It was a happy reunion, a completion of a circle, to come back round to the Omega Institute again. The Women’s Leadership Center hired me to help with the pre-event Faculty Support and hosting logistics, a post I had held there for 3 years some time ago. I was tasked to help prepare for the Women and Power Retreat. The theme this year was Being Bold and asked its participants how it is that we can and do Power differently.
For the first time ever though, this year I sat and participated in the retreat. I came on campus with no clipboard, no radio. I sat and listened and felt, as Wham! Line after line rained down on me, author Elizabeth Gilbert tearing up the room with laughter and all around heads nodding as she laid out the truth about our creative power. She quoted Brene Brown, “Unused creativity is not benign,” and went on to explain that “unused creative power turns against us and becomes a heaviness upon our lives.” She spoke about those creativity killers, perfectionism and fear, with such clarity and humor.
Then I had an opportunity to take a mini workshop with Reverend angel Kyodo Williams in the Sanctuary. She challenged me to think about the thing that makes me lean into life a little bit more. She asked, “What Matters?”
In this guided meditation, what fell into my hands cupped before me, was an image of my infant self and this one word…
Precious
Never in my life have I felt precious. But there I stood amongst 50 or so other women and a few men, leaning in a little to the experience. My eyes on the horizon of possibility, the future generations before me and behind me, the hands of my ancestors on my shoulders and the small of my back.
I am precious.
I sealed it into my body, anchoring my roots into the core of the earth as my crown extended up to the infinite heavens.
I am precious
and whole
and I am enough
even now
just as I am.
#DoPowerDifferently
Melissa's Healing Hope 
BEAUTIFUL!
THANK YOU for sharing your experience. SO very pow-her-full and moving! Love you!
Love you Whitney!
You have always been and always will be precious to the people who LOVE you!!!!!!!!!♥
❤
Love this recent post. You are a powerful evocative voice for all of us. Brought me back there. Miss my experiences & the peeps at Omega & the women’s conference. I believe we may be slithering there again in 2016. Keeping you & your fam inside the Snake prayerss just becuz! Ps> Mikio sends warm regards. ~~<
YOU ARE PRECIOUS :))
and you as well! ❤
Melissa, thank you for your excellent work on Women & Power, you made such a vital contribution to the event with your caring, warm, and focused attention on all the little details that support a complex event to come into being. So glad you got to soak in the extraordinary experience yourself. Much Love and Gratitude, Sarah xoxox
PS: You are so precious to all of us at Omega!
It was wonderful to be back in the stream with you. Sarah, you embody all the best of Women’s Leadership. xo
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful and so true! We are all God’s awesome creations and we are precious not only to all those around us, those whose lives we touch and most of all we are precious to our almighty creator. He wants us not to just survive, but to become the whole, entire person and entity that he created us to be. His perfection!!! xxxooo
Thank you, you beautiful, precious being.
🙂
May you always remember your true name: PRECIOUS.