Developmental Trauma Training Institute

11/07/2025

Two trainings. One integrated path to understanding and healing developmental trauma.

🌱 Digging Roots Foundations
Introduces how early experiences of safety and connection shape the developing brain, body, and relationships.
This training builds the language, lens, and foundation for understanding trauma as adaptation.

🌳 Digging Roots 1.0: Brainspotting for Developmental Trauma
Takes the work deeper — teaching how Brainspotting integrates with the Digging Roots to help clients process deeply held developmental trauma through attunement and neurobiological repair.

Join Steve Sawyer and Josh Delahan in Northern Illinois for this bundled training experience that connects the why and the how of healing Developmental Trauma.

Northern, IL 14,15,16 of November - Last one for 2025!
🔗 Learn more or register: https://www.eventzilla.net/e/digging-roots-10-fundamentals--chicago-metro-area-in-person-2138648371

ental

11/05/2025

Only 7 Days Left to Register!
Join Steve Sawyer & Josh Delahan for the Final Digging Roots Developmental Trauma Model Training of 2025!
Are you ready to go deeper with your clients — beyond symptoms, behaviors, and surface-level coping?
In this immersive training in Northern Illinois, Steve and Josh will guide you through the Digging Roots Developmental Trauma Model, a powerful approach for accessing the root causes of client struggles and facilitating profound healing.
Through experiential learning, case examples, and hands-on tools, you’ll gain the skills to:
Understand developmental trauma through a compassionate, body-based lens
Help clients uncover and transform core survival adaptations
Build safety, trust, and true connection in the therapeutic process

👉 Reserve your spot today — https://www.eventzilla.net/e/digging-roots-10-fundamentals--chicago-metro-area-in-person-2138648371

11/05/2025

There comes a point in the healing process when we no longer look for the next new tool or answer — when the search quiets, and what’s left is the simple rhythm of being in our bodies, as they are, right now. That is the beginning of trust.

Trust is the embodied sense that I can be with myself and be safe here. It’s knowing that sensations, thoughts, and emotions can move through without overwhelming us. It’s not the absence of difficulty — it’s the presence of steadiness within it.

This is Part 3 of our “Embodied Pathways” series — arriving at trust: the knowing that the body is a place we can return to, again and again.

Continue Reading : http://openviewyoga.home.blog/2025/11/04/embodied-trust-living-from-inner-steadiness/

Embodied Hope: http://openviewyoga.home.blog/2025/10/21/embodied-pathways-from-hope-to-trust/
Embodied Faith: http://openviewyoga.home.blog/2025/10/30/embodied-faith-staying-in-the-middle-space/

11/04/2025

We all reach moments when life feels like too much. Steve Sawyer reminds us that understanding how stress and anxiety show up is the beginning of finding steadiness again.

Want to learn more about trauma and your bodies stress language?
Join us in Digging Roots Foundations Online Course, Cohorts start in Feb: https://courses.dtti.co/offers/pt45jDbB/checkou

11/04/2025

Join Steve Sawyer, LCSW this morning on Facebook Live at 8 AM PT as he talks about what to do when life feels like “too much.”
Responsive Tuesdays Facebook Live

11/01/2025

The deeper we go, the more we discover — healing begins where words end! Step into Digging Roots 2.0 – where Brainspotting therapists explore the body’s hidden stories and the pathways to profound regulation and repair.
This advanced training is designed exclusively for Brainspotting therapists who have completed Digging Roots 1.0 (Fundamentals) and are ready to go further. Together, we’ll deepen our understanding of how early trauma becomes stored in the body and how to support clients in releasing those physiological “capsules.”
🔍 Core Concepts Covered
Building Interoceptive Capability
The Six Building Blocks of Self-Regulation
Understanding Hypoarousal and Collapse Responses
Attachment Physiology & Eating Issues
Sleep Disturbances & Nighttime Fears
Strategic Animal-Assisted Therapy Approaches
🧠 For: Brainspotting Therapists (Prerequisite: Digging Roots 1.0)
📍 Location: Sioux Falls, SD Nov 7-9
🎓 Focus: Deepening embodied understanding and integration for advanced trauma healing
Join us as we dig deeper!
Register: https://www.eventzilla.net/e/digging-roots-20-digging-deeper--sioux-falls-sd-2138662551

10/30/2025

What if faith, the middle space, wasn’t about belief, but about being here — right now? Keri Sawyer explores how presence and consistency become the pathways that carry us from hope into embodied faith.

She spoke beautifully about the middle space — that place where healing lives, in between what was and what isn’t yet. Keri reminded us that showing up with consistency through presence — noticing and being with our bodies — helps our nervous systems begin to feel safe.

When we practice presence, we create new experiences that live only in the “now” — not in the past or future. This is where real transformation begins.

Next, we’ll move into Embodied Trust.
In the meantime, Keri is beginning a personal 90-day journey of Presence, and you’re warmly invited to join! She will be live every morning for 10 minutes simply showing up, moving and being present.

You’re welcome to join as often or as little as you’d like — or perhaps follow along as I track my experiences with this daily consistency. Let’s explore together what unfolds when we keep returning to now.

90 Days of Presence: Begins November 1 | 5:30 AM PT | Facebook Live
Tune in here:
https://www.facebook.com/openviewyoga/live_videos/

Embodied Faith, The middle Space: http://openviewyoga.home.blog/2025/10/30/embodied-faith-staying-in-the-middle-spac

10/29/2025

Here's what Ashley had to say about her Digging Roots journey...

After completing
✔️ Digging Roots Foundations 0.5
✔️ Digging Roots 1.0 Fundamentals
✔️ Digging Roots 2.0: Digging Deeper

Ashley says "I am learning how to drop into their trauma capsule and I'm not just brain spotting the leaves on the tree as Steve likes to say."

Yesssssss!!!! 🥳🥳🥳 Witnessing deep healing ✨️

"I cannot recommend this enough. I could go on and on. I had the opportunity to do a demo with Steve and even if you don't demo with Steve, just the opportunity to watch him brain spot is truly transformative.

His attunement is something that I can't really put into words but to witness it allows you to see how deep clients can go without you doing anything but just holding the space and that human connection."

Thank you, Ashley, for your kind words ❤️

************************************************

If you're Brainspotting trained and interested in embarking on your own Digging Roots journey, consider joining us...

Digging Roots Foundations & In Person Digging Roots 1.0

Digging Roots 2.0: Digging Deeper

10/28/2025

If you’ve ever wondered how you’ve made it this far—this one’s for you. Just
like trees drawing nourishment from their roots through the cold of winter, we too carry an inner strength that sustains us through life’s hardest seasons.

Whether you’ve grown up with developmental trauma or faced life’s unexpected storms, you are proof of resilience and fortitude. You’re still here. Your roots run deep. 🌱

Let’s move away from seeing ourselves through the lens of pathology and fragility — and instead, begin to recognize the powerful resilience that’s been there all along.

Watch the replay, reflect, and share one way you’ve noticed resilience showing up in your own life.

Together, let’s celebrate the strength within.

Interested in watching more videos like this? https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC3R5OAxyijH4gc8Ho9oInyA

10/25/2025

A Practice: Finding Hope Through Subtle Movement

Take a quiet moment.

Notice any part of your body that wants to move — even slightly.

Maybe your fingers shift, or your shoulders tilt, or your gaze softens.

Let that impulse unfold naturally, without judging or forcing it.

As you move, notice what changes.

Does your sense of balance, warmth, or awareness shift — even a little?

That small difference is the beginning of hope: the lived experience that things can change, however modestly.

10/24/2025