Take a deep breath again.
Join this 30-day inner work cohort to develop a practice you can stick to that moves you into a deeper sense of presence, connectedness, and embodied aliveness.
Hey there,
If you’re a human being in the 21st century, you know what it’s like to run on the default operating system.
Always drifting from one thing to the next, going through the motions, trying to get through today so you can start again tomorrow. Just keeping on keeping on. Survival mode.
Or as psychotherapist and former monk James Finley puts it: "Skimming the surface of the depths of our own lives.”
We all feel it at one point or another – because our society incentivizes it:
capitalism wants us to mindlessly consume,
meritocracy demands we continuously produce, and
systems of oppression strip us of our autonomy and coerce us into staying silent and scared.
And for many of us, even our own families, friend groups, or faith communities would prefer we maintain the status quo rather than ask any difficult or challenging questions.
So we continue our day-to-day, textured by feelings of apathy, burnout, and a lack of connection with both our inner life and our communities as well.
It can feel like we’re just stumbling forward on a hamster wheel.
So here’s my take and, if this resonates with you and your story, what this cohort is inviting you into.
Shifting out of this default operating system will require three things:
a practice of intention,
a posture of awareness and attention,
and the persistence to come back to them over and over and over again daily, with support, community, and guidance.
During this 30-day cohort, you’ll be invited to live into this new kind of rhythm.
Moving alongside others and within a supportive cohort community, our team of facilitators will guide you in developing and engaging a daily practice that feels real and relevant to the person you’re becoming. One that can support you in leaving behind the experiences of overwhelm, antsiness, and apathy that come from living within a produce-and-consume-at-all-costs culture.
It isn’t easy and it won’t be quick.
But – in the face of all the forces, both internal and external, that incentivize us to just keep skimming the surface – we can do this deep and sometimes-heavy inner work that leads us to become more present to the rawness and realness of our lives.
And we can do it in a soft, light-hearted way.
Is this a fit for you and your story?
If any of these resonate…this cohort was designed for you.
On the other hand, this cohort is not for you if…
you want to engage in intellectual conversation, debate, or heady dialogue. While the shape of your inner work practices during this cohort is entirely flexible, the central component of this cohort is practice, not information gathering or consumption.
you are looking for long-term community or practices rooted in a specific religion or tradition.
you are looking for a space to process an extensive trauma history. Instead, please seek a therapist or other mental health professional.
Here’s how this cohort works:
Dedicate time to practice everyday.
At the heart of our 30 days together is a commitment to practice.
Because, as my mentor Richard Rohr likes to say, “we do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”
During this cohort, you’ll be invited to identify and engage a practice that works for you and your context – one you can come back to each day. It might be meditation, a morning walk, journaling, stretching, or something else entirely.
The key is not to force something that doesn’t fit who you are; it’s to find a practice, or series of practices, that brings together intention, attention, and repetition and feels true to the person you’re becoming.
It’s through these kinds of practices that we begin to see the world and ourselves with soft eyes and open to what Casper ter Kuile calls a “depth of presence and experience.”
Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.
These are Mary Oliver’s famous instructions for living a life and they serve as a great roadmap for what you’ll be invited into.
This cohort is not about us “getting it right” as we sit alone in our own silos.
It’s about expanding our capacity to become more aware of the beauty and depths of our lives – in the little moments and the big ones – side by side, supported in solidarity, and with a sense of togetherness.
Each day, you’ll be invited to:
Pay attention to what draws your awareness: moments of beauty or pain, delightful or frustrating interactions, a bodily ache, or perhaps a memory that pops up out of nowhere.
Live with that noticing; wander with it; move with it: don’t just blow right past it. Let it simmer within you. Practice lingering with your noticings and experiences.
Share with the cohort what’s coming up for you (an insight, a question, or just what you’re paying attention to!) We will be using the messaging app Slack for this.
Learn and explore alongside others.
Have you ever tried sticking to a meditation practice just to have it fall apart within a week? Or buy yourself a brand new journal with that nice moleskin feel, but then leave it unopened under the pile of bills on your desk?
When we try to go it alone – even with the best of intentions – it’s pretty easy for the wheels to fall off a bit.
Throughout this cohort, there will be several ways to engage with the community:
🙏 Participate in weekly cohort workshops and develop a daily practice that brings together who you are and who you are becoming.
🖥️ Interact with others in our online cohort community space through engaging with each other’s daily check-ins, stories, and insights.
⭕ Join together in our mid-cohort Community Council, a communal practice of sharing and deep listening.
Inner work, not isolated work.
Rev. angel Kyodo williams has the oft quoted teaching: “Without inner change, there can be no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.”
While many meditation programs and self-help courses focus solely on inner transformation, this cohort is different.
If we begin and end with personal practices for personal change, we will perpetuate the harm already happening in our communities. We need practices that help change the ways we see and are more than what Thomas Keating called “high-class tranquilizers.”
The intention of this cohort is to be a “practice space” for the inner work that helps deepen our experience of life and naturally and authentically blossoms into communal and societal healing.
Inner work, not isolated work – because it is only together where we can build capacity for the collective work that lies ahead.
Cohort Overview + Schedule
There are two workshops each week – don’t stress if you can’t make all of them live! All sessions (except for the Community Council Practice) will be recorded for those that can't attend.
Live Session #1: Onboarding Kickoff Call + Creating a Daily Practice That Fits
(Sunday, May 5th | 4-6PM Pacific)
Live Session #2: Mapping our Lives and Seeing our Stories
(Wednesday, May 8th | 8-9AM Pacific)
Live Session #3: Looking Inward with Internal Family Systems, w/ James A. Pearson
(Saturday, May 11th | 8-9:30AM Pacific)
Live Session #4: The Tinkering Workshop
(Wednesday, May 15th | 6-7:30PM Pacific)
Live Session #5: Community Council
(Sunday, May 19th | 4-5:30PM Pacific)
Live Session #6: Embodying a Posture of Healing: Sites of Shaping/Sites of Change
(Wednesday, May 22nd | 6-7PM Pacific)
Live Session #7: Navigating Conflict + Change w/ Abi Robins
(Sunday, May 26th | 4-5:30PM Pacific)
Live Session #8: Developing Practices for Sustainable Activism
(Wednesday, May 29th | 6-7PM Pacific)
Live Session #9: Celebration + Reflection Call
(Sunday, June 2nd | 4-5:30PM Pacific)
Here’s everything you receive as part of this cohort:
Cost of this cohort:
In May 2024, this cohort is being offered on a Pay What You Want basis and only for a limited number of people. (Minimum price: $65; Suggested price: $90-$140)
Frequently Asked Questions
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In May 2024, this cohort is being offered on a Pay What You Want basis for a limited number of people, with a minimum of $65. If you are financially able, paying the suggested price of $90-140 helps make this cohort sustainable moving forward.
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This cohort isn’t about adding more to your plate.
Instead, it’s about building our capacity for awareness, curiosity, and a sense of aliveness in our day-to-day.
To do that, I ask that you prioritize:
10-20 minutes each day for your daily practice and check-in and
time to attend live or watch the recordings of the workshops.
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Of course – and if that works for you, awesome!
But if you’re like me at all, creating and sticking to a daily practice – one that genuinely fits who we are – is hard work. And there are times when having a community, resources, and supports would certainly make it easier.
That’s where this cohort comes in.
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This cohort is not religious, so if that’s what you’re looking for, this might not be for you.
Whether or not it’s spiritual, on the other hand, really depends on your definition.
The word itself understandably comes pre-loaded for a lot of us – associated with images, teachings, and experiences ranging from the wonderfully beautiful to the deeply harmful.
In this space, it’s used (if it’s used at all) as shorthand for connectedness, relatedness, and an experience of depth and presence in one’s life.
No religion-specific doctrine, language, or set of practices is centered in this cohort.
Note: Each of us enters this space with our various backgrounds and life experiences, including the beliefs, traditions, and practices we were handed. The facilitators of our live sessions mostly come from Christian and Christian-influenced backgrounds which inform our worldviews, whether or not we still practice that particular religious tradition. Regardless, religion-specific doctrines, language, and teachings are not centered in this cohort.
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A few questions for you to reflect on:
Can you commit (gently) to setting aside 10 minutes, once or twice a day, for a daily practice and check-in?
Do you desire to be more intentional in your life – both with yourself and your communities?
Are you open to asking hard questions of yourself and making changes in your life?
So much of our culture wants us to keep running on autopilot – but each of us has the power to do something different.
It will require intention, attention, and a willingness to practice, forget to practice, and then re-commit to your practice over and over again. It won’t be linear and at the end of 30 days, your life may not be fundamentally changed. But, having moved alongside others for a month, you’ll have more tools to help you stay awake to the beauty and realness of your life and of your communites.
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When you join, you’ll receive access to our private community Slack channel.
No idea what that is? Don’t worry! During the onboarding process, you’ll be guided through downloading the phone and desktop apps, as well as introduced to the community norms and how-tos.
Along with using Zoom for our live sessions, we’ll use Slack to share our daily check-ins, session takeaways, and to support and celebrate with each other.
You’ll learn more later, but here’s the gist for how we engage together:
Affirm, support, celebrate, and ask questions.
No fixing, saving, advising, or correcting involved.
We’re all in this together.
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While live attendance is definitely the best (so you can ask questions and be with everyone), life happens!
So if you can’t make it every time, don’t worry! Each live session will be recorded and distributed within 24 hours.
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It's my goal for everyone in the cohort to start and finish together! That means each of us consistently engaging our daily practices and sharing within the community.
To help with this, I’ll connect with you several times throughout the month and if we don’t hear from you for more than a day or two, I’ll send you an email to see how you’re doing!
If you want more accountability than that, I recommend signing up with a friend and doing regular check-ins with each other.
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Forever!
Or at least until YouTube collapses – but probably for a long time!
100% Refund Policy
There’s enough risk in the world without this adding to it.
If you engage with the cohort, attend a few live sessions, and find it’s just not for you, we’ll send a 100% refund your way. And if life happens – as it tends to do – and you realize you can’t participate in a meaningful way, just reach out and let us know. We can either issue a refund or hold you a spot in our next cohort as well: whatever feels right for you.