The Courage Way: Living and Leading with Integrity
A 6-week online Courage & Renewal® program
Tuesdays, September 14 – October 18, 2021
I’m excited to announce that this fall I’ll be offering a 6-week online program entitled The Courage Way: Living and Leading with Integrity together with my friend and co-facilitator John Watters of Living Leadership.
We invite you on ‘The Courage Way’ – a path to cultivating inner leadership characterized by integrity, courage, trustworthiness in our relationships and a grounding in our deepest self. We’ll seek to strengthen our capacity to live compassionately in the tension that arises in the gap between our deepest aspirations and our day-to-day lived reality. And together we’ll share resources and practices for how we renew our spirits and sustain ourselves in these times of great challenge.
“By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.”
Parker J. Palmer
Integrity is precious. You might say it is foundational to a life well-lived. Integrity speaks of honesty – what you see is what you get — and a person who knows the grain of their own character, their strengths and their weaknesses, someone who is grounded in life-giving values that inform their day-to-day actions. We all know when we are in the presence of people who live and work with integrity. And we also know that it takes courage to live with integrity in a world which often encourages and rewards pretense and half-truths.
In each two-hour session you will be invited to explore that week’s theme through multiple modes of inquiry. We will draw on poetry, prose, images, video, embodied practices and music alongside solo reflection and opportunities to share in small and large groups. Everything is invitational based on the understanding that you know best what you need.
Towards the end of the programme, you will experience a powerful discernment process adapted from the Quaker tradition for Courage & Renewal programs. You will be invited to think more deeply about an issue that matters to you while being supported by a small group of people who listen attentively and ask open, honest questions – self-awakening questions. You will also be invited to do the same for others. Participants have found this unique way of listening and being listened to enables them to both access their inner wisdom and support others.
Courage & Renewal Programs
This six-week online program also provides an experiential introduction to the work of Parker J. Palmer and the Center for Courage & Renewal.
Courage & Renewal programs cultivate the heart and soul of leadership, encouraging people to “lead from within”. Our experience is that when people connect who they are with what they do, the seeds of transformation are planted in their lives and those they touch. When those people join with each other, transformation in the wider world becomes a possibility.
These sessions introduce participants to a distinctive set of principles and practices —the Circle of Trust® approach — that create unique conditions for personal growth and self-insight. The power of these practices is the paradoxical combination of seeming opposites: the particularity and uniqueness of our individual voices and experiences are honoured alongside the shared humanity that arises as stories are shared; the way we pause and allow space as we sense how to address complex issues. You can find more information about the Center and Circle of Trust® approach by clicking here.
Who is the program for?
This session is intended for anyone who wants to live and work more wholeheartedly and enhance their leadership in work, organisational, community and family settings.
As an online program, we expect to draw participants from a wide range of countries and backgrounds. We aim to create an inclusive and welcoming space for everyone and invite you to join us in this shared endeavour.
“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, one cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.”
Maya Angelou
When?
Tuesdays, September 14 – October 18, 2021
London 1800-2000 GMT/Stockholm 1900-2100 CEST
Check your local time zone: https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
Before registering, please check that you are available for all sessions. Sessions build on each other, and you will get the best from the programme if you’re able to participate in all of them.
Where?
Online on Zoom
Facilitators
Cristin is a facilitator and change leader passionate about helping people to collaborate in innovative ways that create value for the greater good.
Her early career in public arts management shifted after the transformational experience of parenting a child with complex needs. For the past 10 years, she has worked to improve healthcare quality and equity both in the US where she is from, and in Sweden where she now lives.
Today she facilitates collaboration in multi-stakeholder communities and events, including researchers, policy makers, industry, civil society, clinicians and the public. Collaborative partners include Harvard Medical School, Dartmouth College, Karolinska Institutet, the National Institute for Children’s Healthcare Quality and The BMJ.
Cristin is also passionate about helping other change agents grow their courage and impact while sustaining their vocation. In her work, she draws on her training in community organizing and systems transformation with Harvard Kennedy School of Government, in quality improvement with organizations such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, in mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques through the Center for Mindfulness at the UMass Memorial Medical Center, and in reflective group programmes such as this one as a facilitator-in-preparation through the Center for Courage & Renewal.
John is the Founding Director of Living Leadership, a Co-Owner of Future Considerations and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of the Study of Spirituality. John’s leadership and organisational consultancy spans mutiple sectors, working with organisations as diverse as NATO, UNESCO, Shell, F. Hoffman La Roche, public sector bodies (health, education, criminal justice, central and local government), global and local charities.
John specialises in facilitating breakthrough on complex issues and finding common ground in stuck and conflicted situations. In doing this work he pays special attention to holding space for our full humanity to be present, creating conditions to sense the heart of the issue and strengthening our capacity to listen deeply to ourselves, others and the whole system.
John explores the interplay between the self, the group and the many systems – organisations, community, family – of which we are part. He pioneered the introduction into Europe of Barry Oshry’s systems thinking and is one of the world’s leading practitioners in this approach. He is passionate about creating safe, hospitable, fertile space, online and in-person, where we can pause and connect to our inner wisdom. He is currently a facilitator-in-preparation at the Center for Courage & Renewal. Clients describe John’s way of working as courageous, rigorous, inspiring and warm-hearted.
Technical and logistical requirements
To participate you will need a computer or laptop and a good broadband connection, a pen and some paper and a place that will allow you to be present and undisturbed. To create a space safe for everyone, we ask that you be prepared to turn your camera on and to wear headphones to protect the privacy of others if you are in a shared space.
Additional resources
No prior preparation for the programme is required. We highlight the following resources for your interest and curiosity: Parker Palmer’s books especially “Hidden Wholeness” or “Let Your Life Speak”; The Center for Courage & Renewal’s YouTube channel and website; and ‘The Courage Way’, authored by the Center for Courage & Renewal and Shelly Francis offers perspective that complement the themes of the online programme that we will explore together.
“Courage is not only in you — it is you. In your moments of courage, that’s when you meet your true self.”
Shelly Francis
Event images by Tim Foster, Compare Fibre, Ben White, Prophsee Journal and Sacre Bleu.
Always great to hear from you. Looking forward to listening to the podcast.
Thanks!