Workshops
Build your skills and take inspired actions to make life better for yourself, your community, and our world with these three workshop offerings.
About the Workshops
I design curricula and facilitate engaging, relevant trainings in a diversity of areas related to leadership, relationships, communication, creative writing, addiction recovery, spirituality, self-development, and life/career design. Participants have ranged from staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Jewish Federation of New Mexico to college students, camp counselors, recovering addicts, and community members of all ages. Click here for a sample list of past workshops.
The foundational theme of all of my workshops is Social Constructionism that basically tells us that all stories are Real, they just are not necessarily True. Therefore all our stories can be rewritten and retold for better outcomes. I integrate my experiences as a facilitator-trainer, licensed therapist, published author, and storyteller into my trainings to build participant skills within strength-based and solution-focused perspectives.
All workshops currently are offered via Zoom.
In person groups will be considered starting Fall 2021. Complete the contact page to request a free 15-minute consultation learn more details.
Specialized Groups
Interested in creating a specialized group training for your team? Complete the contact page and I will set up a meeting to discuss details.
Current Workshops
Revelations of the Heart: A Seven-Week Creative Writing Journey
Surrender to your muse, let go of perfectionism, and write without censoring yourself.
Transformation of the Storyteller through Storytelling
Public declaration is the highest form of visioning. Give yourself and the world the gift of your story.
Empathy in Action: Nonviolent Communication for Leaders
Listening and speaking with more compassion to ourselves flows into offering others the same gift of nonviolent communication.
Revelations of the Heart: A Seven-Week Creative Writing Journey
What old stories, beliefs, or habits can you change over seven weeks?
Take a journey of self-reflection and self-expression through creative writing. Based on an ancient Hebrew custom called “Counting the Omer,” for 49 days this creative spring cleanse immerses you in seven Kabbalistic qualities from the Tree of Life. The 50th day is known as the time of Revelation.
We’ll meet once per week as part of your journey. Write anything, just everyday, for seven weeks – a few sentences, a memory, a wish, a dream, a poem, or a short story. Come be a witness to your life and hear the revelations of your heart through writing!
Revelations of the Heart: A Seven-Week Creative Writing Journey
For 1.5 hours each week over the seven weeks, participants will:
- Deeply engage each of the seven spiritual qualities.
- Free write based on prompts designed for inner reflection.
- Learn the craft of writing and storytelling through a diversity of perspectives.
- Develop a positive relationship with the muse and inner critic.
- Use writing as a therapeutic tool for self-knowing, healing, and problem solving.
Description
What old stories, beliefs, or habits can you change over seven weeks?
Take a journey of self-reflection and self-expression through creative writing. Based on an ancient Hebrew custom called “Counting the Omer,” intentionally immerse in the seven qualities of lovingkindness, strength, harmony, endurance, awe, foundation, and dignity for 49 days. We apply these Kabbalistic qualities from the Tree of Life as a type of creative spring cleanse.
The 50th day is known as the time of Revelation, called Shavuot in Judaism or the Feast of Weeks in Christianity.
Write anything, just everyday, for seven weeks – a few sentences, a memory, a wish, a dream, a poem, or a short story. Some days you might write for an hour; other days you may only have fifteen minutes.
Our weekly group sessions will help guide you on your journey. If you can change a habit in 21 days, imagine what kind of change you might experience after 49 days!
This is a daily exercise of surrendering to your muse, letting go of perfectionism, writing without censoring yourself, and then walking away without editing your words. There is no right or wrong way “to do” this but practice showing up, each day, with a willingness to let the creative process unfold you, instead of the other way around.
Experience this sacred practice. Go ahead! Shed the shackles of perfectionism and let your creative process unfold. Watch miracles grow during this reflective, mystical, and fun journey.
Writing is most revelatory through the process of witnessing. Witnessing another’s story, and being witnessed in our own stories, changes the teller and the listener in unexpected and profound ways. No writing experience is necessary.
Come be a witness to your life and hear the revelations of your heart through writing! All teen and adult hearts are welcome. This is a non-religious workshop based on spiritual and practical themes.
The workshop uses my book as a guide: Revelations of the Heart: A 49-Day Journey of Poems and Prompts to Write Your Way to Revelation.
Want to turn your Revelations of the Heart into a book? Visit the Writing & Book Consultation page for more information!
Transformation of the Storyteller through Storytelling
Come hear stories, come tell stories, in a dynamic workshop that weaves the magic and art of storytelling in a fun, interactive format. Discover the hidden layers of meaning in the stories you tell and hear. Learn how to engage and transform an audience. Share your stories with us!
Transformation of the Storyteller through Storytelling
In this 3-hour workshop, participants will:
- Learn the Four Pillars of Storytelling
- Understand the power of storytelling from a variety of perspectives
- Engage others in storytelling at least three times, serving both as listener and witness
- Have the opportunity to tell a story to the group and receive supportive feedback
Description
Public declaration is the highest form of visioning. Give yourself and the world the gift of your story.
Language directs the meaning of our lives through story, and each story has the power to heal and transform us. Healing comes from the writing and telling of our stories. Transformation comes after our stories are witnessed, so we feel seen, heard, and understood, perhaps in ways never before. It takes courage and trust to tell our stories. It requires faith of the highest degree, in yourself and others. Communities are healed when we recognize ourselves in each other’s stories, finding connection that trumps our differences.
Because of this, story transforms the world, and the storyteller wields incredible power. When we bring attention and intention to our storytelling, we can choose to influence the listener in any direction. This includes the stories we tell ourselves. We are born into familial and cultural stories that we assume are fixed as identities. However, if we hold the magic wand to define the meaning of our lives, then why not write and re-write a story that has the power to transform your world?
Empathy in Action:
Nonviolent Communication for Leaders
Violence in communication almost always begins with how we talk to ourselves. Learning and applying the fundamentals of empathy is key to communicating with empathy, clarity, and kindness to others. When we understand how to listen and speak with more compassion to ourselves, inevitably this flows into offering others the same gift of nonviolent communication.
Empathy in Action:
Nonviolent Communication
for Leaders
In this three-hour workshop, participants will:
- Identify and practice the four steps of nonviolent communication
- Recognize their top three needs and associated feelings when needs are met/unmet
- Understand and practice self-empathy and empathy (for others)
- Appreciate how nonviolent communication skills can increase emotional intelligence and leadership competencies as well as improve relationships with self and others
Description
Every opportunity to communicate is an opportunity to tell a story. When we bring attention and intention to our storytelling, we can choose to influence the listener in any direction. This includes the stories we tell ourselves. Because of this, the storyteller wields incredible power.
Nonviolent communication increases awareness of the stories that no longer serve, both on a personal and collective level. How? By learning the unique language of our own needs, and how we meet them in either tragic or life-serving ways. Nonviolent communication helps us understand and express what is alive in us, in each moment.
“Violence” in communication almost always begins with how we talk to ourselves. Learning and applying the fundamentals of empathy to ourselves first is key to communicating with empathy, clarity, and kindness to others. Nonviolent communication helps us experience what it feels like to be seen, heard, and acknowledged, without the violent stories of shame, doubt, guilt, and criticism running inside our heads.
When we understand how to listen and speak with more compassion to ourselves, inevitably this flows into offering others the same gift of nonviolent communication. As a leader, co-worker, friend, spouse, child, or parent, what stories can you rewrite to enact your call to action, in service to a better world for us all?