The Freedom to Choose – The Wheel of Consent.
Nov. 22nd online, Nov. 28th and 29th in-person.
Presented by onmyplanet.ca and The Mycelium Cafe
Price: Free
A workshop created with 2SLGBTQIA+ elders in mind. 2SLGBTQIA+ people of all ages are welcome.
Facilitated by Helena De Felice and Angelica Miller
The Mycelium Cafe is funded by the REACH program which is part of the New Horizons for Seniors program at Service Canada.
For many 2SLGBTQIA+ elders, the freedom to live authentically has been hard won. Others may only now be discovering what that freedom means for them.
But there’s a difference between having the freedom to make our own choices and knowing what we want in the everyday moments of our lives.
Someone can spend a lifetime asserting independence and still find it surprisingly difficult to answer a simple question: What do I want, right now?
And what we want and what we don’t want changes throughout our lives. Our relationships evolve, our priorities shift, and new possibilities emerge.
Recognizing what we want, giving ourselves permission to want it, and learning how to ask for it are skills we can continue developing throughout all our ages.
Onmyplanet.ca and the Mycelium Cafe, invite you to join Helena De Felice and Angelica Miller for a welcoming, playful and thought-provoking workshop grounded in Dr. Betty Martin’s Wheel of Consent®.
Together, we’ll explore how to recognize and express our wants, navigate boundaries and choices, and bring greater awareness, confidence, pleasure and connection into our relationships with ourselves and others.
What to Expect
This workshop unfolds in two parts, offering first an opportunity to explore the principles of the Wheel of Consent and then to put them into practice.
Part One: Exploring the Wheel — Four-Hour Online (Zoom) Session November 22nd. Time to be decided. There will be a break mid-session.
We’ll explore the theory and principles behind the Wheel of Consent, including wanting and willingness, choice and boundaries, and the dynamics of giving and receiving. This session lays the foundation for understanding how these concepts shape our relationships with ourselves and others.
Part Two: Putting It into Practice — Two-Day, In-Person Workshop on November 28th and 29th 9:30am – 3pm. Lunch will be provided, there will be breaks during the session.
Through playful, experiential exercises, embodied awareness, group conversation and working in dyads (pairs), we’ll put the Wheel into practice.
We’ll explore how to notice what our bodies tell us, recognize and express what we want, make clear requests, and navigate our choices while honouring the choices of others.
Come alone or with someone else. No previous experience is needed, and participation is always by choice, including whether to engage in touch-based exercises.
What You’ll Take Away
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have had the opportunity to deepen your awareness of your wants and boundaries, practise communicating them with greater clarity and confidence, and experience the difference between wanting and willingness.
You’ll leave with practical tools for making requests, navigating yes, no and maybe, and bringing greater choice, ease and authenticity into your everyday relationships.
This isn’t about getting it right. It’s about getting curious, honouring the wisdom of our lived experiences and discovering new ways of relating to ourselves and one another.
Because the freedom to be ourselves includes the freedom to discover what we want—and that discovery doesn’t have an expiry date.
Registration Details:
Please fill out the online registration form at: https://onmyplanet.ca/woc-registration/
The workshop will happen in two segments:
Nov. 22nd – a four-hour online session. Time to be decided.
Nov. 28th and 29th – two-day in-person sessions, 9:30am-3pm.
– Lunch will be provided both days. There will be breaks during all sessions.
– The location be provided at registration – location is central, (near Fort and Cook St.) It is transit and wheelchair accessible, and has single user washrooms.
– The price of the workshop is free but a deposit of $50.00 will be required to secure your spot.
– The deposit will be returned at the end of the completed workshop.
– If you cancel after 12 noon on Thursday Nov. 19th, which is 72 hours prior to the start of the workshop on Sunday November 22nd, you will forfeit your deposit.
– If submitting a deposit is a critical barrier for you, please email lulu@onmyplanet.ca to discuss an alternate arrangement.
Registration is in two stages:
- Submit a completed registration form – you will then receive an email from onmyplanet.ca with instructions to send an e-transfer deposit of $50.00
- When your deposit has been received, you will receive a second email confirming your registration in the workshop.
– Workshop participants are limited to 16 people.
– If the workshop is full, your name will be put on a waiting list.
– You will not be asked for a deposit until you are being offered a spot in the workshop.
Facilitators:
Helena De Felice (they/she) is a Certified Facilitator of the Wheel of Consent® and has been facilitating Wheel practices since 2016. In teaching, she weaves in awareness of power, oppression, and trauma from Process Work, Deep Democracy, Right Use of Power, and Somatic Abolitionism. She is passionate about developing individual and collective awareness that deepens our capacity to experience and honour dignity. Her facilitation is deeply trauma-responsive and non-judgemental, informed by many years in the field of prevention and response to gender-based violence, senior leadership for sexual and reproductive rights, teaching holistic peer counseling, holding space for births and death as a doula, and leading erotic healing and entheogenic rituals. Helena calls home her ancestral lands in Sweden, and where she grew up and spends the summer months. She is a settler on the unceded traditional lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations in Vancouver.
Angelica Miller (She/They) lesbian, somatic sex educator, change maker, queero who resides on the undeded territory of the Lkwungen Peoples.
Research and Background Reading
The following research informed the workshop’s emphasis on autonomy, authenticity, connection, personal growth and the experiences of 2SLAGBTQIA+ elders. The Wheel of Consent resources inform the workshop’s content and experiential approach.
- Egale Canada (2023)
Aging and Living Well Among LGBTQI Older Adults in Canada
Explores the experiences and priorities of older LGBTQI adults, including autonomy, belonging, meaningful relationships and aging on one’s own terms.
- Hurd & Li (2024)
I Want to Grow Older With Dignity: Older LGBTQ+ Canadian Adults’ Perceptions and Experiences of Aging
A qualitative Canadian study examining the challenges, opportunities and evolving experiences of LGBTQ+ adults aged 65–83, including personal growth and relationships.
- Government of Canada
Helping 2SLGBTQI+ Older Adults to Age in Place
Research emphasizing independence, autonomy, dignity, safety and meaningful community connections in later life.
- Dr. Betty Martin — Wheel of Consent®
The Wheel of Consent
The foundational framework for understanding wanting and willingness, giving and receiving, making requests, communicating boundaries and exercising choice in relationships.
- Helena De Felice
What to Expect in a Wheel of Consent Workshop
Describes Helena’s embodied, experiential approach to developing greater self-awareness, personal agency, communication and choice.