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Ready to step out of survival mode and be turned On by your life?

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Most of us were taught how to survive, not how to thrive...

Maybe you know this feeling:
The sense that parts of you have gone quiet.
That somewhere between surviving and succeeding, you misplaced your own aliveness.

Maybe you’ve been strong for too long.
Maybe you’ve silenced your longings just to fit into a life that doesn’t quite fit you.
Maybe you’ve touched moments of deep connection, but they slip through your fingers too fast.

If any part of you is whispering,  “There has to be more than this…” then you are in the right place.

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Upcoming gatherings at the institute

In-person, small-group experiences hosted by space holders we trust, for those drawn to Depth, Presence, and Creative, sometimes weird, experiments. Welcome!

  • Daylight open Shibari practice

    This is an open rope practice container. No teacher. No instruction. Just space. The Institute’s Shibari Open Practice is designed for those who already have some experience and want time,

    February 18 @ 11:30 am - 2:30 pm
  • Bottoming skills and playful dynamics

    Deepening Series THE COURSE IS FULL PLEASE SIGN UP TO BE ON THE WAITING LIST To grow in a small group, going deep together has been one of my favourite ways

    February 18 @ 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  • Open studio

    This is not a class. This is not a workshop. This is not yoga instruction. It’s open studio time. A quiet, shared room you can step into for three hours.

    February 19 @ 11:00 am - 2:00 pm
  • Desire doesn’t always want more sex…

    The Motherhole has three realms: Eros, Mother and Crone.This is an Eros gathering. Eros is not sex.It’s the charge that lives underneath language.The pull.The no.The yes that arrives before thought....

    February 20 @ 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
  • Tying with clothes and objects

    Deepening Series THE COURSE IS FULL PLEASE SIGN UP TO BE ON THE WAITING LIST To grow in a small group, going deep together has been one of my favourite ways

    February 25 @ 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
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You belong here if...

✨ You’re tired of trying to fix yourself

✨ You’re ready to slow down and feel, even if it’s scary

✨ You want a way of healing that feels real, not like performing or pushing through

✨ You long for more connection to your body, your emotions, and your inner life

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 You don’t need to have it all together.

You just need to want to come home.

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You don’t need a new version of yourself to manage...

This isn’t another self-help project to improve managing yourself.

The Soft Return is where you stop.

Where the real you, the one under the act, gets to fucking breathe.

No persona.

No perfection.

No managing.

Just seven days of letting yourself come home to the you that’s been waiting underneath the whole time.

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Testimonials

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This Book is For You If…

✨ You want to know why you keep saying yes when you mean no and how to stop betraying yourself for peace.

✨ You’re tired of performing “fine.” You want to know what it’s like to be honest in your own skin.

✨ You want to feel your choices in your body, not in the rulebook you inherited.

✨ You want your days to actually belong to you, not to guilt, habit, or someone else’s expectations.

You’re ready to stop doing life on autopilot and start driving it yourself.

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What You'll Explore

The identity you’ve been performing for years. The version of you that’s “strong,” “easy,” “low-maintenance,” “nice,” “fine”… and how that mask slowly became your whole personality.

Where you disappeared to keep the peace. The voice you shut down, the needs you hid, the space you gave up, and the traits you picked up because someone needed you to be that way.

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What happens when you stop performing and actually show up as yourself. A real, physical relief you feel in your whole body when you stop pretending and let you breathe again.

Each day brings you closer to the unedited version of you.

Not to fix anything because you don’t need fixing. You need to see what’s been holding you back.

And feel it. So you can choose what to do with it.

What's inside

✨ 7 chapters, one per day, to help you name what you’ve never spoken aloud or dared to think.

✨ 28 somatic shadow work prompts, 4 per day. 

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✨ 7 audio-guided somatic practices, one per day via QR code.

✨ 1 audio journey guiding you to meet the part of you that knows you don’t need to perform shit for anyone.

✨ 270 pages of space to breathe, doodle, and remember.

✨ Large-format so you can write comfortably (8”x10”)

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A Note from the Author

You don’t need a new version of yourself to chase or fix.

What you might need, what I needed, is space.

Space to feel what’s real underneath the roles.

Space to remember your own rhythm, your own truth, your own skin.

This journal wasn’t written to impress you.

It was written to hold you.

In those quiet, strange moments when you sense there’s more, but can’t quite name it.

When you’re tired of performing intimacy and ready to feel it instead. Every page here is an invitation to slow down, to get honest, to listen.

Not to me. To you.

Camilla

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Format & Experience

Full-color, soft matte cover

270 pages gives you plenty of space to journal, doodle, and reflect

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✨Large format, 8″x10″, for comfortable writing experience

7 audio-guided body exercises accessed via QR code in the book hosted on a course platform

✨ 1 audio-guided journey deep into your mind to meet an aspect of yourself  accessed via QR code in the book hosted on a course platform

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A sensual experience

Each day follows a rhythm that works for real life, even if you’re running on deadlines, dishes, or both.

You start by reading. Short enough to finish your coffee with, potent enough to make you pause.

Then you write. To stop scrolling your thoughts and see what’s actually in there.

Then you listen. A guided body practice you can do in bed, on the floor, or between meetings.

It’s the kind of reset that fits inside your day and changes it.

Seven days, 35–60 minutes each, to start hearing yourself again.

By the end of the week, you don’t just understand differently. You feel differently. 

This is how sensuality reclaims you. Not through intensity, but through rhythm.

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Get a taste first

If I were you, I’d want a taste first.

So here’s an excerpt from the journal:

The intro, Day One, and the prompts that go with it.

And right below that, you’ll find the guided audio body check-in practice that follows the prompts in the journal.

This way, you know exactly what you’re stepping into.

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Let's begin

Sensuality begins not in pleasure, but in presence. In feeling what’s real and what’s not yours in your body, your heart and your mind.

The Soft return is the first sensual 7 day journal in the I Awake series. Start here. You can find the series on Barnes and noble.Amazon and Adlibris.  

If you buy the journal from our bookstore, you’ll get it signed and dedicated to you by Camilla, the author ❤️

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Frequently asked questions

Yes.

Avoidance is a nervous-system strategy, not a personality flaw.

And this journal doesn’t rip the lid off anything.

It builds capacity, gently, one day at a time, so you feel safe being yourself again.

No overwhelm.

No emotional dump.

Just space.

God, no.

This isn’t a pep talk.

It’s a reality check about how culture, religion, and upbringing quietly shape what you think is “normal.”

Then welcome to being awake.

You don’t need to torch everything. You just start noticing where you’ve been living someone else’s script.

That awareness alone changes everything.

No.

It’s designed for people who run on low battery.

Short reads.

Simple prompts.

Audio guided body practices that calms your nervous system, not overwhelms it.

It’s gentle on the body and sharp on the bullshit.

Exactly what you need.

No.

No crystals.

No manifesting.

No cosmic homework.

It’s body-first, honesty-first, science-backed work delivered like a late-night conversation with someone who refuses to bullshit you.

It helps because it doesn’t overload you.

Awareness without safety is useless.

The Soft Return gives you both:

awareness and the nervous-system grounding to hold it.

This is where things finally start to click instead of spiral.

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No.

This isn’t that kind of thing.

You’re not diving into childhood wounds or reliving anything.

You’re simply taking the mask off for a minute so your nervous system can finally stop bracing.

Falling apart comes from pressure.

This is the opposite, it’s where pressure drops.

Because it’s not trying to fix you.

It’s trying to un-ghost you.

Most journals want you to analyze yourself.

This one helps you stop performing yourself.

Huge difference.

No.

You’re not poking wounds.

You’re meeting the parts of you that went quiet because you had to keep going.

There’s nothing new to “open.”

You’re just giving space to what’s already there in a way your body can actually handle.

Probably. In the best way.

It’ll make you see how much of your life has been built around invisible rules: how to behave, love, succeed, stay “enough.”

Once you see them, you can’t unsee them.

And that’s when you finally start living on your own terms.

Perfect.

Most people don’t.

That’s the whole point.

The Soft Return doesn’t force a breakthrough.

It creates the conditions for your real self to surface without having to fight for air.

You’ll recognize her the second she shows up.

It goes toward relief.

Toward honesty.

Toward being a person instead of a persona.

If you want to keep going, this is just the first step on a nine-stop Sensual Hero’s Journey. A path from survival-mode to actual self being turned On by life.

But one thing at a time.

You start here.

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The Sensual hero's journey

✨ The Call: slowing down, listening in, meeting the parts of you you’ve had to ignore to survive

✨ The Initiation: feeling more, trusting more, letting the old protections soften so you can reclaim your aliveness

✨ The Return: coming back to daily life with a deeper connection to yourself, your body, and your world

 

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Our Approach

✨ Body Wisdom: Your nervous system knows the way home. We listen to it, gently, week by week.

✨ Story Wisdom: Your experiences, your emotions, your inner voices matter. We make space for all of them.

✨ Symbolic Wisdom: We use imagery, ritual, and imagination to help you access layers that talking alone can’t reach.

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You don’t have to believe anything.
You don’t have to “get it right.”
This work meets you where you are.

THE GARDEN SENSUAL INSTITUTE

Our course

A real path you can actually walk in a rhythm that fits real life

✨A three-semester program (about 1,5 years total)

✨The program has one live online class per week (around 3 hours long)

 

Every week you’ll move through:

✨A grounded teaching you can actually use

✨A somatic exercise done in small breakout groups (10 people or less)

✨A closing circle where you’re invited, but never forced, to share

You’ll be part of an small group inside a larger community held by trained, caring community managers who are here to make sure it feels safe, human, and real.

There’s also optional sharing circles and practice sessions if you want extra space to connect or deepen the exercises.

You don’t have to know how to do this.
You just have to be willing to start.

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