The Women's Group Guide, Pt. 1: Formation

How to create life-giving groups. The ideation phase!

A few weekends ago, I traveled with my women’s group to a cute Airbnb just outside of Austin. We unpacked bags of groceries and supplies, scattered crafts and musical instruments around, lit a lot of candles, and flopped on the comfy couches to get deep with each other.

For us, deep means a lot of things. It means interpersonal honesty: being truthful with each other. It means personal honesty: exploring the innards of ourselves. It means having the full range of human experience, balancing intense conversation with song, movement, and play.

These things are hard to achieve in only a few self-organized days. But no matter who is there - and the makeup of the groups I’m in changes often, because my god can women be flaky (excuse me, “intuitive with our choices of self-care”) - we often reach a depth of connection and expression that delights me.

This post is on how we do it. I will walk you through how to put together and run a women’s group - which, in the logistics and much of the design, could be applied to other identities as well, such as mixed friend groups or team retreats.

My purpose is to help you create your own enclaves to support and be supported from, where the purpose is not focusing on a Thing, but on mutual rejuvenation and connection. Where we come in huddled, and come out more whole.

This post will be divided into 5 parts:

1. The Ideation - What to Create

2. The Invitation - Who and How to Invite

3. The Instigation - Leadup to an Event

4. The Illumination - Holding the Event

5. The Indignation - How to Manage Different Preferences

This will be a paid series. Buy me a coffee and I’ll repay you with the full plan to create incredible retreats without hiring a facilitator. Fair trade, I think! ;)

In this article, we’ll cover The Ideation. I’ll talk about:

• Best and worst practices for organizing a group

• How my own women’s groups formed

• Features to consider when planning a group

• How to hold a group together as it starts, and what to do if it falls apart

Thank you to all who subscribe. Let’s get into it!!