What do you think of when you hear the word resilience? Or leadership? Both words can call us to service and self-care, or can sound like reactionary bandwagon words that have lost heart and truth. I’ve been noticing words that begin with the prefix re, which means to “apply strength.” When we reframe resilience and leadership as inner strength, what might we create for ourselves and the people in our lives?

At the end of January I will be celebrating the first birthday of my book, Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being. In concert with that, I am planning an online retreat series with my friend and publisher, Shelly Francis. She is celebrating the third birthday of her book, The Courage Way: Leading and Living with Integrity, which she wrote for the Center for Courage & Renewal when she was on staff there.

We both feel called now to create an interactive experience—a wider and deeper conversation—about ideas and practices that create resilience and courage of all kinds. And that means . . . a retreat which you are invited to!!

The retreat is called Reframing Resilience, Renewing Leadership. There is a weekend option for March 5-6 or a four-week series held on Thursday evenings, beginning March 18.

I visualize my life stories as a tapestry woven from their many threads added, cut, joined, entangled, and intersected over the years. These threads are soft, coarse, harsh, silken, fragile, and strong. They all have a place and a purpose. Some of these threads were given to me by my family, friends, my culture, religion, tradition, professions, and society. Many threads I have collected intentionally, many more unconsciously, and some have even been collected unwillingly. The undersurface is uneven, knotted, and ugly in parts. Some parts of life must be dealt with under the surface in order to allow the beautiful picture to rise to the top.

I’ve learned the importance of having a community of kindred spirits to help us see the meaning of our experiences. Sharing our stories with others is a way of reflecting on our lives, building empathy, and trust. We can make sense of our purpose and learnings. And creating community is what happens in a retreat, which is one of the main reasons I choose to become a Courage & Renewal facilitator to lead Circle of Trust® retreats.

Learn more about this upcoming online retreat and if it resonates with you, just click links further to register. Feel free to share this link: http://bit.ly/RrTsMP

Kindly let us know if you have any questions!