SHE Circles™

SHE Circles™ serve as both sanctuary and crucible for women. They will reveal, embrace, and celebrate the whole truth of who we are in a loving, supportive environment. Radical honesty, tenderness, and fierce compassion will guide us to acknowledge and express our unique expressions of She– here and now, in the messy perfection of our everyday lives.

These are trying times to be alive. We’re all struggling to figure out how to unfold (and then uphold) our vulnerability, trust, deep faith, softness, confidence, sexuality, and sensuality as women when, in reality, we’re continually faced with more than enough opportunities to shore up, shut down, give up, and retreat into our shells and comforting (yet restricting) genetic imprints.

We need each other now more than ever because we all long to show up for everyone in our lives as powerful and loving women. We’re hungry to be as big and bright as we possibly can. We’re ready to embrace our smallness and transcend it to step into our largesse. And we acknowledge that we need to surrender to the fact that we can’t do this alone.

This is precisely what these SHE Circles™ are for.

I’ve been in the trenches (in the “both feet”/”all chips in” kind- of-a way) of my own evolution as a woman for the past 15 years. I’ve faced most of the common afflictions that modern women face:  anorexia, bulemia, depression, extreme anxiety, self-hatred, low self-esteem, perfectionism, the early stages of cervical cancer, ovarian cysts, irregular menstrual cycles, destructive relationships, financial ruin, workaholism, and more. Through the guidance of great teachers, therapists, and my own persistence and devoted practice, I’ve faced these things with love, practical wisdom, and oceans of tears. In doing so, I’ve turned my “mess” into my “message,” my “wounds” into my “wisdom.” I’ve built an international business around, written a book about, and based my life upon these discoveries-turned-teachings.

I’m willing to stake my life on what I build these circles around and how profoundly I think that we, and our world, need them right now. SHE Circles™ are a necessity, not a luxury, for living as an embodied, awake, and evolving modern woman.

The central focus of these circles to help women embrace and overcome the core issues facing us today, such as:

• Liberating the expression of our sexuality and sensuality to get in touch with the vivacious and wise SHE that we each are.
• Letting go of the “damsel-in-distress” and “I can do it all by myself” syndromes so that we can truly walk side-by-side with our intimate partners in polarized communion.
• Learning to love more fearlessly, with a focus on giving rather than getting (something we’re learned to stop trusting).
• Discovering deeper levels of trust so that we can receive and “let in” the support, nourishment, and abundance that we long for, but often push away in our habits of extreme independence and self-sufficiency.
• Embracing and assuaging our fears and self doubts so that we show up and express ourselves more freely and fully.
• Addressing the self-hatred (even subtle layers of it) that can sabotage us as we take bigger strides out into the world.
• Trusting and strengthening our relationship with our intuition, so that it becomes the guiding principle in our lives.
• Co-creating and with other women, rather than competing and comparing with them.
• Starting to ask for help and support when we need it to open the channels of receptivity that fuel our feminine hearts.
• Softening, relaxing, and opening in the midst of challenging emotions and life circumstances so that we learn to trust the great strength that is our vulnerability.
• Rising up into feminine leadership, even amidst our own destructive inner voices that tell us we’re “not good enough,” “not worthy,” or “unloveable.”
• Transcending the Goddess: partnering your “inner masculine” with your “inner feminine” to give your dreams and visions the legs they need to actualize.

All of this will be done with a container that can create movement, flow, and healing.  The emphasis will be less on an open-ended “goddess/Divine Feminine expression” and more on connection, shadow, growth, change, and healthy challenge. SHE Circles™ are grounded in down-to-earth, authentic relating and feminine embodiment practices.

As your leader, I will offer you structure, clear agreements, and a sacred space so that we can all relax and explore deeper feminine truths and insights. These circles are not overly process-oriented and intellectual (nor are they “woo-woo”). They are embodied and heart-centered, addressing  both the grit and the grace of life.

DATES: March 5-May 7, 2012 (8 sessions–no circles on March 19, April 2, or April 16)

DAY & TIME: Mondays 7:00-9:15pm

VENUE: Boulder, CO (details will be shared with you upon registration)

YOUR LEADER:

Sara Avant Stover is a yogini, inspirational speaker, teacher, mentor, and author of the best-selling book The Way of the Happy Woman: Living the Best Year of Your Life.

Sara graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Columbia University’s all-women’s school, Barnard College.  After a cancer scare in her early twenties, Sara moved to Thailand, where she embarked on a decade-long healing and spiritual odyssey throughout Asia.  She became a certified yoga instructor, and went on to teach thousands of women in over a dozen countries, from the United Arab Emirates to China, and from Greece to Sweden.

Sara is now a formal disciple of Sophia Diaz, and has been doing yoga, Buddhist meditation, and women’s work for fifteen years.  She taught the first 200-hour yoga teacher training in Thailand and is the creator of the world’s first Women’s Yoga Teacher Training. A pioneer in merging modern women’s spirituality and lifestyle, she now teaches at centers such as Kripalu and Shambhala Mountain Center.  Sara’s writing has been published in Yoga Journal, the Huffington Post, and Yogi Times. She has also been featured in Newsweek, Natural Health, and on ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Learn more about me and my story here. Watch a short video about who I am, what I do, and why I do what I do here.

REGISTRATION:

I am limiting these circles to 10 women in order to create a strong container that will hold us as we take a deep dive together. For trust to go and transformation to transpire,  you must sign up for the whole 8-week series. Please note that payment is not according to your attendance. Attendance is mandatory, though I allow for one or two absences due to emergencies or prior commitments.

To register, click on the “Buy Now” button below.  You will then be guided to fill out a more in-depth questionnaire so I can get to know you and your desires better before our first session.

If you’ve never worked with me before and want to make sure we would be a good fit before you register, please contact me and we can set up a time to talk.

INVESTMENT:

• Early registration (by February 20): $397

• Regular registration (after February 20): $447

• Payment plan (3 recurring payments of $167)

QUESTIONS?  Read more about me here. Read what other women have to say about me here. Or contact me here.

These circles are inspired by the feminine leadership genius of  Sabrina Chaw, founder of A Feminine Feast, my dear friend and colleague who has been leading women’s circles in San Francisco for over a decade and with whom I co-created the Women’s Circle Start Up Kit.