Anna Gouin

Body literacy

Understanding the female body. sexuality. and the nervous system.

An online course for women.

This is a 3 month, online, foundations course. A users manual for the female body. Through a somatic lens, you’ll be guided to reclaim your femininity, explore your sexuality and grow a deep, embodied understanding of your nervous system.

I am going to teach you how to build a kinesthetic relationship with your body

You’ve likely learned about the female body schooled in the anatomy of your pelvis, been taught the bare minimum about your menstrual cycle, you may have studied polyvagal theory and the autonomic nervous system, read books on tantra, fascia, trauma, emotional regulation and yet you continue to struggle with certain habits, patterns, behaviors, questions, blocks or an eerie sense that some piece of your puzzle to understanding your SELF, still feels like it’s missing…

My answer to you is this:

It is one thing to learn about your body and a whole new experience to put yourself back together — to not just relate to yourself in 2D, over-identified with your mind, your logic, your ability to analyze or think your way through a problem, but to learn to reverse the hierarchy - from a top down orientation to self (mind over body), to a bottom-up way of relating to your body’s messages.

From my personal life experience and professional observation, EVERYTHING changes when we begin to move, beat, and breathe with our life, through our bodies, informed by what we’re feeling, rather than trying to override it or stuff it down.

this course is going to teach you how to surf the waters of your internal landscape with more self-agency, sensitivity and clarity

It is about re-introducing you to the fact that “feeling” is a skill and one that we need to become practiced in. You’ll be encouraged to come in contact with about all parts of you - your emotional, psychological, social, and sexual well being.

A little caveat - we cannot talk about “embodiment”, sexuality and our physical form without understanding how past trauma/experience/collective conditioning, lives in our nervous system and can impede our ability to fully access ourselves in the present moment. This is where developing an integrated understanding and relationship with our nervous system health, becomes paramount to creating change in our lives.

This course is trauma informed. My goal is to help you unpack what is standing in the way of you stepping into your fullest expression, to own your truth, so that you come to embrace your life with more creativity, freedom, compassion, self-understanding and play.

Think of this as your users manual for the female body

What you’ll learn:

• A comprehensive understanding of how you experience your nervous system, to discern and move with the messages, impulses and sensations that your body is giving you (ie. how to TRUST your body again)

• To unpack the ways we’ve colonized the body and what it means to truly re-wild HER

• Explore what it means to surf “states” of being in your body to experience the breadth of your emotional range

• The connection between emotions, fascia, nervous system and tension

• How to emotionally self-regulate and move-through a physiological stress cycle

• How to embody your boundaries and cultivate your authentic “yes” and “no”

• Re-acquainting yourself with touch and enlivening your senses

• Understanding polarity theory (masculine/feminine energetics within an individual)

• Vulva-mapping, engorgement and the female arousal network

• Internal self-release work/de-armouring pelvic tension

• Embodiment and movement practices to integrate into your daily life

This course is for women who:

• Struggle to get out of their head and into their body

• Struggle with body image, worthiness, eating-disordered behavior

• Find it difficult to relax, slow down, soften - noticing that the encouragement to do so, makes them even more tense, and exasperated

• Feel burnt-out, exhausted, stuck, or uninspired in some aspect of their life, work, relationships

• Struggle with their emotions (either I have none or I feel constantly overwhelmed)

• Struggle to identify their needs, wants, desires

• Struggle to set boundaries/limits with self and other

• Have learned to “manage” their body through regimented diets, exercise regimes, and constant self analysis

• Struggle to orgasm. Feel as though there is more to explore about themselves sexually but are scared or unsure of what avenue to take or where to ask the “right” questions

• Struggle with period pain, endometriosis, PCOS, uterine fibroids/cysts, UTI’s

Course structure/What’s Included

This course will be held online, over zoom, and taught as a LIVE lecture/discussion series. We will meet under the following format:

• Weekly 45min lecture calls, Wednesdays @9am PST (12 in total, will be recorded), you will be emailed a powerpoint presentation with that week’s subject matter before each call

• Monthly Q+A calls, discussion based, to explore the topics being taught (3 in total)

• 3 one-on-one Somatic Embodiment sessions with Anna. These are meant to help you personally integrate the learning as you bring it into your own life

• Sunday Yoga/Somatic Movement class online, 10:00am PST

What’s not included

You will be required to purchase the following props/tools to accompany your learning (these will be used throughout the course)

• Internal Pelvic Wand for myofascial self-release work

• Yoga Block (cork or a firm foam block)

• Pilates Ball

Course price $997 Canadian