Inspirational Speaking
As a professional speaker, I lead groups, seminars and lectures both locally and nationally at colleges and community centers. My main areas of focus are: "Many Translations" a Faith Tolerance and Diversity program that examines the way we form judgements about cultural and religious differences and how to transform them; "Self Care 101" -The Art of Self Love, which includes stress reduction, healthy boundary setting and mindfulness techniques and ground breaking research on alternative methods of healing and body balancing; and "Being With Dying, Our Own and Others", which guides people to face and embrace their mortality, what it means to have a "good death" and how to be with others as they leave this world.
Read on for more info on some of the talks I give.
Self-Care 101, Practicing the Art of Self-love
In this workshop/lecture, Rev. Katherine Gray Silvan engages her audience in the Art of Self-Care. She has a unique 3D Approach: Diet, Dance and Dharma, which focuses on our intake (relationships, diet, media), our outward expression (exercise, creativity, communication) and Dharma which is the inner work and our personal spiritual connection to our higher power and our higher purpose. Katherine makes the distinction between being selfish and self-full and teaches students how to assess their perceptions regarding self-care and to set honest boundaries for themselves. This workshop explores healthy living, healthy giving and healthy believing; helping the audience understand the connection between our thinking and beliefs and how we are feeling and doing in our lives. Katherine will introduce and explore short and simple techniques for creating skills in self-care that help navigate a diverse world. Strategies include: mindfulness, breath work, grounding techniques and engaging the senses for the purpose of maintaining optimal well-being in body, mind and spirit. Students will not only spend the session caring for themselves, but they will also walk away with the beginnings of a self-care tool box that they can utilize and build on throughout their lives. All will be encouraged to embrace a personal commitment to be a force of love in the world, by first loving oneself.
Many Translations
"The Reverend Katherine Silvan’s "Many Translations" is a fast paced, thought provoking, and intriguingly entertaining lecture that forces listeners to dig into their own beliefs and biases to confront the roots of intolerance. Citing everything from Descartes to Mother Teresa, from the Bible to the Torah to the Quran, Silvan targets the thoughts, associations, and beliefs that we derive our fundamental personalities from, and challenges listeners to examine them for what they are. She encourages her audience to take advantage of the neuroplasticity of their brains; to let them be the authors of their own beliefs, and rewrite the programming that their upbringing, their families, and society has drilled into them. Interfaith is her solution—embracing a personal commitment to be a force for love in the world, and to change the world by first changing yourself. An excerpt from the lecture, which we were fortunate enough to shoot, is above. Enjoy it, be entertained, and enlightened!"
Being With Dying, Our Own And Others
How many of us truly live in and with the reality that - No one here gets out alive? In this dynamic and provocative program, Katherine Silvan brings us to a place few people go willingly: to the brink of our own death. In doing so we encounter the unexpected: a fierce will to live, intense fear of the unknown, our own utter lack of control over life and death and a profound love of life - to mention just a few of the potential insights participants have had. Find out! What would it be like to write your own obituary, rewrite the script for the rest of your life, learn about the infinite ways we blot out reality and the incredible life we have to live when we don't? This program also explores cultural myths around death and dying, what it means to grieve consciously, how we can create a good death for ourselves and be there for others in their dying experience, and what we can do both logistically and spiritually to prepare for the end game. Katherine pulls it all together through her experience of 14 years of spiritual counseling with Hospice patients and families.
