Central Florida SWE’s Virtual Self Care Retreat empowered members to learn more about themselves while working together in mindful and productive ways to fuel SWE’s success. The event supported SWE members through an incredibly challenging year of dealing with personal and professional challenges while navigating the ongoing COVID pandemic. It allowed them to journey inward to help digest all of the challenges over the past year and gather a fresh start for the upcoming SWE fiscal year.
During the event, members shared ‘Aha’s’ and insights via Zoom, some of which include:
“I appreciate that these sessions are helping me focus on being present.”
“Grateful for colleagues who are brave career journeywomen to provide encouragement”
“Thank you so much for these sessions and tools; and thank you to the colleagues who took the time to take this class”
The Self Care program consists of 4 sessions held for 1.5 hours for 4 consecutive weeks. Each session consisted of a one hour facilitated session followed by a 30 minute Q&A session with the group participants. During the session, a combination of Zoom polls to focus discussions, chat discussions and facilitation exercises were performed, ending with a weekly meditation session. The agenda for the program included:
- Week 1: Self Care 101 – 10 self-care practices to create balance and improve self worth
- Week 2: Circling to Your Center – how to transform your life and create a positive self-image
- Week 3: Overcoming Fear – how to empower yourself and move from self-critic to self-champion
- Week 4: Reflections Moving Forward – Simple actions you can take to start living at the level of your true self.
This virtual Self-Care Retreat, facilitated by PJ Jackson, CEO and founder of Positive Knowledge, LLC, helped members discover their true center and how honoring that center will bring positive change to all areas of their lives. The retreat leveraged simple practices and thought-provoking activities to refresh each attendee’s sense of self. After reflecting on the event’s success, the section offered some advice for other groups considering a similar event: The Zoom format was an excellent way to provide quality programming without having to sacrifice personal travel time and expense and we would highly encourage similar programming moving forward.
Are you interested in learning more about receiving PDG funding? Or perhaps you are ready to request funding? Learn more on the PDG website and don’t forget to submit your PDG application by February 15th, 2022.
