This is a big question for so many right now, as we shelter at home, and I have some thoughts on this for you.

I have been feeling so grateful for the education I’ve  received in the last 10 years. From so many mentors, from Source working in my life, and from the experience of running a transformational business and leading retreats. 

To be clear – I have been energetically up and down like anyone. We have moved into a new home with only a few things we brought with us, and have self-quarantined. We have had a family emergency, as you likely know, and so has one of our team members. So I’ve experienced a full range of emotions. 

That said, I am also tremendously optimistic. 

And I am so happy that I have created an outline for my newest book, The Sourced Experience™, which is all about how life works with us to support our growth and evolution, creating a more aligned vibration for each of us. 

I specifically have been delivering this type of transformation in my programs for the last 10 years through live retreats. Yet my book includes a full chapter on delivering a Sourced Experience virtually as well.

I wish the book was ready for you today!  But here is a tip for you now.

Transformation doesn’t happen because of the retreat.

It isn’t the location.

It isn’t even the travel and getting out of your home environment (THOUGH THAT HELPS A LOT!) 

Transformation happens within the container.

The way you craft the container, the way you invite clients into the container, the sacred intention you hold, and the sacred intention you insist upon for your clients, THIS creates the transformation.

The live retreat context makes it easier. People have entire flights to settle into their intention. You as the leader have humans in person in front of you, which makes you feel highly accountable to their experience. Yet all of this can happen in a virtual setting. But it TAKES MORE on your part. More certainty, boldness, and courage.

You have this anyway if you are called to lead retreats. Live retreats initiate you into a new level of leadership.

So what do you do when you can’t be LIVE?

Here’s what I suggest: 

1. Know your intention for transformation for your clients.
2. Be crystal clear about the outcome you are inviting them to co-create with you. (Each person will get something different – it helps to understand how transformation works so you can point the way while leaving space for their individual experience!)
3. Set the container and know that the space between contacts with your clients is part of the container. You are not a $/hr business, you are a container business. The container includes the space between.
4. Create an experience. This doesn’t have to be a dramatic experience a la zip-lining through the jungle. It can be a simple experiential that you have them do on their own between zoom sessions. The TRUTH comes through via experience. And the NEW ENERGY gets solidified through experience. Give your clients the opportunity to experience both.
5. Create CONTEXT. This is true whether you are live or not. Your job is NOT to deliver content but rather to create context. This is more important than ever today. Guide clients to understand what they are experiencing by creating context for their awareness and helping them to see the practical applications in their life. So many are putting out brilliant CONTENT right now in almost overwhelming proportions. But CONTEXT is harder for many. If you know how to do it, please focus on that. Help people to frame up what they are already experiencing! (We are in one massive Sourced Experience after all, nothing needs to be added to that!)
6. Enroll your clients in their transformation first – the ‘how to stuff’ can happen once they are clear and aligned to their goal.  (HINT: This is what happens on your virtual retreat!) 

While I am thinking specifically of offering virtual retreats, your CONTAINER can be created in many ways! It can be 1-on-1 coaching, a group program, a virtual retreat, a combination of live and recorded trainings, and intentional exercises you have people do between sessions. It can be hours, days, or over a few months, or even a year.

Just be clear about the boundaries of the container and help your client to understand that all that happens within the container is a part of the transformation. It is not separate.

If people think that because they are home with their kids during this pandemic and it is a strange time, and they want to put their transformation on hold — challenge that. For some this may be aligned to do. But for most they are thinking of the container all wrong. They think they should be all clear and perfectly focused to show up in the container fully. 

Yet what if right now the present distractions are EXACTLY what needs to be looked at to aid your client’s transformation? 

Source provides us with the perfect support (often in the form of CONTRAST) to help us grow. 

If you are being pulled to a transformational program at this time, while quarantined with family, your family (or your client’s family) is the PERFECT mirror for your own transformation. 

While many are believing the story that this is a sensitive time and we should hold back, or tone it down, I request of you — don’t! Now is the time we are needing to be challenged. We should challenge ourselves to grow. We should challenge our clients to take the opportunity of this unique moment in  history to claim unprecedented transformation.

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