Born To Flourish: Orientation Call
Virtual
About This Event
Over 900 people from 52 countries — who have never been in a room together — are about to step into a shared inquiry on what it means to flourish. This call is where it begins.
Our opening gathering on April 12th is more than an orientation. It's a ceremonial beginning — a shared threshold where we ground the inquiry, meet one another, and consciously step into the seven-day journey ahead.
Dr. Richard Davidson and Dr. Cortland Dahl — the neuroscientist and contemplative scholar behind Born to Flourish — will be with us for this call, sharing insight and holding space alongside all of you. One of the central insights from their decades of research at the Center for Healthy Minds can be captured in three words: flourishing is contagious. This call is where we start to feel that — through stories, song, silence, and shared presence.
What to expect
Some inspiring invocations of the spirit, few stories voices from pod, interaction with each other, insights from Richie and Cort, orientation around this week's process, a fun surprise from the volunteer -- and more, as we kick off our week together!
It's been deeply moving to read what brought each of you here. We are therapists and organic farmers, Buddhist nuns and biotech designers, hospice volunteers and executive coaches, artists in Morocco and meditators in Kyiv, grandmothers working with Native American youth and grad students just beginning to believe that healing is possible.
Collectively, we have lost a life partner of 35 years and are learning to navigate the farm, the grief, and the next chapter alone. We have spent a decade living in Tibetan refugee settlements and come home with ancient texts translated into new languages. We have taught yoga to teens in drug rehab and been struck by the radical idea of teaching their teachers compassion. We have grown up with domestic violence and found our way to a counseling degree, carrying the fierce hope that flourishing might be "available to anyone — not just surviving but thriving." We have meditated six hours a day for decades, and we have never meditated once. We have built lives around service and still find ourselves saying, honestly, "I am not flourishing." And we have arrived at 81 with the report that "flourishing brings a smile to my heart."
Imagine what unfolds when all of this comes together. :)
To attend, simply click the RSVP button below and you'll be emailed all the logistics for the call. If the time doesn't work in your part of the world, you can still RSVP to receive the recording.
We are grateful for your presence in co-creating this inquiry.