The Nature of Being Human
ONLINE
“The SoULL experience revealed to me an inner rhythm that connects my soul, body, spirit with all the energy around and even beyond me. Life, breath, the pulsation of my beating heart and the blooming of a flower are one and the same force. It’s exhilarating!”
- Pilgrim SoULL Student 2020
The Nature of Being Human is Unit 1 of Pilgrim SoULL - Year 1.
We are proud to share this introductory SoULL program, which substantially improves the quality of people’s ordinary lives and expands pracitioners breadth of practice and stamina.
What do we do? In this course, students are introduced to a somatically-oriented overview of human development, and a language of human life that includes growth, aging and dying. Students learn to see spiritual, energetic and physical experience as deeply connected through the human life span and even beyond. On its own, this course helps people reorient their ideas of life and death and know themselves as part of nature, not opposed to it, which radically reduces existential anxiety. This course also offers a way for students to step into SoULL material without a full year committment.
The Nature of Being Human is taught in small classes and, like all SoULL material, is both didactic, interactive and highly experiential. However we teach it, we support students in linking insights from this class to existing theories within somatic psychology, especially mindfulness based practices and Neo-Reichian ideas. However do not think that this course is only for professionals. This material is powerful and completely accessible for people who are not therapists. It is for any curious, open-minded adult.
Students are often interested in continuing to complete Units 2 and 3 of Pilgrim SoULL after taking this course. We hope you do this, and we will accomodate as space allows in the class. However, we encourage people to commit to the full program from the start if they are able.
WHo is this for?
Therapists and other professionals who want to better support their clients through their existential anxiety
Regular folks who struggle to feel connected to their purpose
People who want to free themselves from the fear of death and dying so they can live more fully
The Nature of Being Human ONLINE
Curriculum includes 24 hours of learning about life:
8 recorded lectures - Approximately 6 hours
18 hours of unique and provocative in-class experiences, process and
discussion.
Moderated class platform discussions on Mighty Networks between
classes.
Interested in joining us, but need to talk to someone? Book a free call with a past student so that you can understand the profound impact our programming has on people!
INFORMATION ABOUT The ONLINE format
Why online? We have found that this format allows students from all over the world to explore our curriculum and join in.
Up until 2022, our online programs were live and taught in two 3-day weekends (rather than an intensive 4-day in-person retreat). Then we tried something different. Jeanne taped some lectures so that students can watch them during their own time during the week. Students then met online to discuss, do the experiential work for the course, and process with experienced facilitators. It worked beautifully! So we have continued to offer it in this format.
In this online course, class meets weekly with the exception of two breaks. In between the live sessions, students watch recorded lectures, work with home-study practices, and engage with each other via an online discussion platform. LiZhen facilitates all classes, with Shelly and Billee assisting, and Jeanne sometimes joining as well.
2025 FALL Session Dates
**Provisional start time for class is 9am PT / 11am CT / 12pm ET. This may be adjusted to accommodate students from other parts of the world.**
Sunday October 5th Lecture 1 - Coming Out of Denial 4 hrs Discussion 1: Considering our own Life/Death Education Homework: watch lecture 2 and home study
Sunday October 12th Discussion 2: Body, Breath and the Movement of Life 1.5 hrs Homework: Watch lectures 3 and home study
- one week break - Homework: watch lecture 4 and home study
Saturday October 25th Discussion 3 & The Life Walk Experiential 2 hrs Homework: watch lecture 5
Saturday November 1st Discussion 4 & The Deathbed Experiential 3 hrs Homework: watch lecture 6
- one week break - Homework: watch lecture 7
Saturday November 15th Discussion 5 & The Whole Life Journey Experiential 4 hrs
Sunday November 16th Discussion 6: Debriefing 1.5 hrs
- two week break -
Saturday, December 6th Discussion 7: The Afterlife of the Teaching 2 hrs
teaching team
Jeanne Denney is a transpersonal and somatic psychotherapist, an educator, and author of The Effects of Compassionate Presence on the Dying. Jeanne has spent years at bedsides with the elderly and dying and in the chair as a somatic therapist. She has contributed pioneering ideas to both Body Psychotherapy and Death Education, teaches in somatic institutes internationally and the Art of Dying Institute, which she helped found. Jeanne is also founding director in SoULL, and has created most of its original curriculum.
LiZhen Wang (they/she) is a counselor and facilitator who draws inspiration from the Daoist-Buddhist spiritual traditions of her ancestors, as well as the wisdom of astrology and the natural world. They work with individuals, communities and organizations to step into their soul’s calling. Experiencing her mother’s death was one of the greatest spiritual revelations of LiZhen’s life. It has opened her to the incredible richness of a life that includes, not avoids, death. For LiZhen, it is an honor to be a teacher and continual student at SouLL.
Shelly Crane is an osteopathic integrative family physician and whole life doula based in Milwaukee, WI. She teaches medical students and residents in both the classroom and the clinic, and leads the Aurora Family Medicine Residency program's training in both professional development and integrative medicine. She is especially interested in inquiry around loneliness, grief, and existential anxiety, and in the building of community and spirituality-based practice as profound and essential resources on our human journeys.
Billee Wolf RN is a retired nurse, birth and postpartum doula, and childbirth educator living in Northern New Jersey. After her husband died, Billee discovered that the needs of those in grief were very similar to those of new mothers and families. SoULL’s integrative approach helped Billee connect her long experience offering non-judgmental and supportive care at birth to other major life transitions as well. Since completing year one in 2023, Billee has volunteered as a SoULL Wisdom Circle Member and a member of the board. She is a Year 1 teacher in training.
