Parenting can be a lot. A lot of chores, a lot of decisions, a lot of emotions — both our kids’ and our own. Underneath everything we need to do and be on the surface, we may catch inklings of the ways that we are different people than we were when we became parents. Perhaps we haven’t had the space to explore and name what has happened as a parent and how that experience has formed us.

The demands of parenting ask us to focus so much of our attention outside of ourselves. This is a space to focus, to breathe, to notice your experience, and to hold the questions of who we are and who we are becoming. Whether you are a stay at home parent locating yourself as you’re immersed in sustaining life for another or a full time working parent locating yourself in the tension of two worlds — or anywhere in between — this group seeks to anchor our experiences as parents in the reality that we are beloved children of God.

In this time, we will do breath work, explore and discuss questions of the heart, and explore the underlying movements that emerge. We will listen prayerfully and attentively to one another while also noticing the experiences we carry within our bodies, using a few tools that teach us how to recognize, hear, and bear witness.

Led alongside, Gabrielle Smith, this will be offered through Nuos Formation. Click here to register.

The movements of the soul, like the seasons in a year, are continually changing. From the blooming flowers of emergence in spring to the falling of leaves making way for floral buds and an incubating life we don’t yet see in fall, growth and life look different in every season. We can get immersed in the day-to-day and lose sight of the bigger changes and movements of the soul as they are happening and can be left only noticing them after they have already changed.

This is one part of a quarterly retreat series that looks at the changes of seasons as we reflect on the movements of the soul. What if we lived our relationships with God not looking at the benchmarks of what we believe growth and maturation should be but what if we instead set aside time to notice and honor the movements happening within us in the midst of our lives? How would our relationship to God, ourselves, and the circumstances of our lives change?

These retreats are designed for rest and reflection in regular intervals throughout the year and to attend to what is being cultiated within us as we notice the cues we see from nature that growth may often look cyclical and circuitous and where growth and life are constantly happening even when it is below the surface of our consciousness.

This half-day retreat will consist of three components. The first will be a time of self-reflection to notice and pay attention to what is significant in life in the last quarter of the year. The second portion is group spiritual direction attending to the soul’s movement. The third portion will be orientation where anchor points for the path forward are cultivated in response to what emerges in the first two portions.

The retreat is $60, is four hours in length and has a capacity of 6 people.

If you have any questions, you can email me here. Looking forward to talking to you!