The Sophia Institute presents WOMEN RISING!, an epic virtual gathering of women across the country, empowering one another to bring hope, healing, and transformative change into our own lives and to the world around us, inspiring each other to awaken to our full potential and to deepen our partnerships with men to be effective co-creators of the future.

We are living in a profound moment in human history. As we envision a post-Coronavirus world, women are needed to step up now more than ever. With the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote, and the 2020 Presidential Election just days away, more and more women are awakening to what they are called to and using their gifts, talents and capacities to be catalysts to work together to create a more just and conscious world.

This event will be recorded and available for viewing post-retreat for those who have registered for the event.

WOMEN RISING! is an epic 2-day virtual gathering October 30-31, 2020 featuring Big Conversations with an array of amazing thought leaders, speakers including:

• Dr. Gail Christopher, D.N, CEO of the Board of the Trust for America’s Health and Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity
• Pixie Paula Dezzutti, CEO of Skirt Magazine and CEO of Local Choice Spirits
• Helen LaKelly Hunt, Co-Founder of Women Moving Millions, Co-Founder of Imago Relationship International and author
• Elizabeth Lesser, Co-Founder of the Omega Institute and author
• Angie Pincin, CEO of Coach People, Inc.  |  Marie Pawlak, Producer / Coach, Coach People Inc.
• Tami Simon, Founder and Publisher of Sounds True
• Lynne Twist, Founder of Soul of Money Institute, Co-Founder of Pachamama Alliance and author
• CEO Panel including Charlotte Beers, PJ Browning, Carolyn Sawyer, Rita Scott, and Anita Zucker.

WOMEN RISING SJREC Panel including Audrey Lane, Amanda Lawrence, Melissa Maddox-Evans, Sandy Morckel and Carolyn Rivers

WOMEN RISING! is a unique opportunity for some of the most impactful thought leaders of our time to gather virtually as our speakers, creating opportunities for participants to personally interact and network. Women and men will gather virtually from across the country and around the world for exploration, discovery, and transformation with women leaders who model authenticity and are living lives of powerful purpose. Inspirational women leaders will help connect our minds and hearts to our own inner wisdom as well as offer new pathways and practices to co-create a more just, sustainable, and flourishing world for all people.

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Big Conversation Speakers:

Dr. Gail Christopher, D.N.  “Women Must Lead in Healing the Heart of America”
Dr. Gail Christopher is an award winning social change agent with expertise in the social determinants of health and well-being and in related public policies. She is known for her pioneering work to infuse holistic health and diversity concepts into public sector programs and policy discourse. Dr. Christopher recently retired from her role as Senior Advisor and Vice President at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she was the driving force behind the America Healing initiative and the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation effort. Dr. Christopher also served as Kellogg’s Vice President for Program Strategy and worked on place-based programming in New Orleans and New Mexico. In 2015 she received the Terrance Keenan Award from Grantmakers in Health. She chairs the Board of the Trust for America’s Health. In 2019, she became a Senior Scholar with George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Well-Being. Dr. Gail Christopher also became the Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity in November 2019.

Pixie Paula Dezzutti “Passion vs Purpose”
Let’s explore the difference between passion and purpose. I want to help you identify, integrate and own your purpose in life so that it might give you a slightly different perspective on how to manage your life in this incarnation. I believe that people mistakenly interchange passion and purpose, but the reality is that they are very different parts of us. And they reveal themselves interdependently through our physical and nonphysical selves. Passion comes from a space of doing (physical), while purpose comes from a space of being(nonphysical). Passion comes and goes, flairs and wanes, grows and develops and drives what and how you DO things in your life (physical). It may be personally emotional and feeling based, but those are physical elements, not spiritual ones. On the contrary, your purpose has always been the part of you that never leaves you. It’s fixed and constant. Each soul has a unique quantifier or essence that is at the core of their being. It is the central motivating energy of your life. It gets you up in the morning and retires with you at night, never changing no matter what the circumstances of your life (nonphysical). It is part of a more universal consciousness and it comforts you with a quiet knowing that you are part of something much larger than your own personal ego. It knows it doesn’t matter what you do or how you might be temporarily feeling, that there is a greater sense of understanding that your soul just ultimately knows. If you can distinguish the two different spaces passion vs. purpose occupy in your physical and your nonphysical you are well poised to make a transformation of grandeur for the rest of your life.

Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt “The Lost Early History of the Origin of American Feminism”
Join Author and Scholar, Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt, as she shares the lost early history of the suffrage movement, that most people don’t know about. The origin of American Feminism actually began more than a decade before Seneca Falls.  Dr. Hunt’s research shows that the movement began in tandem with the fierce abolitionist movement engaged by Women’s Anti-Slavery Societies. Dr. Hunt will present this fascinating history and bring these historical female leaders out of the shadows of history and into the light.

Elizabeth Lesser “Cassandra Speaks”
Throughout history, most of humankind’s origin stories, hero’s tales, novels, and films have been told by men. Embedded in those stories are morals about men and women, power and war, sex and love, and what it takes to be courageous, gallant, and strong. These stories stick to us, inform our values, and validate or invalidate whole swaths of people.But what if women had been the storytellers too?  What kind of world would women have longed for and led us toward? What story would Eve have told about picking the apple and leaving the garden? What would Pandora have said about opening the box? And what if the populous had listened to Cassandra… and to all the Cassandras throughout the ages who have been cast as fickle, sinful, and untrustworthy? What if women had been given the same moral authority as men? How would that have changed our culture? How will that change our world today?

Angie Pincin  | Marie Pawlak “Choosing Happiness: how we can cultivate happiness through positive psychology”
We live in unprecedented times where our entire lives have been turned upside- down. It has forced us to re-assess what’s important and adapt to change, reinventing practically every day how we do everything in our lives–out of necessity, not always out of choice.

We’ve come to understand that using past methods, patterns or habits to solve present challenges is not working for most and causing stress, anxiety and a feeling of isolation. As Coaches, we know the best way to create lasting change, is when we make choices from a place of self-awareness and alignment with our Character Strengths and Values versus reactivity to the outside world.

Positive Psychology studies show that when we choose our path forward and respond to life and leverage our Character Strengths, we’re happier.

Some say the speed at which change is occurring makes it impossible to pivot fast towards the best solutions. We disagree. Join Angie Pincin to discover how to pivot or tilt towards solutions aligned with your Character Strengths so you can create more Happiness in your lives.

Through one practical experiential exercise, using Character Strengths, she will demonstrate and inspire each participant to leave the program with at least one practical method to be more Resilient and Agile.

Tami Simon “Visionaries, Truth-tellers, and Regenerative Culture Creators: Women Rising in Business”
Tami Simon founded Sounds True when she was just 22 years old with a mission of disseminating spiritual wisdom. Now, 35 years later, Sounds True is one of the leading publishers and providers of transformational education in the world.

In this presentation, Tami will talk about “the story behind the story” of Sounds True, and how to invest in your own vision and stay true to that vision in the face of challenges. She will also talk about how to create a business culture that is regenerative: healthy, resilient, and adaptable. She will also share some specific practices for creating such a culture at Sounds True, including welcoming truth-telling, leading with vulnerability, and making space for difficult conversations . And finally, how this type of business culture is not some form of idealism but the most effective way to both fulfill soul-level needs and grow a business.

Lynne Twist “Visioning a post-Covid world”
The post COVID vision I have for the world is one where the Feminine has risen and joined with the Masculine in true partnership for a more just, sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling human presence on the planet.

The disruption of COVID is huge, humbling, and also is the reflective time we all needed to change course.  In the dominant culture of competition we’ve been living in, we see ourselves as rivals in a race to grab as much as we can, believing in the myth of scarcity. It is these beliefs that prevent us from seeing how collaboration and reciprocity create abundance and bring about transformative change.

A Feminine principle, collaboration is the circuitry through which the energy, attention, and resources of sufficiency flow and are continually renewed. Implicit in collaboration is the trust that says there is enough and we will figure out how to use it together wisely.  Collaboration is a powerful tool for creating social change—more powerful than money, more powerful than mere personal power.

 In this pandemic pause, we are given the space and time to see that we need a reset, a reimagining of civilization, a rethinking of who we are and what we can recreating.  We will not get through all that we are facing if we don’t work from the Divine Spark that lives in every human being, if we do not draw on Source and stay connected to Source, because that’s what’s missing. And if we do, we will not just get through it. We will foster and nourish a new birth… We will give birth to the civilization, to the society, and to the culture that we’ve dreamed of.

It will be a central revelation that the power of the divine feminine energy and the female archetype is respected and central to everything that matters.  We will realize and name the 21st Century, the Sophia Century, the century when women are taking their rightful role in co-equal partnership with men and the world is coming into balance. Both the feminine and masculine in all of us—in women and men– will be fully expressed in a healthy way.  As indigenous cultures teach,  both the female and male wings of the “bird of humanity” will be fully extended and “the bird of humanity” will finally stop flying in circles and be free to soar.

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WOMEN RISING SPONSORS

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WOMEN RISING! Benefactors:

Ellen Harley • Heather Hoffman • Jean Selch

WOMEN RISING! Host Committee Members:

Tim Baker / Timonier •  Jody Davids • Sandy Morckel

Cam Busch • Alexandria Gifford • Kimberly Powell

Pixie Paula Dezzutti • Deb Mauk • Carolyn Rivers

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