September 13th, 2025
As we move toward a vision for the future. It’s important that we practice the beloved community along the way. This week, we’ll dive deep into our heart work, building on a week of developing strategic visions and plans. As those plans become clearer, the community becomes more important. In the liminal space between where we are and where we want to be, building and maintaining the beloved community is a critical part of the process. The community is the glue that holds any effort together. Without it, our movements weaken and become brittle shells that are easily broken. That said, this week we’ll focus on community and how we build it, as well as how we do the work of healing ourselves so as not to bring toxicity into our movements. Thinking back to one of our first sessions, holding contradictions, a world where the leaders would integrate their own fears and desires, and the deep-rooted spaces those came from. It’s in that vein that we have to do the work on ourselves so we can effectively engage in the communities we seek to build.
Facilitator Bio(s)
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A contemplative scholar, Dr. Stacey K. Guenther’s research is centered on groups and how they can enter a state of group magic called coherence.
She is passionate about helping groups to cultivate their beingness and to open to another way of relating to each other. Stacey is a certified leadership coach (PCC), an organization development consultant, an educator, and a facilitator. Stacey is a member of the faculty for George Mason University’s Organization Development and Knowledge Management program. She is a dynamic speaker, an author, and the principal of a small consultancy, Awakened Impact. Stacey recently earned her doctoral degree in leadership and change from Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio. A committed seeker, a large part of Stacey’s past 25 years has been devoted to personal and spiritual development. She is a long-time, devoted meditator and meditation teacher, for which she trained with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. Stacey was born and raised in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC. She now lives in Asheville, NC, with her spouse and two rescue dog.
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The quality of our community is the foundation of our ability to sustain ourselves and succeed in our movement work. This session is all about building stronger, more supportive, and more effective groups from the inside out. The workshop is based on Dr. Guenther's research into how groups develop a powerful sense of connection, a state she calls group coherence. It's that feeling when a group just "clicks"—the atmosphere becomes calm and focused, and people feel a strong sense of connection and trust, allowing them to truly hear each other and be themselves. We'll learn how to create this state by tapping into our awareness on different levels—bodily, emotional, and spiritual.
"From Me to We" is a hands-on workshop where we'll focus more on practice than talk. We'll start with a brief intro, then dive into a series of exercises before wrapping up with a group discussion.
Participants will be able to independently apply sensing and co-sensing practices to foster deep connection, enhance group coherence, and co-create inclusive spaces for shared visioning and collective action within their movements.