Online Course with Cherionna Menzam-Sills
Six two-hour classes over six months starting April, 2025
NOTE: THE COURSE HAS BEGUN BUT YOU ARE WELCOME TO JOIN AFTER WATCHING THE RECORDING OF ANY CLASS YOU HAVE MISSED.
COURSE DATES:
- April 27th, 2025
- May 25th
- June 29th
- July 27th
- August 24th
- September 28th
- You will need to purchase your own copy of the book.
- A free introductory class will relate to the introduction.
- Registration for the course gives you lifelong access to the recordings to review or watch if you miss a class live.
- A certificate of completion will be available upon completion of the full course and a short quiz.
“This is a monumental contribution to medicine, psychology, and counseling.
Menzam-Sills brings to light a forgotten dimension of human development that
holds the key to maximizing potential. This is not just the stunning insight of
identifying the shadow components of prenatal and perinatal experience. It is the
entire field of prenatal and perinatal psychology that is upgraded by her clear and
straightforward writing. Such a revelatory awakening is profoundly needed now
for people to actualize their power to act on behalf of future life and the Earth.”
-Stephanie Mines, Ph.D., author of The Secret of Resilience
and founder of the TARA Approach
ABOUT THE BOOK
THE PRENATAL SHADOW EXPLORES LIFELONG EFFECTS OF PRENATAL AND BIRTH EXPERIENCES
• Explains how babies remember their experiences from the womb and birth as implicit memory, impressions that are held in emotions, images, and the body
• Examines scientific evidence of how preverbal memory works and how prenates are highly responsive to their mother’s perceptions
• Looks at how to become aware of and acknowledge implicit memory from the womb as well as how to heal and prevent birth trauma
As somatic prenatal therapist Cherionna Menzam-Sills, Ph.D., reveals, in a world where it is believed that babies are unable to remember before they can speak, prenatal and birth experiences can easily become unconscious shadow, infiltrating the psyche and affecting personality, relationships, behavior, and perceptions throughout life.
Drawing on scientific evidence of how preverbal memory works, the author shows how babies, even before birth, are exquisitely sensitive with remarkable potential that may be forgotten or eclipsed by traumatic prenatal and perinatal experience. She explains how babies remember the intensely formative experiences from this primal period as implicit memory, impressions that are held in emotions, images, and the body. She looks at how prenates are deeply influenced by their mother’s perception of safety or threat, including during labor and birth, which affects their developing nervous systems.
Examining the healing and integration of the prenatal shadow, the author explores how to acknowledge and prevent birth trauma as well as shares meditative practices for sensing the little one within and offering them what they need.
By acknowledging and integrating the prenatal and perinatal shadow hidden just beyond conscious awareness, we can heal our relationships with ourselves and our loved ones as well as reconnect with our original potential.
ABOUT THE COURSE
This course guides you through the book with the live support of the author and a group of curious participants. Each class presents information from a chapter in the book, including guided meditative explorations, and time for questions and discussion.
The course, like the book, is intended to support you in understanding and exploring your own prenatal shadow as well as that of your clients, family members, and larger culture.
The book offers information too often neglected, dismissed, or missed by not only well-meaning parents but also medical and birth professionals who may in the process create more shadow. The perspective of the book includes collective influences, including cultural and inter-generational or ancestral shadow.
Together, we can shine light on what has been held in shadow, enhancing health, and well-being for ourselves and future generations, as well as our Mother Earth.
from the introduction:
“Many years ago, I had a dream where I was being chased by monsters.
I was running down a hallway and came to a locked door at the end. I
could not escape. Suddenly, I remembered the common advice to face
your monsters. Heartened, I turned around, where I beheld the three
ferocious cartoon character-type monsters who had been chasing me.
Holding out my hands, I dared to ask, “Do you want to dance?” The
monsters were delighted! We all joined hands and danced together.
The shadow, a term coined by Carl Jung, refers to unacceptable
aspects of ourselves that we have pushed down into the unconscious
mind. Although buried and out of our own sight, our shadow aspects
never disappear. Like any rejected child, they long to be loved and wel-
comed. Inviting them to dance, as I did in my dream, enables them to
come home. We return to wholeness.”
COURSE FORMAT
The format for the course is six 2-hour sessions. We will meet once a month to review, explore and discuss together a section of the book. We will cover one chapter each month.
Each class will involve a guided group settling meditation, a short presentation or talk relevant to the reading for that month, a guided experiential exploration related to the reading, and time for questions and discussion
Following are the chapters related to each class. Please try to read them before the class if possible.
Free introductory class: Introduction: Emerging from the Shadow
- What is Prenatal and Birth Shadow and Why Does it Matter?: Trauma and Separation from Feminine Wisdom
- Exploring Early Consciousness: The Path to Embodiment
- Orienting to Our Original Embryological Potential: Return to Stillness, Fluidity, and Inherent Health through Somatic Inquiry
- The Experience of Being Born in Modern Society: Hospitals, Doctors, Midwives, and Prenatal Echoes
- Maternal Influences: Effects on the Prenate and Newborn
- Shining the Light on Prevention and Healing: Healing the Collective
Please try to log in to the class at least a few minutes before it starts to ensure you have access and we can begin on time together.
TUITION: £175 includes lifelong access to the video recordings and other course materials
