Speak Your Voice
A Writing Your Practice Program
What Do I Want to Create?
How Will I Begin?
How Will I See It Through?
If you have a creative project that you want to begin but need inspiration, support, and structure, Speak Your Voice is designed for you!
SPEAK YOUR VOICE IS A 5-WEEK CREATIVITY INTENSIVE
Please listen here to the Speak Your Voice Introductory Teleclass!
“Taking Action: Yoga and Your Creative Vision”
Speak Your Voice is a 5-Week structured immersion into your creative life, designed to support your vision so that you can bring your dream project into fruition. Each week is inspired and driven by a particular concept and set of myths from yoga philosophy’s Tantric tradition, and supported by associated ritual, such as mantra, meditation, and mudra practices. A different key deity will be the focal point for each week.
Speak Your Voice offers a practical application of yoga philosophy and myth to the creative process. It is an extension of the Writing Your Practice online courses and live workshops, which have guided and inspired hundreds of students from over 15 countries to connect their yoga and their writing.
The myths included in Speak Your Voice will be entirely different from those included in Writing Your Practice, as will several of the key deities.
Each week, Speak Your Voice will lead exercises, assign practices to structure your project, present a guided meditation, and offer a ritual that will support your determination and sustain your creativity.
All Speak Your Voice students will receive a Speak Your Voice Workbook Journal, featuring images of the deities discussed, inspirational quotes from yoga texts, writers, and artists, and creative questions to contemplate.
Whether your project is written, visual or performance-based, live, recorded, or online, Speak Your Voice will help you to:
- articulate your vision
- set your goals
- create a structured plan of action
- stay inspired
- support you in the process so that you follow through.
WHY YOGA PHILOSOPHY AND MYTH?
Yoga means to yoke, to connect. Speak Your Voice offers an opportunity to creatively connect your yoga practice to your creative practice off the mat or on the meditation cushion.
Myth matters. Speak Your Voice offers myth as a way of learning about ourselves. Myths and stories tell us about our common experiences, revealing great truths and insights into who we are as human beings. These insights will cultivate your creativity and inspire you to make your voice heard.
Everything you create reveals something about yourself. Speak Your Voice invites you to connect more deeply within yourself in order to enrich your self-expression, believe in your vision, and manifest your vision in the world.
CREATIVITY NEEDS BOTH VISION AND STRUCTURE
Speak Your Voice presents a structured step-by-step immersion into your creativity, as well as the inspiration and support needed to bring your project to life.
Speak Your Voice focuses on 10 Key Qualities of Successful Creativity
- Vision
- Inspiration
- Focus
- Motivation
- Adaptability
- Commitment
- Support
- Tenacity
- Follow-Through
- Artistry
SPEAK YOUR VOICE IS FOR YOU IF:
- You are interested in exploring your creativity
- You have a creative project that you wish to begin
- You need support developing your ideas
- You are new to a particular creative area and want encouragement
- You are an experienced creative but want structure and a deadline
- You want to be in conversation with other creative people
- You want to learn more about yoga philosophy and myth
- You want yoga philosophy and myth to fuel your teaching or studentship
- You want to connect your yoga and your creativity
- You want to feed your creative process through yogic practices
Speak Your Voice – The Lowdown!
A Writing Your Practice Program
Q: What is the Fall 2015 Schedule?
A: Join us Fall 2015 – Wednesdays, 12-1pm, (EDT/EST)
Speak Your Voice Fall Schedule:
October 21, 28
November 4, 11, 18
Q: How do I know if Speak Your Voice is right for me?
A: LISTEN TO A FREE INTRODUCTORY TELECLASS!
Taking Action: Yoga and Your Creative Vision
The recording is a free 1-hour class featuring myths, creativity exercises, and Q&A. Find out if Speak Your Voice is for you in this free session.
Q: What is the cost for Writing Your Practice?
A: There are two different options:
Option 1 – For Speak Your Voice: $347.
Or be an EARLYBIRD! Sign up by October 14 for only $297.
This includes:
- Daily posts of inspiration and coaching
- Weekly Speak Your Voice downloadable audio meditation practice
- Weekly Speak Your Voice rituals, including mantras and mudras
- Weekly Speak Your Voice downloadable 1 hour audio talk
- Weekly Speak Your Voice key notes from each audio talk
- Speak Your Voice Workbook Journal for writing and planning
- Participation in our private Facebook Group, offering community support and exchange of ideas, as well as links to relevant sites and articles, and supplemental materials
OR
Option 2 – For the complete Speak Your Voice as described above AND a Private Coaching and Planning Session with me: $447 (EARLYBIRD-by October 14 for only $347).
This includes all of Option 1 plus one-on-one work. See below.
Q: If I want more individual attention, so choose Option 2, what does a Speak Your Voice Private Coaching session consist of?
A: A Private Coaching Session consists of my reading your planning materials and notes, discussing and critiquing your project, and then strategizing with you to structure the best plan possible to help you to achieve your goals. We will examine habits that are working and could be developed as well as habits that are holding you back. You will emerge with a plan of action. Personally, I often work with a coach, and have found it enormously clarifying and motivating.
- I will read through your planning notes, sent to me 1 week in advance of our session, so I have time to thoroughly review them.
- We will have a 45-minute phone or Skype Private Coaching Session after I receive your materials. Date and time to be determined by the two of us.
Q: Will the Speak Your Voice weekly classes be downloadable so I can listen to them whenever I want?
A: YES, each weekly class will be recorded and downloadable. They are yours to keep and listen to the next time you are planning a creative endeavor! Additionally, the weekly meditations will also be downloadable and are yours to keep.
QUESTIONS?
RECORDING of the SPEAK YOUR VOICE FREE INTRODUCTORY TELECLASS!
(from Wednesday, October 14) click below!
Taking Action: Yoga and Your Creative Vision
AND Feel free to message me on Facebook with any questions!
Speak Your Voice – Course Detail
Week 1 – Creating Your Intention: October 21
The elephant-headed Ganesha is the Lord of the Thresholds, marking the moment of new beginnings and of transformation. Creating Your Intention will form a foundation for your creative endeavor by helping you to: articulate your project, establish goals, and create a to-do list with immediate and long-term action items. Inspired by Ganesha myth and practices, you will articulate your goals, outline your project’s big picture, and divide it into manageable steps.
Week 2 – Establishing Habits and Rituals: October 28
In order to succeed creatively, you must develop a strong sense of purpose, then construct habits to support your vision. Lord Rama, who powerfully represents Dharma, defined here as your truth, your mission, and your devotion to both, will be our touchstone this week. Establishing Habits and Rituals will introduce productive habits with accountability techniques, as well as introduce meaningful rituals that will inspire and direct you. In this way, your daily habits and rituals create a successful scaffolding for your dharma and for your dreams.
Week 3 – Maintaining Your Focus: November 4
The great Goddess Durga embodies strength, focus, and tenacity, three essential qualities for putting your dreams into action. Once your goals and plans are set, you need to access your inner strength in order to be undaunted in the work you need to do. Like Durga, you need to be resourceful and fearless while always keeping your vision at the forefront of your consciousness. Maintaining Your Focus will provide you with focusing strategies to move through the complications of any creative endeavor, and intensify your sense of purpose.
Week 4 – Expanding and Generating: November 11
Once you are in the flow of any creative project, you are continuously confronted with unexpected challenges. How you adapt to these external energies and influences is key to your creative success. Shakti, the female principle of divine energy, is ever moving and generating, taking form as one goddess, and then another, as the occasion requires. In Expanding and Generating, we will learn several lesser-known goddess stories, as Shakti shape-shifts, adapts, and nourishes her creative projects, just as you will yours.
Week 5 – Manifesting Your Creative Vision: November 18
Once you have developed your creative vision, set your goals, and planned out your project, it is time to bring it into the world. The relationship between the god Shiva and goddess Parvati is complex, an ongoing play between Shiva’s tendency to focus on his inner meditations and Parvati’s desire to manifest their relationship in the everyday world. When they come together, just like when your vision and your ability to manifest meet, sparks fly and Shiva’s dance of bliss begins. In Manifesting Your Creative Vision, you will plan out how you will bring your project into the world, deciding how you will sustain your vision in an ongoing manner, release what doesn’t serve you, and take action in order to transform your vision into a reality.
Photo of Susanna by RoxxeNYC