Welcome,
I'm quite confident that our external challenges are intimately linked to our inner struggles. The emergence of our time calls for a generous and adventurous descend that leads us to interesting new places that open up other ways of seeing, learning, living, relating, evolving and thriving in the world. Open Up is a breathwork and inner growth institute, and an attempt to cultivate the necessary rupture and wisdom for becoming other-wise in an embodied way. It is an ecology of spaces and places to practice and experiment ways of opening ourselves to the unknown and
the unimaginable in partnership with the more-than-human world. I develop methodologies and facilitate transformative experiences that shift perspectives, unleash energy in a rigorous approach to create positive change – and chart bold, ambitious futures together. A future and culture that fosters inner growth, social change and creative expression. This is not merely about being and acting differently in the world, but also about creating new worldviews that are prerequisites for true societal transformation. Can you take an instant to visualize this event?
Looking forward to connect,
Katrien Franken
Katrien Franken
I'm a multiple award-winning artist,
international breathwork and inner growth facilitator, educator, writer, activist, poet, social entrepreneur, as well as founder and director of Open Up. I view my work as an act of journey; an expression of assembled studies, longings, learnings, spiritual practice, failures collaborations, experiments, and experience of twenty years at the edges of our evolutionary growth.
Open Up acts as a portal; a movement to open from the raw unknowing of transformation to a place of rooted possibility. We consider our work not as controlling the experience but as participating in and responding to a living, evolving process. We offer experiential learning journeys with breathwork at the core and make care for mystical experiences, catharsis, serious play and psychological insight, where we can expand our intelligence and gather the necessary information for constructive meaning-making. We gather with others to lean into the openness, to revisit the ordinary, to come to new senses of freedom and joy in our intimate belonging.
Approach
Mystical experiences
Carefully curated experiences
to open the bodymind and reveal deep existential truths about interconnectedness, life and presence. Opening to flow and co-generating care in partnership with the more than human world in altered states of consciousness. Designed to acces a deeper
intelligence that can elicit
meaningful experiences and lasting positive change.
Catharsis
The art of releasing and of letting go that creates space for shifts and energy to come into your potential. From small and subtle shifts to bigger ones, we support the release and relief from what is holding us back and to come to new perspectives and senses of power, freedom and joy.
Serious Play
This type of Play engages fundamental transformative processes for us. From our orderly world we come to a place of creative connection,
openness, imagination which can birth real solutions for global problems.
Psychological insight
Active listening, conscious dialogue, socratic inquiry for gathering the necessary insight for constructive meaning-making. A matter of deeply exploring our reality through our experience. A process of evaluating and assessing each situation and each encounter with curiosity,
presence and intelligence. Re-visiting the ordinary and
remembering what's already here
A stunning invitation is in the air, urging us to rethink ourselves, our ways of learning and our actions in the world to what mutually benefits us. In an Open Up based pedagogy, the longing is to deeply explore what it means to be alive in the world today, being in the body and to bring more than just breathwork, more than just solutions, more than just a future. We practice breathwork to open to new places of power where there is joy in carrying the health and well-being of our interconnectedness. Join us in this activism of inquiry to unleash energy in bodies, in flows,
in possibilities, from meaningful experiences to action.
Longing
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
Our
PHILANTHROPY
Open Up's impact initiatives are set out by Katrien Franken in 2020, and are deep offerings to whole systems change. A human investment in a future of inspiration and longevity, unlocking new opportunities for radical change and healing.
She's exploring how the conditions of transformation come together on the fringes of the culture. Her engagement is with deep inner practices, and journeys of coming alive to critical shifts in ways that allow ruptures to grow the new.
