Stand UP, Speak UP
Women Claiming Our Power
workshop for women
“I dissent!”—Ruth Bader Ginsberg
We all know that women’s power has been devalued. And we’ve long been silenced. We have much to contribute. We need skills to overcome our conditioning and make ourselves be heard. Spiritual Coaching can be practical as well as spiritual!
We’re insightful and innovative. We care about our Earth. We care about the welfare of children, animals and vulnerable people. We care about education, healthcare, diversity and income inequality. And if you’re on this page, you aspire to live guided by Soul.
Our ideas, insights and values matter. When mindful, soulful, compassionate women influence decisions, we have a direct impact on the quality of life. We change policies and inject sanity. Women are change agents.
2000+ years of dis-empowering gender dynamics gave us laws and cultural norms that silence women and keep us “less than.” Sometimes we don’t recognize we’ve given away our power or been talked down to until after the fact. We don’t notice, or we dismiss the insult, or we tolerate it, because for so many generations, that’s what we were taught by our mothers and grandmothers.
What if you knew what to say, in the moment, to influence the situation? This workshop will give you energetic tuning and verbal skills to address diminishing, insinuating or unwelcome remarks in the moment, as they arise.
We’ve been conditioned to go inside and reflect on our feelings. This is a GREAT life skill. Even so, in many situations we need other options to respond.
Is it time to upgrade your default mode?
Sometimes, going inside keeps us stuck. At times, we need to stand our ground, set a boundary and make it stick. We need the option to question the person who’s consciously or unconsciously dissing us or crossing a line. We need to know what questions to ask and how to turn the conversation to support your authority and well-being.
How many times have you been in an uneasy, not-quite-safe or invasive conversation—and gone into the freeze response? In the freeze response, you can’t think of anything to say, so you go silent.
Or you try to explain yourself and dig the hole deeper, telling them even more about your deep, sensitive interior.
And if you were taught to “never hurt their (men’s) feelings,” you probably know by now that this strategy can make things worse. (PLEASE NOTE: if you are in a dangerous or abusive situation, your safety comes first. While this approach can help you avoid getting into abusive situations, it may not get you out of one.)
Learn how to Stand UP and Speak UP for yourself—to protect yourself without risking injury. Learn how to use language to deflect unwanted or too personal attention or stop a projection that’s being insinuated but not clearly stated.
This workshop is designed to give you skills to speak up and take care of yourself IN THE MOMENT. You do this for because YOU VALUE YOURSELF.
Even if you have uneasy doubts about your worthiness (at some level, we all do), when you Stand UP and Speak UP for yourself, you send yourself the message that you are worthy.
Step outside your comfort zone and challenge the places you’re stuck. Get skills to meet the challenge and unlock opportunities to influence situations in a positive way. Own your power! You have agency, which is different from control, to co-create.
What you’ll get in this workshop will help you Stand UP and Speak UP wherever you need this.
As with all my work, we’ll call on our allies, well ancestors and helpful Beings to support us at the start of every class. Invite your protector guides and helpers, whoever they may be.
At the end, we’ll give thanks, and request that our breakthroughs be magnified and radiate outward into the world, in the name of the sacredness of life.
Clean up old patterns and create a new future. Learn new skills—energetic, emotional and verbal—to influence outcomes, stand your ground and speak up for yourself. Become an advocate for your own wellbeing–and a force to be reckoned with, whatever your passion is: writing a book, advocating to protect and heal the environment, social justice, world peace, free education, health care that includes alternatives and ethical standards for public service.
Why do I care so much?
I believe women have special qualities to bring to the table. All peoples will benefit from bringing the sacred feminine into harmonious partnership with the sacred masculine. We need to heal our own internalized feminine and masculine parts.
As a child, were you put down for being a girl? Taught to be docile and obedient? Was your creativity squashed? Were you criticized and controlled? I know I’m not the only one who didn’t learn how to stand up for myself as a girl. I was too busy being the calm one, the healer. The one who didn’t lose my temper.
It takes effort to change these patterns. That’s what this workshop is about.
Working the verbal self-defense dojo exercises gave me the know-how to stand up for myself in situations that felt difficult or overwhelming. So I reached out to Kasia Urbaniak for permission to incorporate the Verbal Self-Defense Dojo into a multiple session workshop that includes journaling, EFT Tapping and other exercises.
After years of recovery from early childhood trauma, EFT tapping brought my nervous system out of fright/flight/freeze. It helps me claim my power and my voice. It helps clear up the past, so we can be more present in the moment—stand up and speak up—and create a new outcome.
What will the world be like when women ask for what we need and want, and get results? Research shows that when women are empowered and have their own money, they spend it on education, taking care of children, and building businesses that support families. They spend it on the welfare of themselves and others. Women are less likely than men to gamble or drink it away or be reckless with money.
With excitement and joy, I am JAZZED about this work and helping women claim our power to right wrongs and do good in the world.
With fierce compassion,
Nancy
Workshop sessions include
- Grounding & embodiment
- Call in your helpers
- Clarify & your intention & motivation to stand UP & speak UP
- EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) aka tapping—to reset the nervous system & build power & confidence
- Women’s Self-Defense Verbal Dojo module*
- Guided meditation
Logistics:
3 Tuesdays—January 14, 21 & 28
6:00-9 pm
Location: my home office in the Heights of Houston;
exact address provided upon registration.
Cost: $310—pay by check, cash or PayPal. Price includes the donation I’ll send to Kasia* for letting me use her work.
Email nancy@nancykern.com for more info or to register. If this course calls to you and your funds are limited, reach out to me and we will make it work. Work/study options are available.
BRING WITH YOU:
- Reusable water bottle that closes (please no single-use plastic)
- Journal
- Pen
- Sweater for temperature shifts
- Socks if weather is cold
- Your full attention and whatever emotions you’ve got—frustration, anger….
- Curiosity, openness to try something new, and a desire to create a new outcome
Women work collaboratively.
*Gratitude to Kasia Urbaniak for her permission to use her course Women’s Self-Defense Dojo in this workshop.
