We are delighted to share the news that our friends Evalina Everidge and Marc Blesoff are offering the Conscious Aging Online Workshop through their new organization, Courageus — and their first workshop starts June 28!
Visit the Courageus website to register for their upcoming workshop!
Marc and Evalina have been incredible champions of the IONS Conscious Aging program for many years, offering the workshop in their own communities as well as facilitating IONS online offering since 2019. They are seasoned and thoughtful facilitators, and we are so grateful that they will continue to provide online access to the workshop as IONS Preferred Providers.
With Courageus stewarding the online workshop, IONS will now focus our resources toward licensing, seeking to partner with like-minded organizations that have the ability to scale production of this program and the facilitator training and to expand into previously untapped markets. Please visit https://noetic.org/experience/conscious-aging-licensing/ for more information.
We hope you will join us in sending a heartfelt and energetic wave of gratitude to Evalina and Marc as they embark on this new phase in the life of the Conscious Aging program. And don’t forget to visit Courageus.org to sign up for future announcements about this program!
A Message from Evalina
I discovered the IONS Conscious Aging program in 2014. Newly developed, the workshop series was designed to be self reflection and conversation circles aimed towards cultivating wisdom, connecting with others and celebrating life. Moved by the material, which included explorations in self compassion, forgiveness, life review, and transformative practices, I became an IONS Certified Conscious Aging facilitator. After a few years of offering workshops in my community, my colleague, Conscious Aging facilitator Marc Blesoff and IONS invited me to co-facilitate the first ever online workshop series. This would help enable reaching individuals and communities who did not have access to the workshops in-person. In 2019, online facilitation was new terrain for the previously intimate, face-to-face connection workshops. IONS asked if it was possible to co-create a safe, sacred space online. We weren’t really sure. We answered ‘yes, but it will be different.’ We both recall our enthusiasm to approach the content in a new way and in the process explore more layers. What we learned in the many cycles of workshops over the past three years is that older people around the globe are hungry for connection and for meaningful conversations, including what it means to age, our hopes and fears, what is possible, and what really matters. Participants consistently showed up so engaged and shared the positive impact the workshops were having . Safe, sacred space indeed!
Each time we facilitated another series, the workshops evolved, particularly during the pandemic shutdowns. Connecting with a community of elders felt more poignant than ever before. Through the workshops and sharing with the workshop community, I have deepened my own Conscious Aging practice. It has supported me in aging and living in ways I wouldn’t have imagined. The courage and wisdom of participants has inspired me. I am grateful to each person, to my colleague Marc, and to IONS for providing the opportunity. Now I am enthusiastic and curious about the next phase of our facilitation, as IONS passes the stewardship of online Conscious Aging to the Courageus community.
We hope you and your friends will join with us for the next online Conscious Aging Workshop, starting on Tuesday, June 28 through Aug. 2,2022 at 1pm-2:30 pm CENTRAL time. The program will run for six consecutive Tuesdays and will consist of the basic Conscious Aging Workshop curriculum, including explorations in self compassion, life review, transformative practices, how death makes life precious and a new vision of aging.
Please visit www.courageus.org for more information and to register for the June workshop!
