koan of Illness series.
Each of our live, 6-week, stand-alone courses addresses a part of the illness experience and is designed both for people suffering from chronic illness and caregivers. You can begin with any of the courses, pick and choose, or do them all
More Info about KOI CoursesThe Koan Of Illness series
The Koan of Illness 1: Empowering Yourself
Does the complexity of chronic illness management overwhelm you? Do you struggle to navigate the paperwork, the emotions, the lifestyle changes that illness brings?
Everyone who deals with illness, whether patient, caregiver, provider, or administrator, deals with a complex mixture of personal, technical, institutional, and spiritual issues.
The Koan of Illness Part 2: Healing the Trauma
When you learn that illness is a part of your life and likely to be for some time, it is often a traumatic event. You may begin with denial and move through other stages such as anger or grief. You find that illness touches every aspect of your life – from your physical existence to your spirituality. Often it creates havoc with your relationships , your self-esteem, and your beliefs...
The Koan of Illness Part 3: Healing Your Relationships
Chronic illness brings changes and challenges to every relationship – your partner, children, parents, employer, friends, and even yourself. Your relationships can fracture or deepen depending on how you integrate illness into them.
The Koan of Illness Part 4: Illness as a Springboard for Personal Growth
Chronic illness can seem like a prison sentence, isolating you from life and taking away opportunities you might have had. However, illness is as valid a life path as any other, and, often, people with illness are able to use that difficulty to deepen their personal growth. In this course, we use the integral map to look at the process of individual growth...
The Koan of Illness Part 5: Chronic Illness and Spirituality
How does one find spirit in the midst of pain and loss? How can illness offer opportunities for spiritual growth? In this course, we use the integral map to look at the spiritual aspects of illness and explore how illness offers a path to awakening and an opportunity to develop spiritual intelligence.
The Koan of Illness Part 6: Integration: A New Vision for Healing
How can I create a personal plan for growth in the midst of the complexity that is illness and personal development?
How can I relate to the systems in which I have to operate?
What are my Koans?
