RECENT & UPCOMING
Events
Courses
Engagements
Open Up's focus is on engagements and collaborations at the edges of our evolution towards a new culture and living planet for future generations
SOHO HOUSE
Open Up workshop "The Spark"
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Saturday 1 February 2025: 10.00 - 12.00
Soho House, Amsterdam, NL
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Join Open Up founder, Katrien Franken for an experimental breathwork workshop. Her cutting-edge approach is designed to 'spark' you into re-orienting yourself as we release energy, shift perspectives and deepen our inquiry into who we are, where we are and who is with us. She will be introducing her philosophy for breathing-with the world through a coming of age process which seeks to personally develop agency, into a shared vision with the more than human world.
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Excerpt of Katrien's theory which she's working on:
"In the swiftly shifting sands of our contemporary world, the very essence of what constitutes “place” is undergoing a profound transformation. Historically, place has been tethered to physicality, grounded in geography, maps, landmarks, and local stories, and steeped in the social and cultural narratives that bind us to specific locales. However, as our world accelerates through waves of technological innovation and social upheaval, the concept of place is increasingly fluid, extending beyond the static boundaries of physical space into the realm of the abstract. Unlike the coming of age, which is inward and personal, the coming of place is relational, demanding that we engage with the complex, interconnected worlds. A physical place of experimentation with boundless connectivity and information exchange that introduce new dimensions to how we perceive and interact with our sense of care for something other than ourselves. Who we are in the world represents and shares the world we cannot see or want to see.” – Katrien Franken
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Capacity: 18 people (Soho House members only)
Facilitator: Katrien Franken
FULLY BOOKED
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Past Engagements
SELECTED
Workshop
Mystical Entropy
Workshop
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14 December 2024: 17.00-19.30
Wijk Aan Zee, NL
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The Mystical Entropy Project is lead by Michiel van Elk and Aidon Lyon at Leiden University, and seeks to develop a new theoretical framework for scientific study of mystical experiences and spiritual practice.
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During the 3-day workshop, focussing on the neuroscience of mystical experiences, Katrien Franken will lead a session that includes breathwork to open and integrate the intellect with embodied wisdom.
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Katrien Franken is curious how breathwork and more experiential sessions, and the depth of our shared experience, can become a bigger part and exploration in spaces like these. To weave it into the tapestry of inquiry, and to let it inform and help form the process.
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Read more about the project here:
Capacity: 25 people
Facilitator: Katrien Franken w/ assistants
Workshop
A-Coming-Of-Place
Workshop for the Trainers of De Baak
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22 November 2024: 13.00-16.30
Landgoed de Horst, Driebergen-Rijsenburg, NL​
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Katrien Franken will lead a 3,5 hour workshop on regenerative leadership for "Vakgenieten met Vakgenoten for De Baak, introducing A-Coming-Of-Place
De Baak a training and leadership institute in The Netherlands. De Baak's aim for this workshop is to connect and inspire, and to give the trainers the opportunity to get a taste of new or current themes which may become integrated in an existing or new program.
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This experimental and science-based workshop is about reorienting ourselves, not only in relation to others - but also in relation to the vital places we share. In an ecology of practices and conscious connected breathing we will unleash energy, shift perspectives and receive the gift of disorientation in an altered state of consciousness. Is there a different kind leader here – something to consider, to contest, to practice, to sit with.
Capacity: max 14 people.
Facilitator: Katrien Franken w/assistant
This workshop is for freelance trainers and coaches in the network of De Baak community
Workshop
Sacred Sessions
10 October 2024: 20.00-21.15
Oude Kerk, Delft, NL
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The Sacred Sessions are hosted by philosopher Madelaine Ley and take place in the Oude Kerk Delft, offering a beautiful space that blends philosophy, poetry, science.
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​This Autumn Edition delves into the sensations of transition. Upcoming session on the 10th of October, is with Katrien Franken on the topic Mischief.
Come join us for a very alive 75 mins that blends philosophy, poetry, science, and breathwork.​
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​Registration: https://www.oudeennieuwekerkdelft.nl/evenementen/sacred-sessions/
Workshop
THNK FSTVL​
To Be In Awe
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16 November 2024: 10.00-13.00
Basecamp, Amsterdam, NL​
Katrien Franken is part of the faculty of THNK School of Leadership in Amsterdam. She will lead a 3 hour workshop titled "To be in Awe" at the THNK Festival this year.
Alter your state of consciousness and become entrained in a world you forgot was possible. Join Katrien Franken in a breathwork journey and inquiry, powered by our dreams, energy, imagination and intelligence.
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Capacity: 40 people
Facilitator: Katrien Franken w/ 3 assistants​
Training/retreat
Open Up Breathwork retreat
The Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Course
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18 - 20 April 2024
Yügen Forest, NL
Katrien Franken is part of the teaching team for the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy course at the Integrative Psychiatry Institute in Colorado, America. This year (2024), this training is being organized for the first time for a group of Dutch people by 1nP Foundation, part of Parnassia Group. The training is exclusively aimed at professionals in mental health care.
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Katrien's role in this training will consist of introducing the breathwork for Psychedelic Assisted Therapy. She will be designing and facilitating an in-person 3-day residential breathwork retreat where 24 licensed mental healthcare professionals in the training will come together for an applied and experiential introduction to breathwork.
Accreditation for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, GZ psychologists and GZ nurse specialists, has been requested for this part of the complete training program.
Workshop
THNK
11 december 2023: 09.30-12.30
THNK, Amsterdam, NL
Katrien is part of the faculty of THNK - School of Leadership in Amsterdam, guiding and mentoring executive leaders one-on-one.
She will be guiding the THNK core faculty team, founders and faculty into an experience in breathwork and inner growth, introducing a process powered by Open Up and the vision.
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 30 people
Guest teacher
Open Up, Futures Are Us
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27 November + 4 December 2023
University Utrecht, Utrecht, NL​​
Based on Open Up's academic breathwork study on The effects of conscious connected breathing on corical brain, mood states and altered states of consciousness, Katrien Franken is invited at Universiteit Utrecht as a guest teacher in an 8-week course, titled "Literature and Philosophy; Dao, Abhidharma, Zen", created and facilitated by Kiene Brillenburg Wurth.
The course introduces students to the (inter)relations between philosophy and literature, and is taking them through different modalities of thinking, perceiving, and experiencing.
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Katrien will introduce breathwork, and her vision and mission for the future of eduction to 40 students.
She proposes the question: What if breathing together can teach us to think differently about education, about ourselves (in the world), about the way we learn how to learn? What wants to become possible from this shared experience? Read more
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 40 people
Workshop
Set & Setting in Psychedelic Use
Breathwork workshop
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29 August 2023: 14.30-17.00
Lorentz Center Leiden, NL
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In the week of August 28 to September 2023, 50 international researchers and experts from different disciplinary backgrounds (including academic, clinicians, and expert practitioners) came together to foster an exchange of idea sand best practices around the roles and functions of set and setting in psychedelic use. A group of 25 people will be experiencing an Open Up experience, including conscious connected breathing, as part of the program.
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This private event is organised by:
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Joost Breeksema of OPEN Foundation
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Michiel van Elk (Leiden University)
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Gemma Blok (Open Universiteit)
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André van der Braak (Vrije Universiteit)
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Robert Schroevers (University Medical Center Groningen)
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 30 people
RETREAT
Regenerative Stewardship
Legal Psilocybin Retreat
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30 November 2022: 16.00 - 19.30
Herberg Spanbroek, Spanbroek, NL
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Katrien designed and facilitated a four hour breathwork ceremonie for Awaken The Medicine Within, psilocybin retreat.
Breathwork in the Open Up approach is closely related to the experience in psilocybin.
Read Open Up's scientific study here: www.openup.world/research
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 18 people
WORKSHOP
Breathwork as Psychedelic Therapy
at Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research.
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21 September 2022: 13.30-17.00
Haarlem, NL
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Breathwork in an Open Up proces, facilitated for The Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research; the leading scientific conference in Europe dedicated to advancing psychedelic research and therapies organized by OPEN Foundation since 2010.
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Breathing exercises are used throughout centuries by ancient &native cultures as a means of cultivating expanded states of consciousness in order to facilitate transformative experiences that deepen connection and help access healing. States which can resemble a psychedelic experience. With the rise of psychedelic therapy, questions emerge regarding breathwork within this context for/as psychedelic therapy.
This workshop combines breathwork as a practice of self-exploration in non-ordinary states of consciousness in a psychological, sacred and ritualistic bedding. We invite psychiatrists, psychologists, healthcare organisations and professionals, breathwork or psychedelic researchers, therapists, and people who are interested in learning and exploring the topic and possibility for emotional breakthroughs and healing in non-ordinary states of consciousness without taking any substance.
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Facilitator/workshop design: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 30 people
LEADERSHIP
THNK School for creative Leadership
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13, 14, 15 December 2022
Online
THNK School of Leadership designs and delivers transformational learning journeys to help leaders thrive in complexity and act to increase their impact.
Katrien Franken will lead 25 executive world leaders who take part in the THNK"s Executive Leadership Program into a deep inner journey. She combines breathwork, neuroscience, contemplative practice, psychology and philosophy with wisdom traditions.
Open Up was the first to introduce breathwork at THNK in 2019 guiding leaders in deep journeys into Self, other and the world.
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 25 people
The Breathwork Group Series
10 editions - In-person on location in Amsterdam
The Breathwork Group Series is a unique five week journey and exploration of who you are, created by Katrien Franken. She has run 10 editions & versions of The Breathwork Group Series in person in groups of max 25 people.
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Series 1: 19.10.2017 - 10.12.2017​
Series 2: 05.01.2018 - 02.02.2018
Series 3: 08.04.2018 - 20.05.2018
Series 4: 02.09.2018 - 30.09.2018
Series 5: 14.10.2018 - 18.11.2018
Series 6: 09.09.2019 - 09.03.2019
Series 7: 18.04.2019 - 16.05.2019
Series 8: 04.09.2019 - 02.10.2019
Series 9: 23.10.2019 - 20.11.2019
Series 10: 31.08.2022 - 29.09. 2022
Duration: 5 weeks | In-Person
Facilitator & Host: Katrien Franken
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Be The Earth is a UK based foundation that combines impact investing and philanthropy for a world that nurtures all beings.
Katrien will lead a breathwork session for the Aura and Flow Fellowship leaders. The Aura leaders reclaims and centres women's wisdom in regenerating systems that support all life to flourish. The Flow Funding is a programme that shares power with experienced activists and visionary leaders who choose from intuition how philanthropic funds should be invested.
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
WORKSHOP
We offer monthly group workshops of 2-3 hours for members of Soho House Amsterdam. Always fully booked with waiting list, we inspire personal change towards social & cultural transformation. Designing and facilitating experiential and experimental sessions and breathwork ceremonies in a constant reflection with the inner and outer world. We support humans to open up to the whole of their experience and find depth and meaning and joy in what is presenting itself. This in-person event is for Soho House members only.
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Facilitator and Host: Katrien Franken.​
KINSHIP:
An exploration into being together
15 March - 5 May 2022
Online
Open Up is partner of Advaya in the KINSHIP course; a transformative form of relationship that perhaps offers an answer to the crisis of belonging, curated by Hannah Close. A course and exploration into Being Together.
Katrien co-hosted en curated 4 online inquiry sessions. Community is the vessel, the social infrastructure of life, relationality is the alchemical catalyst, the yoke of togetherness, and belonging is the meaning and magic amidst it all. Katrien is co-curating and will be leading the facilitation of inquiry community sessions
Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 100 people
Darkness Meditation at Soho House
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19 August, 9 December 2020
28 July, 28 September, 23 November 2021
Katrien designed an exceptional meditation which connects us with darkness as a practice to awaken, transform and heal. With facilitated preparation Katrien will guide Soho House members to look into the blackness where without visual stimuli the mind and soul can wander. This process releases fear of the unknown, and invites us to look and listen into our own world and being. This is an in-person event for Soho House members only.
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​Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Evolve World - Emergent Dialogue
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October 2021 - April 2022
Online
Emergent Dialogue is a practice that empowers you to participate in a new culture of creative togetherness and is developed by Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger. An intense practice program for inter-being.
Katrien co-facilitated in the training and was part of a core group who initiated the training.
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Co-facilitator: Katrien Franken
WORKSHOP
Nike Europe - Directors team
3, 4, 8 June 2021
Zoku Amsterdam, NL
This is a private event for 10 people on the directors team of Nike Europe. A two day immersion at ZoKu Amsterdam, This team is one of the biggest challenges. Facilitating creative workshops, insight and learning with the goal:
• Bringing an understanding to the team of what you expect from them as leaders, bringing them closer together. To be successful.
• Creating a sense of their own destiny.
• Enthusiasm about the future.
• Building team spirit, enthusiasm.
Facilitator: Katrien Franken
CORPORATE
Open Up at Elsevier
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5 April 2018
7 & 9 May 2019
Elsevier Headquarters, Amsterdam, NL
Open Up cares for the health of an organisation, and by organisations who make care for the health of the people within the organisation. Katrien Franken is invited to lead and design multiple in person workshops for the Elsevier teams and employees in Amsterdam.
Elsevier provides information and analytics that help institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance.
Katrien will facilitate 2 workshops for employees in the Open Up breathwork and inner work approach and methodology, fostering a deeper care for everyone's inner Life towards outer moral change. Making work environments healthier, wiser and more connected.
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
Capacity: 30 people
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WORKSHOP
ICPR 2020
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25-27 September 2020
Online
Open Foundation is advancing psychedelic research and therapies to benefit science, healthcare, and society since 2007.
Open Up is a Gold Sponsor this year for the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research 2020. (ICPR20).
Katrien Franken is speaker and will be facilitating
3 breathwork workshops online, due to Covid-19.
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Facilitator: Katrien Franken
WORKSHOP
New Womanhood
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Friday 5 April 2018: 18.30 - 22.00
De Roos, Amsterdam
New Womanhood created by Katrien Franken explores women (and men) and support(ed) networks to have courages conversations, explorations and learnings in service of our collective growth. Facing and embracing and living our truth and acknowledging and integrating our blind spots. This gathering is for the rebel woman who wants to light the spark of what it might look like to create a new culture around womanhood. We are calling it "New Womanhood".
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Facilitator & Host: Katrien Franken
WORKSHOP
Be Great, be Grateful day
PATTERNITY
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13 August 2017: 13.00-14.00
Ace Hotel, 100 Shoreditch High St, London, UK
Join PATTERNITY to celebrate the launch of their latest book 'Be Great Be Grateful, They’ve curated a very special day of creative and wellbeing workshops, empowering talks and immersive experiences designed to leave you feeling inspired
to find innovative and uplifting ways to harness patterns of gratitude in everyday life.
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Katrien Franken will be leading a transformative Breathing workshop - ‘Connecting deeply to being’ delve into your inner being.