“At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.” —Lao Tzu

In this opening lesson, Ann will lay out the vision for the program in preparation for a successful and fruitful journey, including essential information you’ll need in the coming weeks.

Ann will guide you to be open to uncertainty as best you can, letting yourself be okay with not knowing what you’ll ultimately decide. 

As you’ll discover, once you grant yourself permission to not know, you’ll feel less fatigue and have more energy for exploring.

Ann will talk about your journal and explain why you need one. She’ll also share stories from real-life women you can learn from.

Each session, Ann will share a guided visualization — and this first week will feature two specially designed visualizations to ensure your initial experience of moving through the process is as gentle as possible.

Assignments and writing prompts will follow the guided visualizations. In this first week, the writing will help you identify any fears that might be getting in the way of making a decision.

In this first session, you’ll also discover:

• What to expect each session
• Your Family Map — a family tree you’ll create with additional details, including the psychological and emotional attributes of your family members
• How to create a safe place where you’ll feel comfortable during this program for the next three months
• Your personal fears and externals that are impacting your ability to make a decision — so you can put them to the side for now
• An introduction to the weekly guided visualizations, a backbone of the program that will help you delve into your deeper self to gather wisdom through self-reflection and journaling.

You’re now on the road to discovering your truth…

In this lesson, your conscious journey begins in earnest. 

As Ann will explain, figuring out what you want doesn’t necessarily require a big effort! It simply requires that you stay engaged with the process and leave the navigating to your mentor…

Ann will introduce you to The Mantra© you’ll use throughout the program. It begins with the words causing you so much distress, I don’t know. As you’ll discover, throughout the program you have total permission not to know. In fact, it’s essential that you choose not to know, with intention, for the process to work its magic.

Ann will ask you to define (and redefine) motherhood, and guide you to take a brief look back to remember your experiences with adults when you were younger.

You’ll discover:

• The Mantra, a tool that can provide you with immediate relief and continued support on your journey in the weeks to come
• The many definitions of motherhood, including your own
• A process to identify parts of your childhood you may not have thought about
• A guided visualization, “Your Journey Begins”

In this lesson, Ann will invite you to examine your early childhood. 

Visiting the past in a variety of ways helps you discover what might still be causing an emotional blockage, and can provide an essential key to clarity.

The experiences you’re having along this journey, could cause you to start feeling that you’re “all over the place”.

You may feel an overwhelming grief, sadness, anger, worry, or frustration — and then relief, peace, and calm. You could feel one, some, or all of these emotions… 

This process stirs up a different mix for everyone.

Ann will urge you to keep considering that your mind and body are offering up information for you to observe. The deep recesses of your psyche are at work, but the details that get dredged up might not have obvious inherent meaning.

Ann will guide you to trust the process and remember that it’s not necessarily linear — and trust that what arises is useful. 

In this lesson, you’ll discover:

• The universal messages all children need to hear no matter their cultural background
• Why it’s never too late to heal your early wounds
• The difference between reactions and responses
• A guided visualization, “A Surprise Encounter”

As you move through this program, something new will likely get touched within you as each lesson unfolds. These experiences assist in unearthing something that needs to surface for you…

In this lesson, you’ll learn more about your ability to say yes and no when you want to. Ann will break it down into discrete, easily digestible bits that allow you to explore with sensitivity your tendencies, patterns, and impediments.

As you engage with this lesson’s activities, Ann will invite you to give some thought to the cultural messages you’ve absorbed about saying yes and no.

For instance, What beliefs have you inherited from your family or friends about what’s okay or not okay to say? 

Do you feel you have permission to state your opinion even if the majority doesn’t share it?

By the end of this lesson, you’ll have a new relationship with the words yes and no. Ann will guide you to recalibrate your inner compass and gain valuable clarity about how your new relationship to these words will influence the way you make decisions.

In this lesson you’ll:

• Deeply explore your relationship to the words yes and no
• Explore the common difficulty in feeling and expressing a clear yes or no (it’s related to your relationship with disappointment)
• Learn to welcome disappointment
• Explore a simple 2-step decision-making process that helps you feel more connected, empowered, and accepting of yourself
• Embark on a guided visualization, “Remember a Time When…”

There’s an important distinction between dwelling on the past and revisiting the past so you can heal…

This lesson’s exploration takes your relationships with your parents to a deeper level. Ann will guide you carefully through any unresolved issues, as well as issues that you thought were resolved but aren’t. 

You’ll revisit some themes from previous lessons as you explore how the desire to be free from pain can motivate you to heal old wounds. 

Ann will share activities and strategies to teach you how to care for and heal your younger self.  Even if you feel your work on your relationships with your parents is complete, Ann will encourage you to continue with the exercises, as they take your previous healing work to the next level. You might even find some increased empathy and appreciation for your parent(s)!

Ann will walk alongside you to give you hope and the tools you need to tend to the leftover embers of whatever still needs healing within you. 

As Ann will explain, no one can do this work but you — and you can do it with understanding, self-compassion, and love. 

As you’ll discover, even an initial recognition that you may still be carrying around experienced hurts or wounds from early in your life can enhance your understanding tremendously.

In this lesson you’ll:

• Revisit unresolved issues with your parent(s) or whoever filled that role for you
• Begin healing your relationship with your parent(s) — without involving them
• Open up to acknowledge your unmet needs, and naturally begin to grieve what never happened — creating new potential for meeting your current needs more effectively
• Identify your generational inheritance — the accumulation of unfinished emotional business that’s (unintentionally) passed down from parents or other relatives and ancestors 
• Be introduced to a guided visualization, “The Dialogue”

All human beings want to love, be loved, and connect with one another. Nowhere is this desire more deeply rooted than in your relationship with your mother.

Alas, the mother-daughter relationship can sometimes be fraught with complexity and even pain. The more you understand about your relationship with your mother, the more you can come to clarity and unblock impediments to happiness in your adult life. 

In this lesson you’ll delve more deeply into the nature of motherhood as you examine the relationship you had with your own mother.

Ann will give you the tools you’ll need to access critical information. 

She’ll guide you to regard recurring themes as indicators that there’s something to look at within you. These messages, or the fear of passing them on to a future generation, might play a role in your not knowing if you want to become a mother yourself.

As you explore your relationship with your mother, you’ll likely bump into three versions of her: 1) the mother you knew growing up, 2) the mother you know as an adult woman, and 3) the mother figure you unconsciously internalized when you were young... 

This third mother is the one you need to get acquainted with. As you make your own decision about motherhood, her influence might be much stronger than you know.

In this lesson, you’ll discover:

• The truth about how well you know your mother/father/parent(s)
• Whether you were raised in an environment that helped you cultivate intact boundaries — this happens when the people in your life respect you as a separate being with your own needs, desires, and aspirations
• The concept of a “good enough mother” —  rather than being perfect she’s authentic and mostly consistent in her intentions to love and care for her child
• A guided visualization, “Mother”

In this lesson, Ann will guide you step-by-step through a depth-process to gain insight into your unique situation.

Notice the two phrases: 1) not having a child, 2) and not becoming a mother. Do they feel the same or different to you? 

Understand the toll these questions have taken on you and explore the impact of pressures or judgments from others or yourself. 

In this lesson, you’ll discover:

• The impact ambivalence has had on your life
• How feeling maternal is possible even if you have no desire to be a mom
• The impact of judgment from others and how it influences your internal guidance 
• A guided visualization, “Yes? No? Maybe?” to gain insight into your unique situation

In this lesson, you’ll explore a scenario to help you experience the feelings that come up as you allow yourself to imagine a different life.

You’ll be guided through an experiential process to embody a decision without taking actual action steps. 

You’ll continue to explore how ambivalence impacts your decision and begin to normalize a sense of loss, even as you experience anticipation or excitement.

In this lesson, you’ll explore:

• A powerful truth that underlies decision-making
• Recreating your own ideal birth experience
• Verbal and non-verbal messages you’ve received about becoming a parent
• A guided visualization, “Being Decisive”

With lots of foundational work behind you, you’ll now spend more time examining your potential future — noticing your reactions, and the beliefs that inform them.

Ann will also help you explore emotions within you that you may have been avoiding. You’ll discover how, even though they’re hidden away, these emotions might be the best parts of who you are. 

Ann will introduce you to a powerful tool to help you turn fear or anxiety into a sense of freedom and wellbeing.

As Ann will share, we all have uncharted territories within. The most important reason to explore yours is that, once discovered, they give you direct access to your inner richness, vitality, and freedom…

In this lesson, you’ll discover:

• The process of reframing or gaining perspective
• Negative messages about body image
• Unresolved grief from past miscarriages, stillbirths, terminations, adoptions that fell through, unsuccessful IVF treatments, and more 
• A guided visualization, “A Surprise Detour”

At this time on your journey, what you thought had been resolved could be popping up again for you. You may wrestle with many competing claims for your attention and that the unfolding is happening too slowly…

No matter what you’re thinking and feeling, Ann will guide you to be extra kind and gentle with your wonderful self. As you move through this program, you’ll learn to trust that there’s a decision that’s right for you — and you’re moving in that direction.

In this lesson, you’ll consider all the wise women in your life, including yourself. You’ll learn to embrace your wise woman as she accompanies you through your weekly activities and shares nuggets of wisdom.

You’ll learn to bring more attention to your relationships, observing which ones feel satisfying and which ones don’t.

You’ll discover new insights about yourself as you evaluate the strength of your impulse to thrive. 

In this lesson, you’ll explore:

• How the impulse to thrive is important, no matter what choices you make in life
• What it means to cultivate resilience — and how this skill supports your impulse to thrive
• How shame and self-sabotage might be getting in your way
• A guided visualization, “A Wise Woman Speaks”

With the end of the program nearing, you won’t experience a winding down process… 

It will actually feel more like a winding up process as everything you’ve experienced on this journey comes together.

In this lesson, you’ll:

• Take the pulse of your desire — no matter where you are on the yes/no continuum
• Begin to write your accurate, current story, featuring all the puzzle pieces of information you’ve gathered over the past lessons that may now be starting to fit together
• Find a totem, an object that represents the essence of you
• Take to heart a guided visualization, “The Journey Revisited”

In this closing lesson, you’ll remember that you are the helmswoman of your life, always.

You’ve already examined your innermost desires, beliefs, and fears from all angles with bravery and determination. It’s likely that unresolved issues surfaced and some healing has already taken place. Now, Ann will guide you to systematically review your externals — those circumstances of your life including finances, health, age, relationships, support network, fears, and more — that you’ve placed in a tightly lidded jar so you could focus on your internal world.

As you arrive at the final lesson of the program, you’ll have much more information about yourself and the next steps to making your decision.

In Lesson 11, you created the first draft of your current story. Ann will encourage you to refine and embellish it.  You’ll deepen your connection with your totem and tune in precisely to your true nature. 

You’ll explore scenarios of where this step-by-step guided method has taken other women as you gain an insider’s view of their journeys. You’ll see how their processes unfolded and led to newfound awareness, which in turn informed their decisions and next steps. 

Reading these women’s stories helps you think about your next steps. The activities presented in “Be Curious” and “Be Even More Curious” are designed to bring closure and help you embrace the next part of your unique journey. 

In this lesson, you’ll:

• Explore other women’s stories to help you think about your own next steps
• Begin closing one chapter of your life to begin another

• Revisit your externals and fears
• Read and refine your writing from this journey
• Revisit any unresolved issues
• Open your heart to the path of either decision

A guided visualization,“Coming Home”

In this session, you'll take time to feel proud of yourself! To remind yourself how well you’ve done with this program and how much courage you brought to it.

You’ll celebrate your victories and explore any disappointment relating to your family of origin or any early childhood events.

You’ll also celebrate how you now belong to a special group of bold women. You are a trailblazer. You’ve given yourself the gift of raised consciousness that will help you thrive and positively impact those around you.

Ann will guide you to discuss:

• This chapter closes. What is the next chapter that opens?
• The insights you gained
• How to address what still needs your attention once you’ve completed the program
• Any next steps you might need to take in order to make a conclusive decision
• Your process with your partner (if partnered).
• What to do if you still don’t know