Hope Leans Forward

NB: Program registration through Pendle Hill has closed. Please contact registration@pendlehill.org for more information, or to be notified if spaces become available.

We are being pulled apart and broken-open by the global pandemic, violence, racial injustice, climate crisis, etc. This course will equip you with tools and practices to navigate these high-stress, high-anxiety times.

Based on Valerie’s latest book, Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace (Broadleaf, 2022), this course will cover skill-building, evidence-based mindfulness practice, and soul-amplifying questions grounded in Quaker faith and practice that go to the heart of discerning your life purpose, meaning, and direction and supporting you to live your best self now.

In these highly interactive sessions, we’ll explore the Buddhist Seven Factors of Awakening, including:

• • Choose bravely when conditions are uncertain and ambiguous.
  • Examine unconscious patterns that hold you back.
  • Reflect on what matters most with soul-amplifying questions.

• Align your values with your work for a greater sense of purpose and meaning.
• Cultivate body intelligence and body awareness.
• Show yourself real kindness through self-compassion.

Leader(s)

Valerie Brown is an author, ordained Buddhist-Quaker Dharma teacher in the lineage of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village tradition, facilitator, and executive coach specializing in leadership development and mindfulness practices with a focus on diversity, social equity, and inclusion. A former lawyer and lobbyist, Valerie transformed her high-pressure, twenty-year career into serving leaders and nonprofits to create trustworthy, authentic, compassionate, and connected workspaces.

Her new book is Hope Leans Forward: Braving Your Way toward Simplicity, Awakening, and Peace (Broadleaf, 2022). She has authored four popular Pendle Hill pamphlets, including Living from the Center, Mindfulness Meditation and Centering for Friends (PHP #407) and Coming to Light, Cultivating Spiritual Discernment through the Quaker Clearness Committee (PHP #446). She is a member of Solebury Monthly Meeting (PA).

An accredited leadership coach, she is the Founder and Chief Mindfulness Officer of Lead Smart Coaching, LLC, supporting leaders to apply and integrate leadership and mindfulness for greater resilience, clarity, and creativity, and is a co-director of Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership.

Valerie leads an annual pilgrimage to El Camino de Santiago, Spain, to celebrate the power of sacred place and is a certified Kundalini yoga teacher, engaging leaders to embody somatic wisdom and creativity. Learn more at www.valeriebrown.us.

Financial aid may be available. If you are seeking funds to participate in this program, click to review and complete our Financial Assistance Application and a Pendle Hill staff member will follow-up with you shortly (please do NOT register online). Thank you for your interest.

Travel directions to Pendle Hill. Please make sure to review our health and safety expectations at https://pendlehill.org/stay/covid-19-information/.