Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Researcher | Relationship Scientist
"These groups served as a nurturing space of mutual support. Our sessions equipped me with practical tools to navigate the challenges of working in education and also instilled within me a profound sense of purpose and interconnectedness with others."
Middle School Teacher
Embodied Empowerment
The science of thriving
For those in relationship-first professions, the steady state of your Presence holds quiet, transformative power. It is often the difference between merely surviving the work and genuinely thriving in it. Never underestimate how your groundedness can calm, empower, and inspire those around you.
For youth to thrive, the adults who support them must also understand how to move from surviving to thriving themselves.
The science of thriving shows that by regulating our own nervous system, metabolizing stress, and consciously attuning to others, we can move beyond survival to embody resilience and create relational impact. When human-service professionals recognize their stress patterns, reclaim their energy, and embody empowerment, they don’t just feel better, they create the container and conditions for those in their care to transform from surviving to thriving.
Because relationships are a primary driver of resilience and motivation for youth, The Light You Cast™ focuses on developing Employee Wellness and Social Emotional Climate of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Collaborative Approach to Learning and Health.
Our signature, interdisciplinary curriculum and experiences equip adults in relationship-centered professions with research-backed practices that strengthen self-efficacy, nervous system regulation, adult social-emotional competencies, mental health, and restorative relationships. These core capacities support human-service professionals cultivate their own calm, coherence, and resilience while learning concrete strategies to mirror and model mental health and thriving states for the youth and adults they serve.
In this immersive, on-site and in-person The Light You Cast™ training series, we will:
1 | Embody Healing
You will learn simple, evidence-informed somatic (mind–body) practices that support a healthier, more regulated nervous system. Through gentle movement, breathwork, and sensory awareness, you’ll discover how to calm your stress response, prevent fight–flight–freeze–fawn reactions, and use concrete strategies to return to balance when stress does trigger you.
2 | Learn the Science
We will examine the neurobiological and psychological foundations of stress, nervous system regulation, safety, burnout, chronic stress fatigue, hope, and compassion; core elements of what it means to be human and to transform through stress. You’ll learn how these systems interact to shape mental health and relational Presence, and how to sustain your own well-being while effectively supporting the growth and resilience of others.
3 | Practice Relational Empowerment Skills
You’ll learn practical, real-world skills to stay calm, clear, and compassionate under stress. Using the five core SEL competencies [self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and decision-making], you’ll practice metabolizing stress rather than carrying it. Through co-regulation, attunement, and an asset-based approach to seeing multiple perspectives, you’ll gain greater insight and reduce reactive stress in relation to people and events where clarity, compassion, and creativity alway helps.
4 | Thrive in Community
Experience what healing-centered engagement feels like in practice as you learn in community with others. Through relationally attuned, peer-based experiences, you’ll build psychological safety, co-regulate with one another, and strengthen collective resilience. Shared reflection and connection become the healing tools that nurture belonging, support mental health, and sustain the work we’re called to do.
"Because of this training, I am more patient with myself and others. I notice more openly and frequently, and I feel more connected to myself than I have before."
Special Education Paraprofessional
Pillars of Practice
In every session, we embody the three core pillars of nervous system health and mental health proven to create the foundation of resonant, restorative relationships while also ensuring staff retention, effectiveness, and well-being.
REST
NERVOUS SYSTEM HEALTH
Relax and Regulate the Body
Engage body-centered, trauma-responsive practices that gently regulate your nervous system, relieve patterns of tension and overwhelm, and replenis internal energy reserves. These practices invite your body out of survival mode and back into balance.
RESTORATION
MENTAL HEALTH
Making Meaning
Learn our signature, evidence-based Burn Balanced™ stress metabolization practice designed to sharpen clarity, counter the anxiety story, restore emotional balance, and rebuild a healthy sense of agency that helps you direct your energy toward what you can control while releasing the tight hold on what you cannot.
REVITALIZATION
RELATIONAL HEALTH
Connect with Others
Build the social intelligence and relational skills to respond with intention, create connections where others feel deeply seen and valued, and amplify your impact while staying peaceful and present.
TLYC | Signature Curriculum Elements
Trauma-Responsive
Approaches
Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
Competencies
Nervous System Health
Practices
Stress Metabolization
Interventions
Our Signature, Interdisciplinary Curriculum
Customized Learning for Collective Growth
Each of the six core topics in The Light You Cast™ curriculum is delivered through interactive learning experiences and practical application tools. “Put Into Practice” handouts translate key concepts into role-specific strategies, ensuring that every participant can immediately integrate new knowledge and skills into their professional context
The Source of Inner Empowerment
Explore the core features of your calling; your purpose, strengths, and values, and how acting in alignment with these fuels motivation and energy, prevents burnout, and creates natural boundaries that protect your calm, focus, and inner peace.
The Science of Safety & Your Stress Appraisal System
Learning how your nervous system works, how your particular nervous system perceives and responds stress physiologically, emotionally, psychologically, and behaviorally, and how to balance the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses; protecting yourself from the burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma stress cycle.
Stress, Tension, and Transformation
Burnout and compassion fatigue symptoms are protective, not defective. Learn the difference between safe and toxic stress, the 4 E's of the stress/ trauma response, how to read the symptoms of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress, and discover how resilience is built through the stress cycle, learning to work with tension and failure, rather than against it so it becomes a catalyst for grow, development, and self-actualization.
Compassion as the Connector in Restorative Relationships
Explore research in psychology and neuroscience showing how practicing self-compassion activates the brain’s soothing systems to a regulated state where you can listen, reflect, and repair; core functions of restorative dialogue. Learn to identify stress-inducing self-talk, understand its underlying triggers, and apply a 4-step CARE strategy to transform self-criticism, shame, and anxiety into self-efficacy, self-confidence, and self-agency (the three core elements that prevent burnout).
Mirroring and Modeling Mental Health through Resonant Relationships
Learn to interpret behavior through a nervous-system lens where you are able to instinctively see actions as signals rather than problems and practice co-regulatory, relational strategies that help others feel safe, understood, and supported. Grounded in healing-centered engagement, this approach emphasizes the “what happened to you?” perspective, fostering connection, emotional safety, and social emotional learning.
The Miracle is in the Mirco
Discover how small, everyday interactions grounded in simple relational practices become powerful sources of energy and empowerment for both you and those you serve. Explore the science of relational attunement and discover how to create micro-miracle moments that set the conditions for others to move from surviving to thriving, leaving a lasting impact through connection and presence
ON-SITE Offering Formats
Sustained and On-Going
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Monthly or Weekly | (6) 1.5 - 2 Hour Sessions | 9 - 12 Clock Hours
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Monthly or Weekly | (3) 3 - 3.5 Hour Sessions | 12 - 14 Clock Hours
Immediate and Immersive
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One Day Immersive Event | 6 hours | 6 Clock Hours
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Two Day Event | 4 - 6 hours per day | 8-12 Clock Hours
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Three Day Event | 4 - 6 hours per day | 12-18 Clock Hours
*We also work with you to customize a unique offering that fits your PD schedule.
Experience Features
Focus Groups
Customized
Curriculum Materials
Multi-Session
Sustained Support
6 - 18 Clock Hours
Completion Certificate
"These meetings were a place for me to not just do inner work, but also connect with my peers who could relate and affirm every single feeling I had. I felt seen, heard, and validated every time I had the chance to engage in the coursework and with the group.”
Hight School Counselor
Core Experiences
NERVOUS SYSTEM HEALTH
PRACTICES
designed to melt tension, reduce cortisol levels, regulate and "re-fine" nervous system, soothe an overactive mind, and elevate the mood while strengthening the physical body.
We will also integrate specific movemindfully® practices by Kathy Flaminio to expand your tool kit of strategies to metabolize stress and trauma reactions in your own body, and you can take these practices forward and use with your students, clients, or patients.
CURRENT RESEARCH and BEST PRACTICE on STRESS TRANSFORMATION
designed to help you recognize early signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and chronic stress fatigue, this program guides you in navigating the stress cycle, preventing toxic stress from building up and blocking your body’s natural healing and repair capacities. Through our signature, trauma-responsive Burn Balanced™ process, you’ll learn how your thoughts shape your emotions and actions. By gently reframing unhelpful patterns, you restore clarity, emotional steadiness, and choice—learning to respond with intention rather than react from stress.
"PUT INTO PRACTICE"
HANDOUTS
that detail concrete, transformational tools and reflective practices with beautiful illustrations by Minneapolis-based artist, Jinjer Markley, that can be immediately implemented and applied to one's professional and personal context and used with the youth you serve.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Community support reduces stress and strengthens mental health by offering space for reflection, care, and shared connection. Belonging nurtures resilience and sustains the relational health that holds the whole community in balance.
"After learning TLYC practices, I now go home after work tired, but happy and grateful. There is a big difference between being tired and being burnt out."
Hight School Counselor
Certificate of Clock Hours
Participants will receive a Certificate of Completion for up to 18 hours
of professional learning for submission to one's accrediting body for Continuing Education Credit consideration.
Investment Cost
Connect with Jen to receive a customized investment quote that is tailored to your desired experience length and size group.
*Discounts will be included if your organization is participating in the The Light You Cast™ ON-DEMAND training.
*Interested in adding the ON-DEMAND experience with our ON-SITE offerings? We offer 75% off the on-demand pricing to complement this on-site offering.
Testimonials
We listened. We learned.
Integrated and sustained workplace wellness matters!
“I strongly believe that our profession is very consuming and if we don't get in a routine and build our tools to take care of our selves we won't do it. Please continue the classes so we can build our resilience to be better teachers.”
“I found the training to be calming, centering, and hopeful."
“ The mindful movement was very accessible— it was very doable, especially for a novice like me.”
“This training really helped me to understand why compassion and joy are my foundation for teaching (and all of life), and why they need to stay my foundation. The training helped me to understand that this is why my students thrive - why we are connected and engaged even in these very difficult times.”
“With this past year being the most stressful of my career, I needed to to change my thinking and focus on my own mental health. Through this I realized that I need to be healthy in order to better serve those in my care.”
“This training, while it address the very personal needs of avoiding burnout and coping with stress, finds its way into improving our relationships with everyone we encounter on our mission to serve others. Self-love as the cornerstone of social justice seems simple, cutting edge, and essential all at once."
“I've heard all the SEL 'stuff' before but this was presented in a unique and personal way. Jen was wonderful. I love her way of interacting and positive perspective.”
