I am thrilled to invite you to our first hybrid class being offered in my new office space in Hyde Park Square in Cincinnati, Ohio and online.
We will be gathering at 9:45-12:15 ET on 7 Friday mornings with Sarah Pritts, MD and me. The class will be available for 2 weeks as a video and audio recording in case you have to miss.
(If your time is limited, scroll down for dates, times, location and cost details).
Why “The Second Half of Life?”
I shared with someone that I am doing a class on the “second half of life.” She said, “Just don’t call it that. No one will come.” Such is the fear of inhabiting our age in a youth obsessed culture.
While the second half of life can be marked by age related events, it has less to do with age and more to do with life experiences. This new stage is usually precipitated by a failure or loss that radically challenges our ego identity.
If we simply protest the experience, disempower ourselves or flee from the experience, we remain stuck at the first half of life…some die never having moved into the wisdom of second half of life.
If we stand on the crucial threshold and face it…
…in all 3 centers,
we open ourselves to embodied transformation.
.
While second half of life is a solitary journey home to ourselves,
an intentional group strengthens aliveness,
connectedness and meaning
in the midst of loss and change.
.
Join us.
Books to accompany us:
A book for Reflection:
Living An Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half Journey by James Hollis
A book for Practice
Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World by Pema Chodron
We created this class to:
- Learn: 3 Centered Embodiment is a very different orientation: it’s individual, relational and accesses subtle energies in your body and the relational field. We’ll teach you what this means. You’ll also learn from each other.
- Pause. Reflect. Take stock. Ask, where am I now? What conditioning is undermining my ability to face this threshold?
- Practice: Choose practice daily embodied connection to yourself, others and that which is greater than yourself.
Leslie’s meditations will be recorded for you to listen at home.
This class was created to accompany you on the second half of life threshold in which you find yourself.
When: 7 Fridays
November 3, November 17,
December 1, December 15, 2023
January 5, January 19,
February 2, 2024
Time: 9:45 AM -12:15 PM ET
Cost: $209 No one is turned away due to financial constraints.
Contact Sue Jones if you need an adjustment in the fee: [email protected]
Do you need to know your Enneagram type? No, but it sure does help. Energy follows attention! Your Enneagram type identifies your core attentional style which means it really helps with self observation and how you manage your energy.
If you need help determining your type, Niki Pappas can help you!
Facilitator: Leslie Hershberger, LLC
Yesterday, I gave an Enneagram workshop and asked one of the group leaders what he likes about the second half of life. An Enneagram 3, he responded: Humility
I nodded. Wisdom is knowing how little we know in this vast, complex universe of outer events and relationships that press in on our deepest identifications.
I have worked with hundreds of people around the world for 20+ years using the Enneagram, Integral, embodiment practice, grief work and 3 Centered Wisdom.
I’ve come to know:
- Cognitive knowledge is not enough.
- Image is fleeting.
- Notions of control are an illusion.
Embodied, digested knowing in all 3 centers is born in radical acceptance of the lived experience of loss and often unbidden suffering in the present moment with an open heart to myself, others and the expansive Mystery.
I serve to guide you through these two exquisite books, but even more, to support you in opening to the the unique singularity of your own embodiment at this unique threshold of your life. The world needs your true Self energy, unencumbered by the bondage of first half of life chains.
Support Facilitator: Sarah Pritts, MD
My teacher, Dr. David Daniels once called me a “mentor.” I thought he was being kind…he was over 20 years older than me and one of the wisest men I knew.
Now I understand. Younger people are often mentors to me. Every time I have a conversation with Sarah, she says something that wakes me to a generational perspective I hadn’t considered.
She brings a variety of diverse experiences and perspectives to the table. Professionally, she is a board-certified Family Physician, with 15 years of clinical experience.
She has also been active in medical education for twenty years, having taught clinical skills to all levels of medical students at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
In addition, Sarah has been a yoga practitioner and teacher for nearly two decades.
More recently, Sarah has just completed a master’s degree in theology at Xavier University focusing on yoga, embodiment practice and community.
If you haven’t met her already, she’s a gem and will be holding a generous, warm hearted container for you.
Location: This is a hybrid class. Sessions will be recorded on Zoom and available 2 weeks after the session.
In person:
2712 Erie Ave. #303
Cincinnati, Ohio 45208
OR
Zoom
Space is limited.
Format:
- 3 Centered Meditation
- Teaching on themes (through the lens of Embodiment. Embodiment is simply an integrated approach to learning which includes the awareness that our habits and patterns are embedded into our body’s survival response. So we shift to a wholehearted yes as we move towards what we long to bring into the world instead of running from what we don’t want).
- Poetry and Music
- Large and Small group sharing
- At home practice for 3 centered living
(please be sure you have a minimum of 3 days a week to do 20 minute 3 centered inner practices).
You will have access to Leslie’s recorded meditations. - Optional journaling prompts
More about the books that will accompany you:
A BOOK FOR REFLECTION:
Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of Life Journey by James Hollis
In this short, but powerful book, Hollis, a Jungian psychotherapist, offers 21 powerful chapters that serve as a roadmap for our exploration of the things we have avoided examining or hidden from ourselves.
The Jungian perspective is particularly helpful in that it offers concrete tools to explore our shadow side. Our shadow is full of life force energy and when we can turn towards it and metabolize it, we free ourselves to create a life of inner authority, integrity and fulfillment…in service of the whole.
Chapter titles include:
- Recover Personal Authority
- Choose the Path of Enlargement
- Vow to Get Unstuck
- Step Out from Under the Parental Shade
- What Gift Have You Been Withholding from the World?
- Choose Meaning over Happiness
- Bestow Love on the Unlovable Parts of You
- Free Your Children from You
- Exorcise the Ghosts of the Past that Bind You
- Honor, Finally, What You Left Behind and Seize Permission to Be Who You Are
Of this book, Hollis writes, “These ideas are calling us to accountability, to enlarged consciousness, when so much of daily life plows onward the same, driven by external pressures and the internalized scripts we all have.
The challenges are pragmatic and demanding and are shared in good faith, with a warm heart, and with sincere good wishes for the different stages of your life.
Over time they may transform from ideas into changed internal structures that help you make different choices in the thousand forking paths you traverse each day.” In the course, we will read a few chapters every two weeks, so that we can digest and apply the concepts to our own lives.
A BOOK FOR PRACTICE: 
Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World by Pema Chodron
Self reflection and insight is only part…Pema helps us with practice…not perfect.
Her book will help structure our practices as we work through Hollis’ concepts. We will work with all three of our centers in this course.
While Hollis will help us with the ideas (Head center), Chodron will help us with practices that will engage our Heart and Body centers. At the very beginning of her book, Chodron states the intention of the practices she teaches:
“We commit to doing all it takes to free ourselves completely from all our varieties of confusion and unconscious habit and suffering, because these prevent us from being fully there for others.”
In addition to engaging Chodron’s practices, we will use heart centered poetry and embodied self-reflection as important tools for the course. Through this course, you will learn 3 centered wisdom practices to support you.
Frequently Asked Questions:
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Do I need to know my Enneagram type? No, but it sure does help as our type carries a lot of the energy of resistance as we move from first to second half of life wisdom. Niki Pappas can help you discover your type
I’m going to be out of town for a couple of the dates. Can I do both in-person and Zoom? No problem! We do encourage you to come at the given time though as your presence matters to the group. We come to deeper understanding of ourselves through the sharing and insights of each other.
Can I come with my partner or a friend? That is up to you! What’s most important is that you feel like you can be open to the voice of your Self energy in the presence of another.
Is there parking? There is plenty of paid on-street parking and also parking in the back of our building on Friday mornings. There are apps which make it easy to pay. We are 3 doors down from Graeter’s ice cream on Hyde Park Square.If you’d rather not pay, you can find parking further up Edwards Rd. or some of the side streets.
Note: We are on the 3rd floor with no elevator. My clients have all said they don’t mind climbing the stairs.