Hi, dear readers! I am back with almost the same blog/page on my website and on the Transformation Collective Space newsletter (on Substack).
I love to offer links. This email/blog post has six links, which I am updating today. It's MLK Day, which is the only part of the day I am here to celebrate.
"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
—A Time to Break the Silence: April 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King
1) This document is a co-creation, and I would love to collaborate with you all on this collective list of fabulous teachers, healers, and helpers. Sign up to be with me on Sunday today to learn more about this list.
Google doc - "extra support" - list of helpers, healers, etc.
2) Link two is a meeting for potential clients, BUT I am expanding this to other healers and helpers, even if you know you never want to pay me for work. It is a free session, so please come through my Zoom room on Sunday. I am SO excited about what happened last Sunday. Four of us showed up and supported one another, and I know this Sunday will have a similar vibe.
When: Sunday, the 26th, 10 am-11:30
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/XXR3qdgSSl-OzL2PXqO71Q
I will discuss my coaching offering for some time: profound steps through BIG transitions. You will be invited to meditate, cultivate practices, and plan for your future. You are invited to come as you are and leave as you must (a phrase the meditation teacher, Rev. Angel, often shares). Please gather your paper, pens, and marketers, bring your favorite playlist list to share. Invite your roommates: your partner and college-age kids.
3) This is a link to a phenomenal human with many offerings around mutual aid.
4) This link to a list put together where you can direct funds to people who have lost everything in the Los Angeles County fires: https://substack.com/home/post/p-154481293
On to the blog (which you may have read last week):
I have been envisioning these gatherings for a while. I first thought about Zoom meetings of intersecting collectives of people when I launched my expressive arts work coaching offering in the fall of 2020; it was a big reach then for many reasons. I had to figure out how to explain what I hoped for. Now, as I transition to calling my coaching offering "transformation collective space," thanks to my beautiful partner's brain and understanding of me, I am ready. There will be more of these types of gatherings.
I am excited to share a tiny sliver of this collective's "why" in a more transparent and personal way.
I have long discussed and dreamed of working in "the collective" for at least four years. As I started writing this invite, I recounted again the many groups where I have healed. My first healing experience as an adult in a group setting was through my theatre connections.
In college, I met some of my most profoundly nourishing, trusted friends, including a fantastic teacher, Fay Simpson, who also became a lifelong friend. Fay helped us create one-person monologues for a collective theatre piece called Unmasked. She introduced us to energy work, meditation, and a new form of movement that informs my work today. Somewhere, I have a photo of myself as a fortune teller for one of my classmate's monologues. The impact of the theatre and theatre training on my life is rich. You will feel that when you work with me.
The healing of being with my theatre friends was profound. Although we had similar views on life, we passionately discussed the places where our viewpoints diverged. We partied, laughed, and cried together. We processed a lot of emotions in our acting classes, which became the beginning of my healing journey. I began questioning the ingrained systems that kept me from who I was during this time. A memoir in the works could delve into this deeply, but let's commit together for now. Let us start healing a little more each day, not in a supremacist way, but in a moment-by-moment way.
I invite you into this new group. We may write our own monologues. I hope there will be laughter and fun. Let's make it happen!
Who are your people? Get them and bring them along.
Questions to ponder:
Where is your collective?
Do you differentiate between collective and community?
What do you need to grow right now?
I want to know what excites you about beginning this time of change now.
Also, I want to know what you dislike about this time.
How are you showing up for yourself?
If you are brand new here, or if you have never seen this commitment, I would like to share my anti-racist pledge, which is also a seed for this collective journey:
https://www.transformationcollective.space/blog/anti-racism-commitment-live-and-updated-link
"It feels like every person is using their whole brain and heart to figure out these nearly impossible dilemmas about how we do our work, with our principles, in the current conditions. And it feels ike the thing we know to be true about working collectively - that we have better ideas together than we do individually."
With much love from Bridget
https://www.transformationcollective.space/
…and …
you are already here in the transformation collective space because you are reading these words!
bridget@bridgetbertrand.com