About this Event
This small-group offering uses sand tray as a gentle, creative way to explore inner experience, identity, and meaning—especially during times of change.
Sand tray is an expressive, hands-on process in which participants use miniature figures and objects in a tray of sand to create scenes that reflect inner landscapes, questions, or life experiences. You don’t need to be “artistic” or know what you’re doing—the process works through symbol, intuition, and play, allowing insight and integration to emerge naturally without needing to explain everything in words.
In this group, sand tray becomes a way to listen to what’s beneath the surface: parts of yourself that may not yet have language, but are ready to be seen, understood, and integrated.
The group will move at a slow, supportive pace and include time for individual creation, gentle reflection, and witnessing within a contained and respectful group setting.
✨ This group may be supportive if you:
- Are navigating identity shifts or life changes
- Feel stuck, unclear, or disconnected from your inner sense of direction
- Want to explore meaning without pressure to “figure it out”
- Respond well to creative or symbolic ways of knowing
- Are curious about embodied, non-verbal approaches to self-understanding
✨ Participants can expect:
- A small, intimate group (maximum of 6 participants)
- Clear structure, pacing, and trauma-informed facilitation
- No pressure to share more than feels comfortable
- A process that supports insight, regulation, and integration
No prior experience with sand tray, expressive arts, or group work is needed. This is not therapy, but a facilitated expressive arts process designed to support self-awareness, meaning-making, and inner listening.
✨ Event Details
Saturday, May 2 · 2 - 4:30pm
$47
Limited to 6 people.
Additional Details:
Registration required. Registration closes 24 hours prior to the event.
The registration fee is non-refundable unless the event is canceled by the facilitator.
Parking Information
Shakti in the Mountains Website
IMPORTANT: If you are not able to attend an event for which you have registered please so that we may offer that space to someone on the wait list. Thank you.
✨ Facilitated by Janna Browning
Janna Browning, MA, PRDT is a seasoned trauma-informed drama therapist, expressive arts practitioner, director, and Co-Founder of Integrative StoryWorks (ISW). She facilitates individual and group embodiment and expressive arts work at Shakti in the Mountains.
She received her BFA in Acting from Emerson College in Boston and her MA in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Drama Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.
In California, she worked with Armand Volkas in Healing the Wounds of History, which uses expressive arts therapy to bring together groups who share a legacy of historical trauma. Her work with HWH includes projects uniting Armenians and Turks to address the shared legacy of the Armenian Genocide, as well as facilitating dialogue around historical trauma in Palestine/Israel, Northern Ireland, and racial trauma in the United States.
Janna has also worked with Community Performance International, specializing in community building across lines of difference through large-scale theatre performance. She helped develop Community Story Performances in towns across the South and co-founded the StoryTown Program in Jonesborough, TN in 2011.
As a grief practitioner, Janna brings her trauma-informed drama therapy training into community grief-tending—facilitating rituals, keening circles, and embodied expressive arts processes to support individuals and communities in honoring loss and making space for renewal. Her grief work draws from expressive arts, trauma-informed practice, and ancestral Celtic traditions.
She is co-founder of Integrative StoryWorks, a company that uses personal stories to support individual and collective healing, and StoryWander Travel, which offers story-based small group travel experiences.
Website: www.jannabrowning.com
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Shakti in the Mountains, 409 East Unaka Avenue, Johnson City, United States
USD 47.00
