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206 Bird Court
Normal, IL, 61761

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Learn to Thrive

A Free Online Course

Learn to Thrive!

A FREE interactive online class that explores the nature of human potential through the lens of amazing books and the questions they provoke in us.

Enrollment is currently closed. Don't miss the next FREE class:

Do you feel restless, tired, or overwhelmed?

 
Do you want more self-confidence, in all areas of your life?
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Do you want to catalyze your creativity and clarity?
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Do you want more connection and depth in your relationships?
Do you struggle with self-care and making time for yourself?
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Do you want to feel more alive, energized, and excited about your life?
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Do you want to experience more community and camaraderie?
 

I've got a solution...

 

As life coach, entrepreneur, and award-winning teacher for over two decades, I know how crucial learning is to human thriving. As a species, we’re hardwired to problem-solve, innovate, and above all, imagine. We love to learn—as humans we feel most alive when we’re expanding and growing.
 
But all too often we unintentionally let responsibilities and obligations weigh us down into patterns of predictability. Or, we find ourselves exhausted by the flip-side: a life filled with over-commitment or drama, states we cultivate unconsciously in order to compensate for a life directed by well-worn routine.
 
Either way, the cause and upshot are the same—boredom, felt in myriad ways: lack of energy, restlessness, diminished confidence, stagnant relationships, confusion, overwhelm, lack of direction, difficulty focusing, and disconnect from feelings of purpose and meaning.

A quick google-search for any of these states will yield lots of fixes: self-care protocols, motivational videos, relationship advice, time-management strategies, and exercises intended to help you discover your signature strengths. And while these tools are often very helpful (I’ve implemented many of them myself, and teach my own versions to clients and students), their benefit will always be fleeting unless we also address the underlying issue: disconnect from our own life-force—from the triumvirate of curiosity, creativity, and wonder that is, as humans, our signature birthright and the fuel of our full potential.

Curiosity fuels understanding, and therefore
healing and compassion.

Creativity fuels passion, and therefore
transformation and purpose.

Wonder fuels hope, and therefore
gratitude and joy.

When we don’t intentionally cultivate these states that are essential to human flourishing, we abandon the one resource that will always point us in the right direction—our essential life-force, that quickening we see in kids’ faces and lovers’ eyes: our love of learning, that irrepressible human hunger that feeds our minds and expands our hearts.
 
My mission in life—as professor, poet, life coach and mom—is to nurture this innate love of learning in service of helping people create conscious, compassionate, fulfilling lives rich with meaning and service. To this end, I’ve created a FREE online class that will inject the excitement of learning into your life via one easy-to-manage weekly dose of reading, teaching, discussing and exploring.

 
 
 

Here’s how the class works:

 
 
  • Class begins on October 17th and meets weekly for ten weeks (last class is December 19th)
  • We will meet for 75 minutes every Tuesday evening for ten consecutive weeks, from 7:30 – 8:45 pm CST/8:30 - 9:45 EST/ 5:30 - 6:45 PCT
  • We will conduct class via Zoom, a free and super-easy-to-use online video conferencing platform
  • Over the course of ten weeks, we will read and discuss the following books: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Noah Yuval Harari; Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr; and When Breath Becomes Air, a memoir by Paul Kalanithi
  • I will offer questions at the end of every class session for you to think about in preparation for the following week
  • Reading assignments will consist of between 75 – 100 pages per week
  • You don’t need to be talkative to take this course. The only pre-requisites are a love of reading and an open mind!
  • Enrollment is open until the first day of class, October 17th. After that, enrollment closes.
  • All ages above 21 are welcome
 
 
 

Here are some of the big questions that we’ll explore together via our reading:

 
  • What is the difference between surviving and thriving?
  • How is one’s individual potential shaped by one’s relationships to others?
  • When is courage courageous, and when is it foolish?
  • What is the use of fear in the absence of danger?
  • What is the difference between pain and suffering?
  • How does trauma impact—impair, inhibit, inspire—our capacity to thrive?
  • What can we learn from psychology of addiction and recovery about the human capacity for resilience, creativity, forgiveness, and love?
  • Is there a neurology of compassion?
  • What does it mean to live a life of purpose?
  • What does joy have to teach us about who we really are?
  • When is love an ally in the pursuit of full potential, and when is love a liability?
  • What is creativity and how is it related to genuine fulfillment?
  • Do the values, material comforts, and ways of life that enable us to thrive today threaten or aid our future survival as a species?
 
 
 

Here’s what you’ll take away from this course if you do the reading and participate in discussions:

 
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  • Increased self-confidence
  • Increased clarity
  • Increased creativity
  • Increased focus and direction
  • Increased sense of purpose and meaning
  • Increased feeling of belonging and connection
 
 

Ready? Let’s Learn to Thrive! together.

ENROLLMENT IS CURRENTLY CLOSED.

SIGN UP TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN THE NEXT FREE CLASS IS ENROLLING!