The Whole Body Experience 2026
About this Event
Gathering Description
The Whole Body Experience is an immersive gathering designed to challenge the narratives we’ve inherited about bodies — and to create something braver, more compassionate, and more liberatory together.
In a culture that profits from body shame and thrives on division, this conference invites us into a different way. A way rooted in nervous system safety, body neutrality, collective care, and systemic awareness. A way that honors lived experience — from diet culture harm to purity culture wounds, from trauma to resilience.
Through a keynote address, breakout sessions, community conversations, and local vendors aligned with embodied wellbeing, participants will explore what it means to live in relationship with their bodies — not as projects to fix, but as homes to return to.
This is not a quick-fix event.
It is a reclamation space.
A room full of people willing to have the crucial conversations.
Whether you are early in your healing or years into unlearning, you are welcome here.
Mission Statement
The mission of The Whole Body Experience is to create a brave, inclusive, and body-liberated gathering where individuals can explore healing their relationship with body, food, and movement through a nervous-system-informed and justice-rooted lens.
We recognize that not all bodies live free in this world. Systems of oppression, stigma, and bias shape who has access to safety, resources, and belonging. This conference is committed to respecting and dignifying everybody and every body in West Michigan by creating a comfortable, accessible environment and connecting individuals with aligned resources, organizations, and community support.
We believe:
- Bodies are not problems to solve.
- Body shame is systemic, not personal failure.
- Healing happens in safe, collaborative community.
- Liberation is both personal and collective work.
- No one should be denied access to resources based on their body.
- A thriving community values what its members feel, see, and do — not how they look.
Participants will learn how to interrupt negative self-talk, move beyond body preoccupation, and build relationships with their bodies rooted in dignity and care. We believe that building better body image is a social justice issue. When individuals are freed from overwhelming body concerns, mental health strengthens, community vitality deepens, and empowered people contribute more fully to a vibrant, connected collective.
The Whole Body Experience exists to disrupt harmful cultural narratives, center embodied wisdom, and foster the kind of conversations that move us toward collective wellbeing.
What's included?
- FREE parking in the city!!!
- virtual swag bag
- speakers + digital recordings and experiences to use at your own pace
- experiences that will move you
- community support and connection
Follow the conference on social media @celebrateallbods
Learn more about Jen and her work at:
www.risingstrongwellness.com
or on instagram @jen.risingstrongwellness
Jen Bullen is a somatic healing coach, yoga teacher, and the founder of Rising Strong Wellness and The Whole Body Experience in West Michigan. Her work lives at the intersection of nervous system healing, body liberation, and social justice. She supports humans of all identities in healing their relationship with food, movement, and their bodies through collaborative, embodied, community-centered spaces.
With lived experience navigating orthorexia, diet culture, purity culture, trauma, and body image struggles, she brings both professional training and deep personal insight to her work. Her approach is grounded in consent, safety, body neutrality, and the recognition that not all bodies live free in our current culture.
Through coaching, retreats, workshops, and conferences, she creates spaces where people can soften body shame, untangle internalized oppression, and reconnect with their inherent worth. She believes body image healing is not a vanity issue — it is collective and systemic. When we move beyond body preoccupation, we free energy for joy, advocacy, and community care.
Rooted in respect for the land and the communities of West Michigan, her work seeks to dignify every body and expand access to healing resources for those historically marginalized by healthcare, diet culture, and systems of control.
When she’s not facilitating or teaching, you can find her outdoors, in meaningful conversation, or building brave spaces for people to come home to themselves.
Every body has a story. This is a space to hear more of them.
What does it mean to live in a body right now?
A body shaped by family and culture. By beauty standards and health messages. By race, gender, size, age, ability, sexuality, religion, access, belonging, and all the things we've been taught a body is supposed to be.
And what becomes possible when we gather to have a different kind of conversation about it?
The Whole Body Experience is an intimate three-hour gathering centered around storytelling, creativity, reflection, and community. It's a space to explore the forces that shape our relationships with our bodies—and to imagine what it might look like to create a world where more bodies are valued, heard, respected, and free.
This isn't a conference anymore.
It's a gathering.
A smaller room for a bigger conversation.
What we'll experience together
At the center of our time together, Jen Bullen, somatic health coach, educator, and founder of Rising Strong Wellness, will present State of the Body—a live exploration of the personal, cultural, and systemic forces shaping how we experience our bodies today.
But this isn't meant to be three hours of sitting and listening.
Our afternoon will weave together real body stories, live music and poetry, creative reflection and community art, meaningful conversation, mocktails and nourishment, and opportunities to connect with one another.
There will be room to listen.
Room to make something.
Room to talk.
Room to simply take in what you're hearing.
And probably some room for joy, laughter, good drinks, and photos too.
With special guest Jackie Blankenship
The larger Whole Body Experience also includes a recorded guest presentation from Jackie Blankenship, speaker, storyteller, and intersex advocate.
Through her lived experience and advocacy, Jackie invites more honest, nuanced, and compassionate conversations about bodies, identity, autonomy, and what it means to be human.
Jackie's presentation will be part of the digital experience included with your ticket, allowing you to spend more time with her work beyond our afternoon together.
Additional recorded guest experts and experiences will explore different dimensions of what it means to live in a body, with more contributors being announced.
The experience continues after we leave the room
Your ticket isn't only admission to an October gathering.
The Whole Body Experience is hybrid.
Every in-person participant will also receive access to the digital experience hosted through Rising Strong Wellness, including:
- The recorded State of the Body talk
- Recorded guest expert presentations, including Jackie Blankenship
- Guided writing, creative, and reflection experiences
- Additional resources for continuing the conversation
- The Whole Body Community Care Guide, connecting you with aligned practitioners, businesses, organizations, resources, and offerings
The digital experience also means you don't have to absorb everything in one afternoon.
You can come back.
Pause.
Write.
Listen again.
Follow something that stirred your curiosity.
And if you're unable to join us in Grand Rapids, a Digital-Only ticket allows you to participate from wherever you are.
Who is this for?
You don't need to love your body.
You don't need to be struggling with your body.
You don't need to identify as "body positive."
You don't need to work in wellness.
You simply need to be a person living in a body and willing to get curious about the stories we've inherited about them.
This experience may especially resonate if you've ever questioned what you've been taught about beauty, health, weight, food, movement, aging, gender, sexuality, identity, productivity, or belonging.
It's also an important conversation for those whose work involves other people's bodies—including therapists, yoga and movement teachers, healthcare professionals, social workers, coaches, dietitians, bodyworkers, educators, birth workers, and other helping professionals.
Because our relationships with our bodies aren't created in isolation.
Our body stories are personal. And they are also shaped by the world around us.
Choose how you participate
IN-PERSON + DIGITAL | $85
Join us at Yogi Union Studio in Grand Rapids for the full three-hour gathering and receive access to the complete digital Whole Body Experience.
DIGITAL ONLY | $45
Participate from anywhere through the recorded talks, guest expert offerings, creative and reflection experiences, resources, and Community Care Guide.
SUPPORTED | Give or Receive
No one gets left behind.
If cost is a barrier to participating, supported tickets are available.
If you have a little more to give, you can also contribute toward access for another member of our community.
Giving and receiving are both part of community care.
Event Details
Saturday, October 10, 2026
2:00–5:00 PM
Yogi Union Studio
555 4th St. NW
Grand Rapids, MI
Come curious.
Come with questions.
Come with whatever relationship you have with your body today.
Every body has a story.
This is a space to hear more of them.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
USD 0.00 to USD 188.58
