Sofia Health
Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D.
MoreYou Mini-Retreat — Am I capable of expanded self-awareness?
Two hours on a Tuesday evening, in a small room, with other people who are also tired of pushing.
Not a workshop. Not a class you take notes in. There is discussion, there is instruction, and there is a fair amount of silence — the kind most of us have stopped making room for.
What happens
We talk about the habit of struggling: the pattern your nervous system learned so early it stopped looking like a pattern and started looking like personality. Most of the people in the room will recognize it before it is fully described. Then the SHIFT protocol. It is simple enough to learn in an evening and specific enough to use the next morning. You will practice it in the room rather than take it home as a theory.
And then quiet. Not guided, not performed. Just time that is not asking anything of you.
Who this is for
• You are capable, dependable, and running on reserve
• You have read enough and are ready to try something
• You are curious about what changes when you stop optimizing yourself
• You are done with self-improvement framing and would like something plainer
• You want to be around people who understand the pattern without needing it explained
You do not need to have trained with me, used MoreYou.app, or know anything about neurofeedback. Come as you are.
Practical details
Limited to twelve people. Wear something you can sit comfortably in. Doors at 6:15. Held at SolFlo in Wicker Park.
Registration closes when the room is full.
Mark your Calendar for the 2026 Dates:
October 13th
November 10th
December 8th
(Registration will be for the next session on the calendar--sorry,, can't book into the future yet)
Mary Meduna-Gross, Ph.D. is the founder of PlenaVita Shift and a NeurOptimal® trainer in Wicker Park.
Less Struggle. More You.
Questions to [email protected].
Leadership Presence Coach
Founder/CEO PlenaVita Shift
Most of the people I see are not in crisis. They are functioning. Meeting deadlines, taking care of other people, making decisions all day. If you asked, they'd tell you they're handling it. And underneath that, they're running on reserve in a way they have mostly stopped noticing.
What I work with is presence under pressure: the capacity to stay clear, steady, and fully yourself when the stakes are high. Most of us lose it without realizing. We brace against our experience instead of being in it, and the bracing becomes so familiar that it stops looking like a pattern and starts looking like personality. Effort became the way you do things. Then it became who you are.
Presence gets built in three places.
In the body first, because it's hard to see yourself clearly while you're braced. NeuroStability Training uses NeurOptimal® neurofeedback, which gives your brain information about its own activity while you sit back and listen. There is nothing to concentrate on and nothing to do correctly, which is exactly the difficulty for people who are used to being good at things.
Then within yourself, in how you meet your own reactions. The MoreYou Mini-Retreat is a monthly evening to practice noticing what's happening in you without running from it or gripping it. MoreYou.app carries that practice into the day, a few minutes at a time.
And then in the middle of life, with other people. The pattern is easier to keep when everyone around you shares it. The MoreYou Creativity Retreat puts people in a room together, with an unfamiliar art medium and no expectations, to notice what they do when things don't go their way.
I came to this through my own life. Twenty years in education, where I watched capable people burn out doing work they cared about. A decade in school leadership, where I made decisions under pressure and learned what it costs to stay composed while doing it. A master's in mental health counseling, which gave me the language for what I was watching but not the tool for it. The Gulf War came before all of it and taught me the same lesson earlier: a person can perform well for a very long time while quietly running out of room.
Handling it and being present are not the same. Noticing the difference is usually the beginning of something.
If you're not sure where to start, book a 15-minute conversation, or take the Presence Profile in MoreYou.app first. The app is free during beta, and my writing is at Surprisingly Content on Substack.
Less Struggle. More You.