This self-paced course explores presence, purpose, solitude, transformation, rites of passage, earth-connection, creativity and self-honoring as strategies for not just surviving but thriving during the challenges of the pandemic. This course is comprised of three modules, accessed through this website. (Upon purchase, you will be sent the link to access the course.) Content includes 20 audio files of brief teachings with a sequence of writing prompts to guide you into reflection and a deeper engagement with the topics. Total course time: estimated at 6 hours.

 MODULE ONE: PRESENCE, PURPOSE, and SOLITUDE

Writing Prompt for Reflection

 “Possibly, what I’m discovering about this situation is….” 

Writing Prompts for Reflection 

·      What challenging feelings are you experiencing right now? 

·      What specifically are you feeling grief over? 

·      What specifically are you feeling anxiety over? 

·      What specifically are you feeling anger about? 

·      How can you offer yourself more patience and compassion while holding these difficult emotions? 

·      What is something you noticed within yourself today that surprised you? A feeling in your body? A sensory awareness? An emotion you didn’t realize you’d been carrying? 

·      What can you learn from these new things you’ve noticed? 

Writing Prompts for Reflection

·      Make a list of daily practices that bring you joy. 

·      Make a list of what you’re grateful for every day. 

·      Identify your inner circle: Who is supporting you right now. 

·      What do you need to admit? 

·      What do you want to call forth from yourself? 

·      What do you want to invite into this experience?

·      What do you want to welcome into your routine, for yourself, for your family? 

Writing Prompts for Reflection

·      What emotions arise in me around the word solitude? 

·      How can I make solitude feel less threatening? 

·      How can I intentionally savor my own company? 

Optional ways to go deeper on your own:  

·      Try a body-centered mindfulness practice, like walking meditation, yoga, or Qi Gong. 

·      Make prayer flags—by yourself or with your family—that each identify a prayer thought, a wish, an expression of gratitude, people to remember in prayer, or an intention. 

·      Write a personal manifesto. 

Module TWO: Liminal Space, Rites of Passage, Transformation, and Nature’s Cycles

Writing Prompts for Reflection

·      “Possibly what I want to say is…..”

·      “Possibly what I want to do is…..”

Writing Prompts for Reflection

·      How can I release resistance?

·      How can I bring in more patience? 

·      How can I hold the tension and embrace the discomfort more? 

Writing Prompts for Reflection

·      What am I discovering in this pandemic experience? 

·      What am I inviting in? 

·      What have I left behind? 

Writing Prompts for Reflection

·      Think of something in nature that feels like a metaphor for how you’re feeling right now. 

·      Think of something in nature that reveals the life-death-life cycle for you. Describe it. 

·      Next, think of something in your life that is revealing that cycle to you. Describe it. 

Next, reflect on these questions: 

• What season am I in right now? 

• What is shape-shifting in me? 

• What new roots am I setting down? 

• What is dying in me?

• What is rising to life in me?

Optional activities to go deeper on your own between sessions: 

Spend time outside, as much as is safely possible. If you can’t safely be outside, look at pictures of favorite landscapes online, or look at images of spring flowers, etc. 

Create a personal ritual. You can focus your ritual on: 

• presence 

• feeling gratitude

• feeling grounded 

• connecting to nature 

• embracing anxiety, ambiguity, or discomfort 

• acknowledging the life-death-life cycle 

• Look back and identify other moments in your life that were liminal space. When did they occur? What fruits did they yield? 

MODULE THREE: CREATIVITY AND SELF-HOLDING

Writing Prompts for Reflection: 

·      “Possibly what I want to say is…..”

·      “Possibly what I want to allow is…..”

·      “Possibly what I’m discovering about this pause is….” 

Writing Prompts for Reflection: 

·      What is it you want to make beautiful during this time? 

·      What are you feeling called to create? 

·      How can you bring creativity to your way of thinking about this time in your life?

·      How can creative thinking allow transformation in you?

Writing Prompts for Reflection: 

·      What can be born in you in this womb of solitude and spaciousness? 

·      What new life or new creation is wanting to grow within you, grow from you, grow with you? 

Exercise: Hi, My Love 

Step #1: Take a few deep breaths. Feel your breath, and feel your presence in your body. 

Step #2 Write, in your journal, the following greeting to yourself: 

“Hi, my love.” Greeting ourselves warmly and compassionately is a powerful practice. (If “my love” doesn’t feel right, try something else: “sweetheart,” “dearest,” “beloved,” even the jauntier “baby cakes.”) 

Step #3: Write, below your greeting, the following questions to yourself: 

“How’s your heart? How are you feeling?” 

Step #4: Respond, on paper, to those questions. Be honest. Allow yourself as much time as you need. (But save a few minutes for the final two steps, which are the key to this whole exercise.) 

Step #5: Respond to whatever you’ve written about (in Step #4) with some expressions of compassion to yourself. Here are some examples: 

“I’m proud of you for….” 

“You’re doing a great job with….” 

“You’re so strong about….” 

“It’s understandable that you….” 

Step #6: Finish up with writing these two powerful sentences of self-compassion and affirmation: 

“You are worthy of love just as you are. You are enough.” 

Writing Prompts for Reflection: 

·      How can your self-care be more than skin-deep? 

·      How can you care more intentionally for the deepest parts of yourself? 

·      Sharon Salzberg talks about “enfolding ourselves in our own field of care” and “wishing ourselves well.” How can you do that? 

·      How can you hold yourself more dearly? 

·      Can you create a ritual for this new intention to honor and trust yourself, to hold yourself dear?  

Writing Prompts for Reflection: 

• What are you carrying with you as you leave? 

• What are you leaving behind (or what are you letting go of)? 

• “Possibly what I’m feeling called to do is….” 

Optional activities for going deeper: 

• Keep finding rituals to keep you present 

• Keep finding ways to feel purposeful 

• Keep finding ways to honor the pause, to hold the tension between opposing realities, to be willing to sit in the discomfort of the transition 

• Keep writing—for yourself, as a process, a practice of pause, a practice of creating liminal space, and practice for self-revelation and discovery 

• Keep holding yourself dear!