Be Empowered – A Personal, Professional & Leadership Purpose Retreat

Diving deep for ourselves, our clients and the world.

Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.

— David Wagoner, Lost

As leaders, coaches and simply as humans, our capacities for sustained deep attention, awareness and listening to self, other and the world are major factors in our ability to create deep lasting change. The apparent ‘outer’ work in reality begins with our inner processes — with the felt level of our experience. Our ability to engage meaningfully with this material profoundly shapes how we then show up in and impact the wider world. There is much we can gain from developing practices that cultivate deep awareness, self-knowledge and connection to the typically sub-conscious source of our most creative intelligence.

Equally, while the gains are self-evident, much has also been lost in our relentless human evolutionary trajectory, particularly in the recent era of astonishing technological advance. Beyond connection to ourselves, perhaps the next greatest loss is our embodied connection to the natural world.

Be Empowered is a 3.5-day immersive and experiential retreat program designed to reconnect us with these and many other essential capacities and offer tools to bring them forth in ourselves, our coaching and into the wider social sphere. The retreat will be held at Elohee, a dedicated nature retreat center set in 220 acres of undeveloped land and nestled deep in the foothills of the stunning Blue Ridge mountains in North Georgia. Elohee ( EL-oh-HEE ) is a Cherokee word meaning “earth place.”

During the retreat, there will be a number of opportunities to be facilitated into and show up with radical, embodied presence and encounter the wild world in a way that can be deeply powerful, surprising and transformative. The experiential group and individual activities will include deep listening practices, conversations with the wild, somatic work, dreamwork, powerful language through myth and story, mindfulness practices and nature-based artistic practices interspersed with competencies-based coaching skills sessions. This retreat, while offering coaching specific skills and units, is a powerful and accessible learning experience for both coaches and non-coaches as a way of discovering what really matters most to you in this moment and, more importantly, offers ways to crystallize this into action in your life.

There will also be personal reflective time to embody and embed the deep nature of this learning.

 Activities/Outcomes:

• Cultivate deep listening through interactive self and group work and by direct engagement with the natural environment.
• Learn how to uncover in your deepest narrative through encounters with deep nature, dreams and your essential self in service of creating the best version of you.
• Explore powerful language though myth, metaphor, story and fable and how to creatively engage these for personal and professional transformation. Coaches, this is a must-have skill!
• practices of embodiment and how to most effectively weave these into your life and professional work.
• Deepen your capacity for embodied presence and presencing.
• Connect with your true purpose, create aligned projects and build supportive community and routes to enacting that in the world.
• your capacity for self-listening, interoceptive awareness and ability to engage with your deepest wisdom and voice of intuitive awareness and to use these ‘superpowers’ in service of yourself, your clients and the world.
• Engage with your radical truth through your deepest wisdom and intuition to serve others and your coaching.
• Unleash your truest, wildest, most creative nature in the company of other like-minded mission-driven life artists. Learn how to bring your truest self and birth your core mission with the greatest impact in the wider world.
• Be supported in consolidating this powerful learning experience into your life, coaching and professional role throughout the retreat and beyond.
• 3 and 6 month accountability calls with your facilitators to maintain momentum and impact with your growth, coaching, work and project.
• Earn 25.5 ICF Continuing Coach Education Units (19 Core, 6.5 RD).

What’s Included:

1. 3.5 days of deeply transformative teachings and experiential learning activities throughout the weekend retreat
2. Two post-retreat support calls with your leaders
3. Lodging of your choice: shared, private or even tent camping.
4. Meals for the entirety of your stay: Healthy, organic, fresh, cooked as-Bulletproof-as-we-can-make-them meals, plus snacks throughout the day and Bulletproof Coffee of course!
5. 220 acres of stunning natural wilderness and scenery to immerse yourself in.

This 3.5-day program runs over the Labor Day long weekend 2019 and will commence on Saturday, August 31^st at 4pm and complete at 12 noon on Tuesday, September 3^rd. Elohee is approximately a 2-hour drive from the major international hub airport of Atlanta. Participants will be invited to self-organize their own transport and we will offer shuttle companies with whom you will be able to arrange low cost group travel between Atlanta airport and Elohee. Stated costs are inclusive of lodging, all meals and taxes. Participant numbers will be limited, so book early to ensure a place.

If you’d like to reserve a double occupancy room and don’t have someone to share with, please select the “Double Occupancy/2 Twin Beds” option, leave the “Requested Roommate” field blank, and we’ll assign a roommate of your gender.  If there are no roommates available, we will reassign you to a single room with a shared bath for an additional cost of $35.50 and notify you of the change.

You have the option to arrive a day early and stay Friday night at Elohee prior to the start of the retreat, spending your time as you choose.  If you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity, please call 770-316-9195 with any questions or to register.

If you have any questions or would like additional information, please contact Rod at rod@rodfranciscoaching.com, 423 713 3576, www.rodfranciscoaching.com or Ronit at ronitlemondrobey@gmail.com, 415 425 8862, www.ronitlemondrobey.com.

(1) Research References:

Intelligence in the Flesh    Guy Claxton
Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche    Bill Plotkin
Soulcraft       Bill Plotkin
Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning    Eugene Gendlin
Theory U     Otto Scharmer
Buddha’s Brain    Rick Hanson