an experiment in living gracefully

Living with g.r.a.c.e. is our advanced community, created for graduates of the Deep Dive. This is something new.

If the fundamentals of g.r.a.c.e. is a workshop, the Deep Dive is, no doubt, a course: didactic, experiential, skills-building — just the right level of intense. There’s a lot of connection, but it’s designed as an efficient, focused progression through foundational skills of the g.r.a.c.e. sequence.

Living with g.r.a.c.e. goes further. It’s really more a soul group for those who have the skills and now seek to live them.

Remember from the Deep Dive how often the most joyful learning came in witnessing breakthroughs in others? Or the moments when you or others worked with something directly in class?

That’s what Living with g.r.a.c.e. is for: It’s an ongoing sacred community to develop those skills in the context of relationship — focused on real-world application within our unfolding lives.

No sprint, no finish line. Just a space to belong where you can weave this beautiful work into your daily life.

Living with g.r.a.c.e. is an advanced group for those seeking to graduate from applying skills situationally

to living in this mindset continuously

why learn in community?

For Buddhists, the “three jewels” of their faith are the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha — that is, the example of what’s possible, the canon of teachings and practices, and the community that supports practitioners in their growth. Perhaps surprisingly, it is the community that is considered the highest of these jewels, the most essential refuge to keep each from faltering in their practice when they most need encouragement and support.

Similarly, the Recovery traditions regularly emphasize that the example set by the founders of AA and the incredible power of the 12 Steps only matter when an individual is held by their Home Group and brought along by regular meetings and meaningful relationship.

Even in psychotherapy, the same principle that group work enhances individual work is plainly apparent. Nearly 30 years of training and practice in experiential and group psychotherapy has shown me time and again that nothing replaces the acceleration and enrichment provided by group work. And of course, this is found among hobbyists, yoga practitioners, churches, and communities of every kind.

The g.r.a.c.e. sequence is no different. The process alone is powerful, but it becomes profound in community. All who have already been part of the Deep Dive have seen that.

…so what does g.r.a.c.e. look like in groups?

First off, if you’ve gotten this far, you already know how beautifully this process works. The question is only whether there’s room for it in your life, and the energy and input needed to find it growing rather than stagnating somewhere on a list of good intentions. So the highest benefit will be the nurturing of a practice that helps you remember that you are loved and lovable, and always within reach of a kind of peace that surpasses all understanding.

We’ll develop that awareness and practice with quarterly themes: creating change in your life, for example, healing relationships, working with gratitude, and many more. These themes will guide gentle new material I bring in, but the magic will be in the life material it stirs for you and each other.

You have the foundational skillset. Now we get to apply it. We’ll leave more room than in the Deep Dive to bring in your own related life material, make space for what it stirs in others, and apply the beauty of this practice to shift how we hold all of it.

The benefits lie not just in the sacred support or opportunity to work with your life in group. Theme by theme, you’ll develop greater facility applying g.r.a.c.e. throughout your life in your own practice.

In sum, much like the g.r.a.c.e. sequence brings together spiritual practice with modern psychology, this community might be thought of as a new mix of the best elements of sangha, recovery group, and group psychotherapy. You’re going to love it.

and some new elements, too:

Bringing g.r.a.c.e. into safe, trusted group space allows us to go beyond working on oneself and one’s own experience. This is my favorite stuff:

Two-person and multi-person practices allow others to share in the metabolizing and dissolving of old patterns of pain for one who receives — often far more powerfully than they can work by themselves. And tonglen and meta practices allow us to use g.r.a.c.e. as acts of service beyond even group.

I can’t wait to show you!

Details

Rather than build a community that disbands and regroups periodically, let’s build one that continues and see how deep the joy goes.
Membership automatically renews quarterly and bills monthly. Stay as long as long as this enriches your life, knowing you’re free to pause rather than renew anytime.
We’ll meet three weeks a month to keep enough continuity for you to be involved in each others’ lives and receive real support, but also have some breathers.
Each quarter will explore a theme (see examples below), even continuing one whenever we think it would be helpful. I’ll bring in simulating new material for each but leave space for group needs, wisdom, and interest to guide us. Though the group will inherently invite daily reflection and practice, but all will be held lightly.
We’ll record each session for those who miss, with strict confidentiality rules to protect the sanctity of the space and personal information shared.

Start date: January, 2026.
Subject to input, we’ll meet Thursdays at 11 AM Central for 90 minutes.
Please reach out promptly if you’d love to be part of this and just can’t make that work.
Much as meeting in person is lovely, it’s also very time consuming for many and difficult to record well, even with better mics.
We’ll meet instead by Zoom WITH ANNUAL RETREATS PLANNED (see below), so you can hug each other! :)
Our cost for original members will be $324, billed monthly by credit card. Occasional increases will come only with notice, and members joining after January may join at a higher membership cost.
This is designed to be an intimate group of people who know each other like few others in their lives. We’ll aim for 12 members or so.

Save my place

Questions, Troubles, or Requests?

sample quarterly themes…

As prior Deep Dive groups learned quickly, daring to know what you want can be as frightening as taking risks to create it.
Where have we learned we can’t stand disappointment? When did we decide such joy belonged only to others? Who says we need to acquire or achieve to feel deeply peaceful and alive anyway?
We’ll bring together the science and energy around creating the life you’ve longed for.
Imagine having time with a small group of people you deeply trust working on your relationships, past and present. What triggers you? What calls to you? What always seems to elude you?
And, where in all your learned fear and self-rejection have you given away power and happiness you could finally heal?
Our finest way-showers throughout history (I’m lookin’ at you, Carl Jung) have all told us in different ways that everyone is everything. We all have within us the whole human condition, much of it socked away in the denied basement of rejected impulses, and the rest shoved into the attics of disowned advancements we think only an arrogant soul would claim.
What parts of me am I sure I cannot accept? Is it possible there is wisdom within me I have been taught to ignore? What gifts have waited patiently all my life to be acknowledged?
If we have within us all the gifts and challenges of humanity, we also carry with us all the ages we have ever been or will be. The g.r.a.c.e. sequence is such a beautiful path to gaining insight and completely reconstructing self-compassion.
What young part of me still wants to be loved, and what if she were? What unspoken truth has been stifled since I was too young to realize — and could be said now? What sage within me would gladly look after all these ages with the grace and acceptance of the archetypal grandmother?
The 12 Steps offered a crucial wisdom in stepping away from all prior notions of “God” and encouraging all to begin again with a personal sense of a Higher Power — one free of the cruelty, hypocrisy, judgement, and perilous unspoken rules too many have absorbed along the way.
Might we take a gentle look at this? There is no agenda and nothing to sell — only an invitation here to explore what creator (or lack thereof) seems to be in charge of this universe we inhabit inside.
What if I am safe? What if I am more loved than I can imagine? What if there’s an ancient, essential aspect of me that can never be harmed in this earthly realm?
We have all been encouraged to make gratitude lists, focus on the positive, and count our blessings. How deeply has that sunk in? Anyone else have a hunch that the g.r.a.c.e. sequence might increase that depth considerably?
It’s said that true gratitude opens the body for healing like nothing else. Let’s find out. :)