Past SheSpeaks

Missed the last SheSpeaks evening? Were you there, but want to go back for more? You’ve come to the right place! Listed below, organized by season and order of appearance, are the individual videos of the amazing woman of SheSpeaks. Enjoy!

Winter 2012: Mojo Risin’

Exploring and celebrating the many ways women’s personal brand of magic and creativity are ignited in the world.

Setting the Stage for Mojo

Mish Morgenstern -An Antidote to Impatience

Mish is a fan of maps. And – as an experienced sailor, outdoor educator and seasoned traveler – she’s knows how valuable they are can use them well. As she finds herself navigating through this latest transition in her life, something is telling Mish to resist the urge to use a map simply to chart her course. It’s different this time. There’s more to see than Point A to B. Her impatience didn’t get that memo, and is right there – all the time – chomping at the bit and cracking the whip. But Mish has found an antidote to the influence of her impatience. In doing so, she is finding her voice – and ironically, by the most remarkable of confluences – her path. Mish’s story will demonstrate what happens when you sit in the driver’s seat but navigate from a bird’s eye view.

Mojo & Death: A Surprising Combination

 

Denise Jay – Finding My Faith When The Dock is Shaking

Denise has experienced a number of holy shit moments in her life, but the biggest one began when she sat at the bedside of her best friend, loving him in the last moments of his life. It rocked her to her core, and asked her to make sense of the nonsensical. It also tested her belief – in herself, in her faith, in our humanity. Eleven years later, the ground is still shaking beneath her feet, but rather than waiting for it to stop, she’s hatching a different plan entirely. She’s learning how to live her life among all the vibrations. And she’s finding it has less to do with her faith, and more to do with honoring herself and what she knows to be true. Denise’s story is about coming full circle in faith, which isn’t always neat and clean, and involves a fair amount of cursing along the way.

Katy Park – Taking Up a Shitload of Space

Katy always suspected she was capable of occupying a lot of space, even given her relatively small size. And others knew it, too, encouraging her to reign it in and keep it a secret. But as most good secrets do, it eventually leaked out and Katy soon found others were drawn to the very thing she was trying to diminish – the physical presence she held when she thought no one was looking. Recently, she was told that this space she holds – with joy, compassion and wisdom – is medicine for the world. And that changed everything. Katy’s now actively doing the dance she’s spent most of her life denying – she’s coming to terms with why she’s in this world, she’s starting to make more noise, and she’s discovering what’s been there waiting for her all along. Katy’s story will show that by allowing ourselves to inhabit the space that is rightfully ours, we are doing a service not only to ourselves, but for the world in which we live.

Danielle Madore – Choosing To Not Dance

Danielle has always liked the edge. She finds it – and the people willing to go to it – interesting, exciting and dangerous. She’s lived her whole life there, at the edge, but in a private way, allowing her thin skin to be the vessel that holds her creative expression and her private interior world – a place where she was clear, safe, and confident.  For a long time she didn’t trust the outside world with this inside information. She feared not being taken seriously, being judged, or getting unwanted feedback. So she learned to dance, with one foot in her private world and one foot in the outside world. But she’s done dancing now. She wants to be more whole and to stand her ground with both feet. Danielle’s story will reveal how liberating and powerful it can be when you choose to stop running from who you are.

Elizabeth DeSwarte – From Tragic to Magic

For years, Beth had tried really hard to go after things – giving and giving, and piling stuff on top of more stuff when there wasn’t any room left. As a result, she found herself burned out, drained, and in ill health. She felt lost and stuck in a pattern that was getting her more of the same. Eventually, Beth recognized she’d hit the tipping point and knew in her bones that she needed to change her approach to life. So she made the decision to rid herself of everything she’d accumulated along her path that was weighing her down and no longer serving her, discovering that emptying herself out was the key to filling herself up. Beth’s story will illuminate how the process of finding flow in life is not a one-time event, but is a way of being.

Spring 2012: Rites of Passage

Exploring and honoring the many rites of passage we experience as women and how they shape us and our lives.

Jen Cohen – The Pressure From A Grain Of Sand

Jen had always considered herself to be honest –  with herself and others. She was comfortable speaking up and chose roles in life that positioned her to be an irritant to the system – to question status quo and stimulate new growth. And then she had a daughter. It was then, that Jen came face to face with her own tolerance, and how she had quietly allowed herself to be lulled into not noticing the minor cuts of life – the things she tolerated, but didn’t necessarily address. The gift of having a daughter was that it upped the ante of Jen’s life. Her daughter became  a grain of sand in Jen’s oyster, creating bittersweet friction that had her looking at her own life more honestly.  Jen’s story will show how powerful – and completely unnerving – it can be to see yourself  most clearly through the eyes of another, and will reveal how finding your true self is often just a matter or reorienting the old one.

Donna Galluzzo – Letting Go Into Love

Donna had always believed in love – the kind you feel immediately when you’ve met the person you want to spend your life with.  But it was a slow process of living for her to fully inhabit that belief.  The story of her life is about staying the course, and finding her way to love was no exception – it’s something she was born to do. Along the way, Donna came to see how her relationship to her chronically ill mother – and letting her go – was integrally connected to her ability to fully love another. Love, it seemed, was the gift of living through a loss. And now, on the precipice of saying goodbye to her mom, she is aware of the beautiful irony in how the woman who gave her life has created the space for her to give birth to herself – and a new relationship to love. Donna’s story will shine a light on the subtle yet significant difference of being in love versus fully receiving love – and how having the staying power to endure all the stops along the way are part of the process of letting go into love.

Jeanne Handy – It’s Not Always Pretty

When Jeanne gave birth to her son, she envisioned a quiet and peaceful labor and delivery where she would bring forth this new life with grace. What she experienced was awesome and powerful, and definitely not quiet. She made lots of noise and was taken aback by how rugged the experience was of being in her body during birth. Five years later, she endured a grueling experience of being with her father in his final days of life, and again felt betrayed by other people’s version of what her vision should be. Both of these experiences brought her to the edge emotionally and physically, but it was these moments that taught her that grace lies on the other side of moments such as these, and not necessarily in them.  These two experiences solidified what she’d always believed in her bones, but hadn’t really known for sure until she lived it. Now she gives herself a wide berth and a boatload of permission to endure life’s passages with honesty, knowing that they may not be pretty. Jeanne’s story will remind us of the power that comes from letting ourselves fall out of grace.

Jeanne Thompson – The Force Within Me

Jeanne used to think it was luck or even her imagination. Now she knows better. All her life, she’s walked into situations and made something of them. For years, she felt like some day her luck would run out. She was told that life came so easily to her – that she could just coast though life – living in a “bubble”, never having to really work at it. She swallowed these opinions whole, consenting to play small, relying on her good fortune and hoping that it would not run out. But then a pattern emerged. She was the common denominator in all of this “luck”. It was then she realized her power – the power of her own resourcefulness. Things didn’t happen from dumb luck, they happened because of a deeply held belief in her ability to make things work out.  Now she’s realizing that her power is a force that’s  unstoppable and she is learning to harness it. With pride. Jeanne’s story will illustrate what is possible when we allow our power to rise and shine. Note: due to technical difficulties that night, Jeanne’s video was damaged and is not able to be viewed. My gratitude to Jeanne for sharing her story, and I’m so sorry we couldn’t share it with a wider audience!

Ellen Murphy – Being True To The Process

Ellen’s only daughter recently gave birth to a daughter. Ellen reveled in the opportunity to become a grandmother, and has come to see how that process has been – and continues to be – transformative. In witnessing her daughter’s journey into motherhood, Ellen has relived her motherhood and continues on her journey as giver of life– as mother, partner, professional woman, friend – moving through the darkness and into the light of her own wisdom, revisiting and appreciating more fully the work she’d done to get to this point. Walking by her daughter’s side, allows her to see herself, her gifts, her life more clearly through her middle-aged eyes. She is appreciating that maturity is not black and white, but shades of fabulous gray. She is savoring what it means to be an elder, no longer ruled by the angst or stuck in the sticky emotions of love and loss – being in it, but also above it. As Ellen acclimates to this new perspective, she is simultaneously grateful for the gift of maturity and humbled by her disillusionment. Ellen’s story will reveal the bittersweet gifts of what it means to live within the light of our wisdom. Note: Due to technical difficulties that night, Ellen’s video was damaged and isn’t available to view. My gratitude to Ellen for sharing her story, and I’m so sorry we couldn’t share it with a wider audience!

 

 

Fall 2011: Honoring

Lael Couper Jepson ~ Honoring as Opening Lael sets the stage for the Fall SheSpeaks event by talking about the concept of opening	Jessica Esch ~ The Journey To Asking Jessica’s story underscores the courage, conviction and tenacity it takes to go after something you want, but can’t see.	Lael Couper Jepson ~ The Slippery Slope of Stories Lael sets up Shay’s talk by highlighting the power of writing our own scripts.
Shay Stewart-Bouley ~ Letting It Rip: It’s A Good Thing Shay’s story demonstrates how sometimes you have nothing to lose and everything to gain simply by keeping it real.	Lael Couper Jepson ~ Honoring as Creating Lael sets the framework for Monique’s story in the context of creativity being a visitor to willing hosts.	Monique Barrett ~ The Power of Unlocking Ourselves Monique’s story will remind us of the awesome power we hold when we chose to fully use the gifts we’re given.
Lael Couper Jepson ~Honoring as Surrendering Lael introduces Lee’s story by illustrating the ways in which “fighting” and “hard” are highly overrated.	Lee Farrington ~ Life On A Curve Lee’s story reminds us how a little meandering can stir up some surprisingly tasty combinations that are well worth the wait.	Karen Wyman ~ Free Falling Into The Unknown Karen’s story demonstrates that jumping does not always result in falling.