One of the questions I often get from women who want to dive into the work I offer is: “What’s the difference between The Collective and The Fierce Grace Incubator?” Or: “Which one should I do first?”
The truth is, there is a lot that is similar about The Collective and The Fierce Grace Incubator – both are for women who want to explore what it means to walk through the world as a fully embodied woman in today’s world, and both are the kind of spaces that are wide and deep enough to meet all aspects of your life. The answer to those questions really depends on where you are at in your life right now, and what kind of experience you’re looking for.
Here I want to take a moment to dive deeper into the space created within each program, and how each helps women at different points on their life paths.
Ultimately, I’d like to provide a more clear choice point, consisting of better tools, with which each woman can make the right decision about which program is best for her, now.
Please feel free to reach out with any questions!
Wholeness is central
At the heart of both of these programs is wholeness. Not just the idea of wholeness, or wholeness in the abstract, but my deep and abiding knowing that each of us is already, and has always been whole.
I actually toyed with the idea of calling myself a wholeness coach, because this is truly what I work with every client and student on, in every program, in all aspects of their lives and selves. We each live within our own life and relationship micro-ecosystem, as well as within the interconnected realm of the whole world – so all of our relationship and boundary work will also come into contact with how we relate to earth and spirit, which also impacts and is impacted by how we offer our work in the world.
What I’ve learned over the years is that you cannot just pull on one thread. We do need to tease them apart and look at them and name them, but ultimately they always weave together again. This is the work of Embodied Wholeness.
So all of my work is really devoted to developing our capacity to embody and express this wholeness; creating the weave that feels most beautiful to us, that is in the deepest alignment, and which allows all the parts of us to be known, honored, and loved. Because that’s what I believe it means to live a truly successful life.
Both of these containers are big enough to hold your entire being
The Collective and The Fierce Grace Incubator are containers that are specifically designed to hold women in the exploration of, “What does it mean to walk in the world as a whole and fully embodied woman?”
This is drawn from my own life, and the work I’ve done, which has ultimately allowed me to walk through, and meet, life in this way. Fierce Grace is about finding the kind of fierceness, or the grit, that’s required in life, as well as receiving and allowing the grace and the true joy that’s available in the world, and embodying both within all aspects of your life. The Collective is also about exploring, within a community context, how to actually walk with wholeness, how to discover, embody, and engage with wholeness, and then how to express that wholeness.
Every aspect of your life is welcome in The Collective, and every aspect of your life is welcome in The Fierce Grace Incubator, meaning that all of you is welcome, and there is nothing you need to hide or change in order to show up and be welcomed. Each of these spaces is wide enough to hold all of you, in whatever stage and phase and part of life you’re in. So in this way, both containers have a lot of similarity.
A space of self-direction in The Collective
Despite their similarities, there is a key difference that separates The Collective from The Fierce Grace Incubator.
In the broadest sense, The Collective is about engaging in a wider community. It’s a global web of women devoted to embodied wholeness, and it both invites and requires us to engage with others from varying backgrounds and perspectives and current places on our individual journeys. The Collective is more self- and community-guided, like an extraordinary buffet where all the food is delicious but you need to ask what is actually nourishing to me right now? Maybe it’s a small amount, or maybe it’s a very large amount, but the point is that you’re going to self-guide in that way.
Of course there are touch points, live group calls, and there are definitely structural touch points with the community and hundreds of hours of recordings of calls on topics ranging from pleasure, purpose, and power to boundaries and desire – including a wealth of tools & practices – but ultimately each woman in The Collective carves her own path. The space asks you to get clear on what you’re looking for, and ask for what you need from this extensive collection of information and resources available to you as a member of The Collective. Because real transformation takes time, and because building community doesn’t happen overnight, The Collective is a one year commitment – although most of the women have been members for multiple years, and many call themselves ‘lifers’. The community is invaluable in this exploration, but there is no one clear path for all members of The Collective.
A smaller, more intimate, and individually guided experience in Fierce Grace
In The Fierce Grace Incubator, we all begin together, at the same place. To maintain intimacy, and to allow me to ‘hold’ each woman’s life, dreams and vision over these 8 months, The Fierce Grace Incubator is limited to 12 women. This also allows the women in the group to get to know each other more deeply in a short amount of time, and build a deep web of support.
Fierce Grace is also just eight months, so if you’re choosing The Fierce Grace Incubator space then you’re really choosing it and saying, now is the time for me; this is the time that I want to devote my resources to this space and work, because I know that I am ready to focus, learn, and apply what I’m learning.
You don’t have to know exactly what your plan is when you enter Fierce Grace – part of the beauty of the synergy of a small group space, coupled with 1:1 work is that I can help you create your plan as part of the Incubator – but you do have to know that you’re ready to devote time and attention to figuring it out, and you want to be engaged in a focused way, with individualized support.
In order to get the most out of The Fierce Grace Incubator, it’s important to know that this is the time when being held more firmly (and lovingly) will actually serve you.
Buffet-style vs. prix fixe
In The Collective there’s more space to pick and choose, like a buffet. There’s the ability to find support in the community, and see how other ways of walking through the world can play out for different women, which can help inform your choices and desires for your own life. With Fierce Grace, each woman gets more of a personalized prix fixe menu – not all the menus are the same, but there is more of a structured path for each participant, and more limited choice regarding your steps so that actually you can relax into the space.
While I never run The Fierce Grace Incubator the same each year, there are certain pieces of the framework that are always there to hold, support, and guide you. We always work within clear visioning processes, and guide each woman to step into her archetypal journey. Certain practices are so foundation, that they always find their way into the Incubator. Because the women are different each year, so is the group different every single time. The Fierce Grace Incubator is a weave of structured content and practices, matched with enough space to allow individualized attention for what each woman is bringing into the space to be incubated.
I also have 1:1 sessions with each woman in Fierce Grace, along with the regular group calls, so there is really a kind of individualized mapping and tracking of each woman’s life and process. In The Collective it’s much more of a broad space, where each woman is in the space of practice, exploration, embodiment, and connecting with other women, and weaving their lives in their own way, but it allows more space for picking and choosing, and gently trying various methods.
I hope this gives a little bit more tangibility to these containers, and how they can be used to help you on the path of embodied wholeness, in order to choose which path is right for you on a structural level. If you want to know more about either of the programs and what they include in terms of resources, coaching calls, or 1:1 coaching with me, feel free to check out my website or reach out to me directly for more information. The application for Fierce Grace can be found here, and The Collective will open for registration on March 18th.