Writing to Listen. Writing to Grieve. Writing for Change.

Writing to Listen. Writing to Grieve. Writing for Change- A Compassionate Listening Enhancement Workshop

Facilitated by Maureen St. Clair

Three Tuesdays September 16th- 30th, 2025

(September 16, 23, & 30) 2:30-4:30 PST | 5:30-7:30 EST

Writing is a powerful pathway to explore our interior landscapes, deepen critical and

compassionate self and community awareness; find meaning through self-exploration, share

stories and build community.  Writing can help us stay fluid  and awake to each moment and

tend to the grief and grievances we all carry and find our purposeful pathways.  

This workshop is for anyone wanting to explore writing as a pathway to embodied

compassionate listening; strengthen capacity to reclaim collective grief as our birthright,

explore what is ours to do as we commit to personal and social change.

The three thematic areas we will be working with:

Compassionate Listening: We will explore and deepen our skills, tools and practices in the art

of listening; listening to ourselves (bodies, minds, hearts), to one another and to the human

and more than human world. Compassionate listening will be our gateway to building safe

and brave enough space to explore personal and collective grief as well as explore personal

and social change through unearthing vision and purpose collectively and individually.

Tending Grief: We will deepen our understanding of grief while reclaiming our right to grieve

personally and collectively; whether we grieve for climate related disasters, genocides, war,

and/or struggles within our own communities, families, friends, and within ourselves. We will

write with and through grief while deepening our capacity to share our collective sorrows as a

means of moving, supporting, resisting, and finding joy in these uncertain times. We will find

our togetherness in the dark and light.  

Unearthing Vision and Purpose:   We will explore personal and collective purpose through

imagining, writing, sharing. We will delve into questions such as: What is the world we are

striving for? If there was a magic wand and everything was possible, what would we most

deeply want for our life, for those we love, for the world? What is the deepest longing of the

wildest place within us? We will then delve into purpose, the piece of the vision that is ours to

move towards.

By the end of this three-part series we will:

• Learn the art of free writing (also known as soul scribing) as a means of listening to inner and outer worlds;

• Build healthier, more compassionate relationships with ourselves and community;

• Unleash creative desires and possibilities for courageous pathways into what is ours to do for personal and collective change;  

• Develop deeper intimacy with our personal and collective stories;

• Delve into writing as a form of healing personal and collective trauma;

• Reclaim our right to grieve personally and collectively as pathways to building relationships back to ourselves; each other, the earth and all her inhabitants; 

• Engage in creative practices allowing us to return to the truth of who we are. Practices that allow us to hear our hearts and yearn for a better world.

• Create sacred spaciousness to envision, dream, and plan/co-create communities of care, belonging, dignity and safety - where liberation includes all sentient beings, human and more than human!

Cost:

$195- Standard Ticket (This ticket covers your participation in the workshop and helps sustain our programs.)

$225 - Community Builder Ticket (This ticket includes your participation while also contributing to our scholarship fund and the growth of Compassionate Listening.)

The cost for this workshop series is tiered according to a pay-as-you-are-able structure. This enables us to offer workshops in a financially sustainable way while creating accessibility for those without financial means to attend, as well as opportunities for generosity for those who would like to support others' attendance.

We are committed to accessibility and sincerely wish for all who wish to attend our workshops to be able to do so, regardless of financial means. If the ticket price is not affordable for you, please submit a scholarship request. We sincerely want everyone who wishes to attend to have the opportunity.

Our scholarship program is made possible by generous contributions from our community. If you have the means, please consider choosing the Community Builder ticket or making an additional donation to support others in attending.

If you have any questions, please contact us at staff@compassionatelistening.org.

Cancellation Policy

Cancellations made 7 days or more in advance of the event date will receive a 100% refund.

Event Details

This session will be held on Zoom. It is experiential and requires your full presence, participation, and a commitment to show up fully with your video and without distraction. In order to make the most of your experience and support others' learning and engagement, please:

• Plan to arrive in a quiet distraction-free environment, fully present and available to experience the workshop.

• Connect to the event using a device that has full video and audio capability.

If you require any accommodations to attend, including physical limitations around viewing screens or having your video on, please contact us before the first session so that we can plan accordingly and/or match you with a workshop that meets your needs.

After registration and payment, you will receive a registration confirmation and welcome email. Please add us (staff@compassionatelistening.org) to your safe senders list to ensure that you receive all course access information.

If you have any questions, please contact us at staff@compassionatelistening.org.

Looking forward to meeting you in the circle!

Cancellation Policy

Cancellations made 7 days or more in advance of the event date will receive a 100% refund.

Facilitator

Maureen St. Clair is a conflict coach, facilitator, and trainer with over 20 years of experience co-creating brave enough spaces for people to authentically grapple and reckon with conflict as a pathway to vision, purpose, action, and change.  Maureen is a board-certified psychosynthesis coach, serving as an embodied conflict coach in the areas of life transitions, anti-racism, and relationship building.

Maureen worked at the Coady International Institute facilitating programs with community leaders throughout the world for over 15 years, and is the co-founder of The Grenada Listening Project and The People’s Listening Project. She holds space individually and collectively with groups and people struggling with cultural, gender, class, and racial differences within their friendships, intimate partners, family members, and work colleagues. 

Maureen also works with folks moving through life transitions and those longing to find what is theirs to do in a traumatized, unjust world. As an artist herself, Maureen also has a keen interest in supporting artists laboring to move their projects/ideas/dreams forward. 

Maureen carries a deep-rootedness in transformative learning and community practice. She believes in the creative force of nonviolent conflict for personal and social change and the critical importance of honoring our lived experience. Maureen invites individuals to reflect on and work towards transforming relationships at personal, interpersonal, and systemic levels with a focus on compassionate communication, transformative conflict analysis skills and tools, and the creative arts. Her expertise supports inner work for healthy relationships as a means of empowering the outer work of growing justice through impacting systems and structures.