Image credit: Morgan Harper Nichols

June 2024

Dear friends,

Every new season brings change, but summers can bring particularly poignant transitions for many of us (including Marion celebrating her youngest child’s high school graduation and Miwa preparing for a milestone birthday!). We recently joined a group of leaders to share what we’ve learned about leading change. As we reflected on our experiences supporting leaders and organizations in navigating change, we kept coming back to the same key themes:

• Share the why so that stakeholders understand the purpose of the change
• Engage in ongoing, transparent communication, being clear about what you know, acknowledging what you don’t know, and naming next steps
• Lean into relationship and hold space for people to process, understanding that every change brings both loss and opportunity

As the summer begins, we’re reminded that navigating personal change requires the same intention. In what ways are we changing/is our context changing? Why is this change important to us? How do we honor and acknowledge what is lost while also celebrating what will be? How do we navigate (or even embrace!) the messy middle and what we don’t yet know? And how do we lean into relationship and acknowledge the impact of the change on others and ourselves?

 Whatever transitions you’re moving through this summer, we hope you can make space to ground in purpose, accept what is uncertain, move forward with care and celebrate with sparkle whenever possible.

Join us!

Come see us at The Lodge At Woodloch!

Nine years ago before the huge transition of starting her own business, Marion went to The Lodge at Woodloch to restore and reflect. During this visit, she envisioned teaching at Woodloch one day, and now, together, we have made it a reality!

 The two of us and our friend Cat McLaughlin of Rosemary Collaborative are thrilled to be facilitating three Enneagram workshops at The Lodge at Woodloch this August 9th – 11th. We’ve each experienced the Enneagram as a powerful framework for growth and transformation, and received our Enneagram Applications Certification through Enneagram Georgia last year. We have already been building this framework into our coaching and consulting offerings. You can learn more about our Woodloch workshop series here and reach out to us if you’d like to learn more about our Enneagram work.

Midsummer Collective Conversation

We’d love to take another Midsummer’s Pause with you! Please join us for our next Collective Conversation on Wednesday, July 10th from 11 AM – 12 PM ET. We’ll be at the halfway point of both the summer season and the calendar year. So we’ll take a collective pause to reflect on where we are and what we’re loving this summer and to set intentions, whether for the rest of the season or the rest of the year.

Please grab a cup of coffee or tea (iced!) and join us for this informal conversation. We hope to see you there.

Partner Spotlight

Melea Nalli

We’re excited to feature our friend and mentor Melea Nalli, partner consultant and leadership coach at Conscious Revolution. Melea and the Conscious Revolution team partner with visionary leaders across all sectors to co-create a world where thriving is accessible to all. Together, they are advocating for a new paradigm of conscious leadership that upholds human potential, nurtures interconnectedness, and sparks transformative change.

Conscious Revolution offers holistic support that considers how our bodies, hearts and minds are connected to the ways in which we lead ourselves, others and our systems. They provide organizational consulting support, leadership development programs, Soul-Full HR support, executive coaching and immersive experiences for leaders to resource themselves and to build community with each other.

Recommended Resources

We’re excited to dive into these books and resources this summer as we navigate transitions and move through change.

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg: Nonviolent Communication provides tools to help us deepen our understanding of our own and other’s needs and effectively communicate them- which is especially important during times of transition.

Gratitude

As we welcome another summer, we are deeply thankful for the teachers, mentors and school leaders in our lives, for our friends, family and colleagues who help ground us during times of transitions, and for our incredible community that radiates light all year long.

Keep shining,

Marion and Miwa