Know Yourself
self-reflection for wise living
Spend 8 weeks exploring your identity, attachments, beliefs, core needs, limitations, and strengths – the internal operating system that guides your life.
“When we find ourselves becoming overwhelmed with confusion and uncertainty and near the road to despair, we have an essential choice. We can give in to our anxieties and fears and become a smaller self that becomes increasingly alienated from life or we can turn inwards and find connections to a deeper sense of self and soul that naturally resides within us.” – Michael Meade
There are big things happening in our lives and in the world that need our attention, and it might seem counter-intuitive to turn inward, and yet… this is the time when it is especially crucial to be our most grounded, most connected, most human, and most wise selves. When we engage in intentional self-reflection, we make wiser choices, are less reactive to the news of the day, live in greater harmony with all sentient beings, and are more inclined to make meaningful contributions toward a more peaceful and just world.
In this online course, you’ll be invited to practice honest and tender self-reflection, while also exploring the external factors that shape you and sometimes limit you. It is our hope that you will emerge with greater wisdom, peace, freedom and courage to make a difference in the world.
Since the day that you were born (and perhaps even before that), you have been gathering information about how you should behave, who you should associate with, which rules you should follow, which parts of your identity are safe in your culture, and how you can best gain safety and belonging in your family and community of origin. Largely unconsciously, you transformed this information into an operating system and identity that have been guiding your behaviour, choices and relationships ever since.
In the process, you may have had to abandon yourself.
Imagine you own a self-driving car and every day you simply climb into the passenger seat and let the car choose your destination. Perhaps you don’t like a lot of the destinations the car chooses, but you have no idea how to disrupt the operating system and be more intentional about which direction you take.
In this course, you’ll examine your operating system so that you can live a more intentional, wise and liberated life. You’ll discover more about how you’ve been impacted by the world around you and how you can (and already do) impact the world. You’ll be introduced to theories of human development and you’ll learn what it means to become a grounded, mature, and wise adult – one who is capable of nurturing healthy relationships with other grounded, mature and wise adults. As we teach in our program, Leadership for Liminal Spaces, you’ll also be better equipped to be a Grounded Guide.
registration now open for May/June 2025
Click here to see what past participants have said
“As a coach, I am usually holding space for others. These 8 weeks has been an engaging space to reflect on thoughts, experiences from diverse perspectives. The most meaningful part of it was I got to know myself in relationship to all that has changed, and all that is currently happening around me.”
“It was a ‘live’ experience of/on what it means to live through & with the Eyes of Love.”
“There are many meaningful things I received from reading the ‘Know Yourself’ course content and participating in the weekly course gatherings — so much so that I really missed our group meeting this week — the first week after completing the program. There is something so grounding and also uplifting about gathering with a group of women on a frequent and consistent basis, who are self-reflective, introspective, and care about doing the work to support their own freedom and liberation. The content was incredibly rich and robust that even after immersing myself in the course for several weeks and completing the program, I still have so much more to explore that I’ll continue to unwrap this gift for several months to come.”
“I appreciated the way the program was structured and the opportunity I had for time for my own reading and reflection, and to then join the ‘virtual circle’ each week, along with the other participants for deeper integration. The Centre for Holding Space Facilitators sure do know how to tend to and care for a group of people doing vulnerable and tender work. There is a level of mastery, that’s balanced with caring service that creates safety and inspires bravery, connection, and community. I reached out to one of the other course participants today — a new friend that I made while participating in the program, and let her know I was missing our meeting this week and to say hello and reconnect. That’s the thing about missing something … it lets us know that something good was gained and truly valuable happened.”
“My participation in this program opened my mind to so many aspects of my life. The warm, friendly and safe way in which it was run helped me participate with confidence as I explored aspects of my life and the lives of others. I have already recommended it to a number of my friends for next year.”
Self -exploration brings wisdom & groundedness.
Seeking to live more wisely, Heather Plett set out on a deep exploration of her own operating system and now she wants to share what she’s learned with you. In her second book, Where Tenderness Lives: On healing, liberation, and holding space for oneself, she wrote about how she was shaped by her lineage, her culture, her family’s belief system, and the trauma of sexual assault and abuse. After writing the book and realizing that others would benefit from a roadmap for a similar exploration, she created this course. Course material will include a plethora of resources that supported Heather’s journey and she trusts will support yours.
To know yourself is to tell the truth – to yourself and others.
To know yourself is to witness the systems that have shaped you and the ways in which your patterns of behaviour reflect those systems.
To know yourself is to acknowledge the ways that you might have abandoned yourself and others.
To know yourself is to open yourself to love.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle
Like an explorer setting out to discover new landscapes, you’ll equip yourself with a backpack full of resources and insights for the journey.
Course material + community conversations + personal reflection = wisdom and courage to face whatever life brings.
Set out on a journey to explore who you are.
This will not always be an easy journey we’re inviting you on. Self-exploration can sometimes feel painful and you might occasionally feel lost and overwhelmed with what you discover. You’ll likely catch a glimpse of your own shadow and see the roles you play in the systems within which you live. That’s why we want to help you find the resources and support so that you’ll feel more equipped and less alone when the hard parts of the journey come.
The hard parts will come.
But you’ll be stronger and wiser on the other side.
The intentions of this course are to:
- Support people as they disentangle from beliefs and social conditioning that might limit them;
- Reveal harmful systems and explore ways of liberating ourselves from these systems;
- Offer resources and skills for grounding in our community, in nature, and in wise living;
- Support people in making unique contributions to a more just, equitable and decolonized future;
- Give people a sense of community as they explore who they really are; and
- Help people see their own beauty and find joy.
Because we believe so deeply that learning to understand and hold space for yourself not only helps you live more wisely but also helps you to be in more loving relationships and communities, we have created this course to support you in that process. We are not the experts in knowing you – you are – we are simply here to be your companions and to help guide you in how to peel back the layers so that you can see yourself more clearly. We want to support you in living more wisely so that together we can work toward a more liberated and just world.
“I’m not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.” ― George Bernard Shaw
We have gathered a circle of wise guides and fellow travellers who’ve been on this self-exploration journey and who know something about what it takes to live more wisely. As a participant of this course, you’ll have access to interviews with all of these wise guides who we know will inspire and encourage you. Some of them have expertise on particular topics, and many of them have well-honed practices that you can learn from.
Wise guides and fellow travellers.
Click on the photos to see each person’s bio.
Rowen White is a Seed Keeper/farmer from the Mohawk community of Akwesasne and a passionate activist for indigenous seed and food sovereignty. She is part of a collective movement to reseed imaginations of a more nourishing future through uplifting and mentoring emerging changemakers, visionaries, community members, creative humans who are making life-affirming contributions at the intersections of the landscape of food sovereignty and cultural revitalization. She believes through the power of cultivating creative supportive learning spaces, by reclaiming narratives and practicing radical imagination we can work together to seed the change for a more equitable. relational, and kin-centric food system that centers a deep sense of belonging and connection.
Tu Bears is a guide for seekers along their personal journey of self-discovery and authenticity. She creates ritual, ceremony, and dreamtime concepts for each individual. Tu Bears believes that each person is traveling a cosmic path of their own essential consciousness and is here to contribute to our future generations.
Dr. Jo Ann Unger, C.Psych. provides treatment and consultation services through her private practice as well as treatment, consultation and assessment services through a public health position. She has many years of experience and training in using a variety of psychotherapy models with children, families, couples and adults. These include cognitive behaviour therapy, client-centred therapy, mindfulness-based approaches, emotion-focused therapy for couples, dialectical-behaviour therapy, attachment theory and family systems theory.
In addition, she offers workshops for community members and training to professionals on a variety of topics.
Dr. Unger is past President of the Manitoba Psychological Society where she used her position to advocate for better access to psychologists in Manitoba.
Krista Folkers dela Rosa is the co-founder of the Centre for Holding Space. She is also Leadership Coordinator at Good News Fellowship Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Krista often jokes that she is a ‘community evangelist’ and is passionate about leaning into, learning about, and intentionally growing complex, justice-and-mercy seeking, loving communities.
Saleha Alshehri was born and raised in Saudi Arabia where she got her name, skin colour, and collectivist worldviews. She’s a therapist trying to offer safe spaces for people to honour their stories and reach their inner selves. She’s a proud mother and her favourite memories are with her kids doing ordinary life stuff. She finds joy in real communication with people and in deep conversations.
Mary Scholl revels in serving educators and community leaders in their learning and work. She encourages and explores ways of sourcing and weaving empathy, presence, listening, creativity, and curiosity into leadership and teaching practices so that the social-emotional aspect of being and learning supports and complements the rest of what is happening in our classrooms and communities. Born in the USA, based in Costa Rica, Mary is grateful for the opportunity to work in many countries around the world as well as from her front porch accompanied by her dogs, birds, insects and neighbors.
Once a week for eight weeks (May 7-June 25, 2025), we’ll gather on Zoom to talk about what we’re discovering on our journeys of self-exploration. You’ll be part of an international community of people who, like you, long to live more wisely in a sometimes challenging world.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― C.G. Jung
What this course includes:
- A workbook with twelve lessons (outline below). Each lesson contains written content, video content, journal/creative/somatic prompts, and lots of additional resources on the topic.
- Sixteen interviews with our wise guides and fellow travellers.
- Eight weekly interactive Zoom calls where we’ll discuss the week’s lesson(s) and give you opportunity for conversation and practice.
- A private community space on Mighty Networks for ongoing conversation with other participants.
Click here for a lesson outline
Note: Each of these lessons is meant to be an introduction into a deep topic that could be a course all on its own. We will provide you with an entry-point and then give suggestions for additional resources to help you dig deeper.
1. Exploring You – Introductory Concepts – How can self-exploration support your quest for liberation and love?
2. Exploring Practices that Work for You – Which self-exploration practices and forms of play (journaling, art-making, somatics, mindfulness, etc.) will help resource you for this journey?
3. Exploring Emotions – How can a Practice of Tenderness support you as you hold space for your own emotions?
4. Exploring Stress & Trauma – How do you respond to stress? How is trauma held in your body?
5. Exploring Your Lineage – What have you inherited from your lineage and how does that impact the way you live, behave, and make choices?
6. Exploring Your Beliefs – What beliefs have you inherited and which do you choose to hang onto or let go of?
7. Exploring Relationship Patterns – What are the patterns that show up in your relationships and how might witnessing that help you evolve?
8. Exploring Biases – What biases have you inherited, been taught, or adopted along the way? Which ones need disrupting?
9. Exploring Decolonization – How might decolonization change the way you treat yourself and others?
10. Exploring Liberation – What would change in your life if you were more free?
11. Exploring Love – How does love (of others and self) help to liberate you?
12. Exploring Joy – What if joy (a deep and embodied kind, that knows how to co-exist with grief) could be the guide for your life?
NEXT OFFERING: May/June 2024
CALLS: Wednesdays (in North America) – Thursdays (in Australia)
A week before the start date, you’ll receive a link to the course page on Mighty Networks where you’ll be able to access the lessons and video interviews.
The weekly Zoom calls (which will all be recorded, in case you can’t make it) will take place over eight weeks. Calls will take place at 12 a.m. GMT (Thursday morning.) That’s 7 p.m. Wednesday evening in Winnipeg and 10 a.m. in Brisbane.
(Apologies to our European community that the time isn’t very accessible. If you want us to offer a European time slot, email us. With enough interest, we’d consider adding another call.)
The Teaching Team
Click on the photos to see each person’s bio.
Krista Folkers dela Rosa is the co-founder of the Centre for Holding Space. Until recently, she was also Leadership Coordinator at Good News Fellowship Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Krista often jokes that she is a ‘community evangelist’ and is passionate about leaning into, learning about, and intentionally growing complex, justice-and-mercy seeking, loving communities.
Price Structure
As part of our commitment to greater equity and accessibility for our global audience, we invite you to choose the level of payment that works for you. (All prices in CAD. Options will be available when you click on “Register Now”.)
Still have questions?
Who is this program designed for?
Do I need to attend live or will there be recordings of the calls?
How are you making the course accessible for those with unique needs?
- video interviews will be captioned
- video interviews will also be available as audio-only recordings
- close captioning will be available on Zoom calls
- all text-based lessons will also be available as audio recordings
- all group participation is consent-based – you can attend calls in listen-only mode
If there are additional accommodations that will help to make this course accessible to you, please contact us at [email protected].
What's your refund policy?
Who can I contact if I have additional questions?
Please reach out to Krista at [email protected], or use our contact form.
“This is a program that keeps on giving!
“I attended it in 2022 and almost every day since something arises in my thinking or in my conversations that is informed by what I learned from this rich and comprehensive program. As a yoga practitioner and teacher for over twenty years, I’ve done my fair share of self reflection, but KY,FY offered so much additional insight into why I do things the way I do – and what I can do about it when those behaviours are no longer serving me. I frequently come back to the copious amount of written material that was shared in the manual. I also review some of the fantastic video interviews by Heather with her “fellow travellers” that were provided as part of the very rich content. In addition to all the brilliantly written materials (also recorded for an additional way to access), the conversations that took place in the weekly online sessions creatively and compassionately helped much of this material to really “land” for me.
“I could not recommend this program more strongly, than to say that for all the study that I have done with Heather over the years (and it’s been quite a lot!), this one provided the greatest opportunity for me to go deep and lean into what it means to be me. And, to love and be more tender with me in the process.” – Lucy Karnani