ACT and Polyvagal
An experimental day bringing these two coaching approaches together
with Ross McIntosh and Kerry Cullen
Thursday 27th March 2025
10.am to 4.30 pm
Gorsehill, (Just outside Dublin) Ireland
Why?
Ross and Kerry met through their work with Seven Psychology at work. They have a shared love of supporting people to navigate challenges, Ross through ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and Kerry through Polyvagal theory and her somatic work with the nervous system. Many conversations about how these systems sit so well together, resulted in an in-person experimental day at Gorsehill in September 2024, bringing these systems together to our community of fellow coaches and HR professionals. We enjoyed the day so much we have decided to do it again on the 27th March 2025 and we would love you join us.
We will weave together our specialisms in a way that both resonates and excites us and we look forward to share the outcomes with you. We invite you to block out a Spring day in your diary, to come and join us to explore this new frontier of behavioural science in the wonderful Gorsehill, a beautiful setting in nature, 40 minutes from Dublin.
This is an invitation to strengthening your inner resources. To come home to yourself by:
Exploring and practicing the skills from ACT to consider their potential in your own life and your professional practice
Learning tools to relate to the unhelpful thoughts, that your mind generates in a different way – whilst enhancing your awareness and freeing up your energy and attention to pursue what matters.
Exploring the role of the nervous system in building capacity for performance, health and overall well-being
Finding ways to increase a sense of ‘flow’ and/or feel more ‘grounded’ when you are facing challenge
The shape and flow of the day:
Cultivating the skills of awareness, authentic action and adaptability – to help you show up as you want to a bit more often.
Guided exercises to get to know your own nervous system through mapping (personal autonomic profile and identification of specific activities that help you come back into regulation).
Exploring simple, somatic daily practices that cultivate expansion and ease in the body.
Coming together in community to hold space for each other and expand into connection.
Sharing tea, coffee, snacks and a simple vegetarian lunch.
About ACT
We can all get caught up in unhelpful thoughts, emotions, memories and urges that may lead us to react in ways that are detrimental to our general well-being, influence how we show up in every area of life and impact on our performance at work.
Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) provides people with a way to become more present, step back from unhelpful content that their minds can generate and enable alternative and agile responses to challenging situations. ACT also facilitates the exploration of personal values in every area of life and provides a framework to consider how these values could become a beacon for our behaviour, moving toward the person we would like to be in each life domain.
About Polyvagal Theory
Living in a world with rising complexity and ongoing disruption and disturbances from many directions, many of us have noticed a sea change in the nature of the challenges that both our clients and we are facing. Polyvagal Theory is a scientific theory that helps us understand the biological basis of all human social behaviour and provides a lens that can help us to navigate these challenges for ourselves, and support others as they navigate challenge. It is a new frontier in the leadership world.
We will be leaning on the work of Deb Dana. She worked in close collaboration with Stephen Porges, who developed Polyvagal Theory to develop practical, accessible tools.
Logistics
Starts 10.00 am and ends 4 30 pm
Location: Gorsehill (www.gorsehill.net)
a beautiful, natural setting, 40 mins outside Dublin, Ireland
Investment: €250.00 euros (plus VAT) = €57.50 = €307.50
Numbers are limited so early booking advisable.
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About Ross McIntosh
Ross is an organisational and coaching psychologist. His specialism is the application of Contextual Behavioural Science (CBS) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) in the workplace.
In working with individuals, he seeks to support the cultivation of awareness, authentic action and adaptability. With teams, his aim is to enhance cooperation and collaboration.
For the last 9 years Ross has been part of a Research/Practitioner Partnership with Dr Paul Flaxman at City, University of London, who is a globally recognised authority on the application of ACT at work. His clients include over 20 NHS Trusts, HM Treasury, Ministry of Justice, Teachers, Hedge Fund Managers, Global Tech, Diageo and professional ballet dancers.
He is the creator and host of the award-winning People Soup Podcast which aims to unlock workplace potential with expert insights from behavioural science and psychology. People Soup has a strong global following and is ranked as one of the top 2.5% podcasts globally (listennotes.com).
About Kerry Cullen
Kerry is a Charted Business and Coaching Psychologist, her intention is to support people to come home more to themselves. She works with people to enliven what really matters to them and to remember their resources to face life’s challenges. Her work weaves together connecting with nature, neuroscience, Celtic wisdom, psychology, and embodiment practices.
Celtic mythology honours that there are parts of us, that spiral us out away from our resources, and parts that spiral us back home to ourselves. This wisdom lives in our bones. The journey is sometimes one of returning, from feeling lost and forgetting our resources to remembering and rekindling them. She invite people to muster their kindest eyes to all parts of themselves. Together, she works with clients to invite to the fore the parts that knows ease, expansion, and curiosity about how to yield to the support of nature, body wisdom, our own knowing. The resourcing parts that bring our nervous systems into more regulation, where we find strength, flow and can see more possibilities
