Living Courageously Together
We are the stories we tell ourselves.
- Shekhar Kapur
So, what is your story? What is the story you want? And what is the story you want others to tell of you?
In this concise and profound video essay, Alain de Botton reminds us that to understand the story we are living, we need to study the stories of our past. We may want to believe the past is the past. We may tell ourselves that everything from back then has nothing to do with right now. And yet, as Botton wrote in a New York Times 2016 op-ed, the most read article in that election year, those stories direct one of the most significant decisions we will make in our lives - and I’m not talking about who we will elect!
This fall, I am taking a certificate course in Leadership Coaching through the Georgetown Institute of Transformational Leadership. Honestly it wasn’t coaching that drew me to the program it was the opportunity to study at an institute devoted to transformation. Transformation is at the heart of any good story. Brené Brown, Jesus of Nazareth, Alain de Bottom and everyone else I consider a wisdom teacher speaks to transformation of the whole person when it comes to leading courageous lives. That is what leadership is. It is a capacity within us, regardless of our jobs or titles.
It is that internal capacity which makes us the author, not a character, in the story of who we are, and who we are becoming.
How, in this more isolated time, can we create communities of support for those of us who care deeply about becoming the authors of our story? For those of us who care about living with integrity, living into our values, and living with boundaries and generosity where can we connect with others who want to practice and strengthen their abilities to do the same? How do we wrestle with the stories of pandemic; along with a national past we are seeing as if for the first time?
In what way does the work of personal integration give positively and creatively towards the integration so needed to repair the divides in our society?
In the end, we’ll all become stories.
- Margaret Atwood
This is the work I want to do in community - as a facilitator, preacher, pastor and coach! And I know many who long for communities of connection like that too. People who want and know the value of digging deep in solidarity with others to create a brave, compassionate and supportive space so that we can be courageous authors of our story.
Living Courageously - Together! is a series I am offering this fall, a cohort of people committed to self-reflection and personal growth. We will examine the stories we are telling ourselves right now. We will wrestle with perspectives as we seek to shift how we see the world so that we more intentionally respond to the people and circumstances in our lives that sometimes move us forward, and sometimes hold us back.
If you are curious, then join me online Monday, 9/21 at 7pm for a one-hour intro and overview to Living Courageously - Together! This 4-session series is intended for people who have already participated in a Daring Way™ workshop, class or intensive and is offered through Well for the Journey, online.
And if you know this is a community you need to create in your life right now, then just sign-up! We will meet Monday evenings, 6:30pm - 8:30pm; 10/5; 10/19; 11/2; 11/9 and are limited to twelve partipants.
We are more resilient and resourceful then we imagine and all of us, myself included, need communities where we can strengthen that awareness. And as we grow and try-on new behaviors we need places to reflect on the insights we uncover through new ways of being in the world. In truth I believe that the only way to live courageously, is to do so, together.
