It's the eve of the start of the New School/Work Fiscal Year and I find myself excited and hopeful for this next season. It's been a fun and hot summer, full of day trips and swimming, but I'm ready to dive in to the fall.
My goal was to use the week to work on my Rising Strong workbook for my new group starting on Sunday, September 11th. However, I'm too excited to wait. I wanted to dig in and start getting things together tonight. It's like packing my book bag and getting my first-day-of-school outfit ready but for work. Some people do dread this night, but I love the anticipation and excitement of what the new year will bring. There's something fresh and new about "fall," even though we're still experiencing summer temps.
New groups are so exciting-- it's a new group of people-- women in this case, coming together to talk about brave things. People usually approach group with some apprehension mixed with willingness and hope. After going through the initial getting-to-know-you exercises, there is a bit of an exhale and settling in. There is no greater feeling than seeing people validated by one another, finding commonalities in experiences, and easing into empathy and compassion with one another. By the end of this first session, there is eagerness to continue the conversations, to build on the initial bridges between people who are no longer strangers.
In Rising Strong, the focus is on examining the "stories we tell ourselves." As Pema Chodron says, "It isn't what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it's what we say to ourselves about what happens." This is what we dig into during this group through video, individual exercises, group exercises and discussion in order to figure out how to own our stories and create a different ending. This is where we are able to grab onto and claim our worthiness. It's powerful material.
The beauty of this experiences awaits, and I just cannot–thus why I'm busy preparing workbooks, as well as fun tokens and artifacts related to the material.
Wherever you're off to tomorrow, have a great day!