Letters to Courage in Uncertain Times

Uncertainty is a companion through all of our lives. 

Sometimes it's soft spoken and gentle footed. We look out at the landscape of our days and feel some ease and predictability. We do our work, we rest, we continue.

Other times, uncertainty is bigger, sharper, more distracting. It fills our minds with questions and their accompanying feelings — worry, fear, overwhelm, anxiety.

One thing is certain, it will always come back. Each of us will be asked to dance with uncertainty over and over.

This workshop asks:

  • What happens when we sit intentionally with our uncertainty, and invite it closer?

  • How can we use writing to ask our questions (even the unanswerable ones) and let them be gently witnessed?

  • What resources can we draw on to find comfort, permission, spaciousness, and even awe in times of great uncertainty?

In this workshop, we won’t try to answer our questions, but rather to use creativity and meditation to hold space for them, care for them, and be good hosts to all that is unanswered in our lives.

Here’s how it works:

This summer, we’re introducing a short 4-week version of this new workshop, with the plan to expand it to 8 weeks in the fall.

In each session, we’ll write 3 or 4 times. We’ll start with a short, easy writing warmup to sink us into our creative flow. 

Then we’ll get comfortable and be led into a guided meditation and visualization to connect to a certain part of our uncertainty — for example, our agency, our courage or our fear. We’ll come out of meditation and go into a longer writing period to write a letter to a part of ourselves that wants some attention.

We’ll close by writing from a poem in 1 or 2 ways, to bring some playfulness and forward motion to our time together.

In our last session, we’ll write about how we’re travelling forward with our questions, and how writing can travel with us.

We’ll share our writing throughout the class, but the focus of the feedback won’t be on the craft or structure of the writing, rather on the emotional impact and beauty. 

    • Enjoy or are open to guided meditation sessions, which will be part of this class.

    • Are curious about the theme of uncertainty, and ready to explore it.

    • Are open to holding space for their own and other people's emotions — the theme of this class may bring up big stuff.

    • Have unanswered questions (large, small, personal, global) that they want to make more space for.

    • Feel ready (though maybe a little nervous) to share their writing.

    • Thrive in small, cozy groups.

    • Feel aligned with our fundamental beliefs.

    • A deeper relationship to the way uncertainty dances through your life, and maybe some new dance steps.

    • A feeling of groundedness and curiosity about your questions.

    • Creative courage.

    • Lots of new writing.

    • Writing peers whose path and work you are invested in.

    • Answers to your questions. You might find this of course, but the idea of this class is to hold what's currently unanswerable with grace and care.

    • Critique or competition. We’re all about the love.

    • Strict rules on “how to write.” We’ll work on developing your writing skills but we don’t subscribe to the idea that there’s one way to create powerful work.

    • Pressure to write things you don’t want to write.

Details for Summer 2025:

On Zoom with Asifa (she/her)
4 Thursday evenings, weekly
6:30–9pm ET
July 17 – August 7

Cost:

The fee for this 4-session workshop is $465. If you prefer, you can pay in 4 monthly installments of $116.25. Tax will be added for Canadians, in your local provincial rate. See our financial policies.

Four times a year, we give out bursaries for our programs to people with financial barriers. Check out our upcoming dates.

If you don’t have a credit card, let us know, and we’ll gladly find a way to make it work.

Sign up here:

Questions?

Your answer is probably on this page.

Looking for more options?

Take a peek at our large group writing programs and our coaching services.